Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times  Frieze New York A crowd arriving at the fair, on Randalls Island.  Some people hate art fairs all of the time, and most people hate them some of the time. It’s fashionable to be snarky and condescending about them, but that’s too easy. Art fairs are here for the foreseeable future and represent the collective efforts — if not the hopes and dreams — of thousands of people who want art to be at the center of their lives.  Frieze New York tends to short-circuit art fair hating. It has unusually spacious quarters — a big white tent on Randalls Island, where it put down stakes last year — with more natural light than any New York museum. Viewing is enhanced by springy plywood floors that are relatively easy on the feet and is sustained, if necessary, by excellent food from outposts set up by hot restaurants (among them Mission Chinese Food, Roberta’s and the Fat Radish).  Generally, fairs are not nearly as deleterious to the art world as auctions or, in some ways, the multinational gallery franchises that are currently big-footing around the globe. Fairs are crucial to the survival of many midsize and small art galleries that, in turn, are essential to local art scenes. Given that these scenes are increasingly scattered around the globe, fairs are one way for galleries to connect.  All in all, Frieze has brought a new level of ease to the marathon of the big international art fair, and this year the quality of the art is up too. Yes, tickets are $42 (and must be purchased online), except for students, who pay $26. Getting there is another $12.50, round trip, on the ferries that leave from the 35th Street ferry dock on the East River every 15 minutes, or $5.50 on the yellow school buses that leave from the Guggenheim Museum, at Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, every 10 minutes. Frieze should figure out a way to extend the discount to artists. The most interesting thing about an art fair is the concentration of information about art, which artists arguably need more than anyone else.  This year around 180 galleries from nearly 40 countries are showing works by some 1,000 artists in all mediums, including performance. Some of the galleries are blue-chip, some are newbies (or art fair neophytes) that tend to be grouped in a section called Frame; most are in between. Nearly all have shown up with art that is several notches above last year’s offerings and not nearly as many big, shiny things. The stylish surroundings seem to have encouraged a rise in uncluttered displays and curatorial thought.  There is much to see: new artists of all ages to discover and others to get reacquainted with. Leo Xu Projects, from Shanghai, is featuring work by Liu Chuang, a young Chinese artist first seen in the “Younger Than Jesus” generational show at the New Museum in 2009. One piece, “Love Stories,” recently completed, consists of a table stacked with small, worn-out pulp fiction novels, some open, some closed. They were once part of a rental library, whose users frequently annotated them with comments, letters and Post-its. The sappy cover illustrations, together with the printed and handwritten Chinese characters, telegraph a poignant sense of isolation and longing.  There are blasts from the past. The Almine Rech Gallery, of Brussels and Paris, has one of Frank Stella’s “Exotic Bird” aluminum reliefs from 1976, which shows this American painter on the verge of a flamboyant new style. Sfeir-Semler, a gallery split between Beirut and Hamburg, is displaying “It Can Be Made Accessible,” a flat-footed yet oddly hopeful series of phrases typed on 16 index cards by the Conceptual artist Robert Barry in 1971. And there are works that may expand the past, like a display of pieces in stone, rope and newsprint, from the late 1950s to the early ’80s, by Seung-taek Lee, a Korean artist whose sensibility relates to Arte Povera, at Gallery Hyundai, from Seoul.  Some artists look especially good. The stands of Esther Schipper and Maureen Paley have between them three examples of a sliding door by Liam Gillick, made of vertical slats of colored metal — like a Donald Judd version of beaded curtains — that successfully fuses his interest in Minimalism and design. At the Modern Institute, Eva Rothschild, whom I associate with off-putting slick black sculpture with sharp points, is showing a sculpture made of a tangle of rebar, punctuated by cylindrical segments of cast concrete and colored pebbles; set on a tall pedestal, it suggests a cheerful Brutalist monument to the atom.  Frieze New York continues through Monday on Randalls Island; friezenewyork.com.
Art fair haters should put aside their disdain and enjoy Frieze New York, whose spacious quarters on Randalls Island feature a strong showing this year.