There was a rooftop lemonade stand for yesterday’s preview of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) fair and its young entrepreneurs were rocking the sour stuff in personalized ‘I Heart NY’ mugs. This was the third time that the Children’s Museum of the Arts Fundraising, and alongside refreshments there was also art for sale: a drawing of a dog in a field (labeled “dog”), an abstract collage of felt and colored paper, and a sculpture of a figure lemon-faced.

After walking through four floors of tight stalls, it seems to fit the fair’s back-to-basics vibe. Let’s not forget that children are instinctive artistssaid the organization’s Geneviève Martin, and both Rothko and Picasso were avid collectors of children’s works.

Nearby, on the roof, is a spellbinding video work by Morehshin Allahyari, a composite of AI-generated images that counter the gendered gaze of 18th-century Persian portraiture. It stands out as a genuinely compelling use of AI in art, but also as something of a NADA outlier.

Morehshin Allahyari, Facing the moon (2022). Photo: courtesy of management.

“I consider it urgent,” said Anton Svyatsky, founder of the Management gallery, which exhibits the work. “I like to take risks.” Svyatsky is one of the few to do so here, at least in a numerical direction. Recent years may have seen a uncomfortable dance between Web3 evangelists and touch purists, but the latter camp, for now, is back on top.

If people seek comfort in difficult times, relief is often Free through 88 exhibitors presented at the fair from May 19 to 21 is painting, often of domestic spaces. There are many paintings of beds, bedrooms and kitchen tables, possibly the result of a pandemic hangover.

An example is Aaron Maier-Carretero. His “A Lobster Named Dinner” series of paintings – so named because he had a pet lobster as a child named Dinner – captures his home and reworks family interiors from photos. Maier-Carretero, represented by Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, believes that trends in the art world come and go in sudden spurts.

Aaron MaierCarretero, Couple (2023). Image: Courtesy Artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.

“We had a wave of NFTs, but it went back to formalism,” he said. During the peak days of NFT in 2020, he turned down many offers that came in via Instagram for mint work. “I like dust, paint, glue,” he said. “Painting is something I can rely on, these spaces are available to me.”

Few household objects have become more familiar in the age of working from home than houseplants. David Kennedy Cutler’s photo is transferred to canvas at Halsey McKay Gallery, those he calls inkjet frescoes, seem alive. He layers plants on top of each other with tendrils growing on webs and roots breaking flattened terracotta pots. You might be tempted to water them, but it doesn’t have to be, they are vibrant and healthy.

david kennedy Set of cutlers (study) (2023). Photo: Courtesy Halsey McKay Gallery.

The works pair well with those of the Filipino-American weaver Alain Behn, presented by Ontopo Gallery. Alan is currently pursuing a Fulbright and studying indigenous Filipino weaving techniques. The artist’s works combine bamboo leaves, electrical cords, rattan, plastic construction fencing and more – a mix of synthetic and natural materials commonly found in household objects.

“It’s like an explosion of minimal,” said gallery director Jon Santos. “They hold their shape really well, if you don’t touch them.” Oh, but you will.

Alain Behn Station of the Cross 1 (2021). Photo: courtesy Ontopo.

In the meantime, The hole the gallery recreates the house entirely with a log cabin fitted with a tartan carpet. Inside are airbrushed faux hunting scenes by Matt Belkan artist far from Oregon whom the gallery discovered on Instagram.

Director Ray Bulman sees Belk’s popularity as part of a broader dedigitization. “Everyone preached that [digital] gospel for 18 months, but it stopped,” Bulman said. “It used to have a cache, but now NFT is a code word for evil.”

Belk was a hit in both New York and Paris, Bulman said, and it’s easy to see why: the works of scruffy wolves and dumb-eyed dogs prancing through colorful wilderness are a playful pastiche of the outside world.

Papa Joe, subway rat, New York Trash Can, Wilson Basketball (2023). Photo: Superhouse/Luis Corzo.

Speaking of animals that break through their natural habit, a pair of works that consistently caught the attention of New Yorkers were the sculptor’s “Subway Rat” and “NYC Trashcan.” daddy joe at Superhouse. The Ghanaian’s practice emerges from the tradition of carving figurative coffins – a coffin in the shape of a fish for a fisherman or a carrot for a farmer – and inside the two enamel works, Joe has created space to place ashes – or desperately scribbled prayers.

As the city prepares to introduce new garbage regulations in his endless war with rodents, the timing of Joe’s work at NADA couldn’t be better.

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