Urs Fischer, "Francesco", 2017
Yesterday saw the curtains close on Frieze London, an event that marks the annual descent of thousands of art lovers, buyers, gallerists and critics alike upon Regent’s Park to discover new talent, see the work of old favourites up-close, and cast loud, scathing aspersions about the art world and the people that frequent it with a blissful lack of self-awareness. There were many pieces to marvel over at the 2018 edition, but as with any art fair, a full appreciation of the event required considerable time, stamina and concentration, plus a glass of wine or three along the way. Here, doing the hard work so you don’t have to, we take you on a tour of some of the fair’s most Insta-worthy highlights – because, let’s face it, we’re all far more likely to pay to attention to art if it just so happens to look good on the grid too.
David Shrigley, Dear Mother, 2018
Love him or hate him, David Shrigley is an artist with his own, very distinct aesthetic – one in which his fans had the chance to completely immerse themselves in at this year’s fair, courtesy of Stephen Friedman Gallery’s booth dedicated to the artist. The inside brimmed with esoteric drawings and video installations, but it was the outer walls – presented as shop windows, each one housing a playful neon word artwork in Shrigley’s signature font – that stopped fairgoers in their tracks, including this one to a terribly neglected mother.
Andrea Galvani, The Relativity of Simultaneous Events, 2018
More neon signage came in the shape of this eye-catching artwork by Italian artist Andrea Galvani. Presented in the fair’s Focus section, the work formed part of a sporadic performance work, which saw singers deliver pitch-perfect melodies while wandering about under the stark white mathematical equations, all of which (incidentally) relate to the spatio-temporal fabric of the universe.
Hayv Kahraman, Pussy Donation Box, 2018
Iraqi artist Hayv Kahraman works primarily in paint, her work a poignant investigation into female identity, particularly with regards to her own experiences as a refugee. Pussy Donation Box – part painting, part sculpture – depicts a vagina, its opening a rectangular slit that transforms it into a money box. There’s something about it that hauntingly evokes a swear jar – imagine just how full this donation vessel would be if all the world’s abusers were forced to account for their wrongdoings.
Jenny Holzer, Selection from Survival: The future… 2006
OK so we’re feeling a little down on the world. But who can blame us? Jenny Holzer’s marble footstool, from the American neo-conceptual artist’s Survival series, summed it up perfectly. Right now, the future looks stupid at best.
Josh Kline, Dave/Journalist, 2016
Next up: a musing on the futility of our own profession, thanks to this cheering work by American artist Josh Kline. Kline is preoccupied by posthumanist philosophy, and this sculpture, featuring a startlingly realistic, life-size male curled up in the foetal position and thrust unceremoniously into a see-through bin bag, forms a part of his 2016 series, Unemployment. This imagines a near-future where sentient robots have rendered the majority of human careers redundant. Perhaps the future’s not so stupid after all?
Andreas Slominski, Chameleon, 2018
High time for some light-hearted toilet humour, here brought to us by Andreas Slominski with his multi-coloured mobile toilet installation, Chameleon. The work is one of the German artist’s so-called “traps”, described by his gallery (Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac) as “absurd-looking baits, somewhere between sculpture and functional object”. A dadaist at heart, Slominski’s presentation of a portaloo in a gallery setting probes the process of artistic perception – much like Duchamp’s urinal before it – and allows a happy pause for levity and ironic self-reflection in the serious art fair setting.
Vlassis Caniaris, Urinals of History, 1980
Urinals of History, is another scatologically themed work – but with a darker message. It presents three human-scale figures in old-fashioned clothing peeing against a wall covered in political slogans. This, the blurb tells us, resembles the walls of Athens during Nazi occupation. The work of late Greek artist Vlassis Caniaris, the striking installation was first shown in Athens in 1980 and speaks of Caniaris’ belief that in recent history the Greeks “have made a collective effort to erase the memory of their past by ‘pissing’ on their heritage”.
Rebecca Ackroyd, Hostess, 2018
Hostess, by Rebecca Ackroyd, was one of the fair’s most searing works. Centred, as is most of the young British artist’s oeuvre, on the human form, the sculpture sits with its back to us, meaning we must approach it from behind. With its blonde wig, voluptuous body and lycra jumpsuit, you imagine that upon circling the work, you’ll come face to face with a female mannequin. Instead, you are met by a gaping void (another Ackroyd trademark) where a face should be, the result a jolting commentary on the female body as faceless commodity.
Urs Fischer, Francesco, 2017
Frieze 2018 saw Swiss artist Urs Fischer present a new triptych of paintings, depicting his New York home at different times of day. Made on a iPad and printed onto unprimed aluminium, these works mark a new chapter for the artist, who is perhaps best known for his vast wax portraits. And indeed, it’s one of these – the towering red sculpture of Italian art curator Francesco Bonami, holding a phone and standing on a fridge filled with wax fruit and vegetables – that’s made it onto our Insta-list, providing as it does the perfect photo opp. He points his phone down at you, as you point yours up at him, and we all have a good chuckle about the meta nature of contemporary art.
Images courtesy of the author.