Business Finance Media Technology Policy Wealth Insights Interviews

Art Art Fairs Art Market Art Reviews Auctions Galleries Museums Interviews

Lifestyle Nightlife & Dining Style Travel Interviews

Power Lists Nightlife & Dining Art A.I. PR

About About Observer Advertise With Us Reprints

As New York’s Art Week Kicks Off, Here’s What Not to Miss at Esther III

For its third and final edition, this boutique fair returned to the Estonian House with 22 exhibitors and artworks that are speculative, idiosyncratic and stubbornly resistant to the market spectacle unfolding across the rest of the city.

As New York City’s art week ramps up with six fairs plus a series of major auctions, Esther returned yesterday (May 12) for its third chapter at the Estonian House with 22 exhibitors and special projects. With a strong mix of Eastern European galleries, New York spaces and other European projects, it offers a more intimate, boutique and context-specific experience than most other fairs, with works staged against the elegant interiors of a four-story Beaux-Arts building. On opening day, Observer ran into Esther co-founder and dealer Margot Samel on the J train. She was carrying the Esther-emblazoned carpet that would be installed this year for the last time in the Estonian House’s entryway. Running a fair and a gallery during the busiest week of the year is a challenge, she said, adding that while it has always paid off, three editions felt like the right number for a fair that set out to do something different.  “Rather than trying to create a conventional art fair environment, Esther has always leaned into the peculiar character of the Estonian House and allowed galleries to respond to it in unexpected ways. That tension between architecture, history, and art is really the heart of the project. As the final edition of Esther, it felt important to leave on a high note.”

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

There may be fewer international visitors this year—and, as Samel admitted, it was a challenge to bring in some of the smaller experimental galleries she had hoped for from abroad—she was hopeful that New Yorkers would show up. And they did. This year’s opening day was especially busy, with a strong flow of collectors, curators and artists moving through the building from start to finish, and by the end of the day multiple dealers, particularly local ones, reported sales. As at the Venice Biennale and other recent biennials, several artists presented here are engaging with natural materials, nonhuman time and cycles, or otherwise reflecting on the future relics of our contemporary daily lives, moving through questions of transience, revisitations of the........

© Observer