It is a busy art week, we’re still digesting last weekend’s Condo opening across twenty-three London galleries, that and the new shows that opened last week, George Blacklock at Flowers in Cork Street a particular highlight. We’re already bursting with an overload of art, I’ve lost count of how many art galleries and space I’ve been in already in this year that is still only twenty-one days old and before we can catch our breath, the giant thing that is the London Art Fair is upon us and demanding the short journey to Islington is made on a very grey Tuesday morning…
It is always a bit of hit and miss affair, a bit more than a bit, it is mostly miss, it is always politely conservative, even more so this year? It is a case of searching, scanning, swivelling, being patient, the vast London Art Fair feel like even more of an endurance test this year than ever and oh did I really just see that and howe the hell am I going to un-see it! Bad art does have a way of sticking around in your head. We’ll dissect it all the fun of the fair in a moment; an almost five hour stint on press preview morning, several circuits, of the giant hall as well as the not insignificant side rooms, I think pretty much everything was looked at, as much as was humanly possible anyway. Let’s start with the positives, let’s cherry pick, let’s cover the highlights, the best bits of art picked out of a very mixed bag. Feels like there’s a lot of galleries missing this year? A few from out of town we always look forward to seeing, the curated areas don’t seem quite so cutting edge this year either? Playing things safe? Maybe one or two of the new breed of young hip mostly London galleries were MAYBE championed a little too early? Little bit of egg on a face or two as artists went unpaid again and a one or two of those being championed did a runner maybe? Enough of that though, there’s always more than enough good at the London Art Fair in amongst the cheese. The Mickey Mouse count might be depressingly high, and how many soup cans can there be in here? Oh and there’s one of Hirst’s butterfly atrocities, enough of that, there are always good bits, there are always highlights, let’s focus on the positives, far too easy to just be cynical at a giant event like this, let’s go for the good bits and the occasionally genuinely exciting bits…
Here then, in no particular order, are our highlights…
1: Leatitzia Campbell – There’s a exceptionally fine piece of embroidery artist Leatitzia Campbell’s work that catches an eye early on in the morning, it will remain a highlight as the day unfolds and demand a second lingering look before the fair is exited four or five hours later. The piece is called The Unravelling and is being shown be Ed Cross Fine Art, a London-based gallery “working with emerging and established artists predominantly from Africa , the Global South and across the diasporas”.
Laetitzia Campbell is a British-French artist of Jamaican heritage now based in London, her work in intriguing, the piece in question made up in parts, layers, black stitching on what looks like unbleached cotton, an unravelling indeed, it is one of a number of her pieces that demand attention as the energy of her mostly black thread, as stitching and her movement ignites something…
Yes, there are Keith Harring pieces, there’s a Sean Scully over there, a print though, and in a frame, his paintings are wild and free, full of that almost f’you energy and attitude of his, it paint doesn’t feel right in a polite frame with a ‘nice’ white surround boxing it in, it feels tamed, like some wild animal with the life knocked out of behind the caged bars in a zoo, free the Scully! There’s some of Tracey Emin’s more recent work here and there, I can never tire of seeing her more recent drawings and paintings, those almost household names really don’t need our coverage though, we don’t need to cherry pick Tracey or the other Sean or…
2: François Bard – There’s some beautifully coloured, beautifully painted François Bard pieces that powerfully combine an abstract use of paint, a drip or two, with an almost photo realistic approach that isn’t quite photo realistic enough to dull the pieces. Powerful paintings of faces obscured, hoods up, people passing, a glimpse, almost peaceful, rich pale pinks and sky blues, a touch of mystery. Delicious, especially the large one with those two figures and the unspoken dialogue. The four paintings are being shown by Galerie Olivier Waltman from Paris and this is why I come to fairs like this, why I look forward to Frieze every year, it may not be my natural hunting ground, encounters like this always make it more than worthwhile…
From the artist’s own website biog; Originally from Lille, François Bard (born in 1959) studied at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, graduating in 1980. At that time, painting was experiencing a revival in France and Europe, with movements such as Figuration Libre, the Italian Transavantgarde, and artists like Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff…”
3: Morten Lassen – Presented by London’s Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, there’s a recent painting by Danish abstract artist Morten Lassen that demands a moment…
“This latest body of work showcases Lassen’s dynamic approach to painting, marked by richly layered surfaces, bold colour fields and striking silhouettes. His inventive process, rooted in intuition and material experimentation, reflects an ongoing dialogue between the digital and the organic. This new body of work was born in response to the artist’s growing concern with the increasing digitalisation of contemporary life. As more of our world is shaped by AI and automation, and as mass production dominates our surroundings, Lassen questions whether we are approaching a moment where we will come to value the genuine, the unique, and the human more deeply. His paintings invite viewers to engage intuitively, exploring their own meanings and connections….”
Here comes another #43SecondFilm… Here’s what A.I has to say; “#43secondfilm is a long-running social media project and video series by London-based contemporary painter and Organ magazine editor Sean Worrall. As the name suggests, each film is exactly 43 seconds long. These short “observations” capture moments from the London art scene, East London’s streets, and the artist’s daily life…” – Which of course is as wrong as A.I always is, I don’t think any of the 400 or so films have been anything like 43 Seconds long…
4: Time For The Onoric are a duo of Portuguese visual artists, Micaela Guedes and Carina Prazeres, two minds and hearts merged, represented and presented here at the Fair by Perve Galeria, make no mistake Time For The Oniric are on this list because they’re fun, because they’re bright, because they’re heartening, uplifting, because they make me smile yesterday at the Fair, they lifted spirit and sometimes that is what art needs to do; “In Time For The Oniric’s artistic practice across murals, canvases, sculpture, illustration, animation, blending diverse media and scales, they explore the subconscious, the concept of time, and transition, moving through dystopian, liminal spaces where everything seems to hover between what once was and what is yet to come. These in-between worlds awaken nostalgic and visceral emotions”. Here’s comes the links: www.timefortheoniric.com / Instagram
5: Julio Vaquero – there’s an impressive painting a large piece by an artist called Julio Vaquero being shown by Pigment Gallery (from Barcelona, Spain), a mixture of Gouache and pigments on paper glued onto wood, 222x260cm. A painting alive with rich rich reds and that chair is exquisite, it looks like a piece that should be shown by a gallery from Barcelona, a piece called Habitación de la ciudad or City Room in English, his room maybe? He, like the gallery is from Barcelona…
And while we’re here…
Donald McIntyre – There’s a powerful seascape, it immediately looks like an Anglesey winter long before the the label is examined, some delicious knife work to catch those waves and yes, I did grow up looking out from the island of Anglesey towards the sea that was particularly exciting from the cliff tops in Winter, this is a bit of an indulgence on my part. I know nothing about Donald McIntyre (1923-2009), a Scottish painter apparently, the piece, an oil painting on board, is being shown by Horton Gallery (London), they think it dates from the early 1070s and it may not be at the cutting edge and not really what we’re about here in Organ as much as our other selections are but hey, what a painting. you can hear that sea, you can feel that wind, you can smell it…
And there was a rather glorious Gillian Ayres (1930-2018) painting from 2001 called Uncharted that I got to spend a few minutes just looking at, to drink in the exuberance of it all, to just enjoy her paint…
Oh and there was a big bold William Gear painting from 1967 called Spring Landscape, a gloriously big oil painting (189x121cm) presented by Cork Street’s long standing Redfern Gallery (that I took a rather bad photo of)
The 2026 London Art Fair is on until 25th January at the Business Design Centre, Islington, London N1 0QH
More of the Fair in a moment, a deeper dive…
Previously on these pages….
THE ORGAN 