Estonian gallery chosen among top 5 at prestigious contemporary art fair
Kris Lemsalu's installation "Whole Alone 2" at the Temnikova & Kasela gallery, which shows her lying beneath a bedazzled porcelain turtle shell surrounded by eggs and smaller shells, has been named one of the best of a total of 200 galleries at the Frieze New York art fair, and earned a mention in The New York Times.
The 15,000 dollar prize for this year's most innovative stand went to Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo, with their solo presentation of Brazilian artist Martha Araújo.
Other galleries earning honorable mention were Rampa from Istanbul, Turkey; Instituto De Visión from Bogotá, Colombia; Real Fine Arts from Brooklyn, New York; and Galerie Zürcher from New York and Paris, France.
The 2015 fair was judged by an international panel of curators, comprising of Carlos Basualdo (Philadelphia Museum of Art), Hamza Walker (‘Made in LA 2016’) and Ruba Katrib (SculptureCenter).
Lemsalu's installation has been one of the most eye-catching and photographed at the fair, being also featured in art critic Martha Schwenderen's overview of the fair in The New York Times. "A comment on luxury and exotic animal parts, the project gains in visual weirdness by the sight of the artist’s long red-blond hair flowing out from the head-end of the turtle shell," Schwenderen described, adding that it is "one of the stranger solo projects at the fair."
The Frieze New York art fair, one of world's leading contemporary art fairs, opened on Thursday and will run until the coming Sunday, May 17.
Kris Lemsalu is a Tallinn and Vienna-based young Estonian artist. She has studied at the Estonian Art Academy in Tallinn, Danmarks Designskole in Copenhagen, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
Editor: M. Oll