NEW YORK, NY.- Today Frieze announced a range of dynamic collaborations with an unprecedented number of museum leaders for new themed sections and artist commissions at the 2019 edition of Frieze New York. Patrick Charpenel (Executive Director of El Museo del Barrio, New York), Franklin Sirmans (Director of the Perez Art Museum, Miami) will curate two new themed sections at the fair. Reflecting New York as a nexus and catalyst for innovation and ideas in the art world, the new sections will celebrate pivotal New York arts organizations with enduring legacies that have both local and international reach. For the 2019 Frieze Artist Award supporting a commission by an emerging artist, Courtney J. Martin (Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the DIA) will serve as curator. Charpenel, Sirmins, and Martin join Laura Hoptman (Executive Director of the Drawing Center, New York), organizer of the fair’s Spotlight section, as the distinguished museum leadership collaborating with the fair in 2019.

Loring Randolph (Artistic Director, Frieze), said: “The programming at Frieze New York reflects the city as the nexus of the most important thinkers, taste-makers, galleries, museums, and collectors in the global art world and creative community. It is an honor to collaborate with these institutional leaders who are at the forefront of shaping the art and ideas of today. With their contribution, Frieze New York 2019 will offer an experience that is both dynamic and challenging – pushing the boundaries of what an art fair can be.”

The new themed section organized by Patrick Charpenel and El Museo del Barrio will focus on the work of contemporary Latino and Latin American artists to coincide with El Museo del Barrio’s 50th anniversary in 2019. Titled Diálogos, this curated section positions the work of established and emerging artists, and will reflect El Museo’s long-standing mission of presenting and preserving the art and culture of these communities. With the aim of bringing together a selection of galleries from across the United States and Latin America, this specially curated section will place in dialogue Latino and Latin American artists. Invited galleries are asked to present work by artists who have played a significant role in El Museo’s history, and who represent the next generation of artists and cultural leaders.

Franklin Sirmans is following up Matthew Higg’s celebrated themed section in 2018 devoted to art dealer Hudson, with a tribute to an iconic non-profit New York arts organization, Just Above Midtown (JAM), which was an extremely important hub and platform for artists in the 1970s and 80s. This area of the fair will thereby honor the enduring legacy of social activist and significant New York figure, Linda Goode Bryant, founder of JAM. Sirmans and Goode Bryant will reimagine the legendary space with a section of solo artist presentations by invited galleries, and Frieze will contribute 10% of the fees­­ from the galleries in the section to Goode Bryant’s current non-profit initiative, Project Eats: a neighborhood-based urban agricultural partnership and social enterprise that creates sustainable food production and equitable distribution of those resources within and between communities.

The Frieze Artist Award will also return for the second year in New York, curated by Courtney J. Martin (DIA Art Foundation), supporting a major new commission by an emerging artist at the fair. Applications are open until January 10, 2019 and the winning artist will be announced in the Spring.

Finally, as part of a new year-round collaboration between Frieze New York and The Drawing Center (New York), Laura Hoptman, Executive Director, is the new curatorial advisor of the Spotlight section. Hoptman will oversee the fair’s program dedicated to pioneers of avant-garde art from across the world, with solo presentations of significant work by overlooked figures and rarely seen practices of modern masters.

Charpenal, Hoptman, Martin and Sirmans join returning curators Laura McLean-Ferris and Andrew Bonacina, who oversee Frame, the fair’s celebrated section for galleries aged 12 years or younger; and Tom Eccles and Amy Zion from Bard College, who will once again program Frieze Talks.

Participating galleries and further information about Frieze New York 2019 will be announced in the new year.