Tony Shafrazi, the legendary and controversial New York art dealer, is returning to the art fair circuit for the first time since 2012 with a booth at the Independent 20th Century fair in New York. He is presenting works by Armenian sculptor Zadik Zadikian, whose installation of gold bricks Shafrazi first exhibited in Tehran in 1978 before they were lost in the Iranian Revolution, alongside paintings by Brandon Deener. Shafrazi, now in his 80s, closed his New York gallery in 2011 and was banned from Art Basel in 2012 for breaking the fair's rules.
Shafrazi's return matters because he is a pivotal, if polarizing, figure in art history—known for spray-painting Picasso's 'Guernica' in 1974, championing graffiti artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and selling Francis Bacon to American collectors. Independent fair founder Elizabeth Dee frames his comeback as a testament to caring deeply about the art and audience, suggesting that such intensity, rather than market calculation, can drive collector interest. The reunion with Zadikian also reconnects a lost chapter of avant-garde art swept away by political upheaval.