View of the World Trade Center and 9/11 memorial site from 101 Greenwich St., currently hosting a full-floor survey of artwork by Christopher Wool, Downtown NYC

Ground Zero for America’s — and the World’s — Art Market

Last week saw New York City, the world’s preeminent capital of the visual art market, play host to one of the most impactful weeks of frenetic activity for its professionals.

This included no less than half a dozen art fairs, plus scores of other exhibitions — some of the best of the year at any level — to browse through, engage with, and experience… not to mention museum shows, auction house previews, and several more fairs opening this week.

Thrilled to be part of the action, and in commemoration of our its first full year of operation this month, Charting Transcendence was on the ground last week and is flying back to the Big Apple from Miami early tomorrow morning for more.

One of the most difficult parts for an art advisor, when confronted the visual and intellectual stimulation of so much art, is to not be overwhelmed by it all.

Yet even now, as I write this, I feel quite challenged to summarize even just a fraction of what I’ve seen. After all, art is such a personal and unique commodity to deal with, especially on a completely unregulated and decentralized market.

Charting Transcendence is the name I gave to my art advisory and consultancy, because the name describes how I manage to dance with the volume, diversity, and power of art and experiences that have shaped my life. Learning how to do this as gracefully as possible provides me with the tools to interpret a wide range of subjects that enrichen all of our lives.

Guiding people through the wealth of human creation that makes its way towards display (and often goes up for sale) in New York City is simply one of many ways that I create meaning and lasting value for people who choose to work with me.

What’s Frieze? New York’s spring art fair season is on!

Wall sculpture made out of sunglasses frames by Scottish artist Jim Lambie (b. 1964). Two of these were on display at the opening of Frieze New York, as well as several more at Anton Kern Gallery in Midtown

Well in excess of 300 major fine art fairs are held internationally every year, comprising an entire industry that, for better or for worse, furnishes termporary venues (and sometimes opulent caravanserais) where one can browse and shop art from a wide range of curators and galleries under more-or-less one roof.

Although intended to simplify the art acquisition process for collectors, fairs can also be exhausting and exasperating — for spectators, buyers, and especially the gallerists who spend all day on their feet staffing the booths.

Our warming planet also keeps score of the not inconsiderable environmental impact of shipping art around the country and the world, especially when so much of it goes unsold at fair’s end, forlornly shunted onward to the next fair, gallery show, or storage depot.

That being said, although a few of these fairs burst loudly onto the scene before quietly disappearing, many are reliable stalwarts of the circuit that art advisors such as myself are obliged to follow, and most professionals would agree that there are few better places to see and learn so much about what is available than these moveable feasts of fine art.

The most prestigious of these — Art Basel, Frieze and The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), set to open May 9 on Park Avenue, have become global brands eaching the highest end of collectors.

Presented by Seoul’s Kukje Gallery at Frieze, this delicate paper-cutout work by South Korea’s most internationally-acclaimed artist, Haegue Yang (b. 1971), incorporating influences from Korean, Jewish, and other international shamanistic practices, represents a fascinating evolution from her previous work.

Conceptual artist Mel Bochner (b. 1940) has been a perennial staple of top-end art fairs for years. He is especially well-known for his humorous canvases that incorporate language.

One of four new, enormous spray-painted mixed-media canvases by Sterling Ruby (b. 1972) displayed at Gagosian’s booth at Frieze, were advertised at $550,000 each. Despite a recent slump in Ruby’s market, all four reportedly sold.

Alicja Kwade (b. 1979) is probably Poland’s most internationally-recognized contemporary artist, creating sculptures that evoke feelings of displacement from orbit. One of her sculptures was on display at 303 Gallery’s booth at Frieze.

The next tier of art fairs will feature more affordable mid-career or emerging artists. Falling into this category are several that took place last week, such as NADA, Future Fair, and 1-54, as well as this week’s Independent.

A few other alternative fairs like SPRING / BREAK and Satellite Art Show can also be worthwhile visits, providing a glimpse at a handful of emerging art stars as well as at some very accessible, fun, and affordable art to buy.

I always find it a pleasure to browse different ranges of fairs and exhibitions, reminding myself that, although the sky is the limit for some fine art objects, the more affordable ones (whether that means $10,000 or less or even well below $1000) often speak to me much more deeply than blue-chip artworks.

In any case, for those willing to look themselves — or trust in the eye of Charting Transcendence to sift through thousands upon thousands of artworks — there are countless lovely discoveries to be made.

Miami’s buzziest new gallery, KDR305, founded by the “Queen of Miami” Katia David Rosenthal, presented Argentine artist Ana Won’s surrealist frame sculptures at the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) fair in Chelsea.

AVAILABLE for under $10,000: a standout among emerging artists’ shows in NYC was a presentation of figurative paintings by Barbara Ishikura, an artist who put her career aside for decades to raise her family before returning to the easel several years ago. Seen at FORMah Gallery at 42 Allen Street, Lower East Side.

