Zoo turns back on polished past

Fair goes east and opts for edgier mode

By Louisa Buck, Charlotte Burns, Jane Morris and Cristina Ruiz | From Frieze daily edition, 16 Oct 09
Published online 16 Oct 09

A chance to do something different: Richard Woods' installation at Bristol's Works/Projects (C11) (Photo: Katherine Hardy)

Difficult times call for imaginative measures. The Zoo art fair, which was turfed out of its elegant premises last year in the Royal Academy’s Burlington Gardens when Haunch of Venison leased the space, opened to VIP visitors yesterday in three sprawling industrial buildings in the East End. As well as the change in venue, the downturn has forced other innovations on the fair, considered the trendier sister to Frieze and now in its sixth incarnation. With only 22 commercial stands this year (compared with 58 in 2008) and 3,000 sq. m to fill, the director Soraya Rodriguez has invited artists, curators and collectives to organise additional projects in the cavernous spaces of the 19th-century warehouses near where Jack the Ripper once roamed. This had led to a substantial drop in revenue from the stands, down to 30% of budget compared with 65%-70% last year, with the rest of the funding coming from public and private sources.

Most galleries declared themselves pleased with the changes. “It’s given us the ability to do something we couldn’t do at the Royal Academy,” said Simon Morrissey of Works/Projects (C11), who asked artist Richard Woods to customise the booth floors with one of his trademark woodblock patterns (available for £20,500 plus installation costs). “We are an artist-led space so we are used to having dirty, grotty spaces to work with, rather than big, corporate scary ones,” said Candice Jacobs of Moot gallery (C2).

The first people in were artists and curators who went straight to the edition section where the Serpentine Gallery (A1), Paul Stolper (A8), Chisenhale Gallery (A10) and nine others are offering editioned works. UK artist Cornelia Parker was seen buying a print by Cerith Wyn Evans—Brasilia 01.09.04—for £106 from White Cube (A3). Beatrix Ruf, director of the Kunsthalle Zurich, purchased a limited-edition roll of Sarah Lucas wallpaper emblazoned with cigarette-covered footballs for £185 from Whitechapel Gallery (A5).

Former Tate chair Lord Paul Myners, now City minister, was seen trawling the stands with his wife Alison, chair of the Contemporary Art Society. They were admiring young American artist Juan Fontanive’s kinetic sculpture at Riflemaker (C3) in a section where galleries present work by a single artist. “We bought a ticker-tape wall piece by Fontanive when he was still a student and we didn’t have a space for it,” said Alison Myners, revealing that the Riflemaker presentation had re-enthused them for the artist’s work. “We’ll have to take it out of the vault now,” she said.

Others spotted yesterday include magazine publisher Jefferson Hack studying work by Swedish artist Daniel Jensen at Alp/Peter Bergman (C6), Miami collector Dennis Scholl, UK curator-collector Kay Saatchi, Artangel’s Michael Morris, and artists Isaac Julien, Richard Wilson and Mike Nelson alongside a host of British curators. Anita Zabludowicz, one of Zoo’s most prominent backers, made several purchases including a video by Clunie Reid for £2,500.

The mixture of traditional fair stands and curated spaces was broadly welcomed, although some were concerned that the location and presentation would not appeal to major collectors. “It seems slower than last year,” said Natalia Goldin (C18) at the start, who is showing an elegant show by Swedish artist Per Kesselmar. “The distance from Frieze has to be a concern, and I’m not sure about the concept of a fair that is half commercial and half not. However, it’s experimental and I hope it works.”

Jane England, director of England & Co (C21), was more enthusiastic: “The organisers have made it into an event, somewhere that people can spend time. They’ve made something that can be intimidating—a commercial fair—into something enjoyable and accessible.”