In we go then, the yearly thing that is this massive monster, this regular appointment behind the lines as the giant circus comes to town again, this year’s Frieze Art Fair, once more in we go. We still need to deal with last Sunday’s Frieze East End Day yet and that’s before we start looking at that excellent David Hepher opening at Flowers over in Cork Street (alongside a number of other openings) that happened back on Tuesday night, we’re already trying to catch up with the actual week. We’ll deal with Frieze itself first though, we’ll go back to Tuesday and Daid Hepher’s concrete in a moment (we have already covered Frieze Sculpture of course), first we’ll make that annual walk up from the tube station to the Fair itself.

Wednesday, first day, five hours plus change will be spent exploring and I probably (almost certainly) will have missed something significant. It is (very) big, it surely is impossible to see absolutely everything and here we are on the morning after the day and night before trying to write some of it down, trying to unpack at least some of it as hundreds of images captured on not the greatest camera phone are scrolled through and edited.. 

You see, it is so vast, so big, it really is impossible to take it all in, five hours and more and as much as I’d like to think we went to every booth, we probably didn’t, it doesn’t feel like we saw it all. Where to start? Well there’s the almost obligatory Anna Laurini paste ups lining the route from from Regent’s Park Tube Station – actually they might be the same ones as last year? As doggedly persistent as she is, her work doesn’t evolve that much, it is hard to tell what’s freshly pasted and what has been there for ten years or more, she’s been hitting Frieze for so long now, I kind of like determination. Actually the walk up this year is rather quiet, gone are the days of artists trying to grab some attention on the way in, no climate protest or anything like that, that all seems the year before last year now. Even the tokenism in term at the giant footprint left be all this has almost gone now, climate crisis? What climate crisis? Fly those planes, ship that art around the glove.  And does the whole fair itself all feel a little more low key than it was last year? Was last year a little more low key that the year before? Has the whole week and the build up been rather low key? Is Frieze losing that shine, that element of excitement that one, love it or loath it, couldn’t be denied. 

The big dog galleries aren’t at the front this year, Gagosian’s centre stage has been pushed to the back of the vast vast tent, we won’t get to what they have to offer for a good few hours (it will be worth the wait though). Los Angeles gallery The Pit holds the spot directly in front of the entry gates, an artist run contemporary art gallery so we’re told, although what does artist run actually mean these days? Are there really any actual proper hands-on artist run galleries any more? 

 “The Pit is pleased to present a curated booth titled “Three Generations of Female California Ceramics” including works by represented artists Viola Frey, Jennifer King and Maryam Yousif” –

We’re off to a bright start with The Pit, a touch of a sugar rush of colour, the ceramics look like cream cakes or jelly sweets or meringue nests or something of that nature. A presentation of historical works by seminal Bay Area artist Viola Frey alongside new works by two contemporary artists, both of whom are influenced by Frey’s work and career. The presentation apparently aims to create “a multi-generational conversation examining the ongoing impact of Frey’s work on contemporary ceramics”. Seems like Frey’s impact has been positive, The Pit’s booth makes for a more than decent start. East London’s Soft Opening is to the left of The Pit, alas Soft Opening is as underwhelming as they often are in their space just off Hackney Road (although they do have a rather interesting Sarah Gregory show on in their London space that we explored last weekend and still need to get around to covering on these pages as part of Frieze’s East London Day). Portas Vilaseca are to the right of The Pit and no, we’re not going to try and work our way through every booth (although I’d like to think every booth was explored) 

How many booths are there in here anyway? Something like 130 galleries at the main Frieze London event apparently. The focus, for those of you who don’t know, is very much on contemporary art and living working artists doing things right in the here and now, this apparently is the best of right now the art world has to offer (yeah right). Have the galleries played it (even more) extra safe for the actual fair this year? Even safer than last year? Does it feels like a number of the London galleries in particular have far more interesting shows happening back in their respective galleries right now while over here at the fair they’ve played it even more conservative that the very conservative thing that was last year’s London leg of the Frieze circus? Does it feel like it gets a little more conservative (small c) and uncomitted every year?   

