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~ Posted by Hazel Sheffield, May 9th 2012

Where in New York would you put a very big tent? As Frieze’s co-founder Amanda Sharp said, “The true story is that I opened Google Maps and looked for big green spaces.” The one she found was on an island that nestles under the hulking Robert Kennedy Bridge between Manhattan and Queens. Once home to a mental asylum and public burial ground, Randall’s Island is now best known for its parkland, tennis academy and athletics track.  

For a tent, the New York-based architects SO-IL created a snaking marquee whose curves follow the contours of the island. Tumbleweed rolled around in the grass outside the tent (installed by Latifa Echakhch) to heighten our sense of the wild. The festive tone was struck by artist Joel Kyack, who had worked in booths at state country fairs as a child. He manned a game truck, inviting people to roll a ball into the lips of a yawning mouth.

This will be the 10th year of Frieze in London, and demand from New York's gallery owners for something similar persuaded Frieze's founders to try their first one here: of the 180 galleries participating from 30 nations, 60 are American. But the location also provides a powerful new context for the art. In the "Frame" section, reserved for galleries less than six years old, Night Gallery from Los Angeles showcased a nightmarish bedroom installation concocted of black tape, video and mirrors by Samara Golden called "Bad Brains", a reminder that Randall’s Island still houses a psychiatric ward. 

Going round, there were plenty of fun moments too: a huge plaster nose protruded into the aisle; a blue plastic Disney dwarf grinned at us from one of the nooks; up close, a wall of chicken wire by the Romanian cartoonist Dan Perjovschi turned into a mesh of tiny drawings of people.   read more »

Diego Rivera's murals, made in 1931 and on show at MoMA, are luminous paintings which still carry potent messages ...  read more »

Philip Glass is 75 this year, and he shows no sign of slowing down. New York celebrates with a season of performances ...   read more »

"All", an exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan's art at the Guggenheim in New York, is an audacious anti-retrospective ...  read more »

A new exhibition about Cecil Beaton's career in America brings his singular sensibility into sharp focus, says John McIntyre ...  read more »

Remembering the furious poetry of Gil Scott-Heron ...  read more »

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has staged a fitting tribute to Alexander McQueen, a complicated and brilliant man ...  read more »

An influential (and often overlooked) Flemish painter who invested a rare bit of heat in his mythological nudes ...
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This collection of some 20 works by Cézanne is the best show in London ...  read more »

A record number of shows are closing, with producers millions in the hole. Kimberly Kaye considers what went wrong ...  read more »