Listen to the birds sing, strike up a conversation with a stranger or walk along the High Line, a potted seedling in hand. Those are the ideas behind the performance pieces that will unfold at Frieze New York.
Performance art has been a feature of the fair since its debut in 2012, but this year will see the most expansive lineup to date.
“Frieze’s investment in performance art began with the recognition that much of today’s exciting, relevant work happens live in ways that are process-driven, participatory and time-based,” Christine Messineo, the director of Frieze New York and Los Angeles, said.
This year’s edition of the fair — which runs from Thursday through Sunday at the Shed at Hudson Yards — will offer three performance pieces: “Immortal Coil” by the Berlin-based Asad Raza; “Freestyle Hard,” from Carlos Reyes, who divides his time between Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Caguas, P.R.; and “The Pin” created by the Berlin-based Pilvi Takala. All three have previously participated in Frieze London but are newcomers to the New York edition.
The focus on performance works is specific to New York, Messineo said, because the city has a “rich history of dance, theater and avant-garde performance.”
In 2022, Frieze New York began a partnership with the nonprofit arts gallery Artists Space in TriBeCa that debuted with a performance, “Grandmother Cindy,” by the dancer and choreographer Devynn Emory.
Last year, the fair collaborated with High Line Art, an organization that produces art projects on and near the High Line, to commission a dance piece by the Brooklyn-based artist Matty Davis. That partnership will continue this year with Takala’s project.
Messineo said that this year’s three artists “approach performance in radically different ways.”
According to Raza, “Immortal Coil” speaks to his love of the plantings at the High Line and is meant to immerse fairgoers in the lush setting it offers.
“I’ve been to the park many times and think the plants are beautiful and wanted to connect people with the High Line,” he said. Raza collected more than 300 seedlings from various nurseries, representing the plants and trees growing in the park. They include butterfly weeds, black elderberries, gray birches and purple poppy mallows.
“I’ve always been drawn to natural elements and energetic forces,” he said. “My installations often feature wind, soil, rivers and light.” His work at the Whitney Biennial in 2017 reflected this interest: Titled “Root sequence. Mother tongue,” it encompassed 26 trees, growing in wooden boxes on wheels.
In “Immortal Coil,” Raza is potting the seedlings and will display them in the Shed’s lobby starting on the fair’s first day. On Saturday, he said, he will invite visitors to pick a seedling, walk the length of the approximately 1.45-mile-long park and take that seedling home. “My idea was that people would show their seedlings the grown-up plants around them,” Raza said. “They can experience the sprouting, growing plants on the High Line and bring a piece of it home with them.”
Reyes’s “Freestyle Hard” also incorporates nature, but instead of flora, he explores the sounds of birds. A multidisciplinary artist, Reyes said that he usually creates sculptures and installations. “This is the first time I’m doing a live performance for the public,” he said.
Presented on Thursday throughout the day, his piece will see between four and 10 performers mimic bird sounds such as calls and songs while they traverse the Shed’s various spaces, including the escalators, mezzanine and coat check. “The performance is a chance for people to see these areas as something other than functional,” Reyes said. “Escalators, for example, go up and down, but with the performers emulating bird noises, they become instruments.”
Takala comes to Frieze New York with “The Pin,” performed Wednesday, Friday and Sunday in both the Shed and the High Line for three hours daily.
While leaving room for surprise, the artist shared that her work is based on a script she wrote and touches on “social interactions, exclusion and inclusion.”
“My pieces often play with social norms but through video performances,” Takala said. “‘The Pin’ is different because it’s a live performance on a large scale.”
She has tasked a dozen actors from New York with approaching people in the park and in the Shed and conversing with them. Takala said that the cast has the freedom to improvise based on the responses they receive.
In a nod to its name, she said that the performance incorporates a series of identical lapel pins she designed. “They have an abstract image on them and play a pivotal role in the show,” Takala said.
Performance art began as an experiment in Frieze New York, Messineo said, but is now a defining feature of the fair: “Over time, the scale and ambition of these works have grown, as has the appetite for them.”
Shivani Vora is a New York City-based travel writer who considers herself a very savvy packer.
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