A Deep Dive into Frieze New York: Our Five Favorite Booths

Frieze New York continues to establish itself as a vital barometer for the global art market, drawing an international vanguard of collectors, curators, and enthusiasts to The Shed at Hudson Yards. The fair presents a highly curated landscape where historical recovery pairs naturally with experimental material practices.

This iteration is defined by a distinct turn toward ecological reflection, systemic cross-examinations, and an ongoing interrogation of material limitations. From pioneering Korean avant-garde sculpture to contemporary South African portraiture, several key presentations across the fair floor are must see booths for any art enthusiast worth their salt.

Victoria Miro (Booth A7)

Victoria Miro anchors its presentation with a compelling thematic focus on couples and formal pairings, establishing a subtle, interconnected rhythm across the booth space.

Alfred Hitschfeld’s “Hard Rain” (2024) A major focal point of this curation is a compelling bronze sculpture by Alfred Hitschfeld titled *Hard Rain* (2024). Cast in an exclusive edition of five, the work arrives in New York with a distinguished exhibition history, with other iterations previously mounted at prestigious international institutions including the Fondazione Prada in Milan and the AmorePacific Museum of Art in Seoul

“Hard Rain” takes the form of a pair of perforated rain boots, rendered completely non-functional by the precise holes that punctuate their surfaces. By executing this form in heavy, permanent bronze, Hitschfeld masterfully shifts the object’s identity from utilitarian, protective outdoor footwear into the realm of the purely decorative and conceptual.

The work operates on a dual plane. On one level, it is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on human vulnerability, depicting an object meant to protect against the elements that has been rendered entirely porous. On another, the systematic perforations serve as a sophisticated art-historical nod, subtly referencing the dot and drop motifs of iconic figures like Yayoi Kusama. Priced at €40,000, the work reflects a robust market demand, with Victoria Miro presenting the final edition of the series.

Gallery Hyundai (Booth B6): Korean Experimental Legacies

Gallery Hyundai delivers one of the fair's most historically significant booths, spotlighting the legacy of the Korean avant-garde alongside masterfully controlled contemporary practices. The booth’s undeniable centerpiece is “Godret Stone” by Seung-Taek Lee, a foundational pioneer of Korean experimental art. Lee belongs to a seminal generation of creators who rejected static, concrete art objects in favor of performance, "happenings," and the radical deployment of found, natural materials.

“Godret Stone” utilizes traditional Korean folk elements, specifically referencing the heavy loom weights historically used in manual textile production. Lee’s practice is rooted in a methodology he terms "non-sculpture." Rather than employing traditional additive techniques (such as molding clay) or subtractive methods (carving stone or casting brass), Lee seeks to alter our perception of raw substance entirely through juxtaposition and restraint. By binding stones with coarse rope, he introduces an unexpected dialectical tension, making the rigid rock appear remarkably malleable, almost as if it were an intermediate, shifting substance.

Following his institutional exposure in the Guggenheim’s landmark exhibition “Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea”, as well as a prominent duo presentation alongside James Lee Byars at the Venice Biennale, Lee's market trajectory has surged. This momentum is further cemented by recent institutional acquisitions, notably by the Dia Art Foundation, ahead of an anticipated major solo exhibition at Dia Beacon.

In brilliant contrast to Lee’s conceptual rigor, Gallery Hyundai also highlights “Blue Mountain”, a highly sought-after watercolor and ink-on-paper work by Minjung Kim. Though her work is less overtly conceptual than Lee's, Kim enjoys substantial museum recognition, offering a visually accessible entry point into the mechanics of traditional Korean ink work.

“Blue Mountain” functions as a deeply layered abstract landscape. The work serves as a masterclass in medium specificity; it demands an absolute, virtuosic control of ink on highly absorbent paper. Because the surface drinks the pigment instantly, every brushstroke must be executed with flawless deliberation and rhythmic intent. Even viewers unversed in the rigorous lineages of East Asian calligraphy can immediately sense the deeply controlled, meditative process required to manifest these fluid, atmospheric peaks.

James Cohan (Booth B4): Kelly Sinnapah Mary

At Booth B4, James Cohan presents a powerful spotlight on Guadeloupean artist Kelly Sinnapah Mary, continuing a string of critically acclaimed pop-up presentations and exhibitions in Basel and Paris.

