Part Three then? Part Three? Shall we go on? Are we having fun yet? Has the moment passed already? Monday after the weekend before, old news already? Everyone off to Paris and Art Basel, the circus has already left town, the money is being counted – “Frieze London 2024 What Sold And What The Dealers Said” trumpeted Artlyst, and yes of course we all know that is what it is all about, all the who sold what and where and never mind the paint but we were there for the actual paint and here’s some more of what we saw….

And so we left Part Two of was supposed to be just a short piece of Frieze London 2024 with that Sonia Boyce kiss and we were still working our way through Wednesday and Preview Day, if you haven’t read Part One and Part Two of this piece maybe that would be a more sensible starting point, not that anything much makes sense.  Hell, some of the galleries have already cleared Frieze content from their website already so we can’t go look for what we saw and following things up! Been there, done that, move on, what was that delightfully textured piece,one of the flowers of romance maybe? A painting that Lodovico Corsini Gallery from Belgium were showing? No, the moment has gone, was it a Daisy Sheff piece? I think it was, whatever it was I rather liked it, wasn’t a Cameron Jamie was it? The moment has gone and what the hell were those plastic fence-like things that gallery was also showing?You know what, I can’t be obthered to find out (and I’m pretty sire the gallery can’t be bothered with the fact that I can’t be bothered, they’ll be off to Paris by now)

Jhaveri Contemporary from Mumbai were once again showing some interesting hangings and such, a gallery always worthy of note, well worth a moment or two on their website – “Jhaveri Contemporary was formed in 2010 by sisters Amrita and Priya with an eye towards representing artists, across generations and nationalities, whose work is informed by South Asian connections and traditions” 

There’s the almost relief of the Michael Landy plant etchings that Paragon are showing, the calm amongst it all – I could say they remind me of my drawing time as a teenage textile design student but you’d take that as bitterness and that really isn’t the case, they are a rather beautiful release in the middle of it all, simple precise refreshing lines, black and white, mostly white, just a fine line. They date from 2002 apparently, nourishment indeed. And yes, you can see and if you wish, buy things like this from many an artist, you are paying for the name here if that is what you wish to do. Not sure what our friends from London-based Nicoletti Contemporary were doing or what the point was or why I should give it any more thought than I just did, something by Divine Southgate-Smith which I’m sure excites some, shall we politely say the work looked stylish and move on?  

And what to make of Sands Murray-Wassink‘s hundreds of pieces that sure look like many many things we’ve seen many times in many places? Sands Murray-Wassink (he/his, born 1974, Topeka, Kansas) is a bipolar painter, body artist, writer and perfume collector who has lived and worked in Amsterdam since 1994″. Whole walls full of quick scribbles of energy, something to do with a horse or maybe a unicorn? “A queer cult figure in the Amsterdam art scene for nearly two decades” and I’m thinking Susie Pindar, a queer not quite so cult a figure from the London art/gay scene does it with far more inward looking pain or contempt or heart or warmth and maybe with a little less annoyance? I did spend some time in his booth, I tried to connect, I kind of liked it, I did spend sometime listening to his conversations while I looked at those endless bits of paper, I mean it is hard not to like him or them, it isn’t really antagonistic, but then again maybe it is?  Antagonistic – Joan Mitchell Horse Platform – I mean business or something like that? Cute maybe? He’s certainly cuter that Susie, last time I said she was cute she threatened to punch my lights out, but hey, what do I know about anything? He didn’t want to talk about, or maybe he did, just not with me? Where have I heard that before? Presented by Diez Gallery and this is no comment on them, but, as I asked in Part One, is any of this any better than the things that are cultivated in the back streets of London at any given time? And yes I know we’ve seen his work in London places like the never very friendly Auto-Italia but no, it isn’t! I knd of liked the purple booth, but hey, it was’nt as good as Susie Pindar’s recent work at some of the shows we’ve been invovled in recentl and I’m bold enough (or mouthy enough) to say that.  

We head on past Frieze Award winner Lawrence Lek, actually, I took an animator long with me on Friday’s second visit, she got far more engaged that I did, I’ll ask her for Part Four or maybe Part Five, that’s right, we’ve lots to still get through.

On past the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge, black looks from the door security as I take a photo. Yeah, I know, these things can’t happen without corporate sponsorship he said still wearing his Cynical Smile t-shirt – this comment is sponsored by the ORG Records back catalogue, we’ve still got some shirts if you want one, Cynical Smile never caused me to need any wealth management consultations. Pass the booth flogging coffee table books full of glossy graff and glossy street art, it might not make the walls of the galleries again this year but you can still have it on your glossy coffee table. And there’s those damn inflatable penguins again, why? (again), are we going around in circles? have wee seen enough? No, bring it on, bring on Jo Messer…  

