Double Acts: Dual Artist Presentations at Frieze New York
Artists including Jennie C. Jones, Donald Moffett and Judy Ledgerwood talk about what it's like to show together at the fair, ‘when two perspectives collide’
Artists including Jennie C. Jones, Donald Moffett and Judy Ledgerwood talk about what it's like to show together at the fair, ‘when two perspectives collide’
Dialogues between artists are a key part of Frieze New York, no more so than in the fair’s dual presentations. In these, a gallery places the works of two artists in conversation with one another. The artists' practices, approaches and cultural backgrounds may differ – but their union in the booth invites the visitor to find parallels, question differences and sometimes discover friendships and formative influences. As artist Donald Moffett says below, ‘We learn from one another, not just through the work we produce but through the spaces we create for discussion... It’s not just about harmony; it’s about the friction and complexities when two perspectives collide.’ Here are some key double headers at this year’s Frieze New York.
Jennie C. Jones and Donald Moffett at Alexander Gray Associates
Jennie C. Jones’s work Ensemble is part of the 2025 Roof Garden Commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a highlight of Frieze Week in New York. Her practice explores how the visual and the aural can intersect, making her dual stand with Donald Moffett at Frieze New York all the more intriguing. Moffett’s long career has seen him force painting to physically expand beyond the canvas, a vector that runs parallel to the sense of environmental and political urgency in his work.
Jennie C. Jones, what does it mean to show alongside Donald Moffett? I’ve known Donald’s work for years. We connected in 2015 and became fast friends – our conversations are full of humour and critique. While we come from different backgrounds and approaches, we have a shared belief in the power of art that comes from an intimate studio practice. Donald’s ability to blend urgency with beauty, especially in his explorations of environmental issues, resonates deeply with my own interest in the intersection of art, sound and social consciousness.
Does being in a dual presentation affect what work you show? Absolutely. A dual presentation offers a great opportunity for dialogue. Frieze New York challenges me to think about how my practice intersects with another artist’s vision.
What is the role of dialogue between artists? It’s about learning, expanding and challenging each other. That’s how we create, through conversation: this dialogue that can push us out of our siloed spaces, spark new ideas and foster growth. Exhibiting with another artist pushes us to engage more deeply with each other.
Donald Moffett, what does it mean to show alongside Jennie C. Jones? It’s a special pleasure. Her approach to art, particularly her integration of sound and form, is both cerebral and tactile. Her work activates the body, the eye and the mind, and I’ve always believed in the power of art to stir those senses. Our practices diverge in method but converge in intention: to make work that resonates with greater political, environmental and emotional issues.
Does being in a dual presentation affect how you approach an exhibition? Definitely. Showing with Jennie is a joyful catalyst for deeper reflection on my work, how it engages with the space, her work and the viewer. There’s a different kind of responsibility when you’re presenting alongside someone whose work shares the same tendencies and interests. It encourages me to refine my ideas and to think critically about how they contribute to a broader narrative.
What is the role of dialogue between artists? It’s essential. We learn from one another, not just through the work we produce but through the spaces we create for discussion. With Jennie, for instance, the way she pushes the boundaries of sound and visual form challenges me to reconsider my own practice. This exchange sharpens our understanding of each other’s art and its role in society. It’s not just about harmony; it’s about the friction and complexities when two perspectives collide.
Judy Ledgerwood and Leon Polk Smith at Gray
Gray gallery is presenting two paths of US abstraction, with Judy Ledgerwood's contemporary practice in conversation with historic works by Leon Polk Smith (1906–1996). Ledgerwood’s work, which extends across sculptural pieces as well as paintings, is inspired by both canonical art history and more parochial and domestic crafting practices, including the US tradition of quilting. Polk, who had Native American lineage, also drew on cultural traditions in his work along with the European geometric abstraction he discovered in New York as a young man. He once said, ‘I grew up in the Southwest … where my Indian neighbors and relatives used color to vibrate and shock.’
