Why Frieze Sculpture Represents New Chapter For New York Fair

Visitors to Rockefeller Center in Manhattan this week are greeted by a monumental female head covering their eyes with their hands – the universal gesture I can not look anymore. Made in white resin by sculptor Jaume Plensa, "Behind the Walls" is one of 20 works planted in and around the Rockefeller Center for Frieze Sculpture, a free and public arm of the Frieze art fair that is held annually on Randall Island.

"It's a bit like I feel every morning," says Brett Littman, Curator of Frieze Sculpture. "You put your hands on your eyes and you leave," I can not believe we're going to have to face another day like this. "

Frieze Sculpture, which will last until the end of June, includes works by artists such as Plensa, Nick Cave and Ibrahim Mahama, scattered throughout the Rockefeller Center, in order to please walkers as much casual than scheduled visitors. With 30 feet high, Plensa is the most striking.

"It's a very direct piece," says Plensa. "Often we blind ourselves with our hands to be in a more comfortable position." On a personal level, he hopes the sculpture will work as a "mirror," in which "you can look inward and think about your opinions, your attitudes, what you do in your own life. But this is also intended to raise questions about the function of exclusion and walls on a global scale. "Everyone wants to protect themselves," he says, against people "whom we consider as strangers."

Frieze Sculpture has been a success at the Frieze show in London since 2005, but this is the first time it has opened in another city. It is a strategic attempt to make the fair more accessible, literally and figuratively. Randall's Island, although technically in Manhattan, is sometimes perceived as very far away: an article in the New York Observer in 2012 on the first edition of the fair in New York was entitled "Frieze Art Fair arrives at Randall's Island! So, how are you going to get there? And the journey of journalist Dantesque from the continent.

"Coming to an art fair is very intentional," says Victoria Siddall, director of Frieze Fairs. "You must know that you are interested in art, that you will buy a ticket and that you will come to see it that day. And one of the most beautiful things about the sculpture exhibition is that people will fall on it. "

Frieze Sculpture is "an opportunity for us to make a contribution to the city and to do something free and outdoor for everyone," she adds. "The fair only lasts five days and we sell tickets, so only a limited number of people can see it. While this sounds a lot more open and free, and many more people can potentially benefit from it. "

Although the exhibition has no official theme, many works deal with speech, power and inequality. A cave sculpture shows a raised fist emerging from the base of a gramophone horn to the old. The artist Hank Willis Thomas has created great speech bubbles in which we read "News", the emblematic stainless steel relief of Isamu Noguchi dating back to 1940, from the time the Rockefeller Center housed the Associated Press.

The bubbles are naturally, of course, very Instagrammables: "I thought a lot about creating photo moments," explains Littman.

Brazilian artist Paulo Nazareth has installed aluminum sculptures by Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr, Ruby Bridges and Tommie Smith, gold medalist in the United States, defending civil and legitimate rights, at the 1968 Olympic Games.

Littman also uses the most iconic functions of the Rockefeller Center: the colorful flags that usually ring on the rink are replaced by jute bags, used to transport products to Ghana, the country of origin of the Ibrahim artist Mahama, whose work generally reflects commerce, work and global capitalism.

The quieter and less obviously political works also abound: in a small courtyard between two planters, Kiki Smith's "Rest Upon" shows a lamb resting on a sleeping girl. Smith is one of four women represented in Frieze Sculpture; Littman says he hopes to do better in 2020.

Frieze Sculpture will return to Rockefeller Center next year, said Loring Randolph, Artistic Director of Frieze for the Americas, as part of ongoing attempts to strengthen the fair's presence in downtown Manhattan. Among these projects are Frieze Academy, a series of summits and conferences, as well as "smaller initiatives that will allow us to align with the arts community here in a way that benefits the community," according to Randolph. But Frieze Sculpture represents the most ambitious effort to date. New York, she says, "remains the epicenter of what is happening in the art world, and I think the fair and our presence here must take this into account."

Frieze Sculpture is at Rockefeller Center until June 28, frieze.com

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