‘Contemporary art is struggling to address real events in the art world right now,’ claimed Gregor Muir, executive director of the ICA, two weeks before Frieze opened. As co-curator of the fair’s talks programme, he chose the theme ‘Borderlands’ in a bid to galvanise this year’s speakers into exploring mental, physical and political boundaries.
Witnessing oversized mens’ trousers, pink plastic, Barbie-style detritus and sculptures made of scaffolding tubes, Muir’s words resonate. There are always lots of gimmicks at Frieze, but there’s good stuff too and Universal Design Studio – the fair’s architects – and the galleries, have gone to great lengths to make this year’s fair navigable and exciting. At the Modern Institute, recycled corrugated panels from Glasgow’s Tramshed are used by artist Martin Boyce as effective backdrops, while Hauser & Wirth tapped into the vogue for recreating the artist’s studio with a chaotic, fictional space filled with works by 46 practitioners.
Installation view of Hauser & Wirth’s ‘L’atelier d’artistes’ stand at Frieze. Courtesy of the artists, estates and Hauser & Wirth.
Applied arts headlined at Gagosian in the form of black and white ceramics by Edmund De Waal and at the Viennese Galerie Meyer Kainer artist Lucy McKenzie created furniture wrapped in oil canvases inspired by Ettore Sottsass and Memphis, and Adolf Loos. At Mother’s Tankstation, this year’s Frieze Artist Award winner, Yuri Pattison, evoked 1970s California with an installation that explores the workspace and communal campuses.
For the first time, Frieze looks back this year, to the 1990s. Fourteen galleries revisit seminal shows from what was an impactful decade. Galerie Buchholz has recreated the bookshop in Cologne where Wolfgang Tillmans first showed photographs pinned to the walls, while Thomas Dane’s focus is on Michael Landy’s exhibitions in warehouse spaces
Berlin galleries Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie’s booth hosted works by Ryan Gander, Liam Gillick and AA Bronson.
German gallery Rüdiger Schöttle also looks back, to 1926 and the International Institute on Intellectual Cooperation, an advisory body that acted to unite a fragmented Europe (and of which Albert Einstein and Marie Curie were members). Visitors are encouraged to take a seat at a concrete table and discuss the pressing issues of the day. The first session was full – Muir might just be proved wrong.
Installation view of Blank Invitations, by Neha Choksi, 2016 at Mumbai gallery Project 88.
Applied arts headlined at Gagosian in the form of black and white ceramics by Edmund De Waal. Courtesy of Frieze
Hauser & Wirth have gone for the more is more approach with its ‘L’atelier d’artistes’ stand, a tongue-in-cheek examination of the museological practice of reconstructing artist studios. The presentation, with its clumsily translated French title, is an exercise in cliché. Courtesy of the artists, estates and Hauser & Wirth.
It brings together the work of numerous artists under the guise of a single artist’s atelier, including Louise Bourgeois, Richard Jackson, Martin Creed and Paul McCarthy. Courtesy of the artists, estates and Hauser & Wirth.
Berlin galleries Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie draped their booth in Ryan Gander’s grey-curtain work General Studies, 2016. Other artists at the stand include Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Angela Bulloch, David Claerbout and Roman Ondak.
General Studies, by Ryan Gander, 2016, holds court with Can Open Sapphire, by Angela Bulloch, 2016, at the Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie stand.
From left: General Studies, by Ryan Gander, 2016; Reciprocal Platform, by Liam Gillick, 2003; White Flag #5, by AA Bronson, 2015; and Charted Temperature 1, 2016 at the Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie stand.
Installation view at 303 Gallery. Pictured, from left: Hypothetisches Gebilde, by Alicja Kwade, 2016; Hot Mess: Aperture series, by Doug Aitken, 2016; The Bricks (A.), by Collier Schorr, 2013; and Your Head In My Eyes, by Eva Rothschild, 2015. Courtesy of Frieze
Back of Snowman (pictured in foreground), by Gary Hume 2016 on view at the Sprüth Magers booth. Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers. Courtesy of Frieze
Pace’s booth at Frieze included works by Robert Rauschenberg, Lee Ufan, Nige Cooke, teamLab, Leo Villareal, Michal Rovner, Brent Wadden, Francis Gray, Adam Pendleton, Kevin Francis Grray and Prabahavathi Meppayil.
Cave Girl (left), by Kevin Francis Gray, 2016 at the Pace booth.
Installation view of the Pace booth.
An ending and a beginning A-2, by Neha Choksi, at Project 88.
