Now was it a performance? He was rather indignant when I asked him, rather annoyed. I had watch him or noticed him while I was watching the reaction to the piece(s), the reaction to the installation on the first day of Frieze. I had noted the blue colour of the carper sweeper and how well it worked with Carol Bove’s golden yellows and lime greens, actually (now I think about it, Gagosian was kind of echoing their 2019 Sterling Ruby Frieze presentation with the yellows and greens). He looks right on the dark slate grey carpet, seems a little unnecessary but hey, he looks good, I made a point of getting him into a couple of the photos of the piece. That Gagosian are was once again excellent, a return to form after the let down of those Hirst jizz paintings last time but I said that already. Now was blue sweeper man part of it? All dressed in black, taking his work very seriously?
And there he was again on Friday so I watched a little closer, he never left that area, he never went beyond the boundaries, he never appeared to stop although there wasn’t a speck of dust that needed to be swept. So I went and asked him and he wasn’t that happy about being asked, he took me asking him as some kind of insult, he was probably a artist needing to earn some money? He did confirm he was only sweeping the Gagosian booth, he really really didn’t need to. Was it his job? Was it a performance? Well it was a performance but was it a deliberate performance? intentional or not, he was one of the highlights of Frieze London this year, it was a smooth subtle almost effortless performance, almost hiding in plain sight
Actually the more I think about those Carol Bove pieces at Frieze this year the more and more I’m enjoying them, enjoying the inventiveness, the possibilities. And yeas i now it is two weeks on now but I am still thinking about it, there a few weeks to be had out of it all yet…
Carol Bove and the big dog booth at the fair that was Gagosian was one of our Ten this year. Last year they rather let us down with those Hirst jizz paintings, before that there was the year Sterling Ruby and the Gagosian saved it all with the help of Joyce Pensato’s giant Mickey, and there was that, oh no time to look back, here comes the Gagosian both, we can see those pieces, those Carol Bove installations, up ahead of us, we had seen the advance publicity…
“Bove’s installation comprises a group of nine approximately ten-foot-tall abstract sculptures titled Grove I–Grove IX. Each slender, vertically oriented form incorporates a chain, a painted disc, or one of the artist’s now-familiar painted and partially crumpled square-profile stainless-steel tubes, each of which has been attached to a cluster of raw mild steel fragments. Bove conceived the new sculptures with both indoor and outdoor settings in mind, and with the expectation that, in the latter case, viewers’ perceptions of them would change along with the seasons, the treated and untreated elements of each one advancing or receding visually in accordance with ambient environmental coloration. While distinguishing the natural from the digital does not usually pose a problem, these works contrast the former—in the shape of raw steel, or of steel painted so that it blends in with its environment—with the vividly colored tubes’ and discs’ occasionally “digital” appearance of flawlessness. The artificiality of the fair booth further challenges our perception of these distinctions”.
Actually now you mention “digital” it does kind of look like it was all put together to look good on digital media, on Instagram feeds, on line, those colours are bold, striking, and I did ask the guy pushing the blue manual carpet sweeper hoover thing around them when I encountered his for a second time on Friday’s return visit, and yes he has been employed just by Gagosian (or was it the artist?) just to walk around the nice yellow and green installations when clearly he didn’t need to in terms of keeping the carpet clean. Actually he got rather pissy when I asked him, like he had been discovered or something, he was a positive if largely unnoticed and maybe unintentional part of the performance though, I’ll post him on YouTube later, hey, it was a great piece of performance art.
THE ORGAN 
16 responses to “ORGAN: Frieze Week, was the man with the blue carpet sweeper sweeping around Carol Bove’s pieces part of it? Part of the performance? The blue was surely no accident?”
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] put-upon gallerinas are still being forced up ladders, one more go with the hoover (no one pushing a blue one, they could do with a hint or two of performance in […]
[…] ORGAN: Frieze Week, was the man with the blue carpet sweeper sweeping around Carol Bove’s pieces p… […]
[…] ORGAN: Frieze Week, was the man with the blue carpet sweeper sweeping around Carol Bove’s pieces p… […]
[…] Segovia paintings, but is there is a real big stand out? There’s no Carol Bove this year (no man with a blue carpet sweeper either), not so much Lee Bae, certainly not those big black castings that took our breath last […]