Alex Da Corte’s giant blow-up baby: The Philly-based installation master has dreamed up some seriously amazing spaces — like last year’s hazy neon Upper East Side haunted house Die Hexe, or Free Roses, his first museum survey now on view at Mass MoCA. Fresh off a live performance with frequent collaborator Dev Hynes at Karma Books on the Lower East Side, Da Corte is switching things up on Randall’s Island with a Frieze special project commission: a giant inflatable baby. We can’t wait to see the sobbing toddler soar high above the fair.
Dover Street Market merch: Frieze is always great for style spotting. If you’re not sure what to wear, hit up Dover Street Market’s New York outpost tonight (May 5) from 6-8pm, when artists Eric Mack and Torey Thornton will debut their collection of special merchandise, created in collaboration with Know Wave radio. Know Wave will broadcast live from the special DSMNY installation space the artists have designed. Stay tuned — literally — for more!
Pimp my mime: Back in 1972, Italian architect and designer Mario Bellini debuted photographs of Kar-A-Sutra — an early minivan-meets-living room occupied by mimes — at the Museum of Modern Art’s Italy: The New Domestic Landscape exhibition. For her Frieze special project commission, British artist Anthea Hamilton is reinterpreting the artist’s photos in a live performance piece featuring a reconstruction of the brightly colored car prototype and, yes, its cast of mimes.
A live donkey: While the British Hamilton pays tribute to the Italian Bellini, Italian satirical sculptor Maurizio Cattelan will pay tribute to New York’s Daniel Newburg Gallery. Cattelan celebrates the space’s 10-year run by restaging Enter at Your Own Risk—Do Not Touch, Do Not Feed, No Smoking, No Photographs, No Dogs, Thank you — the last work exhibited at the SoHo gallery before it closed in 1994. The piece consists of, according to its press release, “a bare room inhabited by a live donkey, illuminated by a shiny baroque chandelier.”
Chloe Wise’s new works: 2015 was a seriously busy year for Chloe Wise, one of contemporary art’s funniest foodies. She opened two solo shows — her first ever: Pissing, Schmoozing, and Looking Away, and her first in New York: Full Size Body, Erotic Literature —hosted three iterations of the Feelings Film Festival with fellow Canadian artist Adam Levitt, and premiered Greece — a collaborative film with Claire Christerson that transported the Pink Ladies to the Parthenon — during Miami Art Basel. After exhibiting drawings last week at Art Monte Carlo with Galerie Sebastien Bertrand (seriously, when does she sleep?), Chloe is back on home turf for the NADA fair at Basketball City.
NADA’s hoop dreams: Wise’s work might not have strong basketball overtones, but this year, NADA — the New Art Dealers Alliance, one of emerging gallerists and young creatives’ favorite fairs — is taking advantage of its Basketball City venue. Artist siblings Tyson and Scott Reeder will debut a collaborative basketball at the fair, 4-Color Pen Ball, which lifts inspiration from a series of group shows Tyson organized in which artists made drawings using only a four-color pen. The super limited-edition balls will definitely not be used during NADA Hoops, the fair’s pickup games staged in collaboration with Know Wave radio. Throughout the fair, visitors are invited to ball on courts designed by Michael Genovese. If you’re up to the challenge, three-on-three streetball tournaments will commence on Saturday and Sunday. Art + basketball = nothing but net.
Art pickpockets: Though the FBI might be getting closer, the biggest art robbery in United States history — the 1990 theft of Rembrandt and Manet paintings from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — remains unsolved. For his special Frieze project commission, David Horvitz is flipping the script on art’s history of heists: he’s hired a professional pickpocket to roam the fair, slipping small sculptures into people’s bags, “catching visitors unaware as they maneuver throughout the fair, stealthily distributing artworks to the distracted and oblivious, and turning an illegal action into a gesture of generosity,” says Frieze.
Eileen Myles’ keynote speech: Punk poet Eileen Myles — whose influence shapes much of Transparent‘s second season, created by her girlfriend Jill Soloway — will deliver Frieze’s keynote speech about poetry’s relationship to art. In addition to the aforementioned film works, Myles’ writing has had much influence on art. Earlier this year, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins staged a beautiful performance of Us Swerve, in which rollerbladers cruised around the Swiss Institute reciting fragments of queer poetry including lines by Langston Hughes, Essex Hemphill, and Myles.
Visionaire freebies: After giving away free Miley Cyrus and Matthew Stone memorabilia in Miami, Visionaire will debut its latest limited edition posters in New York with public art installations staged around the city. Works by John Baldessari, Gigi Hadid, Yoko Ono, Mario Sorrenti, and many more will be given away for free in locations including Times Square, the Meatpacking District, and the NADA fair. Find out where to cop yours here.
Donald Trump ventriloquism: For her Frieze Sounds commission, Liz Magic Laser will ventriloquize the often shrill, always annoying voices of Donald Trump. Laser’s audio work adapts the presidential candidate’s discussion with an investigative reporter into an oddly therapeutic philosophical dialogue.
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Alex Da Corte, Frieze Projects, Frieze New York 2016. Photography Mark Blower, courtesy Mark Blower/Frieze.