Frieze Art Fair 2011 – Spoonfed's Top Five

Frieze Art Fair 2011 – Spoonfed's Top Five

13 October, 2011
by: Spoonfed Arts Team

Spoonfed sorts the wheat from the chaff at this year's Frieze Art Fair.

Amid uncertain economic times (again) and with Phillips de Pury selling only 66% of lots at auction last night, the talk is of the galleries at Frieze Art Fair – which opened to the public today in Regent's Park – playing it safe. After a host of big shots attended yesterday's VIP view – including Elle Macpherson, Matt Lucas, David Roberts, Anita Zabludowicz and Dash Zhukova, The Art Newspaper reported that “dealers are not taking any risks this year”.

And certainly, despite the odd headline-grabber like Michael Landy's credit card crusher, Pierre Huygge's hermit and arrow crabs [above] and Christian Jankowski's art yacht, there's very little of the usual faux-controversial posturing this year. Does that make things boring? Well yes, but that's more because there's not a huge amount that really lingers in the memory. Vaguely noticeable trends include overpainted newspapers, explorations of the suburban, and baffling pseudo-scientific systems (with graph paper). There's also quite a lot of old work on show. Painting predominates and there's a higher percentage of small scale works on paper than usual, as, by and large, the one-trick pony is eschewed in favour of something more thoroughbred.

Humour comes in the form of Galerie Georg Kargl, who've transformed their stand into a strange suburban house (complete with toilet and shower) and Laure Prouvost, who's put up a series of hand-painted signs around the fair. “You're going in the wrong direction,” says one, just as we were thinking exactly the same thing.

Here's our top five of Frieze 2011:

Helena Almeida
Galeria Helga de Alvear, A7
The big photographs adoring the walls – in black, white and Yves klein Blue – will get most of the attention, but in the centre of the stand is a small wooden glass-topped vitrine, inside which are 14 delightful little drawings. Reminscent of late Matisse in their spareness of mark, these are sparse, delicate, and alternate between wit and rage.


Bernd and Hilla Becher
Konrad Fischer, B14
A series of nine black and white photographs of near-identical surburban residential properties, entitled Typology, is an interesting study in the resolutely bland. A similar single image nearby –  Wasserturm – is also...


Paul Sietsema
Mathew Marks, C10
Sietsema's Cointoss series consists of painstakingly applied enamel paint on raw canvas to depict coins tossed casually into puddles of paint. There's something pleasantly self-referential at work, as well as an ironic match-up between the spontaenous and the carefully contrived.


Christopher Williams
Gallery Gisela Capitain, C13
Window (with pedestal) is a starkly minimal photograph, depicting, as the title suggests, a corner of a window, with a pedestal. It's a great lesson in the variety of the medium – subtle and crisp, but full of variety in texture and tone.


Tacita Dean / Gerhard Richter
Marion Goodman, F12
Marion Goodman hasd some of the finest works on show at Frieze this year – including overpainted photographs by Gerhard Richter. The one on sale at Christie's this week is maybe more beautiful, but these display a great knowledge of texture. Tacita Dean's large gravure prints are surprisingly beguiling.

Frieze Art Fair 2011 is in Regent's Park until 16th October 2011.

Keep up to date with Spoonfed's Frieze Week Diary.

Image credit: Pierre Huyghe, Recollection, 2011. Commissioned and produced by Frieze Foundation for Frieze Projects 2011. Frieze Art Fair 2011. Photo by Linda Nylind, Courtesy of Linda Nylind/ Frieze

Spoonfed Arts Team