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Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
NYCxDesign 2025 — The Essential Edit of Events to Catch in New York Next Week, Selected from Hundreds of Happenings
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. One of the world's leading capitals of culture year-round, New York transforms into an even more exciting destination come NYCxDesign, its annual festival dedicated to platforming the talents, institutions, and brands that are driving innovation in all things design forward. Launching right after the equally anticipated, global art fairs Frieze (to May 11) and TEFAF New York (to May 13), the event, whose forthcoming edition runs from May 15-21, seeks to make this field both open to and inspiring for everyone through hundreds of events between exhibitions, collection releases, trade shows, talks, and walking tours. Attracting over 200,000 visitors from across the globe every year, NYCxDesign coincides with the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF). Hosted at the Javits Center and in turn reuniting over 450 design houses, including established and emerging brands, from more than 35 countries, the initiative wants to promote the best-in-class in original and sustainable design. This is to say that, whether exploring the Big Apple on foot, peeking inside its pioneering galleries to interact with the works of local trailblazers, or choosing to gather fresh inspiration from the latest iteration of ICFF, creativity will be everywhere next week. Haven't made a plan for NYCxDesign 2025 yet? Don't worry, we've done it for you. From the best New York design hotels to stay at in town to the top 11 events to catch during the festival, and a digital map to get around more easily, the Livingetc NYCxDesign 2025 Guide has got you covered (yes, we've reported on the creative community's favorite hangouts around New York City, too). Tiwa Select, 86 Walker St floor 5, New York, NY 10013, United States. The Future Perfect, by appointment only. For all queries, contact the team From her recent collaboration with Poltrona Frau, dubbed by Livingetc as one of the best London Design Festival projects earlier last year, to her fantastical, plastered-in-artworks Camden Town studio and showroom, House of Toogood, everything Faye Toogood touches appears imbued with an agency of its own. Instinctively, the designer's work reminds me of the small, often animal or fantasy creatures-inspired papier-mâché sculptures I used to make and play with as a child. Though, of course, I don't mean to make the two in any way comparable, there is something about her craft that can't be ascribed to the actual world, as Lucid Dream, her latest collection of hand-painted furniture and lighting creations, attests. On view across Tiwa Select gallery and The Future Perfect's New York location, the show clearly comes from the heart — or perhaps from somewhere even deeper. "I needed to momentarily stop all the plates spinning around me, and focus on the swirl within," she said of the moment that led to the series featured in the exhibition. "Going inside the studio, inside my body, inside my imagination. Taking a line for a walk to reclaim and reconfigure what is my language when all is quiet." Comprising textural paper lanterns, standing lamps, and sconces bearing surreal, handmade motifs, alongside colorful, doodles-covered table sets, coffee tables, floating sculptures, armchair and foot stool sets, and room dividers characterized by Toodgood's signature blown-up volumes, Lucid Dream is where fantasy comes to life to everyone's enjoyment. To June 21. Plan your visit Artemest Galleria, 518 W 19th St, New York, NY 10011, United States Ippolita Rostagno's Artemest, whose home-inspired L'Appartamento exhibition format — presenting a domestic environment crafted on the occasion of Milan Design Week by a different roster of world-acclaimed designers each time — has become a staple of our Salone del Mobile guides, has just completed the refurbishment of its West Chelsea outpost. Formerly designed by Samuele Brianza, the newly revamped space, which comes courtesy of American interior designer Nicole Fuller, will be unveiled next week to coincide with this year's NYCxDesign. And if we know Artemest as well as we think, great things are on the way. Plan your visit. Javitz Center, 429 11th Ave, New York, NY 10001, United States Housed at ICFF's Booth #W851, part of the fair's WANTED presentation, Daniel Shapiro's Winkle Ceramic Design debut collection, Squared, is a testament to the enduring value of craftsmanship. The founder, whose great-grandfather ran the Winkle Terracotta Company in St. Louis in the late 1800s, looks back to look forward with his very own artisanal venture, where storied tradition meets the power of the latest technologies. Opting