the frieze art week 2011 - part 2

Frieze Art Fair 2011
Regent's Park
13-16.10.2011

This is the long over-due part 2 of our frieze art fair review. Although the sculptural park seems to be quite disappointing this year, we found some encouraging development in the tent.

Frieze Projects has selected a handful of cool works this year, and arranged them to be scattered around the fair.  Laure Prouvost plays jokes about the physical environment and the visitors. Christian Jankowski puts a boat in the venue, and ironically it does not actually look odd among all these contemporary art works - the nature of an art fair as the flea market for the rich is spelt out loud. Bik van der Pol's slogan-generating scoreboard is an attempt between installation and performance. And Pierre Huyghe leaves his work to the hand of mother nature for his aqua creatures to entertain the guests.

Laure Prouvost - one of the Frieze Projects this year

Laure Prouvost for Frieze Projects - http://www.friezefoundation.org/commissions/detail/laure-prouvost/

Christian Jankowski - one of the Frieze Projects this year

Bik van der Pol in Frieze Art Fair 2011 - one of the Frieze Projects this year

Pierre Huyghe in Frieze Art Fair 2011 - one of the Frieze Projects this year

We are also very pleased to see many galleries have devoted time and efforts to create a presence in the fair by a unique booth design. This creates an identity to the gallery and a set for the art works featured inside the booth. The followings are our favourites this year -

IBID Projects (London)

the IBID Projects booth - video link

Alex Zachary (New York)

Ken Okiishi / Alex Zachary at the Frame section - video link

Galerie Eigen & Art (Leipzig/Berlin)

Carsten Nicolai in Galerie Eigen & Art (Leipzig/Berlin)

Galerie Eigen & Art (Leipzig/Berlin)

Georg Kargl (Vienna)

Sies & Höke (Düsseldorf)

Sies & Höke (Düsseldorf)

There is an official Stand Prize of  £10000, and it was given to Gavin Brown's Enterprise this year. The gallery has displayed works by Turner prize winner Martin Creed, Elizabeth Peyton, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Joe Bradley and Alex Katz in the booth. From the office website's announcement, “the judges agreed that the stand articulated a long-term commitment to and understanding of the artists represented.” No further elaboration is provided.

Winner of Frieze Art Fair's Stand Prize - Gavin Brown's Enterprise (New York)

The tent itself also gets a breakthrough form - no more total white prefabricated assembly. We hope the fair has the money to keep this exciting move next year.

The cafe, as well as other parts of the venue this year, designed by Carmody and Groarke

Video link

If you haven't read part 1 previously, it's here. Have a happy new year in a few hours!

*****
Further Readings -
Page - Official website of Galerie Eigen & Art
Page - Official website of Galerie Georg Kargl
Page - COS supports Frame

art february in london - part 1

E2 Art Walk
13.02.2010
Havn't visited Vyner Street for quite a while (previous post here), so when a few friends are visiting London this month, I stole the chance to re-visit it again.
The Chair Arch at V&A Museum of Childhood

Chair Arch (close-up)

We approached V&A Museum of Childhood on Cambridge Heath Road first after getting off at Bethnal Green Station. I decided to go in as I reckoned my friends would be interested to see the vintage toys. To our surprise, we found the chair arch which was previously exhibited at the V&A Museum in Kensington at the central space there! We also saw a great photography show at the entrance space called Wendy's World by london-based french artist Etienne Clément (check the Further Readings section below about the concept and a full view fo the works) - 

 

Parade by Etienne Clément

Continuing the walk up Cambridge Heath Road, we dropped by briefly at IMT gallery and 242 gallery -


Naoko Takahashi at IMT gallery


On Vyner Street we first stepped into 12A Gallery and found wonderful sculptures by Paul Munn -

Paul Munn at 12A Gallery 

Kate MacGarry is showing Josh Blackwell's miniature paper sweaters -

Josh Blackwell at Kate Macgarry

At Ibid Porjects there're some less-interesting installations of Magali Reus but the short film somehow makes it up. (Note: I previously posted an excerpt of the film here but the person who shot it has contacted me and told me that it is up for commercial sale and I should take it offline. So you won't be seeing it now.)

Background by Magali Reus at Ibid Projects

Nettie Horn has a compilation show with 3 artists, and we found Rebecca Stevenson to be the one that impressed us the most among them -

Show poster featuring Folie a l'orange (2009) by Rebecca Stevenson at Nettie Horn

Luxe Vert (2008) by Rebecca Stevenson at Nettie Horn

At the Gooden Gallery, Simon Morse's pseudo-mechanical switch boxes are lining up the walls of the gallery space. The mix of low-tech knobs and punch line text scattered on the face of the boxes creates a sense of strange-ness in the familiar -

Wilkinson Gallery has the most amazing work we have seen in the whole afternoon by london-based norwegian artist A K Dolven. The show is minimal yet powerful, characteristic of scandinavian aesthetics - 

Ahead (2008) by A K Dolven

The day the sky become my ground by A K Dolven at Wilkson Gallery (video link)

Full photo set here

Further Readings -
An interactive map of galleries in Vyner Street by the Guardian, 29.09.2009
Official website of Simon Morse
Official website of Paul Doeman
Official page of Wendy's World on Etienne Clément's website with full screen viewing of the series
Official website of A K Dolven