In this second part of our two-part series on New York Art Fair Week, William Powhida and Paddy Johnson discuss the standout artworks from Independent, NADA, and Spring Break. Despite the thin crowds and economic challenges explored in Part 1, there were notable works worth celebrating. The conversation highlights vintage game boards at Independent, playful Nancy Drew-inspired paintings at Spring Break, and meticulously detailed highway landscapes at NADA.

Most significantly, we explore how the most politically relevant work happened outside the fairs, with an extended conversation of Mitchell Chan's "Insert Coins" – a deceptively simple video game installation that reveals itself as a devastating commentary on capitalism, cryptocurrency, and rigged systems. This piece, along with Open Collective's Ukrainian war karaoke installation, connected to the anxieties of the real world, in a way that seemed largely absent from the commercial fair venues.

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