Frieze Projects New York 2017
May 5–7, 2017

Preview: May 4

Frieze New York
Randall’s Island Park
Manhattan, NY

The Frieze Projects program at Frieze New York 2017 will feature seven commissions, curated by Cecilia Alemani (High Line Art, New York & Italian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2017). Inside the fair and around Randall’s Island Park, Dora BudorElaine Cameron-Weir and Jon Rafman will create ambitious, interactive and site-specific artworks that question the act of watching and being watched. This year’s tribute to a groundbreaking arts space is dedicated to Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome and its experimental exhibition Il Teatro delle Mostre (1968). The tribute space will change daily, with restagings  of two pioneering projects byGiosetta Fioroni and Fabio Mauri, alternated with new commissions by Ryan McNamara and Adam Pendleton.

Frieze Projects is the celebrated program of new artist commissions realized annually at Frieze New York, forming part of the fair’s non-profit program also comprising Frieze Talks and Frieze Education. Taking place May 5 to 7, 2017, with a Preview on May 4, Frieze New York is sponsored by Deutsche Bank for the sixth consecutive year.

Frieze Projects will be encountered throughout the fair and around Randall’s Island Park. On the green lawn outside the North Entrance, Elaine Cameron-Weir will build a military-style pillbox bunker, filled with natural and man-made materials as well as parts of her own sculptures—glimpses of which will only be possible through a discrete door. Inside the fair, Jon Rafman will transform a booth into a secret movie theater, where visitors can watch—and be watched while watching—a new video series fusing amateur 3D animation and niche genres of computer-generated erotica. Dora Budor will continue her research into the film industry by embedding fiction throughout the fair, using three doppelgängers of a well-known art collector.

2017 Tribute: Teatro Delle Mostre (1968/2017)
Each year, Frieze Projects at Frieze New York features a creative tribute to an artist-run project or a gallery that has radically transformed the experience of contemporary art, including Fashion Moda (2012), FOOD (2013), Al’s Grand Hotel (2014), Flux-Labyrinth (2015), and Daniel Newburg Gallery (2016). This year’s tribute will be dedicated to the Galleria La Tartaruga, an experimental gallery active from the 1950s in Rome, and its influential show, Il Teatro delle Mostre (Theater of Exhibitions, May 6 to 31, 1968).

Organized by the gallery’s founder, Plinio de Martiis, Teatro delle Mostre emphasized emerging forms of performance, process and installation art, showing a sequence of works by 20 young Italian artists, writers and poets—including Franco Angeli, Alighiero Boetti, Enrico Castellani, Giosetta Fioroni, Fabio Mauri and Giulio Paolini. With each installation lasting a single day, many of the artists physically transformed the gallery, thereby challenging conventions of the space, as well as the roles of owner, artist and spectator. Teatro delle Mostre also opened up the field of contemporary art to other forms of creative practice and exhibition making. The show’s final day marked the closing of Galleria La Tartaruga’s historic headquarters at the Piazza del Popolo.

For Frieze New York, two of the original projects from the 1968 exhibition—Fabio Mauri’s Luna and Giosetta Fioroni’s La Spia Ottica—will be restaged, alternated with new commissions by two leading contemporary artists, Adam Pendleton and Ryan McNamara—transforming the Tribute space for each day of the fair.

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