Almost one year into Donald Trump’s second presidential administration, few galleries at Art Basel’s US fair seem interested in overtly broaching the increasingly draconian political climate—albeit with some notable exceptions. [...]
Platforming politics
Cristin Tierney, whose eponymous New York-based gallery is presenting one of the most explicitly political stands at the fair, feels that the lack of thematic risk-taking is a reflection of “a challenging year for the art market” more than anything else.
“Our first priority as art dealers is to take care of our artists, take care of the partners who trust us to do right by them and their art,” Tierney says. “Most of the galleries here are making those choices about what to bring to an art fair based on a variety of factors. But one of them is: what’s the best I can do for my artists?” [...]
“Nobody even knows what the heck the Declaration of Independence says, certainly not our president,” Tierney says. “There are a lot of collectors, curators and members of our community who are thinking about the big questions with regard to our government, where our country’s going, what we stand for, what we really believe the United States is about. And this booth reflects that.”
Featured works included a Jorge Tacla painting of the Pentagon building, BREAKING NEWS 5 (2025), and a Dread Scott canvas featuring a world map that strategically leaves out most of the US and blocky text spelling out the piece’s title, Imagine a World Without America (2007/2025). A piece by Julian V.L. Gaines, Emmett’s Last Ride (2022), features a pair of US flags on the tailgate of a Ford truck, referencing the abduction and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955.
In a corner of Cristin Tierney’s stand, the artist Tim Youd is busy at work all week on one of his typewriter performances, which involves typing the entirety of Hunter S. Thompson’s 1973 book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 onto a single sheet of paper. Appropriately, the gonzo journalist’s account of the 1972 US presidential election reaches its climax at the Miami Beach Convention Center, which held both the Democratic and Republican party conventions that year.
“There’s no reason that art fair booths can’t be more curated than they are,” Tierney says. “Why not have a message? Why not give people something to think about?”