for cubic shapes over cylindrical ones, Shapiro challenges the norms of sculpture through tetris-like lamps and collectible installations that put a human spin on 3D modeling and printing. From a two-step, tech-assisted initial phase, his designs are then transferred to handmade plaster molds, which he then completes with textural marbling and limewash techniques. What comes out of it are pieces that defy time to embrace the magic of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. May 18-20. Plan your visit. Love House, 179 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002, USA Jared Heinrich and Aric Yeakey's celebrated design showroom, Love House, is inaugurating a brand new, 4,000-square-foot space with the launch of their first-ever group exhibition, The Family Show. Inviting each of the 60 participating artists and designers to interpret the theme freely, the co-founders have made room for a highly personal, evocative, and tender expression of creativity to unfold. With contributions varying from otherworldly, softly glowing lighting explorations to jewels-encrusted bas-reliefs, futuristic seating, and comforting objects rooted in notions of sharing, quotidianity, and ritualism, the exhibition debunks the understanding of the home and long-term connections as static, monotonous. Instead, through the craft of boundary-pushing talents like Forma Rosa Studio, Paolo Ferrari, Lana Launay, Jan Ernst, and Alberto Essesi, the everyday becomes extraordinary. To May 31. Get in touch with the gallery for more information. Javitz Center, 429 11th Ave, New York, NY 10001, United States What better way to glance at the future of design than through the eyes of its budding practitioners? During New York Design Week 2025, the ICFF brings back the Schools Showcase, a globe-trotting deep dive into the world's most renowned schools of design and the students who bring them to life. The format, which was established in 2022, gathers the most promising talents from each institute to introduce their work to the wider design industry, serving as a bridge between them, studios, brands, and other creative institutions. This year's participating schools include the California College of the Arts, Centro de Estudios Superiores de Diseno de Monterrey / CEDIMIED, Istituto Europeo di Design S.B.p.A., Istituto Marangoni, Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Savannah School of Art and Design (SCAD), and School of Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), among others. The event will coincide with the Best of Schools and Students Prize award ceremonies, presented with the support of Haworth. May 18-20. Plan your visit. UrbanGlass, 647 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11217, United States An oasis for aspiring and established glassware makers, since 1977 UrbanGlass has been providing a space for people to engage with and try their hand at glass-based art and design. For NYCxDesign 2025, the Agnes Varis Art Center hosts Light/Lite, an intergenerational showcase of artists turning to the medium to advance innovation in lighting design. Among the talents spotlighted are Eidos Glass' Lorin Silverman, whose choreographic, hand-blown glass sculptures are adored by the world's foremost architects, designers, and fellow creatives, 3D-printing trailblazers Evenline, revitalizing tradition through a tech-engineered approach to craftsmanship, and Jamie Harris, whose translucent, ethereal creations immortalize the movement of hot glass into abstract, deeply fascinating compositions. May 10-June 6. Plan your visit. IRL Gallery, 86 Walker St #2, New York, NY 10013, United States When researching shows to include in this roundup of the best NYCxDesign events, I was instantly hooked by the announcement of Emily Thurman's Hundō solo. Scheduled to open at IRL Gallery next week, her debut collection of furniture, lighting, and sculptural pieces blends archaic and contemporary canons into an evocative manifestation of artistry. The works, which will be interspersed with contributions from StudioDanielK, Camille Tan's Atelier Falaise, and Alexis Mazin, rare collectibles sourced by Past Lives' Carly Krieger, and a textile installation by Peter Christensen, are "a meditation on transformation". In molding bronze, cast glass, porcelain, solid oak and cherry, marble, and onyx through pouring, sculpting, and burning, Thurman allows the raw material to express itself in its most elemental state. Standing out for their creaturesque, largely rounded shapes, the series feels like a dialogue between the designer herself and the mediums through which she creates. May 15-21. Plan your visit. Javitz Center, 429 11th Ave, New York, NY 10001, United States Booth #W1356 at ICFF, part of the fair's WANTED section, will serve as the stage for the latest collection by