Hikari Yokoyama’s Guide to the London Art Fairs
Kurimanzutto at Frieze Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas accumulates detritus from his personal life and alchemically transforms it into painting and sculpture. The tiled mirror floor work synchronized wonderfully with a large Gabriel Orozco Samurai Tree Invariant painting in which circles and squares emanate in structured variations from the center. Also on hand was another very different assemblage by artist Jimmie Durham, who currently has a show at the Serpentine.
Photograph by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.
Dominique Levy at Frieze Masters This carefully considered booth presented some beautiful abstract paintings focused on a conversation between the two post-fascist, post-WWII movements, ZERO (Camargo, Klein, Burri, Uecker) and Gutai (Motonaga, Shiraga, Matsutani, Shimamoto.) The post-apocalyptic environment was a clean canvas from which anything could happen.
Courtesy of gallery.
Axel Vervoodt at Frieze Masters I always discover beautiful forms and textures in a Vervoodt hang, and each object leads into some exotic facet of history that is relevant to now. I loved the gray early Fonatana painting, the cut stone sculptures by Nobuo Sekine, and the late Egyptian basalt fragment. Somehow these pieces from different times illuminate one another.
© Charles Roussel & Ocula.
Marian Goodman at Frieze New work by Adrian Villar Rojas—giant plinths with otherworldly colored light emanating onto the earthly artifacts placed on top of them—took center stage. Meanwhile, two Anri Sala snare drums with invisible drummers tapping away a rhythm, sat on the floor and hung upside down from the ceiling.
Installation view booth Marian Goodman Gallery, Frieze London, 2015. Courtesy of gallery.
Sunday Painter at Frieze Samara Scott installed a “pool” into the floor, with its the surface flush to the cheap art fair carpeting that surrounded it. Inside are bits and bobs of plastic ephemera, the kind you could find at a 99¢ shop. It felt to me like Narcissus’ reflecting pool, the one admired himself in before drowning. I read this as an environmental statement and a memento mori for all the crap we consume in our lives.
Photograph by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.
Tomasso Brothers and Karsten Schubert at Frieze Masters Renaissance & Neoclassical busts and Bridget Riley works on paper sat side by side in this clean and simple wood-walled booth. The lightness of the vibrating op art works juxtaposed with the heftiness of the busts allowed for a meditation on the physicality of making and experiencing artworks.
Photograph by Mark Blower. Courtesy of Mark Blower/Frieze.
Kamel Mennour at Frieze I loved the first Camille Henrot piece I ever saw—a video in the 2013 Venice Biennale—so I was happy that her gallery devoted its whole stand to her new work, a whimsical, large bronze sculpture and a set of simple, confident line paintings.
Photograph by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.
Richard Nagy at Frieze Masters This gallery presented a lyrical way to install framed drawings of various quality by Egon Schiele. Syncopated wooden knobs lined the room and were hung with silk ropes suspending each framed work.
Photograph by Mark Blower. Courtesy of Mark Blower/Frieze.