Mary’s practice is deeply autobiographical, anchored in the complex post-colonial landscape of her homeland. Her latest body of work draws directly from her family’s domestic environment, situated on a historic plantation plot in Guadeloupe. The compositions are haunted by the architectural ghosts of this space, incorporating structural remnants of her grandmother Violette’s house. A subtle, recurring "V" motif embroidered onto a handkerchief serves as a direct, intimate homage to her matriarchal lineage.

"For Mary, the landscape is never a passive backdrop; it is an active, speaking protagonist."

In her paintings, the traditional boundaries separating portraiture from landscape are entirely collapsed. The exterior environment bleeds directly into the interior architecture of the home, and by extension, into the bodies of her subjects. Foliage and veins become interchangeable, with lush green leaves growing directly out of human skin, and human faces emerging seamlessly from the flora.

Mary’s work functions as a space for historical reckoning and ecological healing, examining the scars left by systemic corporate farming on the terrain while envisioning a symbiotic, restorative relationship between the land and its people.

Pace Gallery (Booth B10)

Pace Gallery occupies a commanding footprint at Booth B10, opting for an atmospheric presentation characterized by deep, dark-painted walls. This specific architectural choice provides an immaculate, high-contrast backdrop that unifies the cartographic sculptures of Maya Lin with the hypnotic, algorithmic light works of Leo Villareal.

Maya Lin’s featured works continue her lifelong investigation into topography, water systems, and the visible markings of climate degradation. On the main floor, a circular marble relief maps the complex elevations of the Arctic Circle, charting mountain peaks and deep oceanic trenches with clinical, minimalist elegance.

Flanking this are pieces from her celebrated *Disappearing Bodies of Water* series, including a striking multi-layered sculpture tracking the systemic depletion of Lake Chad. The base layer of the work replicates the lake’s expansive circumference in 1955, while each subsequent, stacked layer documents its dramatic reduction over the decades, culminating in a drastically diminished top layer from 2009.

Directly complementing Lin's ecological mapping are new works from Leo Villareal's “Building Game” series. Presented in square formats ranging from 40x40 to 60x60 inches, these light sculptures feature custom-coded LED arrays that face upward and inward, reflecting off custom-milled white oak frames.

The works are named after cosmic and natural phenomena: “Moon Shadow”, “Smooth Operator”, “Black Hole Sun”, “Ripple*”

Villareal utilizes complex, proprietary algorithms to dictate the behavior of light, creating undulating patterns that mimic the natural frequencies of the universe. While works like “Ripple” evoke the gentle, low-frequency cadence of moving water, other more concentric layouts pulse with a faster, hypnotic velocity.

The presentation acts as a major preview of Villareal and Lin's collaborative presence in New York's public sphere, following their joint commission for the new JPMorgan Chase headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.

A major highlight of the booth is “Desert Lines” by Moroccan artist Amine El Gotaibi. The work is built upon a stark, diametrically opposed pairing of materials: rigid, cold forged steel and soft, organic raw wool.

This material choice is deeply tied to Ouhtabbi's biography. While the sweeping linear compositions are formally inspired by the topography of the Moroccan desert, the integration of wool serves as a direct link to his family’s heritage as generational sheep farmers. By weaving these industrial and pastoral elements together, “Desert Lines” moves beyond simple geometric abstraction, operating as a tactile monument to familial labor and geography. The work is produced in an intimate edition of three, emphasizing its rarity within the fair context.

Southern Guild balances Ouhtabbi’s tactile wall sculptures with a large-scale presentation by internationally renowned South African visual activist Zanele Muholi. Known for their lifetime project of documenting Black queer and transgender communities in South Africa, Muholi's presence here centers on an ongoing, two-decade-long series of self-portraiture.

The work on view is a monumental, multi-paneled photograph printed directly onto sheets of industrial aluminum. Because the physical production is bound by the structural limits of standard photographic paper sizes, Muholi scales up the imagery by assembling multiple aluminum panels into a single cohesive matrix.

By scaling up the human form to architectural proportions, Muholi elevates the black-and-white self-portrait into a powerful, institutional statement on visibility, gaze, and historical preservation. Printed in an ultra-rare edition of two, the work stands as an unmissable anchor within the fair's contemporary photography offerings.