Kleine Welle, by Wolfgang Tillmans, 2015, on view at Maureen Paley.
Elevator To Culturefield, by Ryan Gander, 2016, on view at Esther Schipper.
Equilibrium (umph, ohwh, ah, clk clk), by Anne Hardy, 2016, at Maureen Paley.
Abstract Expressionist Still Life, by Peter Saul, 2016.
Self Portrait as The Opium Smoker (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), by Raqib Shaw, 2016, at the White Cube booth.
Untitled #581 (left), and Untitled #579, by Cindy Sherman, 2016 at Sprüth Magers.
Better Lives: Richard Belalufu, by Sue Williamson, 2003, at Goodman Gallery
German gallery Rüdiger Schöttle looks back to 1926 and the International Institute on Intellectual Cooperation, an advisory body that acted to unite a fragmented Europe. Visitors are encouraged to take a seat at a concrete table and discuss the pressing issues of the day.
Galerie Chantal Crousel featured works by Melik Ohanian, Zheng Guogu, Reena Spaulings, and Wade Guyton.
Installed in the 1990s section of Frieze, Sylvie Fleury’s pioneering work A Journey to Fitness or How to Lose 30 Pounds In Under Three Weeks is being presented collaboratively by Mehdi Chouakri, Salon 94, and Sprüth Magers. The installation was first shown in Aperto 1993 at the Venice Biennale.
Installation view of an immersive, interactive environment conceived by new media collective teamLab, at Pace.
Installation view of Galerie Meyer Kainer’s booth, which brought together works by Kaya, Laurent Dupont and Lucy McKenzie.
White Cube displayed works by Michael Armitage, Georg Baselitz, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Theaster Gates, Andreas Gursky, Mona Hatoum, Magnus Plessen and Liu Wei at its booth.
Pictured centre, Electrified (variable II), by Mona Hatoum, 2014, at the White Cube booth. Courtesy of White Cube.
Installation view of the White Cube stand. Courtesy of White Cube.
INFORMATION
Frieze London runs from 6 until 9 October. For more information, visit the Frieze website
ADDRESS
Regent's Park
London NW1 4NR
-
The Alfa Romeo Junior and the ups and downs of modern automotive brand buildingCompact, sporty and neat, with over a century of heritage to contend with, the Alfa Romeo Junior is a flawed but fascinating EV
-
Tropical gardens envelop this contemporary Brazilian home in São Paulo stateIn the suburbs of Itupeva, Serena House by architects Padovani acts as a countryside refuge from the rush of city living
-
Forget the sensor-stuffed smart home and opt for these bots made from warm Danish oak insteadSwift Creatives have debuted their conceptual Wooden Bots, smart notification systems concealed within a trio of sculptural, highly crafted, but still recognisably robotic devices
-
Doc’n Roll Festival returns with a new season of underground music filmsNow in its twelfth year, the grassroots festival continues to platform subcultural stories and independent filmmakers outside the mainstream
-
Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors' picks of the weekThe London office of Wallpaper* had a very important visitor this week. Elsewhere, the team traverse a week at Frieze
-
Chantal Joffe paints the truth of memory and motherhood in a new London showA profound chronicler of the intimacies of the female experience, Chantal Joffe explores the elemental truth of family dynamics for a new exhibition at Victoria Miro
-
Leo Costelloe turns the kitchen into a site of fantasy and uneaseFor Frieze week, Costelloe transforms everyday domesticity into something intimate, surreal and faintly haunted at The Shop at Sadie Coles
-
Can surrealism be erotic? Yes if women can reclaim their power, says a London exhibition‘Unveiled Desires: Fetish & The Erotic in Surrealism, 1924–Today’ at London’s Richard Saltoun gallery examines the role of desire in the avant-garde movement
-
Tiffany & Co’s artist mentorship at Frieze London puts creative exchange centre stageAt Frieze London 2025, Tiffany & Co partners with the fair’s Artist-to-Artist initiative, expanding its reach and reaffirming the value of mentorship within the global art community
-
Em-Dash is a small press redefining the indie zine beyond nostalgiaThe South London publishing studio's new imprint 'Practice Meets Paper' translates a chosen artist’s practice into print. Wallpaper*s senior designer Gabriel Annouka speaks with the founders, Saundra Liemantoro and Aarushi Matiyani, to find out more
-
‘It is about ensuring Africa is no longer on the periphery’: 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in LondonThe 13th edition of 1-54 London will be held at London’s Somerset House from 16-19 October; we meet founder Touria El Glaoui to chart the fair's rising influence
