The Frieze London art fair opens today at the southern end of Regent's Park, bringing together 160 contemporary galleries from forty-two countries. This edition includes two notable sections: Focus, dedicated to established galleries over the last twelve years, and a special presentation entitled “Indra's Net”, curated by Sandhini Poddar. Across the park, Frieze Masters showcases six millennia of art from antiquity to the 20th century.
On Thursday, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair kicks off its tenth anniversary edition at Somerset House, hosting fifty international exhibitors from twenty countries. This year's iteration is accompanied by the 1-54 Forum, a program of lectures, exhibitions, performances, workshops and readings. You can also see, the large-scale installation “O Barco/The Boat” by Lisbon artist Grada Kilomba was mounted in the courtyard of Somerset House.
Other exhibitions showing around the city include “Christopher Kulendran Thomas: Another World” at ICA London, “Barbara Chase Riboud: Infinite Folds” at Serpentine Gallery, Cornelia Parker at Tate Britain, Maria Bartuszová at Tate Modern, “Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear” at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Nikita Gale at Chisenhale Gallery, “Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics” at the Barbican, and Rene Matić and Simeon Barclay at the South London Gallery. The works on display this year are very strong, with an abundant discovery of young and forgotten artists. Below, check out what's best at the fair, which runs until Sunday.
Cecilia Vicuna at Lehmann Maupin
Cecilia Vicuña, who has just installed two beautiful sculptures in the Turbine Hall at the Tate, has a series of works in various mediums at Frieze. In a large corner there is a large sculptural work made of blue-dyed unspun wool that is installed on a pedestal below the floor. The work unrolls gracefully on a larger roll. Behind the piece are several of the artist's “precarios”, small assemblies created from debris that the artist found. There are also two paintings by the artist and a loop of three videos involving Vicuña's renowned poetry.
Anthea Hamilton at the Thomas Dane Gallery
The Thomas Dane Gallery in London invited the artist Anthea Hamilton to carry out an extension of a project that the artist did recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. Hamilton has brought together the work of several artists from the gallery's cast, plus three not represented by Thomas Dane, for an eclectic and energetic display. The result was large works of giant pumpkins that spread out over a checkered floor patterned in shades of black, blue and white. Elsewhere are works by Lynda Benglis, Amy Sillman, Barbara Kasten, Hurvin Anderson, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Alexandre da Cunha, Barbara Kasten and more. The stand has already won the Frieze Stand Award.
Bruno Zhu in VI, VII
A hanging sculpture by Portuguese artist Bruno Zhu depicting a silk version of a relógio Patek Philippe proved to be one of the fair's most popular works. O relógio in question once belonged to the artist's mother. Presented here in a version made in a bright shade of pastel lavender, the relógio now explores notions of masculinity and how these are conveyed by objects. Zhu reversed the elements of relógio: instead of the hands rotating clockwise, here they rotate counterclockwise.
Mahmoud Khaled in Gypsum
On the Gypsum stand is a sleek leather bed, replete with a harness that divides it, courtesy of Berlin-based artist Mahmoud Khaled. Entitled Para Quem Não Consegue Dormir, the work is a monument, in a way, to insomnia, presenting the absence of a person who probably struggled to sleep in bed. In Khaled's hands, these monuments become a metaphor for those who have been displaced, discarded or exiled, whether from their home countries for political reasons or by their families because of their queer identities.
Virginia Jaramillo at the Pace Gallery
Tucked away on the stand at Galeria Pace is a stunning new work by Virginia Jaramillo. Entitled East of the Sun/Deepfield, this abstraction features a predominantly blue and black canvas that is indented in the lower third by a sharp yellow line; on the left are two arches, in red and another in orange, which point to the solar image referenced in the title of the work. Interestingly, the work hangs next to a horizontal abstraction by Kenneth Noland. The two artists were contemporaries, and their work was once seen together in artist Peter Bradley's groundbreaking 1971 exhibition, "The DeLuxe Show," considered the first exhibition of racially integrated art in the US.
