Where were we? Still in the yellow zone, the blue green and whatever else there is is still to come… This is Part Two, you really need to read Part One first – Frieze Week Part One, we haven’t even got to the bit about the plastic goose with a revolving head, yet and well, um… Here’s the first part of what we’ve made of the actual Fair that Frieze London 2024 so far… So we took a break, a very short one, here comes Part Two and no, 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 we go again…

We’d just left Nour Jaouda and those wonderful layers of leaves that London gallery Union Pacific were showing, whern we took that break at the end of part one. I really had intended to keep it short this year but then in there in that vast vast space in amongst that art there are things that simply must be shared like those two gorgeous, no, not the right word, but that red is gorgeous, over there, so easy to walk past them, there’s these there’s these two really powerful Chang Ling paintings, definitely a pair, side by side, strong, just boldly there, in the middle of the big white wall that is Don Gallery‘s booth – a contemporary art gallery from Shanghai showcasing both emerging and established Chinese artists. Booth A04 if you need to know, if you’re going you’ll surely see them as you walk past, they do demand attention. 

There’s a richness to those two paintings, a powerful set of marks that really do intrigue. The artist was, so the gallery’s website tells us, was born in 1975 in Hualien City, Taiwan, I’m bluffing here, new name to me, the gallery is from Shanghai (hey, don’t be ragging on me for not knowing the artist, I bet I know more about London’s back street artists than you do). I should apologise to the other two artists sharing the booth, I could only see those two paintings, On The Brink Of Paradise, in there…

And on we go, they never have a pint of Landlord at the Timothy Taylor Gallery booth, really could do with a pint right about now, a pit stop and a pint, not even going to take a look at how much an actual pint is in here. Do like these big bold green paintings – “Timothy Taylor is pleased to return to Frieze London with a presentation of new works by Paul Anthony Smith. Centring on two ongoing series, Dreams Deferred and Eye Fi Di Tropics, Smith will feature large-scale oil paintings and picotage works that reflect on diasporic identity, cultural memory, and the landscape” those paintings are refreshing, they are as good as a pint right about now, they’re refreshing, cleansing, there, without meaning to be, right now

– “The paintings in Dreams Deferred offer scenes of abundant gardens with hydrangeas, marigolds, anemones, and tiger lilies rendered in verdant and sun-kissed hues. Across the impasto works, Smith variously places the viewer inside and outside of these lush spaces, some of which are obscured and abstracted by a foregrounded chain link fence. These works summon notions of calm, respite, and prosperity, as well as the foreclosure of these experiences.” – respite indeed, gloriously so – Paul Anthony Smith (b. 1988, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica) is a Jamaica-born, New York-based artist who explores themes of post-diasporic identity, community, and cultural memory through his paintings and photography

– You see, I love this, exploring all this art, all this endless art, all these artists, and just simply walking up to the simple label, taking a simple photo and looking things up when I get home. Pretty much everything has a clear label here – not like the too cool for school current thinking from the annoying crop of rich kids who’s mummies have paid for them to go curator school and now find themselves gatekeeping in a more annoying way then it ever was even five years ago, labels and name are cool as fuck you idiots! I want to know who’s painted what – are we still in the yellow zone? That wire mesh of Paul Anthony Smith‘s does taste of New York now I think about it, and his paintings are so worth thinking about, they looked even better after Friday’s second visit to the fair. The more I think about them, and they have been in my head, the more I thinking about them, the better they get….

Hang on, we’ve entered the blue zone, we’ve made it up the river to the Kadel Willborn Gallery from Duseldorf and now we’ve made to The Approach booth, East London of course, and now we’re at the Stephen Friedman booth, the Stephen Friedman Gallery isn’t so immediate this year, not quite the noise of last year and Ugandan artist Leilah Babirye or the brilliant year before with Jeffrey Gibson’s glorious work or indeed the year before that with the highlight of 2021 that was Deborah Roberts, this year the gallery is not so loud and owning the place, instead we have paintings that, as you start to flag and you’ve seen hundreds of paintings already, just quietly say yes and invite you to take a little time with them. Two artists, Caroline Walker and Clare Woods, two artists and a presentation that cleverly explores how the two of them take on the role of observer in their work – new paintings by the two British artists – delicious greens, there’s depth in those greens of clare woods

