The Art Newspaper | Following the thread at Frieze

In Pictures Frieze New York
Benjamin Sutton and Elena Goukassian, The Art Newspaper, Maggio 11, 2025
Textile-based art is abundant at Frieze New York this year, from pieces approximating the forms of paintings but made of found fabrics to hand-woven, intricately beaded works and even a wearable, many-layered cape.

1. Claudia Alarcón
A PROPÓSITO DE ENCONTRARSE (ABOUT MEETING, 2024)
PROYECTOS ULTRAVIOLETA
The Guatemalan gallery’s entire stand is a textile installation—an embroidery by Édgar Calel—that contains several pieces, including this magnetic knitted crocheted work by the Indigenous artist Claudia Alarcón. Priced between $30,000 and $50,000, Alarcón often collaborates with the Silat collective, “a group of around 100 Indigenous women in Argentina,” says the gallerist Sofia Freeman.



2. Sonia Gomes

UNTITLED (TORÇÃO SERIES) (2013)
MENDES WOOD DM
A representative example of Sonia Gomes’s large-scale wrapped-wire sculptures, this piece from her Torção series—Portuguese for “twist”—consists of fabrics given to the Brazilian artist by friends and family, lovingly wrapped and stitched around a wire structure. The work is on reserve for a private collector.



3. Carolina Caycedo

NIPPLE (SALUTE TO ZILIA SÁNCHEZ) (2022)
INSTITUTO DE VISIÓN
The Colombian, Los Angeles–based artist Carolina Caycedo made this piece in tribute to the late Cuban artist Zilia Sánchez (1926–2024). Priced at $35,000, it incorporates handmade nets knitted at women’s embroidery circles. “The women say the nets have to be woven in a circle, so it creates this community of women where news and traditions can be shared,” says Beatriz López, Instituto de Visión’s director and co-founder.



4. Citra Sasmita

VORTEX IN THE LAND OF LIBERATION (2025)
YEO WORKSHOP
The Singapore-based gallery is showing works by the Balinese artist Citra Sasmita. The smaller works on the stand (priced from $20,000 to $25,000) are made of Kamasan canvas, a material traditionally used to wrap figures in Hindu shrines. Vortex in the Land of Liberation (2025, selling for $38,000) incorporates hand-embellished cowhide, each bead “handsewn by the artist as an art of protest against the increasing industrialisation of these practices”, says a gallery spokesperson.



5. Kyungah Ham

PHANTOM AND A MAP / POETRY QIWBXSOVIZ (2019–24)
KUKJE GALLERY
The South Korean artist creates her works through a unique and complicated process involving sending sketches to anonymous female embroidery artists in North Korea, who create fragments of her pieces and smuggle them back through Chinese middlemen. Kyungah Ham then stitches these together into a final piece. This work is available for $70,000.



6. Lee ShinJa

DESTINATION (1987)
TINA KIM GALLERY
This piece is actually a wearable cape. It is just one of several works by the nonagenarian artist Lee ShinJa now on view at Tina Kim Gallery’s stand. Lee trained as a painter, and it shows in the compositions of her fibre-based pieces. Destination sold prior to the fair’s opening—hopefully, its new owner tries it on at least once.



7. Grayson Perry

FASCIST SWING (2024)
VICTORIA MIRO
Grayson Perry made the two large tapestries at Victoria Miro’s stand in response to Baroque and Rococo works in the Wallace Collection in London. Fascist Swing is a take on Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing (around 1767–68), highlighting the long history of artwashing as philanthropy. The tapestries are still available for £75,000 each.



8. Małgorzata Mirga-Tas

TERNE / THE YOUNG ONES (2023)
FRITH STREET GALLERY
The Roma Polish artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas crafted this group portrait out of fabric sourced from her own home, her family and her community. “She’s an activist who is revising how we talk about Roma people, their history, their persecution during the Holocaust,” says Elsy Ketesa, a director at the gallery. The work is on offer in the range of $50,000 to $100,000.