Off to Frieze then, preview day or whatever they’re calling it, first full day anyway, the Bakerloo Line train has been well graff’d, is that a sign of something or other? Probably not, there were tiny hints of street art or urban art or whatever you want to call it eight or nine years ago but not recently. The usually glossy fashion magazine peddlers are at Regent Street tube station trying to hand out free copies that inevitably get thrown in the corner of the studio with the ones from last year and the year before that. And there’s the obligatory (predictable maybe?) Anna Laurini paste ups on the post boxes and backs of road signs lining the way to Regent’s Park, she does it every year, a repeated image time and time again, an image that never has evolved that much, doesn’t she get bored? I do like her one idea, she has been running with it for at least a dozen years now though. There’s some bloke working on two big canvases on the street leading up to the fair from the tube station, things like that always seem a bit desperate to me (we’ll see him later on trying to flog them in the Frieze sculpture park).

Not so much sense of drama walking up this year, or is it all just too familiar now, I mean I must have done the same walk in the same Autumn weather for a dozen years or more now, am I getting a touch too familiar with it all? And no long corridor to get to the main entrance this year, this time you’re straight in, no messing, no drama, no theatre, bang, wallop, yer in.

The first thing you see once your bag is seached is the Financial Times stand, I’ll politely keep my thoughts on that one to myslef, told you I was wearing my cynical smile t-shirt and we will overhear several obscene conversations about prices and money and pieces of art being sold like nothing more than a modest pair of shoes, sixty grand, I’ll take them both, one for each foot. It is a good place to stand and listen – or maybe, as an artist, it really isn’t – people do like to talk a little louder than they need to in here, especially on preview day (we will find it all calmed down a little on Thursday’s second visit)

I’m going to be in here on Wednesday for just over four hours, actually, more like five. Masters can wait until Friday, Masters is always the treat after the hard work of the main event, Frieze London and Frieze Masters on the same day, no! Impossible to eat it all in one serving (if, like me, you have a pass that allows you to go back in over the week. You don’t think I’m going to pay these outrageous ticket prices do you? ICJ in the house, to pay is to fail. hey, I write hundreds of pieces about London’s art scene every year, it certainly isn’t for the free tickets or champagne breakfasts although they are more than welcome, bring it all on, we’ll take the freebies).

At some point a couple of hours in I’m going scribble a little note to myself about it being just a little less conservative this year, a little more humble, just a little less full of itself maybe? Taken down a peg or two? When I say a little less conservative it is relative, I mean there’s nothing that radical in here, there’s one or two really (really) good moments – but there’s nothing I’m going to be shouting that loudly about. I am going to see a load of torn out of a book pages covered in scribbled market pen style thoughts that don’t have the heart that Susie Pindar book pages so often do, I’m going to see some water drops that don’t drip like MyDog Sighs water drop do, there’s one of those three sided washing lines full of underwear and yeah alright but not as biting as a Julia Maddison washing line and well, Madeline Strindberg‘s gloriously economical paintings or Yasmin Grant‘s Zelpa pieces would more than stand up in here, as would Emma Harvey‘s riot grrrl flavoured boys club observations or those Kika Sroka-Miller paintings seen at Peckham’s Safehouse last weekend alongside those Paul Sullivan paintings (Paul Sullivan, a new name to us until that group show at Safehouse last weekend) and I do end up saying this same thing every year but it feels even more obvious this year and I’m really really (really) not seeing anything any more rewarding than the things I see on any given week mostly in the artist-led shows in smaller not so establishment London spaces (the establishment spaces tend to ignore London’s artists, did we even see a hint of an East London-based artist during last Sunday’s rather hyped (rather flat) Frieze East End day? of course we didn’t. 

