Frieze visitors are prepared to suffer in the name of art, but asking them to part with their phones might just be a step too far… This is the high-risk enterprise being enacted by the artist Amalia Ulman at Arcadia Missa’s stand (FL, L3) where, in order to enter the elegantly draped, red-carpeted booth to view a video essay charting the feminine history of diary writing, visitors first have to hand over their phones to a pair of young, beautiful, but infinitely stern lady gatekeepers. This gentle enforcement maintains the intimate but ultimately coercive theme of the work. A sturdy lock traditionally enforced the secrecy of female diaries containing painful thoughts, and likewise, visitors’ phones—and all the secrets they hold—will be securely guarded until their owners, whether men or women, come to claim them.
