The leading New York fair brings together the perfect mix of antique, vintage and contemporary collectible design.
Perhaps the most elegant and prestigious of New York City’s myriad art and design fairs—especially as it holds court in the highly ornate, Gothic Revival Park Avenue Armory—TEFAF New York highlights a smart selection of rare finds in everything from silverware by Josef Hoffmann and Klimt drawings to Ancient Greek painted urns and experimental Pierre Paulin settees from the 1970s. There is, emphatically, something for every collector.
Though a smaller offshoot of the main Maastricht event held in March, this 90-exhibitor-strong offering packs its own punch. Programmed in the middle of a particularly exhaustive and ever-expanding May calendar in New York, TEFAF NY 2024—10 to 14 May—straddles Frieze Week and New York Design Week (NYCxDesign), held on either end of the month. As the increasingly outdated boundaries between ‘high’ fine art and so-called ‘low’ design and craft blur, so they do in this fair. Effect previews key highlights from this year’s exhibit, revealing its full breadth in terms of style, application and typology.
Cabinet by Wendell Castle, R & Company, New York
Big-three New York collectible design gallery R & Company is presenting an assortment of one-off works from its ever-expanding roster of contemporary and historical talents. A trailblazer in the American Studio movement of the late-20th century, Wendell Castle mastered the ability to hone both wood and fiberglass in cohesively sinuous furnishings.
Early Cycladic Spouted Bowl, Ariadne, London
London purveyor Ariadne is one the leading authorities on Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Eurasian, Near Eastern and Byzantine artifacts. As part of its cabinet of curiosity showcase at this year’s event, the gallery will reveal a rare spouted bowl dating from the Early Greek Cycladic Period (2700 BC). This functional vessel was used for the ritualistic practice of pouring out paint and oils.
Miroir aux Alouettes and Astéroïde by Line Vautrin, Galerie Chastel-Maréchal, Paris
Astéroïde mirror (L) and Miroir aux Alouettes (R) by Line Vautrin, circa 1965 (Photos: Marina Gusina)
Paris’s Galerie Chastel-Maréchal’s has tapped celebrated contemporary talent Jean de Piepape to outfit its display at this year’s fair, which will include rare historical finds by Jean Royère and Eileen Gray—who is also the subject of a unique digital and physical exhibition on view at the Tribeca showroom of New York design studio Egg Collective. Line Vautrin’s especially whimsical and carefully ornate yet restrained Miroir aux Alouettes and Astéroïde are also on view.
Choi Myoung Young Retrospective, The Page Gallery, Seoul
“In my work, l impose conditions on my painting process to help the paintings achieve their fundamental state, which is, ultimately, a flat plane,” says South Korean painter Choi Myoung Young. Since beginning his career in the 1960s, the artist has developed an extensive body of work interpreting the Dansaekhwa tradition: deeply patterned and almost meditatively applied monochromatic canvas. Making its debut at the fair, Seoul-based The Page Gallery will mount a carefully curated retrospective of his work in one of Park Avenue Armory’s 16 period rooms.
Tower Hills chair by Virgil Abloh, Galerie Kreo, London & Paris
British multi-hyphenate Virgil Abloh was a master at riffing on the iconographies of everyday life we often take for granted. The 2021, bronze-cast Tower Hills chair was no different as it played on and combined the forms we often find on city streets. This emblematic example of the late talent is on view with London and Paris powerhouse platform Galerie Kreo.
Jenny Holzer’s Top Secret 3, Sprüth Magers, New York
New York contemporary art gallery Spürth Magers is displaying works from three of its revered talents: Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger and Rosemarie Trockel. All three began their careers in the 1980s and have developed individual ways of synthesizing cultural commentary. Case in point: Holzer’s Top Secret 3 painting, part of the Reductions series. A 1975 cabinet on view at the fair stands testament to that prowess.
Ingrid Donat’s Console Koumba, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, global
Another fixture of the New York collectible design scene, along with those of Paris, London, and Los Angeles, Carpenters Workshop Gallery will present a group show with many of its most promising talents including Maarten Baas, Studio DRIFT, Vincenzo De Cotiis, and others. Ingrid Donat’s 2018, bronze Console Koumba is set to be a show stopper. Comprising a multitude of concentric squares cast using this ancient lost wax casting process, the carefully articulated furnishing carries presence.
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