Frieze London 2016 takes a nostalgic turn, as galleries look back to the Nineties
![Frieze Art Fair in London](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/XP7LadVDovNuiEQssR8Vcn-415-80.jpg)
‘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. 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, 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
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.
It brings together the work of numerous artists under the guise of a single artist’s atelier, including Louise Bourgeois, Richard Jackson, Martin Creed and Paul McCarthy. Courtesy of the artists, estates and Hauser & Wirth.
Berlin galleries Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie draped their booth in Ryan Gander’s grey-curtain work General Studies, 2016. Other artists at the stand include Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Angela Bulloch, David Claerbout and Roman Ondak.
General Studies, by Ryan Gander, 2016, holds court with Can Open Sapphire, by Angela Bulloch, 2016, at the Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie stand.
From left: General Studies, by Ryan Gander, 2016; Reciprocal Platform, by Liam Gillick, 2003; White Flag #5, by AA Bronson, 2015; and Charted Temperature 1, 2016 at the Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie stand.
Installation view at 303 Gallery. Pictured, from left: Hypothetisches Gebilde, by Alicja Kwade, 2016; Hot Mess: Aperture series, by Doug Aitken, 2016; The Bricks (A.), by Collier Schorr, 2013; and Your Head In My Eyes, by Eva Rothschild, 2015. Courtesy of Frieze
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
Pace’s booth at Frieze included works by Robert Rauschenberg, Lee Ufan, Nige Cooke, teamLab, Leo Villareal, Michal Rovner, Brent Wadden, Francis Gray, Adam Pendleton, Kevin Francis Grray and Prabahavathi Meppayil.
Cave Girl (left), by Kevin Francis Gray, 2016 at the Pace booth.
Installation view of the Pace booth.
An ending and a beginning A-2, by Neha Choksi, at Project 88.
Kleine Welle, by Wolfgang Tillmans, 2015, on view at Maureen Paley.
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.
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.
Better Lives: Richard Belalufu, by Sue Williamson, 2003, at Goodman Gallery
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.
Galerie Chantal Crousel featured works by Melik Ohanian, Zheng Guogu, Reena Spaulings, and Wade Guyton.
Installed in the 1990s section of Frieze, Sylvie Fleury’s pioneering work A Journey to Fitness or How to Lose 30 Pounds In Under Three Weeks is being presented collaboratively by Mehdi Chouakri, Salon 94, and Sprüth Magers. The installation was first shown in Aperto 1993 at the Venice Biennale.
Installation view of an immersive, interactive environment conceived by new media collective teamLab, at Pace.
Installation view of Galerie Meyer Kainer’s booth, which brought together works by Kaya, Laurent Dupont and Lucy McKenzie.
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.
Pictured centre, Electrified (variable II), by Mona Hatoum, 2014, at the White Cube booth. Courtesy of White Cube.
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
ADDRESS
Regent's Park
London NW1 4NR
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Emma O'Kelly is a freelance journalist and author based in London. Her books include Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat and she is currently working on a UK guide to wild saunas, due to be published in 2025.
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Los Angeles art exhibitions: the best shows to see in July
Read our pick of the best Los Angeles art exhibitions to see this month, from Mickalene Thomas at The Broad to Ed Ruscha at LACMA
By Carole Dixon Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Nicole Eisenman explores the dimensions of sculpture and painting at Hauser & Wirth Paris
Nicole Eisenman presents ‘with, and, of, on Sculpture’, her first retrospective at Hauser & Wirth Paris drawing inspiration from political challengers to ABBA
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published