This year's edition of Frieze New York at Randall's Island, which is open through Sunday, feels a bit like a retreat with plenty of places to soothe, restore, feed, and imbibe. The art is still the focus of the space, but the long aisles of the tent seem to have more sprawling booths, open squares, more intimate clusters of spaces, and lounges to give visitors a little visual peace and quiet.
On Thursday, the warm sunny day allowed for casual strolls on the grounds and lunch alfresco on the picnic tables overlooking the water and upper Manhattan. This weekend might make such recreation less appealing, but it is there as an option nonetheless.
There are some dramatic showy moments in the booths, such as Red Grooms's rather faithful evocation of a Manhattan bus in the Marlborough London booth and Yayoi Kusuma's steel orbs at Victoria Miro's booth. Yet, with the exception of Gagosian's rock-and-roll combo of Steven Parrino's works on vellum and John Chamberlain's black, white, and chrome sculptures set off by charcoal walls, there were few dramatic moments involving East End artists.
A wall of facsimiles of Ray Johnson's art greeted visitors at the entrance, encouraging hopes of more to come inside, but it was not to be. Kasmin's booth offered the most examples of South Fork creativity, including works by Lee Krasner, Jane Freilicher, Keith Sonnier, and Robert Motherwell. And that was about it.
Still, the fair has much to recommend it and lots of new faces and stars of the future to check out and many well-assembled booths, like 303 Gallery and the topical Jenny Holzer paintings based on Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election at Hauser and Wirth.