Wendy Schwartz and Kristi Bender's Cuff Studio. Titled WITHIN, the release, launching with a press preview on May 18 (8-10am), sees the Los Angeles duo look "inward more than ever before," the two explained. Retaining the vibrancy, shapely essence, and wit Cuff Studio is known for, the drop is their boldest yet, with standouts ranging from a wavy, velveting green chaise lounge and a cherry-plum, sculptural revisitation of their signature Block Daybed to a cinematic, cascade-inspired chandelier in glass and rope, and a whimsy coffee table. May 18-20. Plan your visit. Colbo, 51 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002, United States It was the stark contrast between softness and roughness, poetry and brutality, I felt while looking at interior designers Yuria Kailich and Joel Harding's joint studio practice, Item: Enso, that drew me toward it. Carved from unpolished metal sheets or textural cuts of pastel-shaded fabric, their creations transform seemingly simple, and sometimes unaesthetic, materials into dramatic furniture and lighting pieces as well as objects you can't help but wonder about their back story. For NYCxDesign 2025, they bring Soft Grounds, their inaugural installation, to the multi-purpose spaces of Colbo. At once fragile and sturdy, the designs on view — "brutalist interpretations of tender ideas" — remind me of nature's resilience; its ability to resist the signs of time, renovate, and transform. Accompanied by Itameshi-style specialties by Alimentari Flaneur and hand-poured drinks by Sake Bar Asoko, Soft Grounds is where the party begins. May 15-21, launch May 17, from 1pm-close. Plan your visit. 145 E 57th St, New York, NY 10022, United States To mark the return of New York Design Week, heritage Danish house Carl Hansen & Søn will be debuting a new collection within the spectacular spaces of its NYC flagship location. Founded by its namesake in Odense, Funen, in 1908, the brand, known for its essentially sophisticated, handcrafted furniture, remains family-owned and is now in its third generation. During NYCxDesign 2025, Carl Hansen & Søn's latest outspring will dialogue with masterpieces from iconic Danish designers Hans J. Wegner and Kaare Klint, including the latter's Spherical Bed, and fresh contributions by Børge Mogensen, EOOS, and Anker Bak. May 14, 9-11 am. Plan your visit. The Vinyl Room at Soho House Meatpacking, 29-35 9th Ave, New York, NY 10014, United States As part of NYCxDesign 2025 program, Nicholas Berglund, Chief Creative Officer at Life Time, a lifestyle brand built around the creation of thoughtfully designed community spaces conceived to bring health, fitness, and wellness to the forefront, will be giving a talk to address ever-apparent connection between design and physical as well as mental well-being. The concept, which operates across stunningly envisioned, resort-like athletic country clubs, coworking spaces, and residences all around the US, as well as offering guided workout and yoga classes via its namesake app, and IRL events, strives to show how design can help us live our "happiest, healthiest life" — as we recently explored in a piece about Madelynn Ringo's wellness design. May 20, 7pm. Secure your spot. When — Also known as New York Design Week, NYCxDesign 2025's official program runs May 15-21 across hundreds of locations across town, though individual projects might inaugurate in the days ahead of its official launch. The event, which recurs annually, is dense with collection launches, design exhibitions, panel discussions, keynotes, parties, and public art activations, including the unveiling of Union Square Partnership's Annual 14th Street Mural Installation. Where — NYCxDesign 2025 initiatives will take over the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, with curated events coming to Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick, Chelsea, Dumbo, Greenwich Village, Harlem, Hudson Yards, Long Island City, Lower East Side, Red Hook, SoHo, Upper Madison Avenue, and Williamsburg throughout the course of New York Design Week (and often beyond). Our guide to NYCxDesign 2025 will hopefully allow you to get the most out of this week-long celebration of craftsmanship, creativity, and innovation. But knowing where to find the most exciting presentations doesn't take away the need to research where to hang out afterwards. Hit our New York page to take your pick from dozens of restaurants, bars, and stays sure to make your Big Apple sojourn even more unforgettable. And keep an eye on our lifestyle section for more! Not in the Big Apple for NYCxDesign but still feel like you want to join in the frenzy? Check out our just-updated curation of the best design exhibitions in London, featuring intergenerational artistic dialogues, immersive installations, experimental furniture displays, and more.
