One of the most sought-after curatorial posts in London has been filled: Nicola Lees will take over from Sarah McCrory as Frieze Foundation’s curator. The Serpentine Gallery’s former senior curator of public programmes will look after the London fair’s series of artist commissions and sit on the Emdash Award’s judging panel. (more…)
Art13 London, the new art fair about to challenge Frieze on its home turf, has released its much-awaited list of exhibitors. In total, 121 galleries will take part in the fair’s first edition next March (against an anticipated 80 to 100), including 86 in the main section, 17 in the Young Galleries section, and 17 in the London First section. (more…)
When it first launched in 2010, SUNDAY felt like a welcome departure from the main fair, and it has steadily become a mainstay of Frieze Week. Held like every year in Ambika P3’s cavernous space on Marylebone Road, SUNDAY gathers 20 young galleries, including this year newcomers RODEO from Istanbul, Seventeen from London, and Lisa Cooley from New York. Curatorial duo Baz and Chaz are behind the bar, and every day for the duration of the fair they invite a different artist to make a contribution, from the modest to the immersive. Also at SUNDAY, Jonathan Monk has teamed up with Three Star Books and design team OK-RM for the “Billboard Book Project” — a publishing-as-performance kind of event, involving a self-reflexive monumental poster, chopped up, and turned into limited edition prints. (more…)
Both the Pace Gallery and New York’s Lehmann Maupin have reported a rush of early sales at this week’s Frieze London and Frieze Masters fairs, with the latter moving 19 works during the fair’s VIP preview day — including nine pieces by Tracey Emin — and the former selling works from a dozen stable artists (including Sol LeWitt, Alexander Calder, and George Condo), and 2010 Whitney Biennial star Aurel Schmidt. (more…)
You don’t get to hear much gospel music in London, but American artist and musician Theaster Gates changed that late Wednesday night when, in the presence of English art world royalty assembled for Frieze Week including artist Marc Quinn and Jay Jopling of White Cube — where Gates currently has a solo show — the heavily bearded artist played a rousing, spiritual, and utterly inspired two-hour set at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club on Frith Street in Soho. (more…)
Both fairs — Frieze London and Frieze Masters — are now officially open to the public, so off to Regent’s Park! Gathering 90 galleries from 18 countries, the inaugural Frieze Masters covers 4,000 years of art history, all cheerfully mixed together. (more…)
This morning Tate announced it had acquired four new works for its permanent collection in the early hours of this week’s Frieze London art fair with a £150,000 ($240,000) purse provided by the Outset/Frieze Art Fair Fund, the largest budget the museum has ever brought to the fair in the fund’s 10 year history. (more…)
Today Frieze London opens for VIPs and professionals. If you have to wait with the mere-mortal crowd to get into the big tent, why not head South of the river, towards the South London Gallery. For his first solo show in the British capital, Rashid Johnson has crammed SLG’s elegant exhibition space with paintings, hanging plants, shiny shelves, and zebra-covered daybeds — “hijacking the domestic,” he tentatively explained. (more…)
In Bloomsbury again, this time to take the pulse of the young British scene. The Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4’s “New Sensations” and “The Future Can Wait” are back in Victoria House, promoting (and selling) the cream of the emerging crop. At Delfina Foundation in Victoria, Abbas Akhavan has taken over the organization’s new building on 31 Catherine Place with an installation blurring the boundaries between garden and domestic space. (more…)
Granted, London’s Frieze Week feels bigger every year. Exhibitions, talks, and performances are mushrooming in London’s every nook and cranny. But the 2012 edition is set to be a very special vintage. Not only is Frieze Art Fair (now known as Frieze London) celebrating its 10th edition, but it has begotten a sister fair, Frieze Masters, which will showcase “pre-21st century” art in a second big tent in Regent’s Park. Contemporary art is no longer Frieze Week’s only focus, and galleries and institutions of all stripes are going to extraordinary lengths to attract attention. To help you navigate the sea of art on offer, ARTINFO U.K. has compiled an ideal day-by-day itinerary. (more…)
