The Spoonfed arts team look back at October's arty happenings.
Wow. October has been a seriously hectic month, but then the London art scene is always busy this time of year. Of course the big event is Frieze Art Fair, and all the other bits and bobs that circle inside its planetary-sized orbit. But there was also politics this month, some slight embarassment for Tate Modern, and a whole host of other exhibitions opening across the capital. As ever Spoonfed were everywhere at once to report on the best and worst that London served up.
Frieze
Frieze is clearly the biggest week in the calendar of anyone even vaguely interested in the arts. Personally we find the fair quite boring, so we enlisted maverick artist, curator and critic Alex Chappel to provide his alternative view. Of course there was also loads of other fairs and events going on, which we've handily summarised in our comprehensive Frieze Week round-up.
Cuts
As widely feared, George Osborne announced sizeable cuts to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which translated as a 29.6% cut in the budget for Arts Council England. Osborne insisted that because 41% of these savings will be made in administrative costs (abolishing/merging quangos etc) this would only work out as a 15% cut to frontline funding. But as the Arts Council pointed out in their response to the cuts, only 3.4% of their budget is spent on administration costs. It looks like the front line – particularly outside of London – is going to get hit pretty hard.
Tate Modern
Whilst all the major London institutions have had their free-entry status enshrined, October may lead some to question whether they all deserve this. We're not sure how much of Ai Weiwei's new installation in the Turbine Hall was paid for by Unilever and how much by Tate, but the fact that it was forced to close after only a matter of days is certainly a bit of an embarassment for the high-profile gallery. It's now re-opened but it feels rather pointless now that members of the public can't properly interact with it.
October also saw the opening of the Turner Prize exhibition. Due to tube strikes and things, Tom was late and not allowed in, so he chatted to Charles Thomson, leading the annual Stuckist protest outside, instead.
And some art...
After all that excitement, there were also some great exhibitions opening in October. Saatchi unveiled the (patchy) second part of Newspeak; the National Gallery opened an intriguing exploration of Venice and Canaletto; the Courtauld shed new light on Cezanne; and the National Portrait Gallery revisited the Regency.
Lauren was moved by Threads of Feeling at the Foundling Museum, and by two photography shows at Flowers East; Jess experienced the Majesty of Ireland and sympathised with a series of dogs trapped in cars; Claire reflected upon a Mirrored City and Tom went to Peckham. True story.
This month, tickets also went on sale for Crunch 10 – the art festival in Hay-on-Wye. It's happening in November, and with the likes of Ekow Eshun, Charles Thommson, Martin Creed and Julia Peyton-Jones all making the journey west, we can't wait to join them!
Click here to see all London exhibitions.
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Frieze Art Fair 2010 in Regent's Park, London. Photo by Linda Nylind for Frieze. 17/10/2010
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