Frieze Art Fair 2016: the highs and lows of the London fair

With a £3.5 million price tag, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture Red Stave, 2015, at Lisson Gallery, was the priciest artwork on offer at this year’s Frieze Art Fair in London.

(Image credit: Jack Hem)

By Emma O'Kelly

last updated 17 October 2022

‘Contemporary art is struggling to address real events in the art world right now,’ claimed Gregor Muir, executive director of the ICA, two weeks before Frieze opened. As co-curator of the fair’s talks programme, he chose the theme ‘Borderlands’ in a bid to galvanise this year’s speakers into exploring mental, physical and political boundaries.

Witnessing oversized mens’ trousers, pink plastic, Barbie-style detritus and sculptures made of scaffolding tubes, Muir’s words resonate. There are always lots of gimmicks at Frieze, but there’s good stuff too and Universal Design Studio – the fair’s architects – and the galleries, have gone to great lengths to make this year’s fair navigable and exciting. At the Modern Institute, recycled corrugated panels from Glasgow’s Tramshed are used by artist Martin Boyce as effective backdrops, while Hauser & Wirth tapped into the vogue for recreating the artist’s studio with a chaotic, fictional space filled with works by 46 practitioners.

Installation view of Hauser & Wirth’s ‘L’atelier d’artistes’ stand at Frieze. — *Installation view of* *Hauser & Wirth’s ‘L’atelier d’artistes’ stand at Frieze. Courtesy of the artists, estates and* *Hauser & Wirth*.

Applied arts headlined at Gagosian in the form of black and white ceramics by Edmund De Waal and at the Viennese Galerie Meyer Kainer artist Lucy McKenzie created furniture wrapped in oil canvases inspired by Ettore Sottsass and Memphis, and Adolf Loos. At Mother’s Tankstation, this year’s Frieze Artist Award winner, Yuri Pattison, evoked 1970s California with an installation that explores the workspace and communal campuses.

For the first time, Frieze looks back this year, to the 1990s. Fourteen galleries revisit seminal shows from what was an impactful decade. Galerie Buchholz has recreated the bookshop in Cologne where Wolfgang Tillmans first showed photographs pinned to the walls, while Thomas Dane’s focus is on Michael Landy’s exhibitions in warehouse spaces

*Berlin galleries Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie’s booth hosted works by Ryan Gander, Liam Gillick and AA Bronson.*

German gallery Rüdiger Schöttle also looks back, to 1926 and the International Institute on Intellectual Cooperation, an advisory body that acted to unite a fragmented Europe (and of which Albert Einstein and Marie Curie were members). Visitors are encouraged to take a seat at a concrete table and discuss the pressing issues of the day. The first session was full – Muir might just be proved wrong.

Installation view of Blank Invitations, by Neha Choksi — Installation view of *Blank Invitations*, by Neha Choksi, 2016 at Mumbai gallery Project 88.

Applied arts headlined at Gagosian in the form of black and white ceramics by Edmund De Waal. Courtesy of Frieze

Frieze Art Fair London — Hauser & Wirth have gone for the more is more approach with its ‘L’atelier d’artistes’ stand, a tongue-in-cheek examination of the museological practice of reconstructing artist studios. The presentation, with its clumsily translated French title, is an exercise in cliché. *Courtesy of the artists, estates and Hauser & Wirth.*

General Studies, by Ryan Gander, 2016 — *General Studies,* by Ryan Gander, 2016, holds court with *Can Open Sapphire*, by Angela Bulloch, 2016, at the Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie stand.

Back of Snowman (pictured in foreground), by Gary Hume 2016 — *Back of Snowman* (pictured in foreground), by Gary Hume 2016 on view at the Sprüth Magers booth. *Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers. Courtesy of Frieze*

Cave Girl (left), by Kevin Francis Gray, 2016 at the Pace booth — *Cave Girl* (left), by Kevin Francis Gray, 2016 at the Pace booth.

An ending and a beginning A-2, by Neha Choksi, at Project 88. — *An ending and a beginning A-2*, by Neha Choksi, at Project 88.

Kleine Welle, by Wolfgang Tillmans, 2015, on view at Maureen Paley. — *Kleine Welle,* by Wolfgang Tillmans, 2015, on view at Maureen Paley.

Elevator To Culturefield, by Ryan Gander, 2016, on view at Esther Schipper. — *Elevator To Culturefield*, by Ryan Gander, 2016, on view at Esther Schipper.

Equilibrium (umph, ohwh, ah, clk clk), by Anne Hardy, 2016, at Maureen Paley. — *Equilibrium (umph, ohwh, ah, clk clk)*, by Anne Hardy, 2016, at Maureen Paley.

Abstract Expressionist Still Life, by Peter Saul, 2016. — *Abstract Expressionist Still Life*, by Peter Saul, 2016.

*Self Portrait as The Opium Smoker (A Midsummer Night’s Dream),* by Raqib Shaw, 2016, at the White Cube booth.

Untitled #581 (left), and Untitled #579, by Cindy Sherman, 2016 at Sprüth Magers — *Untitled #581* (left), and *Untitled #579*, by Cindy Sherman, 2016 at Sprüth Magers.

Pavillon For International Institute Of Intellectual 2016 — German gallery Rüdiger Schöttle looks back to 1926 and the International Institute on Intellectual Cooperation, an advisory body that acted to unite a fragmented Europe. Visitors are encouraged to take a seat at a concrete table and discuss the pressing issues of the day.

Installation view of an immersive, interactive environment conceived by new media collective teamLab, at Pace.

Frieze London White Cube — White Cube displayed works by Michael Armitage, Georg Baselitz, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Theaster Gates, Andreas Gursky, Mona Hatoum, Magnus Plessen and Liu Wei at its booth.

Installation view of the White Cube stand. *Courtesy of White Cube*.

INFORMATION

Frieze London runs from 6 until 9 October. For more information, visit the Frieze website (opens in new tab)

ADDRESS

Regent's Park
London NW1 4NR

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TOPICS

London UK On Instagram Pace Gallery Frieze Art Fair Global Fair Guide 2016 Hauser & Wirth Sprueth Magers White Cube

Emma O'Kelly is a contributing editor at Wallpaper*. She joined the magazine on issue 4 as news editor and since since then has worked in full and part time roles across many editorial departments. She is a freelance journalist based in London and works for a range of titles from Condé Nast Traveller to The Telegraph. She is currently working on a book about Scandinavian sauna culture and is renovating a mid century house in the Italian Lakes.