THE NEW YORK TIMES reviews The Independent

William Crawford, untitled, 1990's, pencil on paper, Courtesy Delmes & Zander / Galerie Susanne Zander

MARTHA SCHWENDENER about Galerie Susanne Zander at The Independent in THE NEW YORK TIMES (MARCH 6, 2014)

An Art Fair That Tries to Be Something Else
The Independent, a Maverick Forum

"In its fifth year, the Independent continues to assert its maverick identity. It’s an art fair that pretends not to be an art fair. And because it takes place in Dia Art Foundation’s former exhibition space, you’re almost convinced. If fairs are part of the new necessary evil for small galleries to stay afloat, this one offers a good concentrated roundup of artists and exhibitors: nonprofit institutions, alternative spaces along with a few commercial galleries that might be barely paying their bills.

The fair still eschews souklike booths or the gridded cubicles of more corporate art fairs. And the organizers employed two young architects, Andrew Feuerstein and Bret Quagliara, to create a layout inspired by the tangram, a puzzle said to help develop spatial reasoning skills.

The conversation running throughout the fair this year has to do with history. Contemporary art is often accused of recycling and repurposing, and among the more than 50 participating galleries and nonprofits from 14 countries, there is plenty of work that looks old but is actually new, and vice versa.  (...)

Another prevalent strain here is so-called outsider art (which also includes people simply unacknowledged by the institutional art world). Suzanne Zander rounds up William Crawford, an avid draftsman of erotic scenes and photographs taken by an unknown man named Gunther K. of his red-haired secretary, with whom he had an affair."

Read the complete article HERE 

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