Forbes
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
TEFAF New York To Host Rare Works By Ana Khouri, Anna Hu And Hemmerle
The Anna Khouri Diamond Phillipa Earpiece on a model featuring a 3.20-carat diamond The world's largest and most prestigious luxury and fashion companies spend millions of dollars and hire teams of people to try to position their brands within the intersection of art, fashion, celebrity and luxury. Independent high jewelry artist, Ana Khouri, seems to have a knack of doing this and making it look easy. At any given time Khouri's sculptural, gem-centric and light infused jewels may appear on international red carpets, in museum exhibitions or selling exhibitions at major auction houses. Khouri and her latest high jewelry creations and objects will be among six jewelers appearing at the TEFAF New York fine art, antiques and design fair being held May 9 – 13, with a VIP preview May 8 at the Park Avenue Armory. This year's edition of the annual fair will have 91 galleries and contemporary artists from 13 countries and four continents. While many of the works will be representative of the 20th and 21st century there will be several artworks and artifacts that span all of civilization. The Ana Khouri "Raw Necklace" with a 21-carat diamond FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Among the artistic creations Khouri will have on display is the 'Raw Necklace' crafted in rough-textured 18k yellow gold and centered with a 21-carat diamond balanced on the bottom of the ring of gold. Another jewel that will be on view is a delicate 18k white gold earring paved with diamonds and completed with a dangling 3.20-carat diamond. Many of the jewelers at TEFAF New York also exhibited at the TEFAF Maastricht fair held in March. They will be bringing many of the same jewels to the New York fair with some new surprises. The Hemmerle bangle crafted from spessartine garnets, knitted almandine, stainless steel, bronze and ... More white gold Hemmerle is a mainstay at TEFAF in Maastricht and New York and will be providing a hands-on experience of many of its new creations. Among them is a one-of-a-kind bangle with spessartine garnets, knitted almandine on stainless steel, bronze, white gold. The German high jewelry maker known for its craftmanship revived a 19th-century Austrian knitting technique using delicate almandine garnet beads handknitted with silk threads to form an intricate, flexible structure that embraces the wrist. The ends of the bangle are adorned with spessartine garnets. The Ann Hu Cleopatra Necklace Taiwanese American high jewelry artist, Anna Hu, will be bringing many of the same pieces she exhibited at the Maastricht fair, led by jewels from her Cleopatra Collection. This includes The Cleopatra Necklace, a long neck ornament with twisting strings of red spinel and white diamonds. The beads connect to a yellow diamond encrusted serpent topped with rows of green sapphires. The serpent's tongue is fashioned as another long row of spinel beads. The complex piece consists of more than 370 carats of colored gems and diamonds. Cartier, diamond lavalliere, circa 1908, in a Hancocks & Co. box on offer from FD Gallery The Upper East Side jewelry gallery, FD Gallery, owned and operated by Fiona Druckenmiller, will present a combination of antique pieces from some of the most iconic and historic jewelry houses along with contemporary high jewelry pieces. One item is a vintage Cartier diamond lavalliere dating to 1908 in a Hancocks & Co. box. A diamond and sapphire ring by contemporary jewelry house, SABBA, on offer from FD Gallery Another piece is from SABBA, a Paris-based contemporary high jewelry house founded by Alessandro Sabbatini. It's a sapphire ring centered with a diamond mounted in titanium from his latest collection. SABBA jewels are sold exclusively through FD Gallery. Sabbatini will attend the fair. Didier and Martine Haspeslagh, owners of the Didier Ltd. London gallery, specialize in jewels created by modern artists, which have been acquired from the secondary art market. They are longtime attendees of TEFAF Maastricht and New York and have seen their collection niche grow in multiples because of their knowledge and dedication to this genre of jewelry collecting. A brooch by artist Georges Braque circa 1962/1963, on offer from Didier Ltd. Among the pieces in their gallery is a unique brooch by Georges Braque, a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. The birdlike jewel is in 18k textured yellow gold