Dealers, a word of advice: If you must present a multi-artist booth, at least bind the works by a theme. (Do not simply clear inventory.) Take notes from Andrew Edlin Gallery, whose smart Frieze booth convenes four artists who contend with extraterrestrial beings and worlds beyond our own. Paulina Peavy, who claimed to have communicated with spirits during the 20th century, is represented by an array of glorious abstractions, including one in which a moth-like being with a pearl for a head navigates a forest of billowy forms. Esther Pearl Watson and Karla Knight, meanwhile, have paintings that engage with a continued fascination with aliens—a timely topic, given the Pentagon’s recent release of the so-called UFO files. But the quiet star of the booth is a Melvin Way drawing that appears to map a chemical compound that doesn’t exist. One wonders what Way knew that the rest of us did not.
- Alex Greenberger