On Thursday, with one of the busiest weeks in New York’s art world nearing its close, the New Art Dealers Alliance opened its ninth edition of NADA New York at a new location, the 40,000-square-foot former Dia building, at 548 West 22nd Street.
Conveniently located in the heart of Chelsea—next door to Hauser & Wirth’s magnificent Mark Bradford solo exhibition—NADA was bustling throughout the day. Though, at 88 exhibitors, it was slightly smaller than last year’s fair, which brought 120 galleries to Basketball City at Pier 36, the roster included numerous closely watched enterprises, including Charles Moffet and Shulamit Nazarian, as well as the fair’s ever-popular NADA Projects section. Among the more well-known galleries, were stunning presentations from galleries as far-flung as Shanghai, Vancouver, and Paris.
Below, see the standouts at the 2023 edition of NADA New York, which runs until May 21 at the 548 West in Chelsea.
Not far from the entrance to NADA is a series of paintings by interdisciplinary artist Ánima Correa, whose work mines the discomfiture and looming paranoia embedded in our tech-addled world. The compositions on view, courtesy Los Angeles–based Hunter Shaw Fine Art, primarily hail from an ongoing series juxtaposing obsidian figures used in the divinatory practice of scrying with phone screens depicting iconic music videos (the above is derived from iconic 1998 pop song “Blue” by Eiffel 65), along with other symbols alluding to current culture. The effect is seductive, surreal, and unsettling in equal measure.
Tribeca-based SHRINE galleries brings together a series of sculptures by Kambel Smith, a 32-year-old self-taught artist with autism, who produces intricate sculptures of significant landmarks and favourite places in his hometown of Philadelphia. As gallery owner Scott Ogden explained, Smith’s sculptures are created freehand without measurements over many months and are made almost entirely out of cardboard. The title of this presentation, Autisarian City, refers to Smith and his family’s reframing of people with autism as having “super-human abilities,” or Autisarians. Together, they run a nonprofit that works to shift negative perceptions of autism.
It’s impossible to miss Denver-based gallery David B. Smith’s presentation of multidisciplinary artist Yvette Mayorga. The booth is hot pink and the works explode out from the wall juxtaposing layers of piped acrylic paint that evoke cake icing with Rococo gold framing and details.
As visually alluring and seductive as they are on first glance, the works hold layered critiques of immigration, first-generation experiences, income inequality, and surveillance in an age of unparalleled decadence and wealth. The longer you look, the more unnerving details like the slide in Voyage to the Pink Castle, the booth’s stunning centrepiece, become.
“A lot of people get drawn to the color or the materials, but then you spend more time with it, or you read the title, and you start to understand what it’s actually about,” Mayorga, a Chicago-based artist, told ARTnews.
Mayorga’s first solo museum exhibition is currently on view at the Momentary, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art through October, and she will open another exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in September.
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