Judy Ledgerwood, what does it mean to show alongside Leon Polk Smith? It’s wonderful to show my paintings alongside historic paintings in such an arena. One of the challenges I face as an artist is that I can’t paint innocently; I think of my work in relation to every painting ever made. To participate in this tradition provides me the opportunity to share the love and challenge accepted orthodoxies, including my own. Leon Polk Smith and I share inspiration from craft traditions – him Indian blankets, me quilts. We also like sex. His so-called abstractions hint at butts, dicks and penetration. My paintings also leak, swell and pulse, although I lean towards the yonic as opposed to the phallic.
Does being in a dual presentation affect what work you show? I chose paintings that create synergy with Leon, a dialogue where both our artistic concerns would be more keenly understood through juxtaposition.
What is the role of intergenerational dialogue between artists? It’s fun to time travel. I’m saddened that I never actually met Leon (I hope he wouldn’t mind me using his first name). I see in his art a deep love of painting’s history. He had to work through Mondrian and I had to work through Matisse. I also see an artist who felt alienated from the culture he loved. He was gay, from Oklahoma, part Cherokee and lived in an earlier era. I have decidedly not faced the same level of societal repression that Leon likely did in his lifetime, but I am a woman from Brazil, Indiana, navigating and challenging a history largely shaped by men, even as I admire it.
Lynda Benglis and Adam Pendleton at Pace
Pace’s Frieze New York presentation takes the idea of dialogue between artists a step further. Its booth of Lynda Benglis and Adam Pendleton is also curated by the latter, looking at shared themes of process, reproduction and the handmade in their respective practices. Both artists translate gesture into physical form: Pendleton with painting and Benglis sculpture, and both work on the boundaries of abstraction and conceptualism.
Pendleton will show four ‘Black Dada’ paintings from 2024 alongside two new ‘Movement’ paintings completed this year and shown for the first time in New York at Frieze. In these works, he meditates on performative gestures and the limits of the human body. The works incorporate painting, printing and photography; Pendleton layers paint, spray paint, ink, and watercolour, integrating text fragments and geometric forms through stencilling. The resulting works are both expressionistic and conceptually rich.
Benglis has been equally innovatory in the field of sculpture, using a huge variety of materials: beeswax, latex, polyurethane foam, plaster, gold, vaporized metal, glass, ceramics and paper. She is also presenting six works on the booth, bronze sculptures created between 2021 and 2024, each developing a relationship with an existing clay sculpture by the artist. Glistening and sensuous, the works shape liquid, buoyant qualities to express pleasures of gesture and materiality, memory, gravity, and sensation itself.
Francesca Facciola and Peter Wächtler at Lodovico Corsini
One of the more unpredictable presentations at Frieze New York 2025 comes from Belgian gallery Lodovico Corsini, which is showing German artist Peter Wächtler and Brooklyn’s Francesca Facciola together. Wächtler’s work roams across media: sculptures in bronze, ceramic or paper-mâché, paintings on celluloid, limestone and wood, films and animations, stories and poems. His work’s plurality is integral to its point – questioning value, ideas of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, of cultural importance and theoretical integrity. He treats the commonplace with as much respect (ie, very little) as more nobly born creative endeavours, endlessly circling, reluctant to settle. Facciola’s practice is similarly bananas, albeit more modest in material scope (for now, at least), although her paintings are sometimes turned into tracksuits or 3D tumbling mats supporting cartoonish animal characters. How these two artists will occupy the same space without some sort of fission reaction remains to be seen, but it should be exciting, whatever.
Further Information
Frieze New York, The Shed, 7 – 11 May, 2025. Tickets are on sale – don’t miss out, buy yours now. Alternatively, become a member to enjoy premier access, exclusive guided tours and more.
A dedicated online Frieze Viewing Room will open the week before the fair, offering audiences a first look at the presentations and the opportunity to engage with the fair remotely.
Frieze New York is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing its legacy of celebrating artistic excellence on an international scale.
