Work in Progress: Rose Salane—“A love poem to the city of New York”

We check in with artists bringing new work to Frieze fairs to get a behind-the-scenes look at their process and progress. US artist Rose Salane talks about her ritual of collecting confetti from the steps of New York City Hall as she prepares to exhibit her new photographic series "Eight Vows" (2024) with Carlos/Ishikawa at Frieze New York.

Livia Russell How is your practice currently evolving?   

Rose Salane My practice revolves around the city and the contact it hosts; the orchestra of its movements; its perpetually replenishing desires and losses. I identify accumulations of items recovered from individuals and institutions in the city and term them “dynamic sets of objects.” I analyze the forces that have granted their preservation, interpreting these object accumulations as critical focal points recalling complex relationships between an individual, a site and a collectively lived experience.

LR Where does the work you will be presenting at Frieze New York fit within this evolution?  

RS At Frieze New York, I am showing a series of photographs documenting confetti thrown at Marriage Bureau wedding ceremonies at City Hall in New York City. Each week, hundreds of couples enter and exit the government building to be married by the state of New York. At the end of each day, after the ceremonies are over, the steps of the building are covered in confetti. I visit the steps daily and collect the remaining confetti and organize them according to the date they were collected.

The confetti piles are sets of dynamic object accumulations that collectively express the ritual’s promise of hope for the future. Each photograph’s title is the date the confetti was collected. There is an energy inherent in the confetti that documents and celebrates the exact instant in time and space that a couple in the city transformed.

LR Which part of your process are you devoting your time to in the studio right now?   

RS I began this object collection in May of 2023 and I plan to continue it in photography and sculpture, both as ritual and as a love poem to the city of New York. 

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Frieze New York is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing over two decades of a shared commitment to artistic excellence.

^{Main Image: Rose Salane's Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Carlos/Ishikawa, London}