In these unprecedented times, we are all having to face a new reality. Frieze New York 2020 edition has become Frieze Online Viewing Room and instead of being faced with the material presence of works of art in the show, BorzoGallery and The Mayor Gallery are now happy to guide you through the virtual reality of this Frieze Viewing Room.

Jan Henderikse, a New York citizen, was born in in the Dutch city of Delft in 1937. He left his hometown in 1959 for Düsseldorf, Germany and from there he moved to Curaçao in 1962. In 1968 he moved to New York and lived for a few years in the iconic Chelsea Hotel. He embraced New York as his new hometown while maintaining studios in Berlin and Antwerp.

Henderikse was well aware of the new developments in the New York art scene with which he immediately felt an affinity with. In 1962 the legendary Sidney Janis Gallery presented ‘The New Realists’, an exhibition with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and George Segal in combination with their European ‘Nouveau Realisme’ counterparts Yves Klein, Jean Tinguley, Arman and Daniel Spoerri. Henderikse knew his European colleagues quite well, having exhibited with them in the early days. They all shared similar ideas and felt the same in creating and welcoming this ‘New Realisme’. For them, no more old-fashioned painting, but instead now facing New Reality.

After all, Henderikse’s ideas originate from the ZERO movement in the late fifties, where they all found common ground in this rejection of traditional painting. Henderikse is a founding member of NUL, the Dutch branch of ZERO, and remained a lifelong friend of the equally Delft born Jan Schoonhoven.

In Frieze Viewing Room we are proud to present some of Henderikse’s ‘Ready Made’ art objects, especially some of his well-known license plates, the coin reliefs and Polaroid assemblages. Monumental works, such as his ‘Beer Crates Wall’ (as shown in the 2015 New York Guggenheim Zero exhibition) will hopefully be revealed and installed at Frieze New York 2021.