Friezing – a review of London’s Frieze art fair

The 10th Frieze Art Fair, Regent’s Park, 11 – 14th October 2012

As with all art fairs, there’s a knack with Frieze – two in fact. 1) go early to avoid the crowds and 2) (this year for the first time) go to the alternative Frieze Masters first. A) Because one’s brain is fresh and unsaturated and B) personal taste dictates the art is, well, better. Oooh, now there’s a word I shouldn’t use, I hear you say, with your sharp intake of breath. But I can only be subjective and I know what I like. Let me declare now that I am a Modernist at heart, so the post-post-modernism of the trendsetters and the anti-establishment (inevitably to become the establishment of the future – note Hirst and Emin) leaves me cold by and large; too much conceptualism and not enough craft. What can I say? I admire technical ability and an aesthetic sensibility. Give me a Bacon or a Giacometti portrait over a Kaj Aune & Wolfgang Ganter ‘Trash’ any day. One cannot see everything and there is a lot, a LOT to see; inevitably one is drawn to what one likes or is curious about and the best way to understand it, is to write about, or interview it. My advice, in essence, would be not to have a plan (too stressful) and look past the sensational.

Frieze Masters, featuring over 90 galleries and comprising works made before 2000 was a joy also because of the juxtapositions of the old and the newer – a curating formula gaining popularity, the effectiveness of which most eloquently and currently proved by Bronze at the RA. Seeing a Karl Hofer portrait from 1936 next to a Felix Bracque from 1863, or a Robert Mapplethorpe female nude next to a William-Adolphe Bougereau woman’s head from c.1880, is the sort of coupling that stops one’s tracks. Other welcome surprises included galleries devoted, more or less, to one-man shows. For example, Andy Warhol’s pen drawings at Daniel Blau and Josef Koudelka’s photographs (responsible for first turning me on to the medium over 30 years ago) at Eric Frank Fine Art.

What are art fairs actually about, I wonder? Sales? (Out of reach of most, an Eva Hesse A4 watercolour-on-paper drawing was going for over £1 million). It was noticeable how pretty much everyone, without buying, was coveting and ‘owning’ pieces or parts of pieces by snapping them on their phones. Being seen? (All the celebs had been and gone by the time the public ventured in, but you still have to be able to say you’ve been). Being heard? (The conversations one catches on the way around are often more interesting than the art itself, “… so when Leo comes back from Abu Dhabi, he’s going to ditch the wife and buy the company himself….”) Being shocked? (Paul McCarthy’s ‘Hot Dog’, 1974, at Hauser & Wirth, has the capacity to appear at once old hat and still obscene and the graphic art of Mike Kuchar, taking over the François Ghebaly Gallery, was outrageous, explicitly gay and compulsive viewing). Being educated? (One can learn who are considered the artists of the moment, or flavour of the month again. This year, I spotted a preponderance of galleries exhibiting Alex Katz paintings.)

Frieze itself has become known for its projects, talks, film commissions, sculpture park and satellite exhibitions. Given this, it’s always a major decision whether to spend time watching/considering these, or to plough on with getting around the 170 or so galleries of the fair. I decided on the latter, wary that I should, nevertheless, be on the lookout for the likelihood of flash-mobs, installations and tours. I thought I had stumbled upon a bit of performance art only to realise that this was just a child in a pushchair, protesting loudly and too old and too large to be dressed as it was as The Gruffalo.

And why do people come to such an event? For what’s new? What’s different? What’s inspiring? For what the story is? Essentially, people are looking, like they do in any area of life, for things that touch them, with which to make a connection. My own theory about art is that if it makes you laugh, cry or fume with anger, it has done its job; if your response is to shrug your shoulders (if you be bothered) and move on muttering, “So what?” it has not. One piece that did it for me was Fiona Tan’s ‘Vox Populi, London’, at Frith Street – an arrangement of framed photos of ordinary folk, taken by ordinary folk. This was nicely echoed around the corner and a few aisles down by the more formal contrast of the geometric grid of ‘Couples’, by Akram Zaatari at Sfeir-Semler.

So, what’s most luminous (Carsten Höller’s neon pink walrus, complete with glass eyes and bristles and strategically placed at Gagosian, gained a lot of attention, mainly from children), huge (Oscar Tuazon’s ‘Dad’, at Standard), tiny, (John Stezaker, The Approach), playful, (note Salon 94 gallery), colourful, (Yayoi Yusama, various) is brought out of gallery storage and displayed, or is made the fabric of the architecture itself: Thomas Bayrle’s ‘Sleeping Loafers/Smooth’, formed the hypnotic interior décor of the fair’s entrance, compelling one forward to the security checks. Like a Biennale, Frieze is so vast one can only take in key works that stand out for the reasons above, or because they are noticeably well crafted – for example Grayson Perry’s ‘Adoration of the Cage Fighters’, at Victoria Miro – as much of the art isn’t. It has to be said (again), that contemporary artists tend to be greater marketeers than they are artists and even Perry, although he conceives his tapestries, doesn’t make them himself. Factum Arte have often worked with him to produce his work from digital files. I refer to this not to diss Perry, but rather to acknowledge the many unsung craftsmen behind such great contemporary pieces.

The most interesting work on show was low key. Some of this was exhibited on what was, appropriately, awarded this year’s Champagne Pommery Stand Prize. Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, offered thought-provoking work by Pak Sheung Chuen. This included ‘Peanut on the left/Peanut on the right’ and various other instructions for making art. In keeping with the art, I’d say it was small, but perfectly formed.

Bo Kiddick © Oct 2012