Could the art world’s experiment with online fairs force a healthy rethink?

[...] “There is no substitute to seeing art on the walls,” says Rakeb Sile, co-founder of Addis Fine Art gallery in Ethiopia. This is true in particular for lesser-known, emerging artists, she says. So her gallery’s Frieze New York debut showing of the Ethiopia-born, US-raised painter Tariku Shiferaw is bittersweet. “This was meant to be his big break in his home town,” Sile says. Yet, she adds, the shift to online has forced a healthy rethink of how best to give a context to Shiferaw’s work — videos on Instagram are among the planned accompanying features. [...]