that resembles the sand he adds to his paint, further embellished with enameled light blue rods set with tiny diamonds, circa 1962/1963. Braque (1882 – 1963) started designing jeweler in the last two years of his life as his health declined and he was no longer able to paint, 'but the passion to create art was not dimmed,' the couple said. "Kissing" Colombian emerald and diamond earrings by Boghossian, a classic design from the high ... More jewelry house Boghossian, a high jewelry house based in Geneva, is a family-owned firm with Armenian heritage that is historically known for dealing in exceptional gemstones. The firm traveled along the Silk Road plying its trade before settling in Europe. In the late 2000s it established a high jewelry brand in Geneva, creating cultural 'East meets West' design motifs based on new technology and historic fine craftsmanship. It specialized in enhancing the gems in its jewels by minimizing the amount of gold used. The high jewelry house has made several appearances at TEFAF New York and Maastricht.
New York Times
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Century On, the Tiffany Lamp Still Shines Bright
The pieces couples acquire when decorating their first home are often significant. Few purchases, though, prove as influential as the one made by the Neustadts in 1935. The newlyweds were browsing tchotchkes in a secondhand store in Manhattan when Hildegard Steininger Neustadt discovered what her husband, Egon Neustadt, an orthodontist, later described in a poem as a 'strange, old-fashioned lamp.' Made from hundreds of pieces of oddly shaped glass in a kaleidoscope of greens and yellows, it illuminated a scene straight from spring, when daffodils herald the end of winter — a scene of hope. According to Neustadt's memoirs, he and his wife asked the shopkeeper about the lamp and were told that it was the work of an American artist, Louis Comfort Tiffany. Though they did not recognize the name, they eventually handed over $12.50 (somewhere around $290, in today's dollars) and took the lamp — with its Tiffany 'Daffodil' lampshade — home, where Neustadt placed it on his desk. While unfamiliar to the Neustadts in 1935, Tiffany's prismatic creations have since become widely known, and beloved by many. Today, the lamps are on view in venues across New York, including at the upcoming TEFAF New York art fair, running May 9-13 at the Park Avenue Armory. The decades have brought discovery, as well, as scholars have uncovered the importance of women to Tiffany's success, and consumers who have encountered the lamps in museums and stores have brought them into their homes. Even younger generations have succumbed to the charm of Tiffany lamps, with some who cannot afford the real deal committing Tiffany's designs to ink as tattoos. According to Neustadt's handwritten memoirs, which recall the purchase of that first lamp in 1935, his 'friends didn't like it.' But their opinions were of little consequence. 'Tiffany blended perfectly with the Jacobean furnishings in our Long Island home,' Neustadt told The New York Times in an interview in 1971. 'Our home was large and needed many lamps,' he said, 'and the prices were low.' And so the Neustadts bought more, over 200 of them, making theirs 'one of the largest private collections of Tiffany lamps in the world,' according to Neustadt's obituary that was published in The Times in 1984. Much of that collection remains in New York City, on display on both sides of the East River: at the Queens Museum, less than two miles from where some of the pieces would have been made at Tiffany Studios in Queens; and at the New York Historical in Manhattan. The remainder is kept at the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, a private archive in Long Island City containing over 100 lamps, 40 windows and nearly half a million examples of flat glass. The collection is accessible by appointment, and pieces from it occasionally travel the country in temporary exhibitions. The Tiffany lamps at the Queens Museum are displayed thanks to a partnership with the Neustadt Collection, which is also home to Neustadt's memoirs. Lindsy R. Parrott, the executive director and curator of the collection, said in an email interview that she first 'fell in love with the beauty and the history' of Tiffany in the late 1990s. 