A New Age for Photography at Frieze New York

Frieze New York coincides with ‘The New Art: American Photography, 1839–1910’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawn from the museum’s William L. Schaeffer Collection, the exhibition explores the dawn of American photography, its first pioneering practitioners, and the psychological, political and commercial shifts it hastened. 

Across stand-out solo and curated gallery presentations at Frieze New York, the medium of photography is stretched into new political and technical territories by artists, both American and international, including Carrie Mae Weems, Stephen Shore, Dayanita Singh and Eileen Quinlan.  

Eileen Quinlan presented by Miguel Abreu Gallery (Stand A12)

‘I am consciously rejecting much I have been taught about pure photography as observation of reality,’ said New York-based artist Eileen Quinlan. For Shut-in Set (Grapevine) (2023), Quinlan photographs her TV, capturing the confluence of the scenes and textures of the film rolling  with the reflection of her living room blinds. In her UV-light-cured inkjet prints on mirrors, Quinlan radically disrupts modern photography’s concern for the subject and the very workings of the medium.

Dayanita Singh presented by Frith Street Gallery (Stand D2)

Dayanita Singh draws from her extensive photographic archive (beginning in 1980s India) to create large wall-mounted panels in which the photographs can be endlessly rearranged – ‘contact sheets’ as Singh describes them. In Architects’ Gathering (2024), Singh imagines her ‘own architectural history’, assembling photographs of second-century interior in Pompeii and buildings by Eduardo Souto de Moura, Rahul Mehrotra, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Kazuo Shinohara. Singh’s alternative approach to the archive and display is ‘a critique of the museum or, rather, of what the museum has done to photography’, as she told Frieze’s Vanessa Peterson in a recent interview.  

Stephen Shore presented by 303 Gallery (Stand A11) 

In 1971, Stephen Shore, aged 23, became the first living photographer to have a solo show at The Met. Seeking a ‘new challenge’ in the 1980s, Shore moved to Montana and became fascinated by the relationship between the sky and land, and the human and natural. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shore returned to Montana and roamed rural and suburban landscapes with a drone-mounted camera.  

Nobuyoshi Araki presented by Anton Kern (Stand A2)

Nobuyoshi Araki is one of Japan’s most celebrated and controversial photographers, with more than 500 photobooks to his name. ‘Tokyo Nude’ (1988–89) is a series of diptychs in which Araki pairs female nudes with scenes of urban desolation in Tokyo.  

Carrie Mae Weems and David Goldblatt presented by Goodman Gallery (Stand A5) 

On first glance, Carrie Mae Weems’s series ‘Painting the Town’ (2021) resembles Abstract Expressionist painting. These large-scale colour photographs document boarded-up shop fronts in Portland, Oregan – the artists’ hometown – where the graffitied texts of Black Lives Matter campaigners were erased by local authorities with swathes of paint.  

Drawn to ‘the quiet and commonplace, where nothing “happened”, and yet all was contained and immanent’, David Goldblatt chronicled life – both public and private – under apartheid in South Africa. Goldblatt’s photograph The Apostolic Multiracial Church in Zion of SA. Crossroads, Cape Town. 11 October 1984 depicts a community church in Crossroads, a camp on the outskirts of Cape Town that housed thousands of families looking for work.

Jesse Darling and P. Staff presented by sultana (Stand C7)

sultana’s group show brings together artists who explore encounters between marginalized bodies and social structures, sharing themes of themes of queer thinking, care and control. P. Staff’s multimedia works integrate photography to reveal the social regulation of queer, trans or disabled bodies, while in Jessie Darling’s photographs, bodily vulnerability meets the sociopolitical significance of liturgical items, construction materials and mythical symbols. 

Lee Hoojon presented by Kukje Gallery (Stand B15) 

Emerging South Korean artist Lee Heejoon embeds photographic observations from daily life and travel within their abstract paintings. Beginning with i-phone imagery, Lee applies dense layers of paint, creating photo-collages that conjure experiences of urban space. 

Further Information

Frieze New York, The Shed, 7 – 11 May, 2025. Limited early bird tickets are on sale – don’t miss out, buy yours now. Alternatively, become a member to enjoy premier access, exclusive guided tours and more.

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Frieze New York is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing its legacy of celebrating artistic excellence on an international scale.

A dedicated online Frieze Viewing Room will open in the week before the fair, offering audiences a first look at the presentations and the opportunity to engage with the fair from afar. 

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Frieze New York is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing its legacy of celebrating artistic excellence on an international scale.

^{Main Image: Lee Heejoon, Nameless Flowers in Mist and Shadow, 2025. Acrylic and photo collage on canvas, 1 × 1 m. Courtesy: the artist and Kukje Gallery}