It feels like it might to be a little harder to pick the obligatory top ten list when we get to the end of it all this year. I mean there is lots of fine work in here, of course there is, how could there not be? Of course there are lots of interesting pieces, but are things that make us want really really to shout about them like like we have done in previous years. yes, there is Lauren Halsey and there is an absolutely gorgeous Katherine Bradford painting of a group of figures in a (Californian?) swimming pool, there are things here and there, those Ana 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 year, no Leilah Babirye or anything like that glorious Jeffrey Gibson installation from a couple of years ago or anything anywhere as powerful as Deborah Roberts was in 2021 or those big yellow Sterling Ruby pieces from 2019 that still live in my head. Lauren Halsey probably was the stand out this year, we’ll get to her later though, we’ve only just got through the door, we are going to spend over five hours in here on our first visit (and yes, I know, the price of admission does cut most people out of this, yes we get in free as press, I am aware that most people don’t have the price of a ticket, it is all rather obscene, Frieze has never pretended to be about anything other that the business of art though, at least they’re open and honest about it.)

What can we see? Well there’s that big Moka Lee painting again, we’ve seen quite a bit of Moka Lee via East London’s Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, as well as Seoul’s rather rewarding Jason Haam Gallery (who don’t seem to be in London this time around). Do like Moka Lee’s stylish way of doing things even when there’s a black eye involved.   

The first thing that really does grab full on wow who’s that type attention is a solo booth of deliciously coloured paintings by Ana Segovia; apparently a new body of work that continues the artist’s “critical engagement with the visual codes of masculinity in popular culture”. Work that quite obviously (positively) take familiar images from the golden age of Mexican cinema and the Western genre as Ana Segovia “reconfigures and reimagines these familiar archetypes through pictorial interventions that challenge normative depictions of gender and national identity”. The paintings, before anything else is considered, are beautiful, the saturated colours so deliciously rich, the group of them there together really are striking (not sure if one by itself would have the same impact). The pieces are in one of the six artists selected by artists booths,  Ana Segovia has been selected by Abraham Cruzvillegas and presented by Mexico/New York based Kurimanzutto Gallery. An extremely strong series of paintings that introduce a fictional character called Ramón, a character conceived as a vehicle to examine and subvert inherited narratives of male representation. Powerful paintings that focus us on fragmented gestures – in particular the character’s movements from the waist down – the paintings hint at an almost comic book choreography of intimacy, an attraction and maybe at the same time inhibition, something to desire? Something uncomfortable? Distinctive, painterly, powerfully beautiful, paintings that without a doubt demand far more time than the ten or so minutes that can be afforded to them at a fair like this but we must move on…   

Next to Ana Segovia and also in the artist selected by artist section there’s the wall of circles and the big red dress-like piece of René Treviño as selected by Amy Sherald. We’re told the American artist remixes histories of queer and pop culture, European civilisation and Indigenous Mesoamerica in Moscas en la Pared (Flies on the Wall), a presentation of paintings and fabric sculptures. And there’s a couple of rather interesting Neal Tait paintings selected by old school friend Chris ofili and presented by London’s Lungley Gallery. I guess having an old school friend helps, I went to school with a guy who drummed with Morrissey for a bit, that didn’t get me anywhere, couldn’t even get him to dish the dirt.

llana Harris-Babou has a rather compelling piece of three screen video art presented by Dreamsong Gallery, Minneapolis. A piece that really does engage, a piece once again that’s hard to pull away from, a litony for survival, oh the city life, the confusion, the illusion. We need to go back to that one, we need to go back to Minneapolis and explore some more… 

