Frieze Art Fair, NYC
May 13 – 17, 2026
The Shed
Wednesday’s VIP preview at Frieze unfolded with an uncharacteristic, almost eerie serenity—whether the result of a deliberate, strategic thinning of the herd for high-wattage collectors or simply a lingering fatigue from the Venice Biennale, the spatial reprieve was a rare and welcome gift for actual looking. What this quietude revealed was a fair playing it resolutely safe, leaning into an unabashedly decorative sensibility grounded in strong, confident painting and materially inventive sculpture. Yet “decorative” here operates as a formal virtue rather than a pejorative, yielding a visually sustaining crop of highlights: Lets begin with he mechanial scientific beauty of Anicka Yi at Esther Schipper gallery, the muscular assurance of Joe Bradley’s large paintings at David Zwirner, then the captivating, environmentally friendly paintings of Kelly Sinnapah Mary at James Cohan Gallery, and the tactile intelligence of Genesis Belanger’s use of materials at Perrotin. Rounded out by Yeni Mao’s Metallic cyborg sculptures at Sargent’s Daughters in the focus section, along with Buenos Aires’s W-galería showing the work of Seba Calfuqueo, winner of the “Focus” stand prize, which delivered some of the fair’s most compelling and boundary-pushing dialogues.
The timestamps to see the work discussed are below and in the YouTube video caption.
0:21 – Anicka Yi at Esther Schipper gallery
6:57 – Joe Bradley at David Zwirner
8:23 – Genesis Belanger at Perrotin Gallery
14:41 – Yeni Mao at Sargent’s Daughters
13:07 & 15:26 – Seba Calfuqueo at W-galería
