Part Four, this is mostly for my own good, or sanity or maybe insanity. Shall we go on? Clapping with one hand? You walk around this vast vast vast white tent, this big monster of a thing, you walk for hours and hours, you come home with a camera phone bursting at the seems in the hope of it if prompting the things stored somewhere in your head as art-blindness hits somewhere near the fifth hour of being in here on the first day, you try and scratch the surface with a piece like this, research or something. I think we saw it all? Where were we, Part Four, is there any point in going on? If you haven’t already then Part One, Two and Three probably should be read first maybe? It is mostly for my own benefit though, these Frieze pieces, the discipline of doing all this does make me go back over it all, search out pieces, artists, galleries, look things up, a little more than just posting a few pictures on social bloody media, a selfie with a piece of art and then moving on to the next event to be seen at. Weeks of thinking about what’s just been seen at Frieze are needed – replaying it, researching, re-evaluating, it might be of use to you as well? Who knows? Is any of it ever? I mostly do it for myself. Most of the reaction to art coverage around here, especially the reaction from London’s galleries, is hostile, and I don’t mean the Frieze coverage, I mean the years (and years) of art coverage on the pages in general, I am banned as an artist more than a writer from more than one London gallery now (thankfully so in a couple of cases)
On we go, Part Four, we are still buzzing a little from the encounter with Lauren Halsey‘s art in the Gagosian booth, that really did lift flagging spirits, see Part Three for more Lauren, it really did remind us why we come to things like this. Buzzing? Is that appropriate art language? That bloke from The Approach wouldn’t like it. Where were we? Where was it left with Part Three? Something about not being sure what is to be made of that pink leaf/flower piece, does it look like something you’d find in the flowering arranging department of Harrods? It is actually front and centre in the Casado Santapau (Madrid) booth but that was Part Three.
Shall we continue this with Part Four? We are about four hours in now, I think we’re having fun, is art ever fun? More fun with Part Four in a moment. all the fun of the fair, one we go. W Galeria from Buenos Aires, Argentina seems to have brought that aforementioned pile of generic standard issue house bricks, am I missing the point again? Is anyone allowed to ask why? All the way from Argentina (or did they go to the Regent’s Park branch of Wicks?), I’m sure I’m doing someone a great disservice, actually W Galeria looks to be an interesting gallery from what can be seen on line, what was the point of those bricks?
Hide that cynical smile, let’s get back to the cherry picking of the highlights and the best bits if that is possible in here? It probably isn’t, you surely can’t come to something like this monstrous thing and not ask questions? It can’t all be about selfies and top ten list of things can it? Kalfayan Galleries (from Athens, Greece) have a big Antonis Donef Untitiled piece (which of course, to state the bleedin’ obvious, makes that the title a statement in itself), a big (185cm square) collage and mixed media on canvas piece that dates from this year, The artist is also from Athens, most of his work is ‘untitled’ and it kind of looks like the piece at Frieze is just the tip of a rather interesting iceberg of similar work waiting to be explored via those links you just passed.
There’s a large Jeffrey Gibson piece over there, a new piece of his being shown by Hauser and Wirth, (who are just opening a new exhibition of his in Paris if anyone feels like buying mea train ticket), it seems to be his only presence at the fair this year, I’m a fan, can’t deny it, it isn’t his most exciting piece though (even his not so exciting bits are a little bit exciting). The big George Rouy painting the same gallery are showing certainly is though, a powerfully big oil painting called Desireline II that it would have been so easy to miss paying proper attention to. See, that’s the thing, he is said to the “the British artist of the moment” but in here there is so so much noise that even the movement of his excellent faceless figures could so easily been missed. That big painting really is something, the movement of both his already trademark figures and the movement of the artist himself, the dynamic, the exploring, the mass, the sheer bloodihellness of it all, love it! Loved seeing it in the flesh. Yes!
And there’s a watering can on a plinth and there’s a woman in a pink dress talking about a very pink and red painting and there’s a quite excellent oil on metal circular painting called Dangerous Body, a Selma Selman piece that throws up all kinds of suggestions, questions and well, an artist and activist, “Selman currently lives and works in Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and New Yοrk, USA. In her art works, the ultimate aim is to protect and enable female bodies and enact across-scalar approach to collective self-emancipation of oppressed women”. The wheel she’s also painted on is probably from her father’s scrap yard, see, this is why I like coming to Frieze, encounters like this with artists like this who make you want to go and explore more about them.
