The 10 Coolest Booths at NADA Art Fair 2013

One of the first galleries you stumble upon when entering NADA is ESSEX STREET. Their small collection of works includes Vern Blosum's paintings of everyday objects with clever captions, Cameron Rowland's complicated sculptures, and Chadwick Rantanen's jumbled forms reflecting the frustration of the tape measure.

Clifton Benevento's booth is showing works by the Brooklyn-based painter Gina Beavers, although her works are almost more sculptural than traditional oil-on-canvas. Beavers molds her renderings to rise off of the canvas, so her paintings of an overflowing taco, juicy blackberries, raw meat, and a man's torso project into our space with a new life.

As one of the NADA Projects booths, Dan Gunn brought a collection of Michael Smith's surreal creations. Smith's works include the directions for building a doorknob in a 22nd Street New York apartment out of fabric, glass pitchers that can't pour water, and high heels encased in a stocking to look like a turkey. His work hails delightfully back to that of Man Ray or Meret Oppenheim.

The Hole is showing strong at Art Basel this year. Wednesday night they hosted a performance piece by Matthew Stone, which was a gender-bending poolside spectacle. At NADA, they have one of the most prominent booths, using wooden shipping crates to display work instead of the supplied white walls. Their booth includes a burned canvas by Kasper Sonne, a black-and-white hourglass by Jim Joe, and Holton Rower's explosive pour paintings as well as work from other artists they represent.

Rachel Uffner brought works by Anya Kielar for their entire booth at NADA. Kielar's work includes large-scale screen prints in smear-free lines with delicate clothing as well imprints of apparel on light sensitive paper. The clothes seem to float off their canvases, giving them an otherworldly feel.

This San Juan-based gallery brings the Caribbean into NADA with bright, tropical themed works. Katherine Bernhardt's paintings of tacos, watermelon, and dollar signs perfectly capture the feeling of the Latino beach. In the middle of the booth sits an installation of a man painted on a watermelon bed. In the corner is a baseball glove filled with panties, and on the wall is a painting of a pineapple with rum. Roberto Paradise also showed colorful paintings of potted plants by Tyson Reeder.

For their booth at NADA, American Contemporary is showing sculptures by Joel Holmberg that place staplers, toothpaste, peppershakers, in other common objects on microphone holders. The mics become surreal objects, both threatening and playful. On the walls of the booth are paintings by Mariah Robertson that seethe with splotches of paint.

The pornographic rocks by Aura Rosenberg at MARTOS GALLERY / Shoot the Lobster might be one of the best things in the fair. Laid on the ground, these unassuming forms are covered with graphic pictures of sex. Also on the wall is a quirky work by Justin Lieberman that features a ConEdison power shut-off notice along with cartoonish graphics.

The Still House Group had something entirely different than the rest of NADA. Instead of paintings or sculptures, they set up a lone photocopy machine that when hit spits out a press release for their show in Miami, "Straight II DVD." The ballsy booth is a refreshing break from the endless mini-galleries. "Straight II DVD" includes work by Isaac Brest, Phoebe Collins-James, Nick Darmstaedter, Louis Eisner, Joe Graham-Felsen, Jack Greer, Alex Ito, Brendan Lynch, Dylan Lynch, Jack McConville, Haley Mellin, Alex Perweiler, Zachary Susskind, Peter Sutherland, Augustus Thomson, and Brad Troemel.