Tom Jeffreys keeps you up to date with all the comings and goings of Frieze Week 2011. Keep checking back for regular updates!
It's Frieze Week, and London is packed with the art world's greatest minds and largest wallets. Keep track of the best and worst of London's exhibitions, parties, art fairs and auctions right here, as Spoonfed's Arts Editor Tom Jeffreys blogs live(ish).
And if this isn't live enough, why not follow me on Twitter: @tomjeffreys
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday
Monday 10th October
Gerhard Richter, Untitled (2.4.08) 2008. © Christie’s Images Limited 2011
9.30am
Press Breakfast at Christie's
Frieze Week 2011 kicks off with coffee and mini-croissants in Christie's, King Street, as the venerable auction house unveils the lots that make up its carefully scheduled Post-War and Contemporary Art Auctions. This is a surprisingly pleasant start to the week, and there's some serious work on show. Headline pieces include an Angel of the North maquette by Antony Gormley (estimated at between £1.5 and £2 million), lots of Damien Hirst rubbish, a beautiful Gerhard Richter candle painting. Personal highlights include a Tom Hunter photograph (estimated at £3-4K); a 1982 watercolour by Anselm Kiefer and and a tiny overpainted photograph by Gerhard Richter [above]. Yours for an estimated £18-22K.
Photo credit: Lucy Dawkins
11.30am
Tacita Dean at Tate Modern
Tate Modern unveils Tacita Dean's Turbine Hall commission, entitled simply Film [above]. The twelfth commission in The Unilever Series, this is the first dedicated solely to the moving image. Dean has been in the news a lot lately campaigning to prevent the end of 16mm film, the medium she uses to produce all of her work, so it's nice to see her actual work take centre stage. And, surprisingly, Film is a genuinely beguiling and impressive work: both a monument in film, and a monument to film.
Read more
1pm
Minotaur at Old Vic Tunnels
After the success of Hell's Half Acre this time last year, gallerist Steve Lazarides is back at the Old Vic Tunnels with a new project, entitled Minotaur. Things are still being finished off as I arrive, but you can still get the overall impression. I have to admit that this really isn't my bag, but if you like the kinds of artists Lazarides represents – Stanley Donwood, Jonathan Yeo, Doug Foster etc – then you'll love this. Donwood has created a weird labyrinth installation (with soundtrack from Thom Yorke) whilst Foster has produced a creepy video reflected across a lake of water. 
7pm - Channel 4 / Saatchi New Sensations + The Future Can Wait
Great to see New Sensations teaming up with The Future Can Wait in the amazing surroundings of Victoria House in Bloomsbury, and possibly even better to see Mason & Taylor providing the drinks. As predicted, lots of highly promising contemporary painters here (Gavin Nolan, Francesca Lowe, John Stark, Sam Jackson etc) but many works that I've seen before. Highlights include Jeremy Hutchison's exploration of mass design, Wieland Payer's sci-fi pastels [above] (reminiscent of Jonah Freeman and Ryan Leigh), and Julia Vogl's system of badge ID. I wear yellow for critic and grey for freeloader, appropriately enough...
Tuesday 11th October 
Photo: Mike Bruce
10am - ICA media view
Three simultaneous openings at the ICA this morning. Franz West's multicoloured sculptures on the roof [above] are vile, and Jacob Kassay's minimalist paintings don't do much for me, but the installation/intervention elements are interesting, particularly on the ground floor. The real highlight is Frances Stark's totally bizarre full-length feature film. An animated avatar of the artist chats away to various men on chatrooms about such diverse topics as cock-size, self-loathing and Wittgenstein. Nice.
Images courtesy Richard Nagy.
12pm - Pavilion of Art and Design
Even though it's pleasantly quiet at the media view this is a pretty unpleasant experience, with most of the men seemingly more interested in a gallery assistant in a tiny skirt bending over than any of the actual art or design on display. But then most of it's dreadful so you can hardly blame them. The highlight is the work on show at Richard Nagy - exquisite drawings by Klimt, Matisse and works by Schiele from the galery's exhibition earlier this year. My favourite - Seated Nude with Violet Stockings [above right] - is priced at "at least £2 million" according to Nagy.
Read Tom's review of Egon Schiele at Richard Nagy.
1pm - Bonhams - Contemporary One
The inaugural sale from Bonhams' Contemporary Art Department is a sensitively curated and refreshingly spare affair, with only 20 works exhibited across four large gallery spaces. The major work is clearly Alighiero Boetti's colossal Anno 1984 (estimated between £1.2 and £1.8 million) although it doesn't do that much for me. My highlight is Glenn Brown's Little Death, one of the artist's key works, and a great example of his virtuoso technical ability.
6pm - Art Which is Also a Disco
Tuesday night kicks off with a quick chat with the guys from Decima Gallery at their exhibition opening on Redchurch Street. Also purchased a rather fine print for the Spoonfed offices - Disco Van Eyck [above]
6.30pm - Mind Over Matter launch at Shoreditch Town Hall
In the mazy, crumbling tunnels under Shoreditch Town Hall is a Wellcome-funded project exploring the process of brain donation. The result of a collaboration between artist Ania Dabrowska and Dr Bronwyn Parry from Queen Mary, University of London, Mind Over Matter is a touching and engrossing exploration of the act of brain donation - simultaneously a deeply personal experience, and part of a greater, more anonymous, scientific process. 
8pm - White Cube, Bermondsey launch
It looks like the whole of London's art/fashion world hangers-on have pitched up in Bermondsey for the much-hyped launch of the massive new White Cube space. We manage to bypass the first queue to get into the grounds, but then there's yet another just to get inside the gallery. Shoved about by the teeming hordes, we decide to come back another time and head instead to the central London...