Good Naked Gallery, based between Brooklyn and Los Angeles, presented this humorous drawing entitled Unsubscribe by Becky Brown. Unsurprisingly it sold quickly at Future Fair for just $3000 - a steal for such an interesting and colorful original artwork.

On April 30, Satellite Art Show’s new gallery on the Lower East Side featured a one-night-only salon-style hang of original photographs by Eva Mueller. Each unique photograph was on sale for just $20.

The Whitney Biennial:
a read on the pulse of contemporary art in America

Kiyan Williams’ (b. 1991) *Ruins of Empire II* or *The Earth Swallows the Master’s House* (2024), one of the highlights of the Whitney Biennial, just blocks away from where the first ever criminal trial against a United States president is taking place.

Biennials (sometimes manifesting as triennials, quadrennials or quinquennials) are periodic group exhibitions, curated aesthetically and thematically to provide a broad survey of contemporary art.

The most famous and prestigious of these, Italy’s Venice Biennial, is currently on display in La Serenissima through November 24, and lies perfectly at the confluence between the intellectual and commercial art worlds, hosting the elite of the global art world for its opening ceremony in the spring and throughout the summer and fall.

Among my favorite perennial surveys, in addition to Documenta (a “heady” quinquennial held in Kassel, Germany since the 1950s whose next iteration will come in 2027) and the University of California at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum’s epically awesome Made in LA (most recently held in last fall), two take place in New York City: the New Museum Triennial (delayed until 2026 due to renovation and expansion of its home on the Bowery) and the Whitney Biennial, the oldest ongoing survey of contemporary art in the United States.

Predictably political and agitational, this year’s Whitney Biennial is typically challenging to take in on a single visit, which is why I hope to return for a second look later this week. As is typical, many of the artists were previously unknown to me, and the relationship between various artworks in dialogue with each other cannot be fully grasped at first glance.

One interesting thing to note, given Charting Transcendence’s own interest in the style as well as its apparent popularity, is the prominence of works of geometric abstraction sprinkled in between heavier, multimedia, and more politically didactic works.

Eamon Ore-Giron’s (b. 1973) geometrically abstract works, like this one chosen for the Whitney Biennial, have garnered a lot of attention not only for their complex visual language, but also for the fact that many have ended up in prominent private collections, such as the Green Family’s collection in Dallas.

Biennials sometimes feature older art works, often by artists who were overlooked in their time, like this 1970s geometrically abstract work by Jamaican-born Mavis Pusey (1928-2019). Such works are included in order to provide context and connection between contemporary art and previous generations.

Eddie Rodolfo Aparacio (b. 1990), whose work I recently saw in Los Angeles, contributed a crumbling sculpture of suspended tree resin that unexpectedly collapsed on Sunday, April 28, several weeks into the show’s run. It’s not hard to see the impact this makes upon a viewer as well as the artwork’s commentary on the fragility of contemporary society.

Some recent highlights of Black and African art seen at NYC galleries and fairs

Charting Transcendence believes that some of the very best, most engaging, and impactful contemporary art of at least the past 20 years has been made by artists of the African diaspora.

Although Black art may not be the optimal choice for every art collector — and I can certainly understand why some collectors might hesitate to delve into it — I believe it to be worthy of serious consideration, given its popularity on the whole and its richness in confronting essential truths about what it means to be Black in today’s world.

Those who read this newsletter carefully will note that Charting Transcendence prominently features work by artists of the African disaspora and will continue to do so… because a lot of it is very, very good.

Often overlooked in the past, many Black and African artists are only just now getting the attention they deserve. I would be delighted to consult with anyone who wishes to learn more about some of my very favorite of these.

Paa Joe (b.1947), a Ghanian artist, is the most prominent craftsman of fantasy coffins. Although sold as fine art objects for anywhere between $5000 and $25,000, several of the ones pictured here are large enough to hold actual corpses. A must-see show at Super House Gallery in Tribeca through May 11.

Featured at a new art fair called Esther, held at Estonian House, as well as in a solo show at the Upper East Side’s Richard Saltoun Gallery, were assemblage works of art, channeling Christian and Santeria religious motifs, by Canadian artist Jan Wade (b. 1952), whose ancestors escaped from slavery by way of the Underground Railroad in the 19th century.

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair featured many emerging artists from Africa working in novel media, such as this wool-thread and coated-nails-on-panel piece by Nigerian artist Joshua Michael Adokuru (b. 1999).

Ortuzar Projects in Tribeca has curated outstanding paintings by modernist Ernie Barnes (1939-2009), a former professional football player, who, although he was critically acclaimed during his lifetime, is enjoying a resurgence in interest in his market, especially for works featuring sports and bar-room scenes.