A
tutor once said of another commercial art fair, ‘[the work] smells of the
desperate end of art production’, and I am afraid that at Frieze 2012, I may
have caught a whiff.
This
was my first visit to Frieze Art Fair, and so I can’t compare it to previous
years myself. However, the general opinion, from press, colleagues and other
regular attendees, seemed to be that this year’s fair had a much more domestic
feel. Generally, the work was very ‘sellable’, and I found myself walking away
from Regent’s Park not knowing how I felt of my first experience of the
gargantuan art fair.
There
were some things that I expected to see, works by Anish Kapoor and even a David
Shrigley ‘egg’ shown by White Cube. I became almost giddy when I spied a set of
9 photographs, ‘Typologie Fördertürme’ by
Bernd and Hilla Becher, however, I had not expected works dating from 1966 to
be one of the highlights of the fair. With
time, reflection and some discussion, a few particular things became evident. The lack of curatorial influence made the work
difficult to take in and enjoy. The nature of a commercial art fair means each
stand is competing against the next, but even within the stands, much of the
work was competing for attention too. This was a shame as when walking round
the expansive marquee, there was a lot of work that faded into the background.
It didn’t help that there was a distinct lack of any new media work, and moving
image was not well represented either, so the majority of the work on show was
a bit… samey.
The
Frieze Projects were refreshing as they showcased a more contemporary
participatory style of practice. Much of what I find exciting about
contemporary art now is collaborative work, where often the collaborative
partners are from different sectors and therefore bring something new to the
process, which was encompassed perfectly in Asli Ḉavuṣoḡlu’s, ‘Murder in three Acts’, a live crime drama, rehearsed, performed and
filmed during the opening hours of Frieze. Unfortunately, the more interesting Project
spaces only served to heighten the air of domesticity that exuded from the
commercial stands. There is no denying that Grizedale Arts’ ‘Colosseum of the Consumed’ in
particular, came from a completely different moral direction to that of Lisson,
for example. Adrian Searle, in his review of Frieze in the Guardian last week
mentioned Grizedale’s project as a highlight.
My
highlights, in addition to that fantastic archetypal Becher piece, were ‘Katsura’ by Yuki Kimura, a set of 24
photographs with cream mounts displayed with tall pot-plants, which gave the
sense of a 1970’s waiting room, shown by Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (the only curated
stand that I saw), ‘Artificial Rock A39’ by
Zhan Wang, a large and incredibly tactile-looking silver reflective rock, at
Long March Space, Beijing and installations of intriguing images on lined-up
transparencies in frames jutting out at right-angles from the wall, ‘Eternity through the stars’ by Jeronimo
Voss shown by Galerie Cinzia Friedlaender, Berlin.
A
final thought, I couldn’t help thinking when walking round Frieze, and the
question still lingers; when is the obsession with neon going to end? I don’t
know about you, but I’m over it. If the overall feeling of this year’s fair was
‘playing it safe’, then maybe neon encapsulated the mood perfectly.
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