Frieze Art Fair London 2013

Frieze Art Fair London 2013

Although completely overwhelming, the enormous tent that is Frieze contains many wonders of the world.  Somethings stop you in your tracks by virtue of surprise, amazement or bewilderment.  My personal low point consisted of four people standing beneath a black sheet; they had head holes but I spent more time contemplating my very reasonably priced sandwich (it's the drinks that hammer one's pocket).  My high point was a series of miniature sculptures made of cardboard and plastic.  Other people will have very different opinions and that is the joy of the sheer vastness and variety that is Frieze.  Also, Frieze cannot be done in a day and I was there for around four hours so I can only present very edited highlights.

Sou Fujimoto, a Japanese architect (born 1971) designed the temporary Serpentine gallery Pavilion in London.  His miniature models of architectural space were fascinating, drawing the viewer in close and having an almost weightless quality.

An amazing explosion of colour and skill was demonstrated by an artist selected by the Tina Kim Gallery, New York.  This eye catching North Korean hand embroidery on silk by KyungA Ham (b. 1971) had many passers by stop.

Entitled Greed is Good, the pattern was so dynamic that it took a closer inspection to believe it was a hand embroidery.

The Egyptian born artist, Wael Shawky (b.1971) and represented by the Sfeir-Semler Gallery of Hamburg and Beirut, is mostly known for his videos of mythical journeys, featuring some animation and puppetry.  Two of the marionettes from his Cabaret Crusades to Cairo were displayed.  Made of ceramic, wood and paint, the two characters were very charismatic and, in their glass cabinet, invoked the activity of their journey.

The Johan Berggren Gallery displayed the "creative debris" of artist Ryan Siegan-Smith (b. 1982) who has worked under various names, including Leeroy the Duck and Allen Mothchart.  He works by accumulating visual aide-memoirs  in order to recall number sequences using mnemonic techniques.  Although the numerical sequence itself seems somewhat irrelevant, it is the celebration of the techniques of the type of mind which wants to learn such sequences wherein lies the interest.  There is no way of discerning which visual clues relate to which numbers, but the very fact that they have working significance to an individual encourages contemplation.

Johanna Calle (b. 1965) selected by Casas Riegner produces works based on her native Colombia and the fragility of the environments.  The series Conflicted Land is composed of pictures of trees native to Colombia, the photos being cut out from aerial photos which are taken to police the growth and illegal felling of these precious resources.  The images are simple and engaging but it is not too far a stretch to relate to the social and political issues she tries to emphasise.

Working in film and photography, one of the most arresting displays was that of Marcus Coates (b.1968), selected by Kate MacGarry.  His very high resolution prints onto rice paper of animals were superb.  What raised then above the standard of fascinating photography or animal portraiture was the way in which they had been made three dimensional.  Not only was there a fantastic depth to the photos and the colours themselves, but the paper had been creased and crinkled into sculptural forms which emphasised the shape of the subject matter.  Thus a photo of an ostrich became a 3D sculpture of a picture of an ostrich, an effect which continued whilst looking down the side of the print.

Korean artist Yeesookyung (b. 1963) has many varied pieces in the Saatchi Gallery all following the theme of the Translated Vase.  By using broken ceramics and reassembling them into a completely different form, she draws on the Japanese tradition of 'fixing' broken ceramics, using precious metals, so that the vessel is not only made stronger but so that the repair becomes part of the history of the vessel.  I didn't find that Yeesookyung quite achieved this resonance.  The parts of the vessel were too obviously broken to create a matching set (colour, design, size) and they were cemented together, the join then being over-painted by 24kt gold.  This was imprecisely done and highlighted to me the gulf between Yeesookyung's work and the fine craftsmanship of the traditional inspiration.

 

The work of Elaine Sturtevant (b. 1930), selected by Gavin Brown's enterprise, was interesting as it was unlike anything else I encountered.  It was understated and simple and did not seem to be 'trying'.  The basis of Sturtevant's work is repetition but subtle changes she applies to her work mean each piece is unrepeatable, for example, her hand-pulled black and white photography.

Li Songsong (b. 1973) selected by Pace, has a fascinating collage, multi-canvas style.  It invites inquiry.  It is a whole made of harmonious and yet overlapping components.  The colours are wrong, the style is coarse and there is an element of the random thrown in, but the whole resolves into an almost photographic image.  When he paints a person, the result is portrait like, even if each thickly painted canvas is difficult to resolve.

There were some standard favorites represented at Frieze, including Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami, which were great fun to see, although already familiar and recognisable at twenty paces.  New to me was the work of Tony Cragg (b. 1949) the 1988 Turner Prize winner.  I was enchanted by his sandstone-esque sculpture, made from metal and seemingly beyond scale.  He is an artist I will enjoy investigating further.