The Shed is teeming with an art-world menagerie this week, and not just the collectors, curators, advisers and museum directors wandering its halls. The stands at Frieze New York house a biodiverse array of animal artworks, from a loopy dog sculpture and a painting of an iconic rodent to a feathery assemblage and a blanket featuring a gravity-defying feline. We tracked down some of the fair’s most exceptional specimens.
Elmgreen & Dragset, Social Media (White Poodle) (2023), Massimodecarlo (pictured at top of page)
The Berlin-based artist duo known for humorous, tongue-in-cheek sculpture is at it again with a series of four adorable dogs made of faux fur and resin—there are also a terrier, a grey poodle and a border collie (not on sale here)—spinning slowly on hypnotic spirals. Michael Elmgreen says that, as the name suggests, these works are all about “the days you go online and your social-media feed is overflowing with videos of cute dogs doing funny things, and you start feeling slightly dizzy and that your everyday life is going in a loop”. Experience this feeling sans phone in your own home for €200,000.
Yuichi Hirako, Green Master 90 (2024), The Modern Institute
Yuichi Hirako, Green Master 90 (2024), at The Modern Institute Steven Molina Contreras
The Tokyo-based artist Yuichi Hirako “incorporates this tree-man figure into many of his works”, says The Modern Institute’s Calum Sutherland: “He’s probing the ambiguity and messiness of our relationship with nature.” In addition to holding a cat, the tree man in Green Master 90 is flanked by a pair of snakes, a biblical allusion to our precarious existence. The painting is priced under $50,000.
Andy Robert, Untitled (2023), Michael Werner
Andy Robert, Untitled (2023), at Michael Werner Steven Molina Contreras
The Haiti-born, Brooklyn-based artist, originally a painter who has more recently turned to sculpture, makes assemblages from found items that often reference his personal history. Michael Robert has also worked birds into previous pieces; he happens to share a birthplace with John James Audubon but, unlike the naturalist, Robert is Black. The specific story behind this mesmerising work comprising a taxidermied ibis, shovel and chair remains a mystery, but the untitled work, priced at $140,000, was already on reserve by the start of Frieze’s second day.
Peter Wächtler, Untitled (Dog) (2020), Dépendance
Peter Wächtler, Untitled (Dog) (2020), at Dépendance Steven Molina Contreras
Curled at the centre of the Brussels-based gallery Dépendance’s stand sits a very good boy, rendered from one piece of shaped leather by the multi-disciplinary artist Peter Wächtler. “It does not immediately read as a dog, but as you come around it and see the snout and the folded paws, then it becomes clear,” says Louis-Philippe Van Eeckhoutte, a director at Dépendance. The sculpture’s subtle charms were effective: by the start of Frieze’s second day, it had been sold for an undisclosed price.
Keith Mayerson, Steamboat Willie (2024), Karma
Keith Mayerson, Steamboat Willie (2024), at Karma Steven Molina Contreras
An absolutely tireless painter of American iconography from all walks of life, politics and pop culture, the California-based Keith Mayerson has perhaps unsurprisingly taken on one of that state’s most famous animals: Walt Disney’s precursor to Mickey Mouse, Steamboat Willie, newly in the public domain. The artist was drawn to the famous critter, rendered here against a quasi-Impressionistic landscape, in part “because it’s a very optimistic image”, says a gallery representative.
Josh Smith, Happy Fish (2015), Xavier Hufkens
Josh Smith, Happy Fish (2015), at Xavier Hufkens Steven Molina Contreras
This oil painting comes from a series of renderings of fish by the New York-based artist. As the gallery itself describes it, “Smith often paints fish, not because they hold any special significance, but because they are such familiar creatures as to require little further analysis.” A collector can hook this one for $150,000.
Feliciano Centurión, Untitled (1993), Ortuzar Projects
Feliciano Centurión, Untitled (1993), at Ortuzar Projects Steven Molina Contreras
The late Paraguay-born, Buenos Aires-based artist Feliciano Centurión (1962-96) liked to buy blankets at local markets and paint on them instead of on canvas. This tiger (together with an eagle on the adjacent wall of the Ortuzar Projects stand) represents a “queering of painting and of the subject matter itself”, says one of the gallery’s directors, noting that these animals are often associated with stereotypical masculinity. “It’s a kitsch aesthetic but with beautiful poignant moments.” There are three blankets at the stand, ranging in price from $75,000 to $250,000.
