New York City is undergoing a rare stress test this week—one that feels unprecedented in the not-so-long history of the contemporary art world: with over nine full-scale fairs unspooling simultaneously and what seems like a million dealers in town, the U.S. art market is performing a bold act of defiance, mocking economic jitters with a show of force. Going all in, despite rising inflation, escalating trade wars and mounting geopolitical tensions.
Opening yesterday (May 8) at Tribeca’s Spring Place, Independent once again affirmed its status as the boutique, hyper-curated antidote to the mega-fairs. With its focused spotlights—mostly solo presentations—it remains one of the most navigable fairs, letting viewers enter the universe of each artist. While the pace slowed after an initial rush and collectors here seemed to deliberate more than they might at Frieze, many dealers welcomed the fair’s tightly edited lineup and its more intimate, thoughtful rhythm by the end of the day.
Among the first inspiring encounters on the ground floor, New York-based gallery Europa is showing Shanghai-based artist Suyi Xu, whose ethereal geometries unfold into personal mandalas and imagined spiritual architectures—each one a cosmos unto itself. By evening, the gallery had already placed several works, with prices ranging from $9,000 to $20,000.
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Nearby, Chinatown’s Long Story Short sold six of Keita Morimoto’s cinematic and hyperreal urban landscapes—his larger canvases priced up to $26,000. The Canadian-Japanese painter, a master of oil paint between light and shadow, recently closed his debut solo with Almine Rech, a milestone that further ignited collector interest in his rising trajectory.
On the fifth floor, New York dealer Charles Moffett nearly sold out his solo booth of new works by Julia Jo, with prices from $10,000 to $45,000. As Jo’s visual language has evolved, her figures now dissolve into densely layered fields of gesture and tide, forming a magmatic interplay of mark-making and movement. Her canvases pulse between embodiment and disembodiment, holding a volatile tension where abstraction and figuration collapse into one another.
Also drawing steady attention from collectors, London’s The Approach showcased a series of contemplative landscapes by Scottish painter John Maclean. Inspired by crudely hand-tinted postcards, Maclean preserves their acidic, psychedelic palette in scenes rendered on canvas and paper, blurring the lines between memory, imagination and hallucination. Notably, the artist has only recently returned to painting, following a decade-long career in music as a founding member of the experimental rock band The Beta Band (1996-2005). By evening, the gallery reported the sale of four works by Maclean, each priced at $13,500 or less.
Fellow London gallery Copperfield is debuting at the fair with the work of Barbados-born artist Ada Patterson. The show features a series of delicate and densely symbolic paintings on silk in which the artist confronts her Caribbean heritage between personal and collective trauma. Here, feminine figures fluctuate without heads in nebulous landscapes, poetically translating this sense of loss and displacement which follows the forced colonial erasure and removal of native tradition and rituals. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, many of the traditional folklorist and spiritual practices of masquerade were in fact eradicated from the island to make it more appealing to white international tourism, depriving its population of these ancestral ties that were fundamental elements of its identity, while attempting to control bodies and spirits. The works are all priced between $8,000 and $23,000, despite the artist already attracting institutional attention, having shown already both at Tate and the Barbican Center, not to mention a forthcoming show at the Royal Academy in Amsterdam.
Nearby, Bologna-based gallery P420 featured a solo presentation of Chinese artist Shafei Xia, in which her intimate meditations on daily life and feminine identity were translated into delicate paintings and playful ceramic vignettes. Confronting the fragility and resilience of individual existence, Xia’s often openly erotic scenes subversively and provocatively retrieve a visual language of Chinese erotica and folklore long repressed in the country, in a playful celebration of feminine sexuality and sensibility. With prices between $15,000 and $30,000, the artist just last year participated in shows at the Museum of Sex in New York and La Fondation Carmignac in France, and has already entered notable museum collections, including the Gamec Museum in Bergamo, the Museum of Sex in New York, the Women’s Art Collection at Murray Edwards College at the University of Cambridge, and the ILHAM in Kuala Lumpur.
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Continuing down the aisle, Michael Kohn from Los Angeles dedicates a solo show to the metaphysical still-life compositions of Brooklyn-based Alicia Adamerovich, deeply inspired by nature and its mysteries. Although never fully slipping into abstraction, but also escaping any purely objective description that an anthropocentric approach relying solely on science might offer, Adamerovich already touches on archetypal structures and an ancestral subconscious of images to poetically evoke and participate in the mystery of nature, rather than describe it. The presentation at Independent follows the artist’s debut show with Timothy Taylor in New York a few months ago. During the preview, the gallery placed two delicate pastels for $7,500 and two oil paintings priced respectively at $9,000 and $9,500.
