Lumi Tan Knows What the Art World Craves

Tan has established a formidable presence within New York’s art world through past positions at The Kitchen, MoMA PS1, and Zach Feuer Gallery. Her curatorial approach to this year’s Focus section feels particularly attuned to the current cultural moment, prioritizing artists and galleries whose work centers materiality, intimacy, and sustained practice.

Near the entrance of Focus sat Isla Flotante, a presentation of silk-screen paintings by Argentine artist Rosario Zorraquín. Delicate and semi-translucent, Zorraquín’s works introduced many of the sensibilities that would continue throughout the section: careful material exploration, softness, and emotional resonance.

Rosario Zorraquín. Cannibal Diptych, 2024. Oil on linen gauze, 35.4 x 21.3 in.

Rosario Zorraquín. Dancers in a Cave, 2024. Acrylic and ink on gauze, 64.2 x 50 in.

Not long after, Tan appeared while leading a tour of donors and prominent fair guests through the booths. Surrounded by collectors, curators, and supporters offering congratulations and thanks, it was immediately clear how valued her perspective has become within the ecosystem Frieze New York 2026 cultivates.

The section itself reflected an increasingly global creative dialogue. Galleries traveled from Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Pueblo Garzón, Biarritz, London, and New York, reinforcing the city’s ongoing relationship to an international contemporary art landscape. Galleries based throughout Central and South America held a particularly strong presence this year, continuing the longstanding artistic exchange between Latin and North America.

Yeni Mao. fig 21.7, lossy, 2023. Nickel-plated steel, mercury glass, aluminium.

Abraham González Pacheco. Serpiente de nopal, 2025. Pigments, soil, graphite and charcoal agglutinated with cactus sap and salt on paper. Courtesy of the artist and Campeche, Mexico City.

For Tan, that relationship was central to the curation. “Because we’re like a really small, intimate section, it’s always really important to highlight the work of Latin American galleries,” she said. “With galleries that have been here for multiple years, people start to understand their programs and get a really wide view of the Latin American art scene.”

Seba Calfuqueo. Informantes, 2025. Acrylic on canvas.

Seba Calfuqueo. Yewen, 2025. Glazed ceramic fired at 1060° and synthetic hair.

Across Focus, recurring themes of tactility, material connection, and personal narrative naturally emerged. Tan noted that many of the presentations seemed to resist spectacle in favor of something slower and more grounded. “This is a really hard year for everybody, every aspect, politically, financially,” she said. During installation, she began noticing a shared emphasis on material resonance and deeply personal approaches to practice. “There’s such a material resonance between all these artists,” she explained. “I felt like that kind of intimacy in the work is really important for such a difficult time in the world. It makes people feel very connected, to feel like the work is very meaningful to the artists themselves.”

Aki Goto. 2026. Repurposed dental chair, 40-in video screen, projector, acrylic, glitter.

Tan pointed specifically to the work of Joanne Burke, presented by Soft Opening, whose bronze and aluminum works draw heavily from natural form and texture. “I think people want to return to a materiality and a tactility, a thing that speaks in a less direct and imagistic way,” she said. “Less one-to-one, and a little bit more nuanced.”

Rather than leaning into immediacy or overt spectacle, this year’s Focus section often returned to physicality, process, and emotional specificity—artists using material not only as form, but as a way of grounding themselves within an increasingly unstable cultural moment.

Frieze New York 2026 ran at The Shed from May 13–17, 2026. Later this year, Tan will curate Converge 45 in Portland, Oregon, titled Here, To You, Now.