At Frieze New York’s VIP opening on Wednesday morning, collectors were present but rarely looked enthusiastic. Presentations by the nearly 70 galleries were modest and studied. The pace of sales was sensible, sedate.
But let’s be clear: Business has improved since last year, and the mood at the Shed was buoyed by the knowledge that top-tier works are heading to auction over the next week. “When you bring great material to market, it lifts everything,” Thaddaeus Ropac told me just after the doors opened.
Ropac confirmed four sales within the first few minutes of the fair, presumably finishing deals that had been coming together in prior days. These included a large 2012 George Baselitz canvas for €1.4 million (about $1.6 million), a semi-abstract black-and-white Alex Katz work for $400,000, and Joan Snyder’s Buds & Blossoms (2025) for $150,000.
Alex Katz, Black Roses 3, 2025. Photo: Daniel Greer.
One of the Ropac’s directors rattled off the sales as Ropac and I chatted. “Oh, well that’s even better then,” he said, clearly pleased.
Even as works were moving, there was an undeniable sense that the New York fair, now in its 14th year, has become a dutiful event. There is little urgency or sense of discovery, and its sterile venue is universally lamented. (“Nobody likes this shit,” one veteran dealer said, of the building, while navigating the aisles.) Does New York still need Frieze?
Ahead of the fair, New York advisor Megan Fox Kelly told me that some of her clients weren’t planning to be in town this time. Many collectors, she added, opt to browse. Erica Samuels, another advisor, said that she wouldn’t necessarily call Frieze New York a “must-see.”
Still, they agreed that the fair remains an important stop. “You see something you’d scrolled past and suddenly it clicks for a client,” Fox Kelly told me after she’d done the rounds at the fair on Wednesday. “Or you stand in front of a work and think of an artist you hadn’t considered before for them.” The fair, she said, is still where “connections happen, even when you think you already know what’s there.”
Samuels echoed that sentiment. “I’m in my conversation era,” she said by phone as she exited. “The fair is not as commerce-forward as years past, but I think there is more discourse happening.” The days of chasing wet paint are over, she said, and dealers are starting to move away from the reassessment and rediscovery angle.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #686 (2025), presented by Hauser & Wirth. © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer
“What I’m seeing is a return to heritage painting,” she said. “We’re not changing the course of art history with what’s on view, but there’s a historical consciousness there.” She pointed to Hayley Barker’s arresting paintings at Night Gallery, which pay homage to Georgia O’Keeffe.
Sales were, in a word, predictable. David Zwirner’s booth—full of brand-new, large-scale Joe Bradley paintings—was one of the buzziest, with prices going from $550,000 to $750,000. All were on hold by the early afternoon.
Four new photographs, each an edition of six, by the inimitable Cindy Sherman at Hauser & Wirth’s booth were priced between $175,000 and $195,000. By the afternoon, some had sold; third editions were still available, although it will take at least five weeks to get them. (Only the first editions have been printed so far.) Leonardo DiCaprio made a couple visits.
Kelly Sinnapa Mary’s lush paintings were arresting in person at James Cohan Gallery’s booth. Priced at $25,000 to $130,000, all six had sold by the afternoon, the largest to a museum.
Kelly Sinnapah Mary at James Cohan’s Frieze New York booth, 2026. Courtesy of James Cohan.
The traditional adage may be “see in Venice, buy in Basel,” but Larry Gagosian said: Why not Frieze New York? The mega dealer had a collage version of Derrick Adams’s mural tribute to the late curator Koyo Kouoh, unveiled during the Venice Biennale’s opening last week, at his booth. It sold for under $100,000, according to a gallery rep.
Almine Rech placed James Turrell’s Thought as Thing (2025) for between $900,000 and $1 million, one of the most expensive works to sell, bested only by Ropac’s Baselitz.
Meanwhile, Tina Kim Gallery sold a gorgeous blue Ha Chong-Hyun painting that was hanging in the back of its booth for $180,000. (A larger, red painting is priced at $390,000, and for now, is available.) San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum will host the Dansaekhwa artist’s first North American retrospective this September. (The museum’s director, Soyoung Lee, was making the circuit around the fair earlier in the day.)
Installation view of Tina Kim Gallery at Frieze New York 2026. Courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo: Hyunjung
Rhee.
Though the fair may not be a must-see, it’s still a place to be seen, and notables were on hand on the opening day. Other museum leaders included Melissa Chiu, the newly annointed Guggenheim New York director; Sunjung Kim, the artistic director of the Art Sonje Center in Seoul; Amy Smith-Stewart, chief curator of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut; and Jessica Morgan, the director of the Dia Art Foundation.
Collectors on the scene included Jill and Peter Kraus; the venerable Beth Rudin Dewoody, who was in the aisles with her curator Maynard Monrow; Glenn Fuhrman, the founder of the Flag Art Foundation; and Michi Jigarjian, the owner of the Rockaway Hotel. Celebrity news anchor and noted collector Anderson Cooper was seen with Klaus Biesenbach, the director of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
Advisors were also out in force at the fair, which runs through Sunday, including Allan Schwartzman, who was chopping it up with Frieze’s Americas director Christine Messineo in the opening minutes; Heather Flow; Benjamin Godsill; Bona Yoo; and the mustachioed Jeff Magid, who’s won attention for his unfiltered Instagram reel vlogs.
Perhaps New York doesn’t need Frieze, but Frieze still needs New York.
