Frieze New York returns this May with a bold, performance-forward agenda that signals the fair’s continued embrace of art as experience, not just object. Set against the architectural drama of The Shed and the urban backdrop of the High Line, the 13th edition (May 7–11, 2025) positions live action, sonic activation, and public intervention at the fore—an evolution in tune with the broader recalibration happening across the global art world.
Three newly commissioned performances take center stage. Pilvi Takala’s The Pin, co-commissioned with High Line Art, probes behavioral codes through subtle disruption—a hallmark of the Berlin-based artist’s psychological interventions. Asad Raza’s Immortal Coil is equal parts poetic and practical: visitors receive High Line-grown plants to carry home, embedding the installation within the daily life of the city. And Carlos Reyes’s Freestyle Hard hijacks the infrastructure of The Shed—coat checks, escalators, passageways—through bird calls and ambient acoustics, collapsing the boundaries between nature, built space, and human staging.
This pivot toward participatory and durational works—curated in collaboration with Taylor Zakarin of High Line Art—signals Frieze’s commitment to commissioning, not just commodifying, contemporary art. Christine Messineo, Frieze’s Director of Americas, frames this approach as a way to “extend the vitality of art” beyond booths and into the arteries of the fair’s host architecture and neighborhood.
And yet, commerce and cause continue to intertwine. The Artist Plate Project returns to The Shed with over 50 artists—from Amy Sherald to Basquiat—designing limited-edition china plates sold to benefit the Coalition for the Homeless. Launched in 2020, the project has raised over $7 million to date, a rare case where collectibility and direct action intersect. Plates are $250, with on-site access followed by online sales via Artware Editions.
Printed Matter’s lobby pop-up and the Frieze Library initiative—now in its seventh year with the Met’s Watson Library—deepen the discursive spine of the fair. These quieter interventions counterbalance the spectacle with text-based works, archival consciousness, and publishing as a form of resistance.
Frieze’s partnership with Deutsche Bank, entering its 22nd year, underscores the fair’s corporate entanglements. But where past iterations leaned heavily on spectacle and blue-chip spectacle, this edition aims to seed longer conversations—across disciplines, borders, and publics. In this respect, Frieze 2025 feels less like a sales fair and more like a testing ground for what cultural production, and its presentation, might look like in a world more precarious—and interdependent—than ever.
As New York’s art calendar continues to fragment across boroughs and platforms, Frieze’s willingness to relinquish its market-only ethos is a welcome shift. Art, here, isn’t just seen. It’s walked with, listened to, touched, and carried home.
