Dealer Adam Shopkorn’s Alternative Route to Frieze London With Haitian Artist Myrlande Constant

Dealer Adam Shopkorn of New York–based gallery Fort Gansevoort has always taken an unorthodox route when it comes to the business he cofounded in 2015 with his wife, Carolyn Tate Angel. After participating at Frieze Los Angeles this past February, he will show at the fair’s London edition this week with a solo booth dedicated to the textile flags of Haitian artist Myrlande Constant, who is living in a state of emergency in her home country.

Frieze London will mark his third fair this year after last showing at one in January 2020. “It’s important for us to be in these places now,” Shopkorn told ARTnews on a Zoom call before heading to London, noting that demand for Constant’s work has soared in the past few years after appearances in the 2022 Venice Biennale, Prospect.6 in 2024, and the 2025 São Paulo Bienal.

At Frieze London, he will show five of Constant’s monumental textiles, priced between $90,000 and $450,000. Each work takes its cues from Vodou spiritual practices in Haiti that are grounded in their African roots. Measuring more than 10 feet by 9 feet, Amwan Agwe… (2026), for example, depicts green hills and blue waves alongside the skulls, candles, and fish that nod to Fèt Gede, Haiti’s annual festival honoring the spirits of the dead.

These latest works also reflect a change in Constant’s own way of working, as she is no longer able to maintain an atelier as she once did in Port-au-Prince. For she used to worked with a team of women to produce the beautiful detailed work she has become known for. Now, she crafts her elaborately decorated flags on the go. Because of the ongoing violence in Haiti, she has to move between different cities for safety.

Since late 2023, Shopkorn might go months without hearing from Constant, whether it is to know if she is okay or how her next body of work is coming along. But then, out of the blue one day, he will receive one of her larger-than-life-size pieces in New York, arriving from Haiti via the Dominican Republic. “There’s no white-glove fine-art service truck that’s going into Port-au-Prince to collect artwork for an art fair in London,” Shopkorn said, noting that her works did arrive in time in order to go on view in London.

To support Constant’s production, Shopkorn approaches their relationship in a more old-school model, sending her money as a stipend instead of waiting for a sale to go through and split it 50-50 as is now the norm. “If we did that, she would be waiting forever,” he said, adding that the proceeds are often “sliced and diced in many different ways” to accommodate this structure.

Though Constant may not have reliable access to internet and phone services to communicate with Shopkorn, the best place to find what she has to say is in her textiles. Lasirène Diamant (2025), depicting the feminine Vodou spirit Lasirène who rules the sea, shows the mermaid spirit wearing a diamond necklace that symbolizes prosperity on one side, while on the other, she is shown in a raft filled with fruit, cake, and sweets surrounded by creatures from the sea such as mermaids, dolphins, a seahorse, and an octopus.

“Myrlande is [trying to] survive in Haiti and take care of her family,” said Shopkorn. “The moment an artwork leaves her hands, she’s not terribly interested in what happens after that. When one of her pieces enters a permanent collection, it’s not relevant to her because she’s worried about the safety of her family.”