Pink Project, 1994/2016. Portia Munson
The art world loves a good trend, but who doesn’t? And no place is better for spotting the latest artistic craze than Frieze London. This year the fair boasts more than 160 galleries, many of which are based in Berlin. SLEEK’s online editor Will Furtado went around the booths to see what’s making the art market tick in 2016.
Click through each of the image galleries below to see the on-trend works from this year’s Frieze Fair.
Totemic towers
From poles of stacked up rubber genitals to plain geometrical shapes rising up to the sky, the totem-like structure is erect and well at Frieze. Gallery Shanghart offered the rudest creation with Ouyang Chun’s tower of readymades. Meanwhile, artist Angela Bullock’s navy geometrical totem at Boesky provided style and Marwan Rechmaoui displayed the most somber example with its tower made of concrete and metal at Sfeir-Semler.
Ceramics
If there’s one thing that ceramics says, it’s: I’m conceptual and crafty. This year it appears that anything to successfully survive a fiery furnace made it into Frieze London. Glazed art objects sat shining in at least five booths. These glossy creations included Jeff Koon’s ballerinas at Rech, Klara Kristalova’s kneeling statue and Bharti Kher’s split woman at Perrotin.
Mirrors
Reflective artworks are always a winner (hi again, Koons) which confirms our suspicions that every collector’s pro-filter attitude predates Snapchat. But the new trend circumvents that reticence altogether in the form of actual mirrors being part of the artwork. The best examples include Darren Almond’s numerical mirror at Hetzler, Kader Attia‘s small broken mirrors splattered on a canvas at Lehmann Maupin and Ryan Gander’s half-covered full-length mirror at Schipper/Johnen.
Minerals
Witchcraft’s resurgence is still too indie to be at a top art fair. So the closest thing we saw at Frieze London is – minerals. If these (semi?) precious stones didn’t cast a spell on any buyers, at least they made it to SLEEK’s top trends list. The most spellbinding are Daniel Arsham’s bubblicious “Pink Selenite Boombox” at Perrotin, and Navid Nuur’s rock at Hetzler.
Scraps assemblage
In such a prestigious art fair, you would think that run of the mill materials would be a big no-no. Well, it looks like we were all wrong. Collectors at this year’s event are being teased with average items left and right, presumably for their novelty aspect. The most eye-catching and perplexing were Paola Pivi’s revolving “Reversing time” wheel at Perrotin, Vlassis Caniaris’ “Child” at Peter Kilchamnn, Michael Gumhold’s suitcases and drumsticks at Georg Kargl and Opavivara!’s street-vendor-on-K-installations at A Gentil Carioca.