The preview day proved a resounding success for Monique Meloche, who sold out her solo presentation of Jake Troyli’s work, including a major institutional acquisition, with prices ranging from $3,500 to $45,000. The booth marked Troyli’s New York solo debut, coinciding with the conclusion of his two-year residency at Project for Empty Space, where he will open a solo exhibition this fall. Looking ahead, the artist is already slated for his first museum survey at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, scheduled for early 2027.
Also on the same floor, Italian gallery Vistamare is presenting a series of new works by Rosa Barba, coinciding with the opening of her solo exhibition at MoMA—another milestone in her steadily ascending institutional trajectory, which in the past year alone has included multiple biennials and major presentations at Tate, LACMA, and other leading museums. Known for her rigorous and poetic investigations into the language of film, Barba manipulates celluloid as both medium and image, using light, text, and sound to explore the materiality of cinema and its potential to capture, distort, or disrupt memory. At Independent, the gallery is showcasing a more minimal body of work, where these strategies take on a distilled intensity. Prices range from €38,000 to €160,000, with the gallery reporting strong interest—particularly from institutional collectors.
Nearby Management, in collaboration with London gallery Nicoletti, presents three large-scale, densely saturated canvases by Slovenia-born artist Nana Wolke. Characterized by a materially layered approach to the canvas, Wolke examines the mechanisms of perception—how we experience space, time and power within contemporary society. Her process begins with filmic, theatrical stagings, which she captures digitally and later reimagines as charged painted scenes that probe themes of vulnerability, control and surveillance. By the end of the first day, all three works were on hold.
Moving to the next floor, Parisian gallery Parliement presents a solo exhibition by Moroccan artist Achraf Touloub, who was also featured in the most recent Venice Biennale. Through a series of intricate gestural marks that animate his seemingly abstract canvases, Touloub seeks to visualize the invisible digital and energetic networks that link individuals even amid urban isolation and alienation. The result is a compelling and layered meditation on contemporary existence, characterized by both psychological depth and sensory engaging color composition. The gallery presold a large painting for $34,000 ahead of the opening, but then yesterday placed another canvas for $18,000 and both the two remaining paintings in the booth are now on hold with prices $23,000 and $26,000. The artist is already in notable collections including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Cnap Collection (Centre national des arts plastiques), France; the Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt am Main; and the Sander Collection, Darmstadt, Musée Rochechouart, France.
Tomio Koyama Gallery stood out with a solo presentation of highly detailed, airbrush-style paintings by Japanese artist Satoru Kurata, marking his successful U.S. debut. Blending analog technique with digital illusion, Kurata is quickly emerging as a distinctive voice in the new wave of Japanese abstraction. Drawing on themes of “worthlessness and beauty,” his work fuses surrealist forms, digital cartoon vignettes and sly humor that reflect on the follies and failures of human behavior—rendered with such somber and comforting charm they’re impossible to resist. On the fair’s opening day, the gallery placed twelve of his works in varying sizes, all priced at $29,000 or below.
There was a meaningful mix of playfulness and humor in a complete set of ceramic cleaning products and other bathroom objects and furniture crafted by American artist Michelle Grabner as a subtle commentary on the logic of labor and consumption. It was listed both as the entire installation and individually, with very democratic pricing ranging from $800 to $3,000. In other words, you can buy a toilet paper roll that will never run out. Abattoir told Observer they easily sold several of these accessibly priced small sculptures and art objects, but also received strong interest from private collectors for Michelle’s large-scale works, particularly the Janitorial Cart. Only three iterations of the full piece exist—one was acquired by the Kohler Art Center and another by a private collection. This is the last one available, and it’s getting attention.
A similarly witty interrogation of consumer culture and everyday consumption lies at the core of Lucia Hierro’s hyperrealistic soft sculptures, presented by Swivel Gallery in their Independent debut on the upper floor. Addressing 21st-century capitalism through the intersectional lens of her Dominican American upbringing in Washington Heights, Hierro transforms quotidian products into “simulacra”—elevated as markers of social behavior and economic systems. Drawing on art history, pop culture and Latino vernacular, she slyly reimagines Judd’s iconic Stacks as a bodega chip rack—liberating the form both from its vernacular utilitarian function and sterile conceptualism to assert it instead as a symbol of identity, place and cultural memory. By the end of the first day, Swivel had placed seven pieces, priced between $8,000 and $25,000. Hierro’s work has previously been exhibited at institutions including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, El Museo del Barrio, the Bronx Museum and the Museum of Arts and Design. “Independent has always been one of my favorite fairs to attend as a spectator for its tight curation and ability to bring in some of the most prominent collectors around,” said Swivel’s founder, Graham Wilson. “A stellar first day—and we’re already looking forward to next year.”
