The European Fine Art Fair (Tefaf) returns to Manhattan just eight months after the New York spinoff’s launch by the Dutch stalwart in co-operation with Artvest Partners.
This time, the focus is on Modern and contemporary art and design. The 93 participating galleries are offering everything from a luminous aluminium chain from the French design studio Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Galerie Kreo; prices on the stand range from €2,000 to €80,000) and furniture designed by Ingrid Donat (Biblioteque 5 elements; Carpenters Workshop; $260,000) to rare 1920s mural panels from Thomas Hart Benton’s series of US historical epics (Bernard Goldberg; priced at “more than $20m”).
Taking up residence in the Armory’s period rooms are 15 dealers, including the Di Donna gallery, which is cooking up a Surrealist feast with gastronomy-themed works by artists such as Magritte, Arp and Dalí (his 1933/1977 Buste de femme rétrospectif is priced at $950,000). Emmanuel Di Donna says that he wanted to embrace the dining room’s “intrinsic charm and quirkiness” with a presentation mirroring the “eclectic nature of Tefaf: a 20th-century version of a Surrealist cabinet de curiosités, celebrating earthly pleasures”. The exhibit will be shown at the gallery’s Madison Avenue space after the fair.
Some galleries are betting on single-artist presentations, including Lisson, which is offering early paintings made in post-war Paris by the Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera to coincide with an exhibition of recent paintings by the artist, who is due to celebrate her 102nd birthday on 31 May, at the gallery’s New York space.
Hans Kraus’s stand in the cavernous Drill Hall will showcase never-before-exhibited works by some of the greats of early photography, such as William Henry Fox Talbot and Julia Margaret Cameron. Kraus, who has seven editions of Tefaf Maastricht under his belt, says he is “confident that the discriminating Tefaf New York audience will embrace this event with enthusiasm”.
Mathias Rastorfer from Galerie Gmurzynska, which specialises in classic Modern and classic contemporary, says the gallery has been looking for the right fair to do in New York for a while. “For us it is a question of how many fairs you can do a year and still bring fresh material and works that are relevant without it just becoming a travelling circus.” Tefaf’s calibre and reputation, combined with the fact that the gallery’s client base is just a few blocks away from the Armory were contributing factors in the gallery's decision to participate. Gmurzynska’s booth, designed by Alexandre de Betak, will feature works ranging in price from around $300,000 to around $6m by Miró, Léger, and Robert Indiana as well as have a special “cube” filled with previously unseen works by Russian avant-garde artists. An accompanying text about the display has been written by Germano Celant.
• Tefaf New York Spring, Park Avenue Armory, 4-8 May
