Hayv Kahraman. Curfew, 2015; oil on linen. Courtesy of the Artist and The Third Line.

As the trees of Regent’s Park gradually turn from green to yellow, they herald the coming of the largest commercial spectacle of the arts calendar: the Frieze Art Fair. While visitors to the fair swarmed around the booths, I sat down with Hayv Kahraman, an Iraqi-born artist of Kurdish descent, currently represented by The Third Line in Dubai. Before us were mounted two of her most recent works, Curfew and Magic Lamp, both produced earlier this year and recently released in the commercial market. Impressively large and beautifully executed, they were markedly different in comparison to the other works that surrounded us at the fair, which, for its 13th year, had a rather cartoonish bent; perhaps this is the beginning of Frieze’s teenage years. On my way in, I passed a gathering of life-sized plasticine-like figures that had seemingly escaped from what looked like a children’s television programme set during a cocktail party in the ’90s. Leaning in a corner was Mikhail Bulgakov’s Behemoth in the form of a towering and inflatable Felix the Cat. There were also a lot of rumpled, crumpled naked women. Kahraman’s work in comparison, however, boasted finely delivered figuration–not only unapologetically female and shamelessly lush in its decorative elements, but also referential to a visual heritage over 800 years old.

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While Frieze New York has more exhibitors this year than last — around 190 to last year’s 180 — there’s still not enough room for everyone, and competition for entry was fierce. The second edition of the fair sees a reshuffling of galleries, with 60 joining for the first time, including heavyweights Marian Goodman, Peter Blum, and Luhring Augustine. Scads of others — including Friedrich Petzel, Maccarone, David Nolan, Nicole Klagsbrun, Michael Werner, and Experimenter (Calcutta) — dropped out. Whether due to fair exhaustion (“fairtigue”) or to simply not making the cut this time, the turnover is a reflection of the pressures dealers face in today’s art world.

Newcomers in the Focus section include New York’s Untitled, and dépendance from Brussels, while first-timers in the Frame section like Simone Subal from New York and Berlin’s Circus will present solo booths by Frank Heath and Sophie Bueno-Boutellier, respectively.

As for the more intriguing question of why galleries didn’t return — there are roughly 40 — the overwhelming explanation is exhaustion from the sheer number of fairs dealers now attend. “We couldn’t do Frieze and then [Art Basel] Hong Kong right afterwards,” said Gordon VeneKlasen, director of Michael Werner Gallery, “so we chose Hong Kong. It’s just not possible for us to do everything in the world.”

For some dealers, the decision was out of their control. “This year, very simply, I was not accepted,” said Nicole Klagsbrun, who applied before deciding a few months ago to close her Chelsea gallery after 30 years in the business.

Though her decision was motivated by chagrin over the “whole system,” which prioritizes fairs over gallery shows, Klagsbrun asserted that galleries need to stay in the art fair game to remain attractive to artists.

For younger galleries, the notion that entry to Frieze New York can make or break them instills a kind of panic. “They’ll get to do it one year, and then they won’t the next year, and they’ll feel like they’ve done something wrong,” said Phil Grauer of Canada Gallery, explaining his peers’ reactions to the fair’s modus operandi, in particular with respect to Frame, a section geared toward emerging galleries, those in business six years or less. “But it’s the fair rolling through the new young meat.”

While the Frame and Focus sections, which cost exhibitors less than the main section, are aimed at newer galleries, Grauer says the divisions have less to do with age than economics. “The main section is first class,” he said comparing it to airline seating. “Focus is business traveler — but it’s pretty much coach. Frame is like you’re running drugs for someone else. They let you in and then they kick you to the curb.”

-Rozalia Jovanovic, BLOUIN ARTINFO on Huff Post Arts & Culture

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The aim of the Frieze Art Fair is to create a unique destination with an atmosphere that is of cultural and commercial value. This year’s Frieze programme — curated by Sarah McCrory — included seven specially commissioned projects as well as the Emdash Award. The programme integrates a number of unique viewpoints throughout the fair that will demand a shift in viewers’ perception.

Crane.tv met with several of the artists, including Peles Empire, Laure Prouvost, Pierre Huyghe, Christian Jankowski and Emdash Award winner Anahita Razmi:

Laure Prouvost’s idiosyncratic signs had to be made up just a few days prior to the fair as a response to its architecture. Pierre Huyghe’s aquarium, a live ecosystem, hosted a specific narrative which had the effect of exchanging the chaotic bustle and bright lights of the fair for a dark contemplative space. Christian Jankowski’s project engages directly with the idea of sales and the value of luxury goods. The extravagant and functional boat which he created was available to buy not only as exactly that, but as a Christian Jankowski artwork. Peles Empire is a collaboration between Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff, founded in 2005. At the fair, they installed a bar that acts as a Gesamtkunstwerk, in which everything — from the reproduced room and its decorative furnishings, to the serving of the guests and taking part in the fair — was part of the work.

Anahita Razmi won this year’s Emdash Award. Her proposal was selected from amongst 579 applicants of the highest quality. Her commission highlights how Tehran’s skyline was recently used by protestors after the Iranian presidential election. Her art was deemed to embody the principles of the Emdash Foundation in an exemplary way: thought provoking, supporting new ideas, and allowing time for reflection with a focus on topicality. She uses Trisha Brown’s 1971 “Roof Piece”, which took place on 12 different rooftops over a ten-block area in downtown New York, as its point of departure.

Text by Natasha Seagrove for Crane.tv