I am going to try and see everything, that is impossible of course, Frieze is vast (and as we’ll note from a second visit on Friday, the galleries do like to switch things around), I am going to look at the art and not the business, although I will note that the first reports I saw from both Artlyst and the Art Newspaper on my social media feed on Thursday moring were reports on sales and money and nothing, not a single word, not a littlest of things about the actual art, all about the game. It all feels like those days and those thousands of conversations with music business A&R men (and they were mostly men) back in the day, men who had seemingly very little interest in the music, boy did they love the music business game, you could never get them talking with any passion about the actual music, that guy who was working with Suede, you’d get nothing out of him, maybe a flicker if you mentioned Rod Stewart or Kiss but mostly nothing, say something about the business and he wouldn’t shut up about it. I’m sure Artlyst was once about the art far more than it is now? Never mind the business, bollocks, yes I know that is is mostly what Frieze is, never mind that, here’s the art, or at least some of it, lets explore the art, where to start? Where to go first? Take me to the art….

We appear to be in the yellow section, we’re not going to leave the yellow section until we’ve seen every booth in the yellow section, no venturing into the green area or the blue zone, all about the yellow until the yellow section has been properly explored. Experimenter up first for no other reason than the gallery from Mumbai caught an eye first with a booth full of the work of Bani Abidi, an artist from Pakistan. She has a repeated image, that looks kind of like we need to walk over and take a closer look, And no, we’re not going to go through every booth and comment on each one, we really are going to try and cherry pick.

Manuel Solano‘s Tomb Raider or Functional Leather 2 if you prefer the alternative title for the relatively big acrylic on canvas piece that looks like fun, it isn’t until later we discover Manuel is actually a blind artist, it is purely on the strength of the painting that interest is spiked enough for a bit of searching on line whe nwe get home – “Manuel Solano (b. 1987 in Mexico City, Mexico) lost their sight due to complications from an HIV-related infection. Since then, Solano has developed unique methodologies to continue an art practice which includes painting, video, and installation…”  – you see, this is what I want from Frieze, I don’t need to explore what the big London galleries have to offer, as much as I like her I don’t want to explore Tracey Emin at frieze, or see what Victoria Mayo are showing this time, I can do that at anytime of the year in their actual gallery – not that Victoria Mayo gallery cares two hoots about what I might say – no, I want artists from Mexico, artists I’ve never heard of before, artists presented by a gallery from Berlin that I’ve never been to and yes. okay, I wouldn’t mind some of those back street London artists already mentioned being shown, but that is never going to happen and yes I have already contradicted myself several times in this piece, I will continue to do so through Frieze week and every other week of the year for that matter…

Peter Uka was already mentioned in the list posted yesterday and I do love the stories that are hinted at in those delicious paintings, the people, their clothes, the colour, “Peter Uka (b. 1975, Nigeria; lives and works in Cologne, Germany) devises figurative paintings which draw from his childhood memories of Nigeria. With a classical training in realistic figuration” – a notion that tends to have the painter in me running a mile to get away from it, the very idea of anything realistic has me throwing paint at it, however seeing these paintings in the bright alive flesh here at Frieze is wonderfully uplifting, woderfully realistic. Peter Uka “combines various image references of time specific objects with images from his memory to convey innate and timeless human emotion” – there more than that though, maybe the sense of time and place, maybe it is that you just want to have conversations with the people? The sense of things changing, the innocence and indeed the coolness of those bell bottom trousers, I like these people, i like the stories on the wall, I see brightness, hope, I just really love the way these pieces are painted, the colour, the folds, the space, the narratives, the stylish blue chair behind Lady May and her dress. Peter Uka is presented by Mariane Ibraham, a gallery from Paris, Chicago and indeed Mexico City in a booth that was so full of life.  

