Firelei Báez debuts her new, meticulously rendered paintings in her second exhibition with James Cohan Gallery. Báez is known for her devotion to researching and reclaiming diasporic histories through Afro-Caribbean and Latin mythology and iconography.

Early March feels like the new year for art in New York City. It is a time for reflection, to consider one’s appetite for art and the onslaught of art viewing opportunities that will be presented at fairs like Independent Art Fair.

Women’s History Month opened with The Armory Show 2020 and a number of satellite fairs in New York this week. I intentionally searched for work by women as I walked through Pier 94 of The Armory Show preview on Wednesday.

VOLTA New York 2020 this year felt like it was geared towards the taste and sensibilities of Upper East Side and Jersey collectors. Its overall vibe was one of settled, comfortable respectability.

It seems appropriate to hold 2020’s SPRING/BREAK Art Show, a fair themed this year around baroque excess, just blocks away from Billionaire’s Row. The baroque was an era of decadence: the decay of Renaissance rationalism into theatrics, spectacle, and opulence. Today’s world seems similarly degenerate, with our theater of choice being fake news and social media rather than the opera, and the wealth being hoarded by billionaires instead of absolute monarchs. The baroque had Versailles; we have Trump Tower. The only real difference is that Versailles had better decorators.

This Friday evening, the Leslie-Lohman Museum Project Space on Prince Street in SoHo will launch, Drawing the MoMENt, a solo show of paintings on paper by Chuck Hettinger. This exhibition, curated by Christopher Stout, shares the artist’s perspective on the male form and the joy of Gay sexuality through the eyes of a man that has been HIV positive since the beginning of the epidemic.