At art fairs, chatter often seems to be more about what's happening on the outside than the goings-on inside, and this past Frieze was no exception. Amongst the general obsessing over the $5.6 million Damien Hirst fish-in-formaldehyde piece that sold before the fair even opened, rumors were swirling that galleries often hold back their best work for the upcoming Art Basel Miami Fair in December. After checking out the fair itself I decided to explore some of London's complementary art shows and galleries:

Christian Marclay's killer new video work “The Clock”, at White Cube Mason's Yard (Hirst's gallery and winner of the big sale) was inspired: Marclay rummaged through 3,000 films for sequences that feature a clock or a character mentioning time and then weaved these sequences into a single film lasting 24 hours and flawlessly cut so that whenever a clock is shown on-screen, it corresponds exactly to the time in the real world.

Louise Bourgeois Fabric Works at Hauser and Wirth's new Saville Row space

Similarly, Louise Bourgeois's “Fabric Works” show at Hauser and Wirth's new massive 15,000 square foot Annabelle Selldorf-designed Saville Row gallery did not disappoint. Featuring more than 70 of Bourgeois' fabric drawings as well as four large-scale sculptures, the colors within the fabric are tremendously rich and work flawlessly within H & W's white-box space.

Louise Bourgeois Fabric Works at Hauser and Wirth's new Saville Row space

Another not to be missed show is Walid Raad's at the Whitechapel Art Gallery — he created videos and photographs that explore conflict in the Middle East. For work that documents violent and chaotic acts of terrorism in the Middle East, the show is remarkably clean and the installation precise. Raad researches and documents the contemporary history of Lebanon and tells us that there were 3,641 car bombs detonated in Beirut between 1975 and 1991. In seven collages titled “Notebook Volume 38: Already Been in a Lake of Fire”, a made up character named Dr. Fadl Fakhouri lays out pictures of cars and Arabic text. One image reads, "Silver Volvo; August 20, 1985; 56 killed; 120 injured; 100 kg of TNT; 24 cars burned; 11 buildings burned". In another work, Raad provides us with the serial numbers of engines that were blown from car bombs, how far each motor traveled and where it ultimately landed.