And these go some ceramic Liquorish Allsorts and an overdressed man in a big hat explaining them. Moka Lee grabs attention, Yes, those Antonio Tarsis pieces did make me think of something I might have done in my art student days, I’m not going pretend otherwise, I kind of like them, hey, I had left art school before he was born in Brazil, did like walking through Antonio’s work to get to the booth. Like that big yellow Navot Miller painting, we are fittingly still in the yellow section, in the Carl Freedman gallery (Margate) booth, this is going to be a long piece…

And back to London’s Herald Street and an Alexandra Bircken piece enountered last Sunday during Frieze East End day – Frieze Week – East End Day? Are we off? Juliana Huxtable at Project Native Informant, Prudence Flint at Mother’s Tankstation, fans, a rocking horse, an Irn Bru can and well… – there’s some rocks hanging on chains in the OMR booth that you wonder about, OMR is a contemporary art gallery from Mexico City.

The video presentation from the Edel Assanti booth has been popping up again and again as part of the galleries marketing on social media ahead of Frieze, it warrants more exploring in a moment, I haven’t got time to sit watching videos at Frieze however interesting they may appear, it did look good though, more in a bit, we got to get through the yellow area and up the river to the DMZ, Charlie don’t surf and we need to get deeper in, get up the delta, beyoned the green zone…

Now this is me sherry picking, I mean I could ask why there’s lighters lined up in rainbow colours, ummm, yeah, I could mutter childish? And that Revolution painting? Not the worst of it though, there really is some cheese in here, some very pricey tasteless tat, sherry picking? Cherry picking, pick those cherries and never mind the proof reading there is no time today.

What are they all doing on those laptops, just avoiding eye contact? Sorting out their fantasy league teams? Fantasy art sale, who’s in his team, Hirst up front as long as he doesn’t bring last year’s jizz paintings with him, Gordon Banksy? Warhol as an attacking fullback?  Bloody hell, those lighters are Gavin Turk’s, brought back to London by Galerie Krinzinger from Vienna I guess everything is disposable. on we go past East London Gallery Seveneen‘s booth…

On to Nature Morte from India, now they already bring interesting things and I might point out they communicate with us here at Organ far more than Seventeen, a gallery a mere three or fours streets away ever do, we always make a point of looking out for Nature Morte. Not that Seventeen need to talk to us by the way, the London Art Scene is so fractured and everyone is far too important to ever talk to anyone else and they do so often look at you like you’ve got shit on your shoes when you do walk into their galleries and what with the price of fish and bleedin’ ‘ell, the East End isn’t what it was guv… Hey look, there’s a big Lorenzo Vitturi wall hanging or installation, there’s a couple actually, see told Nature Morte always bring something interesting. Do like Nature Morte (friendly people as well)   

On past Blindspot Gallery, I would never dream of making a wiseass comment about blindspots, do like those couple of pieces Union Pacific are showing, another of our five picks after the first day…

– Nour Jaouda (b. 1997, Libya) lives and works in Cairo and London, Union Pacific are presenting her work at Frieze, the London gallery not the American railroad company, and you know I do like a leaf. I do like a layer or two of leaves, layers of dyed fabric. “As she yo-yoes between both cities, her artworks limbo sculpture and painting. Jaouda’s large-scale dyed tapestries mirror the shape of prayer mats from her immediate surroundings in Cairo, incorporating steel elements both crafted by the artist and found in her environment. In this way, her work straddles personal narrative and social history; past and present” – didn’t really see prayer mats but then prayer mats are never really on my mind and layers of leaves often are, those layers of leaves hanging on Union Pacific walls  do need to be peeled back, looked under, those pieces were a highlight…

We are still in the yellow zone, the blue green and whatever else there is is still to come… Shall we take a break? End of part one? More in a moment, we haven’t even got to those damn inflatable penguins yet and some kind of plastic goose with a revolving head or the underwear or the, well, um, part two in a minute… (sw)

Frieze London and Frieze Masters goes on until and including Sunday October 13th 2024…

Do as always, click on an image to enlarge and see the whole thing or to run the slide show (more titles to be added in part two and maybe part three (or four, it was a long day, it has been a long week, and we haven’t though about all the amazing things at Frieze Masters…)