Charisse Pearlina Weston, installation image from Black Melancholia; Photo: Olympia Shannon. Courtesy of the artist and Patron

Easing the cost

Frieze arrives on the heels of a string of closures at closely watched smaller galleries—including Helena Anrather, Fortnight Institute, Queer Thoughts, Foxy Production and JTT—that has underlined the growing challenges facing dealers in the city. The Focus sector aims to ease some of the costly toll of fair participation for young galleries, including through a partnership with the Italian luxury fashion house Stone Island. The company provides support to the section’s exhibitors beyond the subsidised booth prices offered by Frieze.

Lumi Tan, the director of Luna Luna in Los Angeles, has previously juried Frieze New York’s 2021 Frame Prize and this year has curated its selection of 11 galleries with the goal to “support and acknowledge the galleries who have built themselves up in the last 12 or so years as small businesses”, she says. Among the Focus sector exhibitors with New York spaces are Company Gallery and Gordon Robichaux.

Two galleries are graduating from Frieze New York’s Focus section to its main gallery sector this year—Bogotá’s Instituto de Visión and Château Shatto from Los Angeles—underlining the subsidised section’s potential to support growth. Newcomers to both Frieze New York and the Focus section this year include the Lisbon-based gallery Madragoa, which is showing Sara Chang Yan’s abstract wood paintings, and Chicago’s Patron Gallery, whose stand features a mixed-media presentation by 2024 Whitney Biennial artist Charisse Pearlina Weston.