The organizers of Collective Design, which takes place from May 13–17 at Skylight Clarkson Square, have figured out what Frieze Week fair-goers really want: a mellow, artfully designed place to nap. One of the fair’s many curated projects—which are by far its strongest assets—is the “Nap Lab,” which is presented by design collectives Print All Over Me andVarious Projects. (We would have gone with “Nap Lounge” as an homage to Frieze 2014’s much-lampooned “Gap Lounge,” but no one asked us.)
“We wanted to be the first nap environment for the trade show circuit,” Print All Over Me’s Jesse Finkelstein told artnet News during the opening. Finkelstein then went on to describe the lounge’s surreal aesthetic as “Beetlejuice-inspired.” This display of public napping arrives in the wake of the Marina Abramovic Institute’s installation at Art Basel in Miami Beach last December, where the grandmother of performance art arranged colorful cots for exhausted fair-goers to relax on (see I Got Lost at Art Basel in Miami Beach.)