New York Art Week, having its inaugural run 5-12 May, was seeded last winter with a few conference calls among the leaders of New York-based art institutions and fairs. The Independent art fair founder Elizabeth Dee was on the phone with the likes of Noah Horowitz, formerly of Art Basel now of Sotheby’s, or White Columns director Matthew Higgs to brainstorm about the realities of a post-pandemic landscape and the art calendar’s frequent shifts due to last-minute virus variants and travel restrictions. “Suddenly four art fairs and three auction houses are opening within the same week—which never happened before,” Dee says at the Spring Studios, where her fair’s 13th edition…