Gravitas is good

Fairs United Kingdom

Contemplative works set the tone for the fair

By Lindsay Pollock. From Frieze daily edition
Published online: 14 October 2009

Canvases caked in bird poo and an engine filled with cow brains are among the sombre, cerebral offerings at the seventh annual Frieze Art Fair. There is a shift towards more contemplative works addressing mortality, the environment and other weighty themes. Grey is a popular hue. “Perhaps something that is substantial and has gravitas seems good at this time,” said Los Angeles dealer Marc Foxx (B1). Art at the fair “feels subtler”, he observed. “Things have a little more substance.”

Foxx features Turner Prize nominee Roger Hiorn’s Untitled, comprising an engine with cow brains. The stand is suited to a newer, slower fair. There are two portraits by Dutch artist Maaike Schoorel that need patience and good old-fashioned looking. This is not art for the jpeg crowd.

Nearby, Düsseldorf’s Sies + Höke (G4) stand features the anti-bling: Belgian conceptual artist Kris Martin’s one-tonne large iron ball, 1,000 Years, is placed to the fore. The work raises provocative questions about time and space, and contains a corrosive chemical said to disintegrate in 1,000 years.

Other artists are approaching the gloom and doom with humour. The duo Elmgreen and Dragset’s 2009 Untitled combines a Giacometti-inspired man chained to a big, white ball. The work is priced €55,000 at Helga de Alvear (F4). “Times are tough,” said Michael Elmgreen, gesturing to his immobile “walking” man.

Bird faeces are the material of choice at Milan’s Franco Noero gallery (A2) showing seven works by Swedish artist Henrik Hakansson, at €10,000 each. The artist placed his canvases in the forest and waited for swallows to leave evocative abstract patterns. There are noticeable exceptions. Gagosian’s (D7) stand features Takashi Murakami’s glitzy gold ground triptych. Vienna’s Meyer & Kainer (G8) is as bright as a candy shop with Martina Steckholzer’s geometric canvases, priced €7,000 to €12,000. “We are against chromo-phobia,” joked dealer Christian Meyer.

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Comments

19 Oct 09
0:9 CET

ZIPTHWUNG, BROOKLYN

I think this fair had a lot of work about appropriation - as if that horse isn't dog poop by now. With regards to Elmgreen and Dragset's piece, they were beaten to the punch (formally at least) by Jason Sprinkle http://www.seattlepi.com/visualart/225696_sprinkle25.html While you never know what is "in the air" it does sort of make the large MRSP (I'd place it at $30,000 USD, tops, wouldn't you?) seem aimed at the crowd that thinks price is the only quality that counts.

17 Oct 09
19:53 CET

M CARTIN, NEW YORK

Back to you Alike- I can see why my remarks might be taken to suggest that Marc Foxx is a fool. I would rather suggest that he is not so foolish at all, as I have thought of him as rather intelligent. It is easy to be made to look foolish when rattling off spontaneous remarks to a journalist. Not so much a fool as his clients, he is just one of many vendors at the market, trying to make the merchandise sound more valuable than it actually is. My thought above comes from that, and that he is well aware that many of the consumers need additional justification for their behavior. Subtle and weighty sounds certainly better than obvious and empty. Caveat emptor

16 Oct 09
23:3 CET

ALIKE, NYC

Agreed M. Cartin—Marc Foxx seems like a fool, or at least the punchline of the writers joke.

15 Oct 09
5:50 CET

M CARTIN, NEW YORK

In the first paragraph Marc Foxx is suggesting that the Frieze Art Fair "feels "subtler", and is with "more substance"? I guess that is possible, in that over the last decade art fairs have been as subtle and substantial as the Three Stooges. And bird shit and cow brains.? Substance and subtlety? I guess I'll have to fly over for a look.

14 Oct 09
20:7 CET

NO ONE U KNOW, EVERYWHERE

Has anyone told the kids that shock art is dead? Frieze should re-evaluate what passes for "intellectual" anymore.

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Comments

Has anyone told the kids that shock art is dead? Frieze should re-evaluate what passes for "intellectual" anymore....

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