'I was especially transfixed by how much remained unknown about this celebrated and internationally recognized artist — there was so much detective work that still needed to be done, which I found tantalizing,' Parrott said. The son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, who co-founded the store that became Tiffany & Company, Louis Comfort Tiffany was an artist and designer who believed in translating the beauty of nature into the decorative arts. He ran various art- and design-focused companies from the 1880s until the 1930s, the most famous of which was Tiffany Studios, which produced, among other things, the leaded-glass lamps and windows that became synonymous with his name and that, for a time, captivated a populace enchanted with Art Nouveau. At least, they fascinated the public until styles shifted toward the more minimal appeal of modernism, which took root after World War I. As Parrott noted, 'Tiffany's work had fallen deeply out of favor by the mid-1930s,' which explained why Neustadt was able to begin his collection for $12.50. A Tiffany 'Wisteria' table lamp, made around 1905 from more than 2,000 pieces of cascading glass, will be exhibited by the DeLorenzo Gallery at TEFAF New York. Such items today can carry a price in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and have been known to sell for well over $1 million at auction. In 2018, a 'Pond Lily' table lamp brought $3.37 million at Christie's. How much people are willing to pay for a piece of Tiffany's history is not the only thing that has changed over the decades. A 2007 exhibition at the New York Historical, to which Neustadt had donated 132 of his lamps before his death, revealed something that had previously gone uncelebrated: the role of women in Tiffany's company. This centrality of female employees, known as Tiffany girls, was discovered when two scholars — Nina Gray and Martin Eidelberg — separately yet almost simultaneously unearthed letters written by Clara Driscoll to her family. 'The correspondence describes her work as a designer and department supervisor as well as the goings-on at Tiffany Studios,' Rebecca Klassen, the curator of material culture at the New York Historical, said in an email interview. Driscoll ran the Women's Glass Cutting Department, which was formed in 1892 in response to a strike by the Lead Glaziers and Glass Cutters Union, which allowed only men to be members. Tiffany had needed workers to complete windows and mosaics for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, officially known as the World's Columbian Exposition, Klassen said. 'But it was also his belief that women had better color sensitivity and feel for naturalistic design than men,' she added. 'Women had an undeniable impact on the output of Tiffany Studios.' In an email interview, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, a curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, called herself 'somewhat of a crusader' for Agnes Northrop, whom Frelinghuysen described as one of Tiffany's most important female employees and 'an extraordinary designer.' Where Driscoll was behind many of Tiffany's lamps, Northrop's visions came to life in the studios' large-scale landscape windows, including one installed last November at the Met. The three-panel window that was commissioned by Sarah Cochran, a philanthropist and leader in the coal industry, and conceived by Northrop, offers a glimpse into the craftsmanship that is at the heart of Tiffany's glasswork, and the skilled women behind it. 'In our window alone, I have estimated over 10,000 individual pieces of glass,' Frelinghuysen said. Ninety years after the Neustadts acquired their first piece of Tiffany's history, the lamps are back in favor. 'Once again, 'Tiffany' lamps are everywhere, from tattoos to culture,' notes the prospectus of a new traveling exhibition from the Neustadt Collection, 'Tiffany or Ti-phony? A Story of Desire,' which will be on view at Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wis., from January to May 2026. Beth Mintzer, a tattoo artist who is based in Los Angeles, did her first Tiffany-style ink on a friend when she was learning how to tattoo in 2021. Since then, she has done so many that she has called her business Lamp Lady Tattoo. 'I love them as a tattoo subject because I can't imagine it being something that you grow out of with age,' Mintzer said by email. 'Younger generations have grown to seek out more unique, one-of-a-kind home décor pieces that have their own character and charm, and Tiffany lamps definitely fit that description,' she added. Parrott said she thought that recent enthusiasm for Tiffany stemmed from nostalgia, 'a nostalgia for what is perceived to be simpler, less complicated times.' Klassen also suggested that younger generations' fondness for Tiffany lamps was linked to nostalgia. 