One of my favorite art fairs, from the European Fine Art Foundation, or TEFAF, opens today at the Park Avenue Armory, and my least favorite fair, Frieze, opened yesterday at the Shed in Hudson Yards in Manhattan. It seems the spring art fairs are packed in one weekend this year as the culturati hope to dodge whatever apocalypse looms, however contrived.
I’ve covered TEFAF for years at its fair in Maastricht in the Netherlands, anchored by Old Masters, and its New York fair, which shows, mostly, modern and contemporary flat art, furniture, and ceramics. TEFAF shoppers value history and heritage, and the fair caters to serious collectors and connoisseurs inspired by art history. Drawing, analogously, from the Met Costume Institute Gala, TEFAF is Chanel, Balenciaga, and Christian Dior. Frieze is Marc Jacobs, Versace, and Pharrell Williams. The differences between the two brands aren’t money or class but taste, style, and depth, though at TEFAF, they serve oysters at the preview. I followed the shucker and his bucket.
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