There’s some kind of plastic goose with a revolving head and well, um…  and all the way from Glasgow? Really not sure why? Don’t really want to know why, don’t know, don’t care, Why would you come down from Scotland with a plastic looking goose with a revolving head? Was it a wager? No, don’t want to know. Kind of like the glazed ceramic chain from Canadian artist Nicole Ondra that Berlin’s Tanya Leighton gallery is showing, no, scarp, that, love her excellent pieces. There are some bizarre choices in here though, there’s some really not very good paintings, we are still cherry picking or sherry drinking or whatever it was we said we were doing. I mean, you expect a very high standard at what is supposed to be one of the world’s leading art fairs, you expect pretty much everything to just be up that notch from what you see on any given week of the year, it isn’t though, it really isn’t, some of it really is bad, very bad. Xavier Hufkens Gallery from Brussels have brought a glittery stars and stripes piece, a piece of pop art that makes for a smile for fifteen seconds of something or other, a “Rainbow American Flag” by New York-based Jonathan Horowitz and then we get to that beautiful black abyss that stops me in my tracks fror what seems like ages…

Lee Bae and that very (very) black wooden sculpture that you so want to touch, that giant wooden piece that’s actually a bronze and his pulling us into the abysses of that blackness as you walk around it again and again, his different ways of exploring the same subject that Johyun Gallery from Busan, Seoul are showing at Frieze this year. The big big sculpture, big in so many ways, that Brushstroke Sculpture (a bronze edition of three) that you just want to spend the whole day with, his blurred lines somewhere between very big drawings, painting, charcoal, those panels that play some kind of support act to that sculpture and turn the whole booth into what really is a powerfully rewarding installation…  “Based in Seoul and Paris, Lee Bae focuses on the expressive potential of charcoal as a medium”, he really has won Frieze, he’s also got some work in Frieze Masters we are later to discover – okay no, no one won, art is not a vote or an award or a competition, Lee Bae’s work excited me most this year though, art was the winner and I could have stood looking at that black charcoal bronze for hours and hours (and hours), I walked around it again and again, it was jsut wonderful, thank you Lee. Actually I did thank him at the time, he just smiled, neither of us has to say too much more, we both smiled…

Galleria Lorcan O’Neil have brought some Tracey Emin‘s from Rome again, that always feels like taking coals to Newcastle, the gallery from Margate that are showing some of her work makes far more sense. It is also two hours and two minutes into things before the first piece of neon is spotted, have we finally gone and got over the need for all that neon wordery? Not so many textile flavoured works this year either, that a little disappointing, do like those large Yin Xiuzhen pieces, a piece in ten parts called Weapon, made from “used clothes and daily things” that Beijing Commune have brought along

There’s nothing anywhere near as radical as the big feminist focus section we had in 2017, what happened to all that? Was it too much of a distraction for the galleries who have paid so much to be in here? Was thunder stolen? And inflatable penguins? Why?! All the way from Copenhagen with nothing but a big gang of inflatable penguins? Why? The shear fuckoffery of it all? The charge, the bolt, the buzz, not the money, the Attention? Something to do with Sack Trick? Well they are big in Denmark and they were saying goodbye to Robin today – in a leopardskin coloures herse, now that’s art!

Hey, here comes some fencing and some kind of half-hearted brutalist concrete wall covered in bits of not very exciting graffiti, certainly not the train yards of Rocco and his Brothers at BSMT Space that time. All the way from Munich with nothing more than a bit of fencing only to be upstaged by a gang of inflatable Danish penguins next door. I mean as street scrawl goes, you’d just bleach it off without a second of artistic remorse.

I do want to put that Sonia Boyce “Untitled (Kiss)’ photograph on this list of the est things, well a digital print from 2024 of a photograph from 1995, but it is from 1995 and she is a relatively big name and yes, there were Tracey Emins dotted around and a Keith Harring and what have you and that’s really not what I want from Frieze, it is almsot the gap between Frieze ad Masters, it is a briliant image, a beautiful photograph, a powerful one. Apalazzo Gallery are presenting the Sonia Boyce print

– “For the new edition, the gallery is exhibiting two digital prints of photographs: ‘Untitled (Kiss)’ (1995-2024) and ‘Mm…’ (1995-2024) by Sonia Boyce DBE RA. Starting in the 1990s, the artist began to move away from self-representation, which had characterised her earlier work, in favour of a more social and conceptual practice centred on improvisation and collaboration” –

Are we flagging yet, how much art can you reasonably look at in one day? Started this Frieze week with something like a dozen galleries on East End Sunday or what the hell it was called and I haven’t stopped looking at art since, since, save to launch Mixtape No.8 last Tuesday and that was something like two hundred pieces of art, are we flagging yet? Actually the Saturday before East End Sunday was that excellent Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-led group show as we head into Frieze Week alongside that equally as good Tracy McBride, Elemental show at Safehouse Two, Wednesday was Frieze, Thuraday was all those galleries in Cork Street and the surrounding area, Friday was back to Frieze and hours in Frieze Masters, Saturday was catch the last day of that show at Guts Gallery here in Hackney and herer we are at 1am on Sunday morning banging out part two, so are we flagging yet? Shall we take another brake? Start Part Three in a minute? Maytbe in the moring, but then Cardiacs Family are playing in Brighton this Sunday and there’s still so much to write… and Part Three 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…)