Lutz Bacher at Frieze Projects 2015
Among the 164 galleries from 27 countries taking part in the contemporary art section of Frieze London, we also find Frieze Projects – the art fair’s non-profit programme, which features, often, emerging artists commissioned to draw visitors into temporary, mobile and evolving environs. Last year, one of them was Adam Linder, who created “Some Proximity”, a live performance that raises questions about the real-time embodiment of the economic labour of choreography. This time around there’s a new breadth of artists including collective AYR, Rachel Rose and Asad Raza, who attempt to transform, subvert and interact with the structural and cultural dynamics of the fair in the midst of the shopping and schmoozing.
Imogen Greenhalgh looks into Lutz Bacher’s contribution
The first thing you always learn about Lutz Bacher, whether you come across her through an exhibition or an article in an art magazine, is that she’s made an art form out of being difficult to pin down. Like the pseudonym she hides behind, Bacher conceals herself behind her elusive creations, withholding insight or explanation beyond the works themselves. Whatever outcomes you reach, must come from your own detective work and whatever work you encounter must come, as Bacher would have it, at face value.
Lutz Bacher at Frieze Projects 2015. Image by Plastiques Photography
Bacher’s new installation commissioned for London’s Frieze Projects is no exception. In a more literal rendering of being asked to view her work straight up, it’s the first thing to greet you as you enter, an imposing hallway of darkness before the familiar great white tents. Busy with the hustle of security guards and assistants handing out maps, however, it’s almost hidden in plain sight. Unless a queue builds up, most people seem to walk right through. Nothing to buy, no PR bumf, no signs, labels, price tags. “Welcome to purgatory”, reads one warning daubed in white paint. Whether heaven or hell follows is probably a matter of taste.
Lutz Bacher at Frieze Projects 2015. Photography by Jan-Micheal Stasiuk
In the gloom, the line between where the work starts and the fair begins is difficult to traverse. The eruption of the VIP desk and the BMW stand are obvious, but some features – the black stanchions, the thick black carpet – are more ambiguous, and melt somewhere between the two. Like the contradictory white arrows on the walls, it could go either way.
Lutz Bacher at Frieze Projects 2015. Photography by Jan-Micheal Stasiuk
Already created out of found objects, in this blurring of the work and the fair itself Bacher craftily erases any clear authorial figure even further. Nothing has defined origins or points clearly to anything. The painted walls supposedly come from B-movie film sets, but it’s not confirmed. And where do the quotes come from, if they are even quotes? “Don’t stop now the end is near”, reads the final one before you push through the dark plastic strips into the day-lit hum of the fair.
Lutz Bacher at Frieze Projects 2015. Photography by Jan-Micheal Stasiuk
Bacher’s hazy, darkly humourous presence in the art world suits this space on the edge of the fair, lurking on its peripheries. Like Bacher, the installation presents a clever paradox of presence and absence. In some ways it will be the most viewed work at the fair – everyone who visits will see and pass through it – yet at the same time, it might be one of the major works about which the least is really said.
Text by Imogen Greenhalgh
Read more of our Frieze coverage
Frieze London 2015 takes place in Regent’s Park, London, until 17 October
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