'However, that era is not the turn of the 20th century,' she said. Instead they were referencing, in their tattoos and décor choices, the Tiffanyesque lamps of 1980s restaurants, and the lamps their parents decorated with. 'Authentic Tiffany lamps command prices that are out of reach for many, so it makes sense to me that these more accessible iterations are a base of inspiration,' Klassen said. While Frelinghuysen said she found the Tiffany-inspired ink 'fascinating,' she could not explain it. 'I would like to think that the more the public is aware and learns about the subject, the more they appreciate it,' Frelinghuysen said, adding that Northrop's recently installed window had been incredibly well received. 'Perhaps during these ever more challenging times we are living in right now, it provides some joy and solace.'
New York Times
01-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
In a Turbulent Time, TEFAF New York Keeps Its Focus on the Classics
When the European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) held its very first New York fair at the historic Park Avenue Armory in 2016, the global art market was in robust health: Art sales had marked a near-record of $64 billion worldwide in the preceding year, and were at a peak in the United States, according to an art market report by the cultural economist Clare McAndrew. As TEFAF New York prepares to welcome visitors again — running from May 9 through 13, and coinciding with the closely watched May auctions — the outlook is downright cloudy. Global art sales tumbled for the second year in a row in 2024, totaling an estimated $57.5 billion, and the U.S. market was down 9 percent from the previous year, according to the recent Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report. More recently, stock markets have been jittery since President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on countries around the world on April 2, then said he would back down on tariffs on goods from most countries, except China, for 90 days. Economic turbulence has an immediate impact on the net worth — and the collecting appetite — of those who buy art. 'The volatility that you see in the markets writ large is reflected in the art market,' said Alex Logsdail, chief executive of the Lisson Gallery, an international art dealership. He said business had 'slowed significantly,' though it was 'still happening' and 'has not fallen off a cliff' as it did at the time of the 2008 global financial crisis. 'This is a funny thing for me to say out loud, but it's true: Nobody needs any of the things we are selling,' he said. Collecting art is 'a question of want and desire and passion and confidence. It is up to us to create those conditions,' regardless of the economic context, he added. Lisson has exhibited at TEFAF New York's spring fair from its first iteration in 2017, and Logsdail served for a time on its selection committee (which decides which galleries will get booths). He said TEFAF New York was well positioned for the current circumstances, because in unstable economic conditions, the focus turns to quality and value, and to 'well-tested' and affordably priced objects. And right now, he said, 'people are taking a very active interest in artists whose prices are quite low.' The Lisson stand this year will feature artworks by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Sean Scully, Olga de Amaral, Carmen Herrera and Anish Kapoor, priced between $200,000 and $1 million, Logsdail said. Last year at TEFAF New York, Lisson said that it sold, among other objects, an Anish Kapoor sculpture for 625,000 pounds ($840,000). Other exhibitors at TEFAF New York bring artworks that are in a similar price range. By contrast, at the world's largest contemporary-art fair, Art Basel, works can sell for seven- and even eight-digit sums. TEFAF is a Dutch organization whose main event — held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, each year — offers treasures and objects spanning 7,000 years of art history, most of them pre-20th century. Its New York offshoot shows much more recent art: Two-thirds of exhibitors are modern and contemporary galleries, and other exhibitors offer antiquities and jewelry. TEFAF branched out to New York in 2016 as part of an effort to rejuvenate and geographically broaden its collector