Visiting the Frieze Art Fair on a grey, post-Roxy Thursday morning was always going to be a risky gamble. Would the promise of a huge tent’s worth of contemporary art heal or deepen this art lover’s hangover?
Realising it was a fifteen-pound entry for students on arrival wasn’t a great start, but was justified by the sheer volume of art to be seen, as well as current exhibition prices. However it was a clear reminder of the fact that this is what Frieze is about, art and money, and not necessarily in that order.
Once inside, my first impression was that there was a lot of YBA work hanging around (and mostly in American Galleries). Wandering around the Fair, it’s easy to become overwhelmed - not only by the sheer quantity of work but mainly due to this year bright, bordering-on-garish colours of the work of which a lot seemed to be shamelessly referencing better known, successful pieces.
This seemed to the general theme as a whole. Many of the galleries seemed to be playing it safe by offering up works by successful, well known names such as Emin, Warhol, Hodgkin and Hirst. The content hadn’t seemed to have changed too much since the Fair two years ago.
To be fair, the most adventurous works would be found in the Galleries from Moscow and Berlin, where the work was more than the play-it-safe pieces which were shiny, but so depthless that you found yourself more captivated by your own reflection than the art.
Wandering around, it seemed that everything (apart from the photography) was a bit… dry. All the art displayed seemed to be very similar, and in competition with each other. Maybe it can be blamed on the economic climate, but it was clear that galleries were hoping to make a sale through the bright, cheerful, tried and tested works. After all, if you’re going to spend money when it’s tight, you want your purchase to make you happy when you look at it.
I was starting to lose hope, and feel very out of place. Frieze is as much a catwalk as it is a fair. It’s like shopping where all the cool kids hang out.
Almost about to leave, and not feeling any less hungover, I came across the world of David Shrigley, where the artist himself was sitting, surrounded by his tongue in cheek illustrations, which were refreshingly different. The drawings made me chuckle, but it wasn’t anything new for Shrigley. Enjoyable nonetheless.
Finally, Bharti Kher’s ‘Not All Who Wonder Are Lost’ caught my eye. An artist I’ve never come across before, he restored my waning faith in contemporary art, along with Jeppe Hein’s vibrating mirror, and I walked out with a smile on my face. There may have been wall upon wall of pretty, but average, work to look through, but finding that one piece that reminds you of the power of art is what it’s all about, and why this year’s Frieze may not have been outstanding, but it wasn’t a complete write-off.
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