 Here’s another #43SecondFilm…

Oh look, there’s a garden pond over there, there’s always a garden pond at Frieze.  And there’s a Gina Kuschke painting presented by Alison Jacques Gallery (London) that catches an eye and of course there really is too much in here, it is all a bit hit and run, all a bit drive by and try not to bump into the other person who’s also pointing a phone to try and prompt things later. There’s a rather fine Roy Oxlade painting in the same Alison Jacques booth as well as a Sophie Barber piece (and another London gallery with a rather strong show in their actual space at the moment, more about that later, the first UK exhibition from Sagarika Sundaram opened last Tuesday, more on that via these fractured pages in a bit). On to the Thomas Dane Gallery space, then Pippy Holdsworth’s, this really is no way to view art, that Wangari Mathenge painting is rather intriguing, lots to unpack in all the colour and the many many things going on in that one and it was good to see those large textile pieces hanging from the ceiling, it is good to keep approaching the hangings from different parts of the giant tent, always good to see an textile based flavour or two… 

There’s a couple of Faiza Butt paintings presented by Vadehra Gallery (New Delhi), actually they might be one piece? Two figures, classical maybe, slightly religious, both gazing at each other, both with an Apple laptop under their arm and you are probably going to have to spend screen time looking at them here on this website (or via link, you are using all these links aren’t you? They do take time to put in, they are there so you can go find out more) rather then enjoying the actual paint on the actual pieces of black wooden board for yourself. It surely is one piece? That state between screen time, that third state between sleeping and awake, that screen state we spend so much time in. And that’s there thing here, there are paintings and pieces flying at you from all sides, without your phone to look back at you’d forget half of them when really we rather need to go explore more of Faiza Butt, more llana Harris-Babou more Neal Tait and quite a few more, we need those phones we’re all pointing as we crash into each other. I really need more of Faiza Butt, that piece, those two pieces, they really do intrigue…. 

On past Modern Art‘s ceramics, past The Approach and their collection of this we’ve seen recent in the gallery above our local boozer here in East London, once again they seem to be playing it safe here (good show on at their space right now as well, a group exhibition with Heidi Bucher, Hana Miletić and Rachel Whiteread), and there’s another one of those earnest Peter Davis paintings. Past the Experimenter booth, a gallery from Kolkata and a rather interesting wall of Vikrant Bhise paintings that say they still resist, pencil on wall messages between the pieces, ‘Dalit Panthers/Black Panthers’, well no, not past the booth, once again Experimenter demand we linger rather than pass, another artist to look up and discover. On to Stephen Friedman Gallery where their booth walls seems a little politely quiet this year, a solo presentation of new portraits by British artist Sarah Ball that seem, well, I guess all the gallery’s noise is over in Cork Street and that compelling Alexandre Diop London debut that’s occupying the wall of their big London space right now and for the rest of the month (do go see it if you can).    

Ah yes those paintings in Portland gallery Adams and Ollman‘s space, that aforementioned absolutely gorgeous Katherine Bradford painting of a group of figures in a (Californian?) swimming pool, those figures in the blue water, that light, those suggestions made. That one painting and those highlights really are a highlight, it really is a beautiful thing to see, those figures in the pool, worth the day for that one painting alone – Five Men In A Pool –  one of two paintings from the New York based American artist Katherine Bradford, not seen one of her swimmer paintings in the flesh before. 

On we go, Gallery Hyundai (Seoul/New York) have a whole booth of rather large Yun-Hee Toh paintings that the gallery talk of in terms of her constructed world and a singularly poetic visual language that she has developed over the last four decades. She describes her practice as a process of “discovering the beauty concealed behind phenomena, beneath the surface of the world” and I’m kind of enjoying looking at them just for the pure enjoyment of the paint and the colour although, I’m not sure if I really should be?

I mean they are surely a little shallow, it is almost like coping out and listening to some radio friendly pop rock rather that the usual music we bang on about on these pages, some times you just want to enjoy some paint on a big canvas… Are those big Yun-Hee Toh paintings anything more than a restbite at the end of this first part of of this over long and to be continued Frieze piece? I rather like them, a guilty pleasure maybe? I don’t really like the idea that anything is a guilty pleasure, I liked spending a few moments with those big bold Yun-Hee Toh paintings, we need a break, we needed to just enjoy some paint. See you in a moment for Part Two…. (sw) 

Frieze London 2025 is on now at Regent’s Park, London until Sunday 19th October.

As always, do please click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show (the labels will miraculously appear on the work a little later on)

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