Armory Week 2017: NADA Art Fair

The sixth edition of NADA art fair has opened in New York (until March 5). NADA art fair is hosted inside the imposing Skylight Clarkson North, built in 1933 to house and unload trains from the High Line track. NADA stands for New Art Dealers Alliance – a non-profit arts organization dedicated to contemporary art – and the fair is open to both members and non-members to apply.

This year, NADA and Kickstarter are partnering to present a series of conversations, performances, and events, with a dedicated stage placed at the entrance of the art fair. Audio from NADA Presents is streamed live and archived on know-wave.com.

A view of NADA New York with CAPITAL’s booth standing out

The outer ring of galleries is the actual core of NADA art fair, with larger-sized booths; the inner circle is dedicated to partners, smaller gallery installations, and publishers.

Walking along the outer ring, a few installations engage the viewer more directly with concept-based installations, rather than a collection of artworks displayed inside the same space. Among these, Moran Bondaroff’s presentation of Jacolby Satterwhite’s work gives an all-round view of the artist’s production, presenting here four computer-animated videos, along with a wallpaper displaying characters and scenes from his fantasy world, and drawings by his mother (with whom he shares collaborative projects) as references to the artist’s process.

Jacolby Satterwhite, installation view at Moran Bondaroff

Along the inner ring of booths, Bad at Sports is a nice surprise, with a trio of podcasters animately discussing over cans of different liquids while protected by a beautiful (sound-proof?) “bubble.”
Among these smaller stands, Daata Editions stands out with a simple video installation of Jacky Connolly’s Sims-video Anhedonia (2017). Generated inside a virtual reality game, the video piece has unexpected cinematographic qualities of solemn charm, successfully echoing the subtle emptiness of its initial medium. Daata Editions is an interesting project with a strong manifesto, commissioning artists limited-edition artworks on intangible media, that can be viewed and purchased as digital downloads on their website. As these are commissions, the organization makes it a point to pay the artist a fee upfront, and not just correspond royalties on sales, thus actively foraging artists, while at the same time enriching their platform.

Lastly, the recipient of the ninth NADA Artadia Award has just been announced: Josh Mannis (with Galerie Éric Hussenot at NADA art fair) will receive an unrestricted, merit-based award of $5,000, and will have access to lifetime benefits in the Artadia Awards program, with exhibition opportunities, studio visits and more professional services.

NADA New York is at Skylight Clarkson North, 572 Washington Street. March 2–5, 2017