For the second year in a row, Lumi Tan, a curator and writer in New York, is reprising her curatorial role at Frieze New York, bringing a multilayered and collaborative narrative to the highly anticipated Focus section of the fair, which features emerging artists and galleries.
Tan, 43, said her process was instinctual and subjective.
“I’m looking for a wide range of international and material representation that will grab the fairgoer’s attention, while weighing what the presentation means to the artist in New York at this time,” she explained.
Tan, who is the editor in residence for the New York-based arts organization Topical Cream, recently served as the curatorial director of Luna Luna, a revival of the world’s first art amusement park created by André Heller in 1987, which exhibited last year in Los Angeles. She will also curate the 2026 Converge 45 citywide exhibition in Portland, Ore.
For Focus, Tan received over 100 submissions. She and the Frieze committee landed on 12 “young” galleries, each of which have been in business for one to 12 years, and will highlight one emerging or underappreciated solo artist, with Tan paying attention to diversity and inclusion, from each gallery. Seven galleries will be first-time exhibitors, “while five are returnees, some on the cusp of aging out,” Tan said.
When curating a show, Tan’s goal is finding a balance, she said: “I’m trying to create a nontraditional experience for the viewer, while looking for traditional presentations that show a gallery’s strengths and the artist’s strengths.”
Tan was interviewed by phone. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
Who might be a good example of the balance you’re looking for?
Public Gallery in London participated in Frieze before but never in New York until now. They’re presenting Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, an artist from Berlin who has recognition in Europe and does enormous interactive installations, which draw huge audiences, but has never done a large-scale presentation here.
I included her because her work needed a platform and to be shown in New York on this scale. Danielle, a Black trans woman, has been focused on creating interactive video games that address Black trans experiences, bringing the viewer in to confront their own bias.
Having curated Focus last year and now this year, what are some differences?
Last year, there was a bigger presence in terms of the intergenerational aspect of the section. We also had a strong representation from Indigenous artists. This year, the focus is more international diversity, and a larger number of first-time galleries.
Last year, there wasn’t any video or digital work. As a representation of what is happening in contemporary art right now, it felt like an absence. This year, we have two strong presentations by video artists, Brathwaite-Shirley and Yehwan Song, a Korean-born artist. She creates large-scale, digital installations that are tactile, tiny screens made of cardboard. They are about the internet as a place where you become confined to identities and confined to your algorithmic bubbles. It feels very D.I.Y., but is also technologically ambitious and an unconventional approach.
Is Focus more for the gallery or the artist?
It’s for both. It’s a very symbiotic, shared relationship, and that’s what we try to highlight. The display of the work and how it’s seen by audiences for the first time creates a relationship that’s special to the Focus section and to working with these younger galleries and artists.
Because these booths are solo presentations, they’re like mini-exhibitions. It’s a more dedicated approach to spotlighting an artist and giving them a platform. Many of these galleries try to align these presentations with current institutional presentations in New York so that audiences can see multiple bodies of work.
How are you amplifying diversification and inclusion?
The associations people have with art fairs are big, expensive paintings. And big, expensive paintings are generally made by white men and a few women. Because Focus is younger galleries and artists and is subsidized, there’s more risk-taking that’s brought into the fair. And the fair counts on this section to bring that diversity. Tahir Carl Karmali, who is presented by Management, is a queer artist from Kenya whose work is specific to his experience living in New York. There’s Brathwaite-Shirley and Citra Sasmita, a Balinese artist who is represented by Yeo Workshop, in Singapore.
You mentioned a strong international presence. What locations stand out?
Central Galeria is presenting C.L. Salvaro, and Mitre Galeria is showing Luana Vitra. Both are in São Paulo, Brazil, and are returning galleries, showing complex installations by artists that talk about the destruction of the environment through extractive mining practices. They always bring a sensorial way of installing their booth, so you feel transported when you walk into that booth.
Citra Sasmita’s work is culturally specific in a way that I think is very important for the first Southeast Asian gallery to participate. Sasmita depicts traditional paintings that are of epic stories of men in battle and replaces the men with female figures, reinventing the stories for a contemporary audience. She also uses antique textiles that are no longer produced.
Champ Lacombe, based in Biarritz, France, and Company Gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan are the only two galleries highlighting the same artist. What are the benefits to that?
This is an approach a lot of galleries are doing at fairs now. Fairs are really hard on small galleries. They’re exhausting and expensive. Sharing the same artist [that they both represent] allows them to share invites and resources, which allows them to do a bigger presentation because they can share expenses. Champ Lacombe, one of the newest galleries to show this year, and Company, which is about to age out, are sharing Stefania Batoeva, a Bulgarian figurative painter. This gave them an opportunity to work together and to introduce the work of the same artist to their respective audiences.
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