Sometimes, during an art fair week, there is one standout work that rises above the fray to capture everyone’s attention—a banana, or an inflatable Hulk. But across the 10 New York fairs on view through this weekend, “There’s no Austrian pavilion,” one photographer quipped to me, referring to the Venice Biennale nude performance art sensation that made headlines last week.
Instead, there was a quieter but no less compelling mix of highlights spread across Frieze, TEFAF, Independent, NADA, and the other satellite events. Here are seven of names you should watch out for at the fairs and beyond, and where to find them.
Independent Art Fair: Comme des Garçons
On view at Pier 36 through May 17
Perhaps the splashiest moment across the fairs was not an artist, but the designer Rei Kawakubo of the perpetually avant-garde Japanese label Comme des Garçons. It’s not entirely unfamiliar territory for the brand, given their 2017 solo show “Art of the In-Between” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, but it is a bold move for the fair. Inside a rectangular, grid-like rebar structure designed by Kawakubo, there are 20 of her sculptural looks from Autumn/Winter 2020 to Spring/Summer 2025, priced at $9,000 to $30,000. A rep for the label said that four looks had sold by midafternoon opening day.
TEFAF: Eva Helene Pade at Thaddaeus Ropac (Booth 345)
On view at the Park Avenue Armory through May 19
A stand of three monumental paintings near the entrance to the fair marks the eagerly awaited U.S. debut of 28-year-old Danish artist Eva Helene Pade. (The booth was also beset with mourners during the press preview on May 14, offering their condolences for the death earlier that day of 85-year-old feminist artist Valie Export.) Pade has received breathless coverage for her art-historically inspired figurative paintings, which draw on the likes of Francisco de Goya, Edvard Munch, and Renaissance tapestries to create contemporary reimaginings of the Old Masters. The surfaces have almost no impasto, her sensual nudes rendered in a romantic haziness. “It’s almost like clouds of color. The paint is veiled,” Ropac senior director Emilio Steinberger told me, noting that all three works had sold, for between €140,000 and €175,000 ($160,000 and $200,000), to public institutions.
Frieze: Kelly Sinnapah Mary at James Cohan (Booth B04) and Rachel Youn at G Gallery (Booth C02)
On view at the Shed through May 17
At the back of the fair yesterday, it was impossible to miss the James Cohan booth, its walls hand-painted with flowers by Kelly Sinnapah Mary—an outgrowth of the vibrant landscape in her canvases inspired by intergenerational stories and connections with nature. The Guadeloupean artist “sees herself in the lineage of Surrealism, but not just Frida Kahlo and the European greats—medieval Islamic manuscripts and Indian miniature painting as well,” gallery director Paula Naughton said. The sold-out booth ranged in price from $20,000 to $130,000. A dual-venue solo show of Sinnapah Mary’s work will open next April at the Americas Society in New York and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Inside the Shed, it was also hard to look away from the kinetic sculptures of Korean American artist Rachel Youn, who has combined second-hand massage devices with artificial flowers and sparkling chains to mesmerizing effect. The blossoms are contorting, almost gyrating, and undeniably sexy. A solo show of similar sculptures is on view through October at Venice’s Scuola Piccola Zattere, and G Gallery’s Frieze presentation looks poised to sell out, with two of the three works spoken for at $6,500 and the third on reserve for $8,000 by day two.
NADA: Véronique Wirbel at Nagas (Booth B30)
On view at the Starrett-Lehigh Building through May 17
Nagas gallery burst onto the scene in 2025 with a show of Leonor Fini drawings. Founder Ilian Rebei has carved out a unique niche as a young dealer dedicated to 20th-century Modernism and Surrealism. At NADA, he is offering a small solo presentation of work by the late Véronique Wirbel, who was born in France in 1950. She grew up across Africa and Latin America due to her father’s service in the colonial infantry, and her work is influenced by African ritual objects and pre-Columbian imagery. Rebei learned about Wirbel while studying Magie-Image, a fairly obscure group of Latin American Surrealists founded by Roberto Matta and based in Paris.
Wirbel, who took her own life in 1990 at the age of just 39, had no children, and her estate was split up among her 11 siblings. That made it difficult for the dealer to bring together more than a handful of colorful oil stick drawings on canvas paper for her New York debut, where everything is under $10,000, with one sale in the opening days.
Future Fair: Miné Okubo at Seizan (Booth U10)
On view at Chelsea Industrial through May 16
Another fascinating moment of rediscovery came, unexpectedly, at Future Fair. Miné Okubo’s colorful paintings, each $20,000, looked fresh and contemporary, even though the artist died at the age of 88 back in 2001. Okubo studied at UC Berkeley and in France, and made a renowned graphic novel about her detainment in the Japanese internment camps during World War II. Her works at the booth dated from the 1970s and ‘80s, mostly works on paper featuring adorable children. “She is having a moment,” gallery director Sayaka Toyama said. LACMA just acquired three of her paintings, and will include her in an upcoming group show. A traveling three-person exhibition, which pairs her work alongside that of Miki Hayakawa and Hisako Hibi will also land at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles later this year.
Esther III: Kata Tranker at Longtermhandstand
On view at Estonian House through May 16
The sculptures of Hungarian artist Kata Tranker were among the most compelling displays at this alternative art fair appearing for the third and final time at East Midtown’s Estonia House. She sculpts with paper pulp, imbuing the lightweight material with the weight of art history. Small hand-molded relief sculptures feature figurative scenes that appear drawn from mythology. Her slightly simian-looking nude women are seen in nature, overlaid with painted silver foil and embellished with mother-of-pearl. A large sarcophagus looks like a terracotta artifact.
“It’s a memory of the ancient people, the ancestors we lost,” dealer Peter Bencze said of the works, priced between $2,500 and $10,000. The artist, who won the main prize at the 2025 LOKART Biennale and was featured in Manifesta 14 in Prishtina in 2023, has an upcoming solo show at the East Slovak Museum in Košice and will be in a group show on the theme of motherhood at the Eesti Kunstimuuseum in Tallinn.
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