Spring/Break’s ‘Secret’ New York Show Is an Ode to Exuberant, Irreverent Art 

Call it the worst-kept secret of New York’s fair season.

Last week, Spring/Break, the bicoastal bazaar of aesthetic excess, announced to its 30,000-plus Instagram followers that it was doing a “special secret superlative” salon exhibition in its original headquarters, a stately brick house on Prince Street.

The atypical event gathers 100 artists and curators from past editions for a presentation that deviates from Independent and TEFAF, the two big fairs taking place in New York this week, both in style and sentiment. Enter through the front door, and proceed to the airy rooms to the left or right: each holds a smattering of paintings (the flat and sculptural sort) and ceramics (alien fungus forests and molting figurines), in addition to works made in more fluid mediums: painted wall hangings illuminated from within, a moss-covered table sprouting flowers, a delicate painting of devils at work, framed by a cushion. 

Don’t expect wall didactics or a discernible hierarchy; you might as well have wandered into the abode of an especially eclectic collector. It’s not a groundbreaking gathering, either in terms of the actual art or the idea, but it’s fun—a quality sorely missing from the season’s fussier affairs.

Spring/Break has grown impressively since its founding in 2012 by Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly. This venue, a former parochial school (once upon a time, Martin Scorsese was allegedly enrolled there), is quaint compared to 2022’s New York location, two sprawling floors at a Madison-avenue office building. 

The self-referential “secret” show is a teaser for the fall New York edition, which has been obliquely announced as a “Wild Card exhibition”. According to a statement from Spring/Break, it will be a “a new grab bag show” that encapsulates the show’s ethos.

Below are a few favorite pieces to keep an eye for at 32 Prince Street.