The annual TEFAF New York art fair is a dazzling display of wealth and taste, where the rich and famous gather to acquire treasures for their pied-à-terres and newly taxable homes. This year's event, held at the historic Park Avenue Armory, showcased a diverse range of art, from bejeweled sculptures to modernist masterpieces. The fair attracted a high-net-worth collector base, with some galleries arranging their booths to resemble luxurious living rooms and others offering demountable pied-à-terres designed by the late French architect Jean Prouvé. The highlight of the fair was the attention-grabbing Bad Fruit sculptures by Kathleen Ryan, encrusted with thousands of pearls, opals, and crystals, and the gunpowder paintings by Cai Guo-Qiang, which evoked bluebirds flying over a meadow. Sales were brisk, with three paintings by Eva Helene Pade selling to US institutions and a 3,300-year-old Egyptian stele selling to a private collector for $608,000. The fair also featured a somber booth by Hauser & Wirth, which hung melancholic scenes by Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, painted in Copenhagen at the turn of the 20th century. The fair is a testament to the diverse tastes of the wealthy, from the gaudy and glittering to the somber and melancholic, and a reminder of the power of art to captivate and inspire.
