ALI BANISADR

Thought to be one of the hits present at this New York’s edition is Ali Banisadr. Hosting gallery Sperone Westwater will be showing some works by this artist, originally born in Iraq but who eventually moved to the United States in order to pursue what really did look like a promising and meteoric career. As you would expect, his aesthetic evoques the cruelty of war and all the dreadful byproducts, and it’s mainly known for referencing, aesthetically speaking, all the suffering caused by the ravaging wars that successively took place in his home country in the nineties. What really moves him is being able to confront the usual traditionalism present in Art History, and his artworks tend to arouse feelings such as nostalgia, sadness, the toughness and harsh consequences of the war or even melancholy at its finest level.

PIERRE SOULAGES

French-born Pierre Soulages is one of the biggest and already established artists whose name will find its place among the exhibitors present at the Fair. Said to be influenced by romanesque and prehistoric –really tough ones– references, you'll be able to experience the purity and eagerness of his painting. Everything in him is pure and fragile, delicate when not harmful and such draft heavily rooted in prehistoric ages is evidently present in his ouvre. With a brushstroke so spirited and full of vibrancy and energy, this artist took part in the movement towards abstraction along with Hans Hartung and others, his artworks echoing the Abstract Expressionist movement appearing in the United States since the fifties, which had Jackson Pollock as one of its earliest symbols. The artist is part of the names conforming the Dominique Lévy's catalog, which will also be showing artworks by Yves Klein, Roman Opalka or Adrian Piper among others.

ISABEL NOLAN

Presented by Dublin’s Kerlin Gallery, we love how artist Isabel Nolan proceeds to elaborate, in a process so artisanal and authentic, sculptures, artistic objects and rugs that are a pretty vivid translation of nonchalant and easy-going attitudes towards art and self-expression. You would best describe it as something where handcraft and creation are mixed together, challenging the wide-ranging possibilities artistic creation has to offer to self-made artists nowadays. This Irish-born creates sculptures, makes all kinds of installations, and above all manufactures hand-tufted wool rugs so beautifully done you will just want to lay your eyes on them. Absolutely a must on its own.

GOSHKA MACUGA + THOMAS DEMAND

Highly remarkable is the work developed at Fondazione Prada in order to ensure the continuity of high-rising and promising talent no matter where it might come from. Created in 1995 to nurture contemporary talents in a world so competitive and demanding as ours, it comes to the event with a publication on Goshka Macuga's Before the Beginning and After The End, an atlas tracing her career published by the Fondazione to accompany her ongoing exhibition To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll, pointing out the radical question of End in contemporary art and other issues deeply related with contemporary art practice such as beginning and ending, collapse and renewal.

The Fondazione comes with another publication under its arm, as it is the case of the ongoing collective show L'image volée, curated by Thomas Demand, which will be on view in Milano until the 28th of August 2016. Demand will take part in a panel on May 7th. These artists have focused on the very similar points challenging issues such as theft, copy or the actual appropriation of ideas. Where do the boundaries between originality and conceptual inventiveness really lie? When is it that we are able to call it creation on its own? What do concepts occasionally so diffuse and challenging to confront such as authorship, theft, the appropriation of ideas or the creative potential in the artistic realm nowadays really mean? What kind of attitudes would be desirable to adopt in an environment as radically assertive as ours? Truly, two events that are a must during these three upcoming days. Better start getting used to multitasking, otherwise you'll struggle to catch up with everything going on these days in NYC!