This week’s procession of art fairs, including the Armory Show, NADA, and Independent, reveals a good look into the direction of the art world.
What the new direction promises is diversity—a welcomed intersectionality of gender, race, and sexuality.
The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) is a non-profit arts organization dedicated to showcasing new voices in contemporary art and culture. After the success of last year’s fair, held for the first time in March, NADA is committed to its new place in the global art calendar. NADA includes a diverse group of institutions, non-profit organizations, collectives, publications, and companies working with contemporary art.
From March 8-11, the 60,000 square feet Skylight Clarkson Square will be occupied by galleries, installations, and a stage space for NADA Presents—a series of conversations, performances, and events during the art fair.
Paintings by Cheyenne Julien. Courtesy of artist and Smart Objects.
Cheyenne Julien is a Bronx-based artist preoccupied with themes of race, sex, and geopolitics. Julien’s use of color exposes how certain races and their particularities are perceived by society, while her black and white paintings capture a mood of isolation and existentialism. The cartoonish nature of her works presents the paintings’ narratives as darkly humorous and hypnagogic. Lauren Pulido’s essay Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California (2000) has been an influence in her exploration of race and geography.
Genesis Belanger, “Un-biased Observer,” 2018. Courtesy of artist and Mrs. Gallery.
Belanger’s personified objects, such as her piece “Unbiased Observer,” beg for a narrative. They seem to be characters from a fantasy novel, temporarily frozen in a liminal space. Belanger’s details, such as the earrings and glove, plunge the sculpture into a gray space between human and inanimate—simultaneously provoking curiosity and discomfort. Her washed out pallet adds to the eerie, surrealistic nature of her works, while her pristine finish seems to insist on an almost subversive redefinition of elegance and domesticity.
Jonathan Lyndon Chase, “Them sitting at table,” 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Company Gallery.
Jonathan Lyndon Chase often depicts the queer male body in his artworks; their naked bodies are vulnerable yet emotional and rebellious. In an interview for the Color Hour, Chase expresses, “Our bodies are always policed by others, who don’t inhabit our stories and struggles…The bodies in my work are not perverse, but just as normal and mundane as heterosexual and cisgendered interactions with bodies.” His artworks echo exclamations of queer love and black identity.
For the full programming schedule and a comprehensive list of exhibitors, visit newartdealers.org