Read more
9pm - Museum of Everything party at Selfridge's Hotel
...where we're confronted by yet another bloody queue. Frieze Week seems to have turned into Fashion Week, with a whole host of random people desperate to get to the free booze inside. The throngs are kept 'entertained' by a Union Jack-clad one man band doing a rendition of Cleaning Windows, but to be honest it's all a bit much. What has happened to the art world? We decide that discretion is the better part of valour, and head home.
Wednesday 12th October
7pm - Wellcome Science Writing Prize
A refreshing change from a week of non-stop art. Funny and surprisingly passionate, nearly-inspiring speeches from Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and funnyman and science enthusiast Dara O Briain, who were both on the judging panel. Great evening - shame about the result!
Thursday 13th October
10am - Moving Image London
An interesting concept, and certainly there is something to be said for a fair dedicated to video art. Having said that, I often find fairs a good place to view video as it's nice just to sit in a darkened room for a few minutes. Moving Image London also suffers from too much of a good thing - spread over three floors of the Bargeouse, it really is a little overwhelming. But there's still some great work here - particularly Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev's five-screen video piece [image above], exploring manual labour and transport in Kyrgyzstan. Utterly fascinating viewing. 
Photo by Linda Nylind, Courtesy of Linda Nylind/ Frieze
11am - Frieze Art Fair
Frieze is just as much of a drag as ever, but for slightly different reasons. Instead of the usual garish nonsense clamouring for one's attention, with the economy in doubt, everyone's played it safe, which basically means lots of boring art. There was some OK work though, including a hermit crab [above]. Check out Spoonfed's Top Five for more. I also got stopped three times by street style bloggers / 'trend' forecasters: Frieze Week really is turning into Fashion Week...
A Miniature (Sofia Kiosk) by Toby Paterson, 2011. Peacock Visual Arts
7pm - Multiplied launch
From Frieze down to Christie's in South Kensington, for the opening night of their annual editions fair, Multiplied. This is a great chance to purchase work by big name artists for a fraction of the usual costs, but as so often with these things it's the lesser known artists that are the more interesting. Memorable works include Carolyn Thompson's Black Mirror series and Peter Abrahams' photograph of a coil of wire and a candlestick. But the stand-out for me, by some distance, is Toby Patterson's A Miniature (Sofia Kiosk) [above] from the Inchoate Landscapes series - spare, elegant, intriguing, and only £800. 
8.30pm - House of the Nobleman
Of all the bits and bobs that crop up across the capital while Frieze is in town, House of the Nobleman was one of the highlights of the week last year - as much for bizarre private view as for the art on show. Basically, it felt like the poshest house party in the world. This year, there's more estate agents than art collectors in 2 Cornwall Terrace [above] but there's still some amazing works - by Monet, Dali, Gerhard Richter etc. My personal favourite though is Last Glow, a simple painting of a nearly burnt-out match by Sun Daliang.
Friday 14th October
Daniel Wallis - Loop (detail); Dot III
10am - Daniel Wallis at Simon Oldfield Gallery
Meant to go to this when it opened last week, but better late than never I suppose. And the show is brilliant; probably the highlight of the week for me. Wallis' ability to balance delicacy with presence is still in evidence, but there's a sensitivity to the materials at hand - some beautiful hard woods in particular - that I hadn't seen before. The two installations in particular speak of an artist growing in scope and confidence, whilst maintaining the near-reticence that imbues his work with such charm.
A Kassen, Equalise
12pm - SUNDAY Art Fair
Not an enormous amount to write home about at SUNDAY Art Fair, returning for its second year in the cavernous space of Ambika P3. Apart from two things: the photographs of A Kassen, shown by Paris-based New Galerie. For one work, Equalise [above], the group have sawn a lamp-post in two, photographed it in urban surroundings, then in order to match up the two halves, cut the photo (glass, frame and all) in two as well, leaving the rest of the background out of kilter. Cleverly conceived, with both humour and resonance, this is conceptual art at its best. And the other highlight? A delicious halloumi sandwich (with lime chutney) from Engine.
Saturday 15th October
6pm - Sluice Art Fair
To the brand new Sluice Art Fair just in time for a hotly anticipated panel discussion. Featuring Cathy Lomax, Jasper Joffe and Alistair Gentry, the aim was to examine the nature of the contemporary art fair, thereby constituting the very heart of Sluice - an art fair that explores its own contradictions. This, I have to say, is a bit of a let-down. Brilliant concept, but with insufficient direction from the chair, it becomes a bit of a moan-fest from Joffe and Gentry in particular. Nonetheless the fair is clearly a success in going beyond simply complaining about Frieze, and actually offering up a considered (hopefully viable) alternative. Work-wise I'm rather taken with Andrew Bracey's film-strip paintings [above] exhibited by Transition Gallery.
8pm - TJ Boulting launch
Frieze Week finally comes to a close with a fleeting visit to the opening party of brand new gallery TJ Boulting, on Riding House Street in Fitzrovia. It's the new space of former Redchurch Street stalwarts Trolley Gallery, and it's named after some former occupants - TJ Boulting and Sons - gas and electrical engineers from 1808. Spread of two floors, the new space is currently given over to a programme of videos by over 60 Icelandic artists. There's also a host of excellent works on paper in the basement space.
And then, finally, the end.
Read Frieze Week and Beyond - The Best New Art Fairs in London.
Click here to see all London exhibitions.
Click here for things to do in London.
Return to Spoonfed's London Art homepage.
Add an event
Frieze Art Fair to launch new section for young galleries in 2012
Frieze have today announced details for the 2012 edition, their tenth art fair in London. Taking place...