Close by, Tribeca-based gallery YveYANG presented Allan Rand’s soulful paintings alongside Huidi Xiang’s striking sculptural meditations on pop and digital culture. Drawing from Nintendo and other animated icons of her childhood, the Chinese artist analyzes the political and societal tensions between creative intuition and machine production, all embedded within deceptively familiar forms. Her sculpture at Independent features an Opi Kirby seated within a metal structure supported by oversized Mickey Mouse hands—an installation that plays with the illusion between soft and hard materials while navigating the line between playful and problematic imagery.
Esther spotlights Eastern Europe’s creativity and experimental languages
Preceding even Frieze, the second edition of Esther art fair opened earlier this week at the historic Estonian House in Midtown. Positioned as a more curated and research-driven counterpoint to the other fairs in the city, this year’s edition features twenty-five carefully selected galleries with a strong presence from Estonia and Eastern Europe. Behind the initiative is Estonian-born New York dealer Margot Samel, who co-founded the fair last year alongside Olga Temnikova, building what is swiftly becoming a vital platform for cross-border curatorial inquiry. “The atmosphere of Esther is warm and welcoming, devoid of hierarchies and boundaries,” the founders told Observer at the end of opening day. “Since Esther is now firmly on the art fair map, we’ve had more visitors and more sales—nearly every gallery has reported sales or strong interest. Because of the compact nature of this New York fair week, we also feel there is a sense of urgency, and the next days are still going to be very important in terms of transactions.”
Among the first striking impressions came from Sargent’s Daughters, which activated the building’s entrance hall with a kinetic installation by Rachel Yun, a recent Yale MFA graduate. Her animated robotic sculptures—hybrid assemblages of mechanical parts and organic-looking forms—greeted visitors in a time-bending foyer like uncanny hosts. By the third day, one had already found a new home, signaling early momentum for the young artist’s playful technopoetics.
Margot Samel’s booth offered an inventive display centered around a pool table repurposed as a sculptural plinth, showcasing multimedia works by the late Leroy Johnson. Known for his raw, assemblage-based recreations of urban relics from West Philadelphia, Johnson’s domestic miniatures channel a vernacular DIY monumentality. Priced between $18,000 and $22,000, the presentation followed an almost sold-out solo show at the gallery earlier this year. It was flanked by a mixed-media painting by Cathleen Clarke—fresh off her debut at Night Gallery in L.A.—and a work by Estonian painter Marian Matsi, who will open her first New York solo at Margot Samel this July.
In the main hall, New York dealer Tara Downs showcased bold mixed-media works by Czech artist Preslav Kostov, selling two paintings for $16,000 and $20,000 in the opening days. Nearby, Latvia’s KIM? Gallery presented Viktor Timofeev’s eerie, gamified urban landscapes—digitally inflected scenes that hover between post-Soviet detritus and speculative architecture—which paired seamlessly with Indrikis Gelzis’s precarious sculptural assemblages. One of Gelzis’s works sold early in the fair.
Upstairs, in the fair’s neoclassical blue salon, The Bank presents delightfully uncanny miniature works by Wen Jue, selling half of them by the third day. Next to them, Budapest-based Longtermhandstand shows Gideon Orvayeh’s quietly stunning sculptures, which meld beeswax and ceramics into forms that oscillate between the mythological and the microbiological. Priced between $1,200 and $4,000, the gallery placed one on the first day, but it has already secured eight international exhibitions in the year ahead—testament to the accelerating interest in his hybrid material language.
Also in the upper floor’s main space, Mrs. Gallery unveiled a new carved-wood and textile sculpture by Rose Nestler, pushing her exploration of surreal, feminized forms into more sculptural terrain. Nearby, Montreal’s Pangée Gallery staged a delightfully subversive vignette atop a piano, where Brandon Morris’s intricate sculptures transformed antique teapots into seductive queer assemblages, each one bound in leather and layered with erotic tension and domestic unease. Pairing Morris’s works with the lyrical paintings by Claire Milbrath, the gallery sold out the latter in the first three days.
One floor up, Estonian gallery Kogo delivered one of the fair’s most unsettling experiences with Eike Eplik’s hybrid ceramic-and-human-hair sculptures. Perched on wiry metal structures or creeping along the gallery walls, her creations resemble parasitic organisms or half-formed creatures—sublimely strange, materially intense and priced between $1,800 and $8,900.
Future Fair as a platform for discoveries
Celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, Future Fair is one of the more accessible platforms on the art fair circuit—not only for collectors but also for a growing community of young galleries, independent projects and artist-run spaces. This edition marked a clear step forward in curatorial vision and research-driven presentations, offering fertile ground for discoveries on the cutting edge of emerging art. As the fair continues to solidify its place in New York’s increasingly dense art calendar, its May 7 opening saw aisles quickly filling, with several exhibitors reporting early sales.
