New YorkPast is present at Future Fair. That’s not to say that this relative newcomer to theslate of fairs that usher in New York’s spring art season is backward-looking, butmuch of the best work here mines the past for inspiration and transforms it intosomething contemporary.

Returning for its third in-person edition, Future, once again mounted just belowthe High Line at Chelsea Industrial, features over 50 exhibitors from around theworld. It’s among the earliest of at least 10 fairs to open in the city over thecourse of two weeks, which—along with numerous high-profile gallery shows,museum openings and auctions—means that long-running complaints about“fairtigue” aren’t going away.

That said, many of these occupy aspecific niche within thevisitor/collector ecosystem—Frieze,flashily contemporary with amegadealer roster; TEFAF,undeniably tony and upmarket;Spring/Break, wacky and weird witha DIY vibe. Future, for its part,highlights emerging galleries andartists—as well as price points thatdon’t look like the GDP of somemicrostate—at booths that often feelmore like miniature exhibitions thansales stalls. A unique profit-sharingmodel and radical transparencyamong galleries also set it apart and make it an especially attractiveoption for exhibitors.

But can a fair really be forward-looking if the art there seems to keepan eye on the rearview mirror? Thepaintings of Dittmar Viane provide afull-throated yes. These hyper-detailed oils on panels seem likethey’ve just been unearthed in sometrove of Northern Renaissance works—until you notice their surrealelements and realize you’re seeingsomething created recently. TheBelgian artist, being exhibited byAntwerp’s Everyday Gallery, brings a21st-century perspective to his 15th-century techniques. His works areluminous, thanks to the layers uponlayers of paint he uses to build hisscenes, but also humorous: A hawk flies sideways by a birdhouse as a pigeonpeers out, safely sheltered from the swooping predator; eyes and an ear floataround a miniature piano, lending it a human quality.

But can a fair really be forward-looking if the art there seems to keepan eye on the rearview mirror? Thepaintings of Dittmar Viane provide afull-throated yes. These hyper-detailed oils on panels seem likethey’ve just been unearthed in sometrove of Northern Renaissance works—until you notice their surrealelements and realize you’re seeingsomething created recently. TheBelgian artist, being exhibited byAntwerp’s Everyday Gallery, brings a21st-century perspective to his 15th-century techniques. His works areluminous, thanks to the layers uponlayers of paint he uses to build hisscenes, but also humorous: A hawk flies sideways by a birdhouse as a pigeonpeers out, safely sheltered from the swooping predator; eyes and an ear floataround a miniature piano, lending it a human quality.

Emily Weiner also draws on surrealidioms. For instance, her painting ofa white rabbit is overlaid with theblack f-holes of a violin in a nod toMan Ray’s famous photo of Kiki deMontparnasse. Her work, shown byNashville’s Red Arrow, is happy to flitaround art history, pulling from theancients (a red-figure amphora is thecenterpiece of “Providence”) and themoderns (the face in “Harlequin” isoverlaid with the colorful diamondsPicasso favored when he depicted thetitular subject). Elsewhere, partedcurtains reveal various landscapes, arecurring motif for Ms. Weiner.These paintings reframe ourperspective on artistic icons quite literally: Housed in frames that the artistcrafts herself out of wood, stoneware, terra cotta and porcelain, they remind usthat movements and schools, no matter how well defined, have a way of reachingacross their borders into the present.

Bryan Rogers, presented by New York’s Monya Rowe Gallery, makes paintingsthat look like something out of an Alphonse Mucha mushroom trip. Art Nouveauplants and trees vibrate around his multihued male bathers as they plunge intoundulating water. (In an explicit embrace of the past, the artist says his serieshere was inspired by Duncan Grant’s “Bathing” of 1911.) Even more overtlypsychedelic are Rafael Plaisant’s works on paper that feature Day-Glo colors,extraterrestrial geometric shapes and central portals that peer into tiny detailed andscapes. His display by NewYork’s High Noon calls out for ablacklight and a shag carpet.

But it’s not just artists who work in two dimensions that are looking to historyfor their inspiration. Karo Kuchar includes the past quite literally in her wallsculptures shown by Vienna’s Suppan. She adheres a length of silk to old walls inher hometown then pulls it away, lifting part of the surface in the process. Shethen sews the fabric into lighthearted works that explore the ways we buildpublic images of ourselves through our digital personas, our fashion choices andmore. A trio of pieces that mimic Tinder profiles is particularly funny: “DudeWith a Fish” sends up the ubiquity of that kind of photo on the app, while “CEO(Not Yet)” pokes fun at the rise-and-grind mindset that so many project online.

And Paris’s Superzoom has one of the best booths in the fair thanks to its pairingof Ugo Schildge with Verdiana Patacchini. Mr. Schildge’s works take an ancientform, relief sculpture, and update it with a modern material, poured concrete.The results are laugh-out-loud scenes of animals: In one, a trio of donkeys seemto blend into a single stubborn braying mass; in another, a crocodile weeps,spewing waterfalls of rainbow tears from its face. Ms. Patacchini’s sculptures aremore serious, drawing on classical art and questioning its permanence. Forinstance, her “Figura Bugiarda ‘3 (Deceitful Figure ‘3)” riffs on iconic depictionsof the reclining female—most clearly “Sleeping Ariadne,” but alsoMichelangelo’s “Dawn” and, more recently, Canova’s “Venus Victrix.” However,instead of being rendered in marble, with all its connotations of strength andlongevity, the sculpture is made of India paper colored with charcoal andpigments, hung on a rough wooden frame, and ornamented with ceramic details.While Ms. Patacchini’s work might not be able to weather time like itspredecessors, it nonetheless shows that artists can still find fertile soil in theoldest of fields.

—Mr. Kelly is the Journal’s associate Arts in Review editor. Follow him on Twitter@bpkelly89.