Jo Messer‘s panels, are we going to call them panels? A big piece of work, several big pieces of work, an offering that demands your time, an offering from the New York artist, an offering presented by 56 Henry – that’s the gallery name, it makes you think of Hoxton’s No Parking don’t it, or that place way out in that vast building in Leytonstone where that lens based artist had that show, Photos of Other People’s Photos, you know the place, that one time car repair shop still covered in oil stains, that place where Bethany the Gallerina worked (that William Boyd was on about). Anyway, 56 Henry are presenting Jo Messer and all those layers of narratives, her blurring, is that the Last Supper in there in the layers of beautiful colour that I can’t photograph,  the line between, hang on – “The artist will present three new works; two triptychs and a polyptych. Panels in disparate colours will be strung together, each one echoing the last as the figures blur into a frenzied abstraction” – I added the u to colors there just so it reads properly, don’t come over here dropping your letters from the King’s English. I love these pieces, I love that I can’t quite see where one ends and the next one starts, that the layers needs to be searched through, that the lines are delicious, that bodies are implied, many things are implied, so much in there, nothing obvious… 

This is the thing about Frieze, whatever you or indeed I might be thinking about the whole thing, whatever we might be thinking, there’s always something, there’s always several things, there almost always enough art to make it worth the time and effort and yes there’s whole debates to have, I’ll do that tomorrow, right now I still have Jo Messers big pieces in my head, I have those layers, I still have Peter Uka’s brilliant people paintings of Lady May and the others, I have that blackness of Lee Bae, that Lee Bae sculpture is so powerful, his charcoal… love these Jo Messer pieces, love the layers, my photos are rubbish, they’re far more alive than any photos will have you believe they are. Those Jo Messer peices really stood out, had to go back for more on the Friday, had to spend more time just looing at them, there’s real guts here…

London’s Soft Opening booth is a little more interesting that it usually is when we drag ourselves over to their place just off the Hackney Road, some Dean Sameshima pieces, that grab us more than his recent London show did

On past the gallery owners rebelliously not wearing ties, on to Stéphanie Saadé and those travels of here and now and her pieces look intriguing and then you clue into who she is and where both her and the gallery showing her work, Marfa, are from. Born in 1983 in Lebanon, Stéphanie Saadé lives and works “between Beirut and Paris. Her work develops a language of suggestion, playing with poetics and…” …the encounter of … le chemin du retour, a map of good memories, portraits of places. A gallery from The Lebanon, and all these tickets and stubs and price stickers and labels that we all collect and paste in sketch books and things, but this is a gallery from Beirut and where are those price tickets and receipts from, who’s lives these are, who put those stickers of those items in the first place, who worked in those theatres… and then on you go, looking at art, when who knows what’s happening in the Middle East right now.

“On August 4th, 2020 Beirut was decimated by a criminally negligent bomb resulting in over 200 deaths, 6,000 seriously injured; and 300,000 people left without homes. This unimaginable tragedy took place in the port, the heart of Beirut. The neighbourhood where we have lived and worked for the past five years was destroyed, including Marfa’s gallery space. On May 21, 2021, the gallery reopened its space with a group show titled Water, reuniting all the artists of the gallery…”

It does feel like more heads are buried in even more sand than ever this year, Climate change, oil, Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, giant art fairs circling the world, we have said this already, but it does need repeating (apparently there was some kind of protest outside on the Saturday morning, don’t know who or what, nothing was seen on the days we were there), was there any mention of Climate Change this yes besides that tiny unexplained to most logos on the gallery signs. I mean, should these fairs even be happening? But then getting to inteact with a gallery like Marfa gallery, nothing is as black and white as it might be. i’m reminded we have covered Marfa on these pages before, they were a bit of a standout at Condo at the start of his year with that small Talar Aghbashian show in Annex at The Approach – ORGAN THING: Exploring the East London galleries of Condo 2024 and a few more along the way, Talar Aghbashian at The Approach, Michael Dean at Herald Street and well…

Oh look there’s a giant owl, and there’s a Keith Haring, there Perrotin‘s booth, there’s an interesting piece calling us over to the Goodman Gallery booth, a piece by Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui a big piece called Freedom and Galerie Karin Guenther (Hamburg) have a bright, bold and rather delicious Berta Fischer piece on their wall. rather like the Ellen Gronemeyer piece as well. Are we flagging yet? There’s a shopping trolley and a whole load of plastic children’s toys over there, next to the big wall taken up by pink neon flower shapes…

Galerie Karin Guenther (Hamburg) have a bold Berta Fischer piece on their wall, did we just say that? We are flagging, rather like the Ellen Gronemeyer piece as well. There’s a shopping trolley and a whole load of plastic children’s toys over there  and a rather bright Samia Halaby painting called Order Disorder Surprising Event and yes, I am flagging now and it is the Monday after the Frieze week before and hey, I was on Brighton Beach art dropping and swimming in the Cardiacs pond until the early hours of this morning but then that’s another story that urgently needs to be told… More in a bit, tune back in later for Part Four… (sw)

Frieze London and Frieze Masters ended on Sunday October 13th 2024 (hey, we put up several pieces while the event was still on, don’t be moaning at us, we’ve said far more about the actual than most)

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 four, it was a long day, it has been a long week, and we haven’t thought about covering all the amazing things, the treats at Frieze Masters…)