1. Make sure you get to the preview at 10am with the rest of the “important people” at all costs. The public opening is just too humiliating for someone as sneaky and special as you!
2. As soon as you get off the ferry, find the free food and free booze. This year it was all about the Bombay Sapphire Lounge where you could lay in bathtubs while being served gin by faux doctors and nurses. There was also some impromptu dancing. Have you seen old white people dance? PERFORMANCE ART at its finest. Honestly, I spent the majority of my time in there and I wish I had a real doctor or nurse right now.
3. Keep your style on point. The bigger the platform you can get on your Balenciaga space tennies the better. Don’t make it look like you actually tried; that would just be embarrassing. You need to be casually dripping in diamonds while wearing light reflective clothing and Oliver Peoples. If you’re a man lacking fashion sensibility, lean #safe, banker’s suit, and the most basic Rollex.
4. Side eye everyone, look at no one.
5. Avoid everyone you’ve already slept with by bolting into booths, studying a painting with your serious face, and suddenly needing to take very important calls from “your client in Hong Kong.” The island is small so you may not be able to come back next year.
6. Eavesdrop without being caught. You’ll garner gems for the bank like “I want to go. We already bought three, no idea who the artist is. Ask my husband. He wants to stay longer but the light in these tents can get tedious and frankly, I’m bored.”
7. Freeze out anyone too happy to see you. They want something from you!
8. Lie about what is already in your collection with a thick fake European accent just to fuck with the salespeople.
9. If you are going to buy something, demand an outrageous discount and watch the salespeople squirm. “I’m going to need 30% off to make this feasible.” (*stares directly into the soul of the salesperson.) You can also falsify auction statistics…most people have no idea.
10. Make sure you’ve got your poker face on, whether it be a lot of Botox injections or indoor sunglasses. Don’t let anyone sense your weakness. Sharks smell blood in the water.
11. Poach clients by delicately bashing whatever they are looking at in any given booth and then pull out your Instagram and start showing them your superior artists.
12. Make sure you dominate the name dropping and exotic game location HARD! “Oh I was hanging out with my friend who’s doing a documentary on Kenneth Anger and he suggested we do a little Ketamine with Vito Schnabel. I said I couldn’t but you never what happens at a Benjamin Trigano after party. What happens in the Hollywood Hills, stays in the Hollywood Hills. LOL. LOL.”
13. Do not take selfies with Klaus, Hans, or Jerry Saltz…basic and overcooked. Find someone more obscure and unwilling to take a selfie with you, like an irritated John Waters or an illusive mega-collector.
14. Bum a cigarette from an intern and listen to them gripe. Agree with everything they say. They really do have it the worst.
15. Leave in a black car because they ferry back will be a bumpy ride and you’re likely pretty drunk. You can nap all the way back to Brooklyn.
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Frieze New York runs until 5 May in Randall’s Island Park