Frieze London: Projects 2012
18.10.2012
This year saw the tenth edition of Frieze London and the birth of not one but two new fairs; Frieze New York and Frieze Masters. The two London based fairs drew to a close last Sunday in Regents Park after attracting a record number of visitors and succeeding in making London in October a meeting point for international collectors and art enthusiasts.
In my opinion the commissioned projects at Frieze London are consistently the most exciting aspect of the fair; despite (or perhaps because of) the amazing array of work on show it can be overwhelming and somewhat draining to take in stand after stand; the projects are an injection of energy. Curated again this year by Sarah McCrory for Frieze Foundation, the five commissioned projects at Frieze London came from Grizedale Arts/Yangjiang Group, Thomas Bayrle, DIS Magazine, Aslı Çavuşoğlu and Joanna Rajkowska. The Emdash Award Winner was Cecile B Evans.
Thomas Bayrle‘s Sloping Loafers/Smooth claims its images from Laughing Cow Cheese and a pair of shoes, covering the walls and floor of the entrance and various seated areas with its repetitive and vibrant prints. Bayrle is recognised as one of the key figures in European Pop Art, his work using replicated units to describe the delicate balance between collectivism and uniformity.
Aslı Çavuşoğlu‘s project Murder in Three Acts was inspired by the representation of art in the media, specifically the place of art in crime drama. For Frieze, Çavuşoğlu created an on-site film set/crime scene and rehearsed/filmed an episode of a crime drama set in a gallery, against the backdrop of Frieze. In this, the use of an artwork as ‘evidence’ is drawn up against the assessment of works of art as valid, important or useful in our contemporary society. Çavuşoğlu is at the forefront of the current Istanbul art-surge, something mirrored by the response his project gained from public and critics alike.
Grizedale Arts/Yangjiang Group‘s Colosseum of the Consumed saw the group housed within a bespoke wooden structure built on site by Yangjiang Group, with a series of activities, discussions and performances based around food, also functioning as a retail point selling various artists’ and community groups’ home grown produce and ideas for alternative eating.
Activities throughout the fair included Curator Cadaver Cake in which Bedwyr Williams undertook an autopsy on a curator made from cake, Vermin Dinner prepared and cooked by Sam Clark of Moro from unwanted and destructive ‘foods’ and Ginger Curators Dinner, a red meal for red haired curators cooked by Margot Henderson of Arnold and Henderson.
Grizedale put out a small publication on each day of the fair, the first detailing a manifesto of sorts that seems in line with this years projects, and with the best of contemporary art. It read as follows:
1 Art should be more useful- actually of use.
2 Obvious has become unexpected
3 Constructive working beats deconstructionism hands down
4 Ordinary is the new obscure
5 Low impact, high production
6 People like to pay for things they value- it sets a context
7 There is no shock left in shocking
Grizedale Arts is a continually developing curatorial project based in the English Lake District with a highly influential residency programme and recent projects at institutions such as MoMA PS1 and the Sao Paulo Biennial. Yangjiang Group is an artists group founded in 2002 in Yangjiang, China. Its members are Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin.
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