Berlin’s Chertludde gallery are showing those two Selma Selman pieces, they’re also showing a couple of giant lilies that make us smile (but not too cynically), actually the lilies aren’t lilies, what do I know? They’re pear blossom, two big Petrit Halilaj pear blossom pieces high up in the booth – stainless steel, canvas, acrylic paint, thread; 2 elements, each 170×170×110cm big.
Actually Chertludde’s space looks really interesting and if we hadn’t already been here for a good five hours and I hadn’t caught some kind of bug that is going to wipe me out for the rest of the week, stop a return to the fair and the treat of Masters later in the week, then the Berlin’s Gallery’s booth would have been on the list for another look and a second visit. That Sandra Poulson piece from 2023, Dust as an Accidental Gift, made from Cardboard and cornstarch is rather strong as well. The big pink panting, well it was more crimson red and purple one the woman in pink has stepped away and her dress stopped having a conversation with the piece was by Tyra Tingleff, a piece called I would agree with you, but then we both would be wrong from 2025; Oil on raw linen (170×120×2 cm). Sorry Chertludde gallery, your booth deserved more of our time, I really did plan to come back.
There’s a painting that’s something to do with Arsenal over there, some sucker from Surrey singing that song about North London they newly manufactured to contrive an atmosphere can go buy that one, it is about the only reference to football in here, which means the beautiful game is referenced one time more than anything that might touch on so called Urban Art this time around.
Another look up at those big textile hangings up there, do wonder what the story is? No one seems to want to tell us, the event map offers no clues in terms of who work it might be? And there’s some more textile art, this time via the booth of Mitre Galeria (from Belo Horizonte, São Paulo) – that person who complains and comments that textile art isn’t art every time we cover some textile art will be blowing a gasket.
Brazillian artist Aline Motta is “a multimedia artist who expresses herself through various languages and supports including installations, photographs and performances”. You can’t hang paintings like you can textiles, with a textile piece the colour is inside, something deeper, it inhabits the piece, the fibre, the cloth, a painting is something (just) on the surface. The impressive Aline Motta presentation is something that’s part of a curated section called Echoes in The Present for this year’s Frieze that “explores the intergenerational dialogue between contemporary artists from Brazil, Africa and their diasporas”, something else that requires we go back to it rather than just giving it a passing mention here, there’s eight galleries involved in the section, I really rather like pushing apart Aline Motta’s hangings to get in and see more of her work, I rather like looking at her hangings, looking through her hangings, the people on her hanging, there’s a lot of emotion in those hangings and what’s behind them (as the artist says so herself…
Here’s another #43SecondFilm…
Is that Part Four done? It probably is. Part Five in a moment, come back later, there’s still a lot more… (sw)
Previously…
Frieze London 2025 is now over, it was 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)
THE ORGAN 
3 responses to “ORGAN: Frieze week – The Fair itself Part Four; in which Aline Motta, Selma Selman, Antonis Donef and the sheer bloodihellness of George Rouy demand our attention…”
[…] ORGAN: Frieze week – The Fair itself Part Four; in which Aline Motta, Selma Selman, Antonis Donef … […]
[…] 4: The big George Rouy painting the same gallery are showing certainly is though, a powerfully big oil painting called Desireline II that it would have been so easy to miss paying proper attention to. See, that’s the thing, he is said to the “the British artist of the moment” but in here there is so so much noise that even the movement of his excellent faceless figures could so easily been missed. That big painting really is something, the movement of both his already trademark figures and the movement of the artist himself, the dynamic, the exploring, the mass, the sheer bloodihellness of it all, love it! Loved seeing it in the flesh. Yes! – The Fair itself Part Four; in which Aline Motta, Selma Selman, Antonis Donef and the sheer bloodihel… […]
[…] 4: The big George Rouy painting the same gallery are showing certainly is though, a powerfully big oil painting called Desireline II that it would have been so easy to miss paying proper attention to. See, that’s the thing, he is said to the “the British artist of the moment” but in here there is so so much noise that even the movement of his excellent faceless figures could so easily been missed. That big painting really is something, the movement of both his already trademark figures and the movement of the artist himself, the dynamic, the exploring, the mass, the sheer bloodihellness of it all, love it! Loved seeing it in the flesh. Yes! – The Fair itself Part Four; in which Aline Motta, Selma Selman, Antonis Donef and the sheer bloodihel… […]