“There’s a different type of vibrant energy within the fair that makes it very welcoming as soon as you walk in,” Haylee Barsky, founder of Visionary Projects, told Observer. “Ours is a collaborative platform by nature, so it’s been refreshing to see how galleries are coming together in the space, especially now. There’s a high quality of people and a real sense of community.” Run by Barsky alongside her partner Blayne Planit, the young gallery and art platform highlighted the functionality of art with a presentation featuring three female emerging artists—Alex Maceda, Amelia Briggs and Austiin Fields—whose work sits at the intersection of art and design. The gallery reported selling half their inventory of one artist’s work on VIP day alone, along with multiple blown-glass sculptural bowls.
Among the most interesting discoveries one could make at Future Fair this year, independent curator Tif XB is spotlighting the work of young, talented Indian artist Paree Rohera, featuring a selection of her seductive compositions characterized by a unique blend of personal memories, mythologies and ancestral symbologies. Two of the artist’s works sold immediately during the VIP preview—one to a collector new to her practice, and one to savvy art collector and real estate broker Jonathan Travis, who first saw Rohera’s thesis at RIDS. The most significant work was confirmed later in the day by another notable couple of collectors, Leslie and Michael Weissman. All the works were priced between $3,000 and $5,800—quite a deal for such a promising artist. After this successful debut in New York City, Rohera already has three residencies lined up at Wassaic Project and Mass MoCA with a second session at Anderson Ranch.
Layering personal and ancestral memory in search of an in-between space to question identity and lineage, the work of Armenian-Syrian American artist Rachel Hakimian Emenaker was presented by newcube. Working exclusively in batik, Emenaker engages materially and symbolically with the medium’s potential to reconnect with matrilineal heritage. Through the slow, deliberate process of wax-resist dyeing, she transfers fragments of personal and familial memory onto fabric—allowing images and stories to surface, sediment and reconfigure across the textile’s surface in an act of remembrance, rooted in repetition and reemergence. With prices ranging between $3,100 and $10,000, the largest work was awarded the Artlogic Best Booth Prize and was acquired by 21c Museum Hotel.
Presented by Sabroso!, Puerto Rican artist Larissa De Jesús Negrón explores an intersectional space where memory, dreams and the subconscious converge to reveal deeper truths of the self in relation to both past and present. Her large canvas on view at Future Fair is oneirically surreal, capturing the artist’s full immersion in the natural world and spiritual energies of the island, following her recent return to Puerto Rico to build a home and family. The work marks a reconnection with her familial past, rendered through vibrant compositions that channel the lush, tropical landscape with transporting emotional engagement. Despite her growing international profile—including collaborations with brands like Zara and Netflix—her works remain accessibly priced between $2,500 and $10,000.
Female artists and narratives dominate the fair this year, complemented by the talk series Matrona Salon, which brings together curators, collectors, artists and cultural workers for intimate discussions that highlight care-based, collaborative and community-focused approaches to collecting and supporting women in the arts.
Some male exhibitors are also championing women artists, as seen in the nomadic AR project led by curator Archie Raphalu, which at the fair spotlights a curated selection of works by Madjeen Isaac, Sabrina Mendoza, Vyczie and Opal Mae Ong. Together, their practices weave a rich dialogue around place, personal symbologies, diasporic longing and the emotional weight of objects and materiality in retrieving familial narratives.
Among the returning exhibitors, smoke the moon offered a more whimsical pairing with Los Angeles–based artists Hye-Shin Chun and Matthew Rosenquist. In Chun’s work, interior and exterior spaces fold into one another, merging within a single plane of the subconscious or poetic imagination, where figuration and abstraction, sensory reality and psychological dimension blur. Rosenquist’s wooden sculptures, meanwhile, seem to leap from an absurd dream, distorted yet somehow more revealing, as if exposing reality’s truer form through a process of carving that reveals deeper levels.
Meanwhile, the female-led Soho Revue from London—showing concurrently at NADA—presents an engaging pairing at Future Fair with new works by Anne Carney Raines and Grace Tobin. Drawing from her background in scenic painting, Carney Raines constructs intricately layered compositions of portals, windows and doorways that suggest a multidimensional perception of space, where the physical landscape becomes inseparable from psychological and emotional projection. In contrast, Grace Tobin turns inward, focusing on domestic interiors to examine how everyday objects accrue emotional resonance, eventually embodying memory, identity and personal history. Together, their works trace how physical environments—external and internal—shape and are shaped by the emotional lives they hold. With both artists priced under $10,000, the gallery already placed several works during the preview.
Galeria Laetitia Gorsy also reported strong sales of several works by German artist Josefine Schulz, whose vibrant large-scale paintings and sculptural ceramic dogs create an immersive installation exploring relationships – human and animal – of resilience, community, and emotional support. In a city as dynamic as New York, this exploration of connection. Thomas Martinez Pilnik, co-founder of Feia, noted that five pieces had sold within the first moments of the fair. “A truly frenetic day in the best of ways,” he told Observer, describing the opening as “a symphony of sales, brilliant conversations and exciting new connections.”