base. Initially, there were two New York fairs: one in the fall, focused on galleries of older art and of antiques; the other in the spring, focused on modern and contemporary work. After the coronavirus pandemic broke out in 2020, the fall event was scrapped. Highlights at this year's fair include a circa 1933 mask-shaped plaster sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, a 1930s painting of a girl by the French artist Marie Laurencin, a blue acrylic coffee table (from 2012) designed by the architect Zaha Hadid, and a 1948 entrance canopy in folded sheet steel that was once part of a school in France, designed by the French architect Jean Prouvé. Leanne Jagtiani, director of TEFAF New York, said the fair had a similar range of objects and historical periods as Maastricht, but was about one-third the size, with around 90 booths. 'Because we're small enough, we can mix it all up,' she said. 'You can walk past a design dealer, then your favorite modern and contemporary dealer, then a jewelry dealer, and there's this element of discovery. We don't section people off.' That format allows visitors to 'open their eyes to opportunities they might not be looking for,' said Jagtiani, who recalled that when she previously worked in private sales at Christie's, she found that buyers 'collect across much broader categories than perhaps we had realized.' Jagtiani acknowledged the impact of 'external economics' on this year's event. She said President Trump's initial tariff announcement had the effect of a 'hand grenade' before it was rolled back. 'Art fairs are a long-lead, live event. Galleries are going to start planning what they're bringing, and how they're getting it here, months in advance,' she said. To be faced with the prospect of tariffs as high as 40 percent came as a 'shock wave,' she said. Cross-collecting at TEFAF New York has been observed firsthand by one exhibitor: Charles Ede, an ancient art and antiques gallery founded in 1971 specializing in Egyptian, Greek and Roman art, as well as in European art from before A.D. 1000. 'We're selling to a lot more modern and contemporary collectors who are fascinated by our objects,' said Charis Tyndall, a director of Charles Ede who said that she attends the New York event every year. She said the aim was to remove antiquities from a 'more stuffy academic or museum context,' and 'make people see them as works of art, not as antiquities.' She said at TEFAF New York, she often met new faces: Most visitors to the stand had never seen antiquities before, and those who had — museum curators from antiquities departments around the United States — did not attend the main fair in Maastricht, where there were a large number of antiquities galleries. Charles Ede will show 70 objects at its booth this year, the priciest being an $850,000 Roman marble torso of a youth, and the most affordable being a Byzantine silver spoon (from the 4th to the 6th century B.C.) priced at $2,000. Tyndall said the comparatively low prices made the antiquities market much less market-dependent and speculation-prone, and 'very slow and steady.' 'There's a comfort in what we deal in, because it seems like a, relatively speaking, inexpensive area of the art market,' and not one where buyers can 'flip objects very quickly and make vast amounts of money,' she said. 'You'll always be able to get your money back, plus inflation and maybe a little bit more.' Lisson's Logsdail agreed that TEFAF New York's price points made it potentially more immune to financial-markets headwinds than fairs offering much bigger and much pricier works. 'Every fair has its ups and downs,' he said. 'Every year is not excellent, but I've always felt that it's well worth it.' Lisson certainly had a disappointing result in 2017, TEFAF New York's inaugural spring edition, when its booth was dedicated exclusively to small works by the Cuban American artist Carmen Herrera (1915–2022), and 'we didn't sell a single thing,' Logsdail recalled. 'A museum came and put everything on hold, and then unheld it.' Yet Lisson has sold many works by Herrera ever since. And not only will there be Herrera works on its stand this year, but there will be a stand-alone exhibition of her art at the Lisson Gallery's physical space in Chelsea in New York. 'Sometimes you do something that's very beautiful and really makes a statement, and the dividends you reap from it come later,' Logsdail said. As for the market turmoil, he said, 'one hopes that people see this moment as an opportunity.'
