Frieze Viewing Room, New York 2022
Frieze New York returned to the Shed from 18-22 May 2022 for its tenth anniversary, with an accompanying instalment of Frieze Viewing Room using cutting-edge immersive technology to pilot an enhanced digital viewing experience, and debuting a new partnership with Vortic,
Mirroring the physical booths of eight participating galleries, visitors and collectors could freely navigate each virtual space in 3D, as previews ahead of the fair opening, and for two weeks after the fair closed, extending the ‘live’ period for each gallery’s presentation.
Eight of the world’s leading galleries participated in this exciting project, including 303 Gallery, Capsule Shanghai, Instituto de Visión, Galeria Jacqueline Martins, Victoria Miro, Esther Schipper, Proyectos Ultravioleta and White Cube.
Esther Schipper presented a vibrant and colourful solo presentation of Simon Fujiwara’s works; at Proyectos Ultravioleta, the exhibition of video and sound-based works by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme was a powerful visual and sensory experience; and 303 Gallery featured an exciting showcase of works by leading contemporary artists Doug Aitken and Rob Pruitt among others. Participating gallery Instituto de Visión won the 2022 Frame Stand Prize at this year’s iteration of the fair, recognising the gallery’s exceptional presentation by Tania Candiani.
The 3D viewing room enabled collectors to explore each gallery’s Frieze presentation with the highest quality immersive digital viewing experience available. Collectors were offered the choice of exploring the booth freely, or taking the guided tour feature, with some galleries incorporating audio commentary from artists for a richer experience. The hyperreal digital booths also offered galleries the opportunity to expand the reach of their existing in-person presentation by presenting digital previews on the Frieze website, their own website, and the Vortic platform.
While the buzz of being on the ground at an art fair such as Frieze New York is incomparable, an enhanced viewing room offers a unique and personal way to view chosen presentations for those unable to travel, and we’re looking forward to continuing and extending our partnership with Frieze throughout 2022.
Vortic CEO Nick Walter commented in Adweek, “We’ve had fantastic feedback that really shows us how to continue developing Vortic to meet the needs of galleries and artists. The enhanced viewing rooms facilitated increased engagement and dwell times, and several galleries have reported collector enquiries as a result. Perhaps most importantly for us as a business, we’ve had specific comments from gallery participants about how our team and technology are so responsive to the needs of artists – that the platform exceeded their expectations and the ways in which the technology can be customised for specific exhibitions and even individual artworks.”
Watch this space!
Image: Vortic installation view, Esther Schipper booth on Frieze Viewing Room New York 2022. All works © the artists. Courtesy the artists and Esther Schipper.
Video: Vortic installation views, Frieze Viewing Room, New York, 2022. All works © the artists. Courtesy the artists and presenting galleries.
