Proving yet again that the New York art fair landscape is constantly shifting beneath our feet, the SPRING/BREAK Art Show is heading to Brooklyn for a new Frieze Week edition.
Focused on large-scale public art, the exhibition will be in the style of Art Basel Unlimited, but promises to retain SPRING/BREAK’s quirky appeal. It will be held at City Point, a new retail, residential office complex in Downtown Brooklyn.
The critically acclaimed fair, co-founded by husband-and-wife team Ambre Kelly and Andrew Gori, got its start in the former St. Patrick’s Old School in Soho, a space that has since been converted into condos. Following a two-year run at the historic 34th Street post office, now the Skylight at Moynihan Station and soon to be the new Moynihan Train Hall, the fair moved to 4 Times Square, the former home of Condé Nast, for 2017.
“We have always been interested in finding ways to engage with the public by showing contemporary art in atypical environments,” said Kelly in a statement. “Our foray into Downtown Brooklyn is a natural extension of this approach and our first show in this type of space.”
The fair’s second outing of the year will repeat its most recent theme, “Black Mirror,” which featured a broad range of ruminations on art and identity, often involving technological advances. The coming exhibition will also be inspired by the 1973 Mexican surrealist film The Holy Mountain.
Steven and William Ladd, Fabulous Phil. Courtesy of Todd Eberle.
“The show was conceived as a contrast to the March show—which was very object and painting based, with a focus on the socio-political, human, and figurative,” Gori told artnet News. “The May show will be its opposite, a kind of Black Mirror black mirror, featuring environments, abstractions, and scale on the macro that offers a break (if momentary) from the anthropomorphic and political.”
The City Point building is already home to a permanent 40-foot-square public mural by Steven and William Ladd, included in artnet News’ round up of spring public art installations in New York and created in conjunction with members of the local community. The property has been co-developed by Acadia Realty Trust and Washington Square Partners.
In addition, City Point will also be hosting the gala for New York’s beloved public art exhibition organizer, Creative Time. The evening will honor Opening Ceremony founders Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, and debut the Pledges of Allegiance project, featuring flags promoting political and social causes from artists including Tania Bruguera, Alex Da Corte, Jeremy Deller, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ahmet Ogut, Yoko Ono, Trevor Paglen, Pedro Reyes, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
“One of our key tenets at City Point is to support the arts, promote civic dialogue and enrich Downtown Brooklyn,” said Washington Square Partners managing partner Paul Travis in a statement, calling Creative Time and SPRING/BREAK, “leading organizations who share our vision to unite creativity and the community.”
SPRING/BREAK Art Show will be on view at City Point, 445 Albee Square West, Downtown Brooklyn; May 6–14, 2017.