Superfine! Brings Unstuffy Art Fair Experience to Soho for Third Annual May Show

Press Release April 4, 2019

Courtesy Superfine!

Call Me by Your Preferred Pronoun Special Project featuring Adam Chuck

Basquiat and Warhol once roamed these streets, but there’s a new kid in town. Enter Superfine! Art Fair. Equal parts punk rock spirit and accessible art market innovation, Superfine! brings a new look and location to its 2019 New York fair, leaving the Meatpacking and landing at 107 Grand Street in Soho from May 1-5. A transparent, approachable player in an often stuffy and opaque art market, Superfine! believes that buying art should be a simple process and that an art fair should be an enjoyable atmosphere where anyone who wants to collect art can do so.

Superfine! NYC’s roster particularly emphasizes queer art, including the Call Me By Your Preferred Pronoun special project by Brooklyn artist Adam Chuck. The artist’s Polaroid-style paintings specially commissioned by the fair’s directors evoke the continued narrative of Oliver and Elio in last year’s Oscar-winning film—reimagined in the personage of the broader LGBTQ+ community. Provincetown’s On Center Gallery will also present their first fair booth blending homegrown charm with cutting-edge LGBTQ+ new contemporary work by artists including Andrew Moncrief and Thom Jackson.

Other exhibition highlights include mysterious Brooklyn-based artist Andy Blank, whose none-too-understated mission is to create “f*&%ing awesome” artwork under $200 using museum-quality materials. As rumors swirl about the real identity of the artist, their first major fair install will take place at Superfine! NYC.

Courtesy Superfine!

Andy Blank, Paint Pour, 12x12in, Paint on board, $135

New York’s Untitled Space, fresh from their much-lauded “Eden” presentation at curatorial darling SPRING/BREAK will show fiercely feminist and political works by artists from NYC and abroad. New Orleans and Santa Fe’s Antieau Gallery will present self-taught artist Chris Roberts-Antieau’s work in their second Superfine! Booth, DC being the first. Chris’ signature tapestry-based mixed media paintings pull from a variety of source material ranging from pop culture absurdism to traditional NoLA occult imagery.

“It’s great to be back in New York after touring the country for our past three fairs - DC, Miami, LA. This is our home town and we can really test the boundaries between accessible and challenging art here - and of course the hometown base of artists and galleries in New York and within a five hour radius of the city is second to none. We’re especially thrilled to bring our diverse, accessible approach to Soho, in many ways the origin point of contemporary art in New York” says fair director Alex Mitow.

The fair’s panel program trains a keen eye on art world politics and current topics that spur spirited dialogue, namely censorship and accountability:

"Why the F*^& Not: How Censorship is Hurting the Art World" will discuss controversies like Dana Schutz's Emmett Till painting in the Whitney Bienniale to the removal of John William Waterhouse's "Hylas and the Nymphs" from the Manchester Art Gallery, and facilitate a conversation around why censorship of both past and contemporary work harms artists' ability to express themselves, and how art establishments can solve this problem while keeping sensitive issues in mind.

And: "Who's Footing the Bill? Moral Accountability in the Art Market (and how a more accessible, transparent system solves the problem)”. This panel will focus, among other topics, on the assassination of Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, by a Saudi Royal who's also (likely) the mystery buyer behind the $450 million Da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, along with hundreds of other master, modern, and contemporary works. This begs the important question "How can we find accountability in a world shrouded in secrecy, and how can a more transparent art market solve this moral dilemma?"

Superfine! NYC will take place from May 1-5 at 107 Grand Street in Soho, Manhattan. Tickets are available at superfinenyc.eventbrite.com and include complimentary beer or wine for fairgoers.