Subtle Decadence at Frieze

Frieze entrance

We were pleasantly surprised by this iteration of Frieze. After last year, we weren’t sure there was any point in even returning. The art was middling. The commissioned projects were underwhelming. Hell, even the weather failed to live up to expectations; it was cold and rainy all week.

Be it the mountain of bad reviews, or simply its calendar proximity to the Venice Biennale this year, Frieze responded with its A game. The fair is better than in years past and most visitors seem to know it. “It’s more idiosyncratic,” gallerist and visitor Sonia Dutton told us.

Which isn’t to say that trends aren’t noticeable—in fact, idiosyncratic luxury seemed to be a buzz-concept. From painterly ceramics with gold accents to decor-friendly canvases in navy blues, neutral blacks, and cool grays—a lot of the work at Frieze walked a line between feeling subtly decadent and unconventionally tasteful. Then again, many booths featured giant silver or gold asteroid-like sculptures. One could get the impression that precious meteorites had pelted Randalls Island. Two galleries featured an artist whose work consists of ordinary-looking chairs with fur coats casually draped across the backrest.

Helen Toomer, director of Pulse, noted that galleries were taking bigger risks at the fair. When we asked her what constitutes a riskier booth, she said, “it’s so expensive for galleries to do fairs so anything that involves more shipping or installing for just a more minimal hang as opposed to smaller more sellable works. And it pays off. those are the booths that really draw you in. But maybe that’s just my taste.”

At this point, there seems barely any point in reporting that sales are good at Frieze. Of course they are—the luxury industry is booming. An economist who now works for a young Russian collector told us in the cafe “All the Richard Prince Instagram pieces at Gagosian sold for $90K…. well, all the ones of hot chicks. The two bearded guys kissing is the only one left.”

Even booths without art-star-power had a great opening day. Gallerist James Fuentes, who was exclusively showing work by outsider artist Lonnie Holley reported “sales beyond our expectations.” When we asked what that meant for the rest of the week (and if he would be bored) he replied “No! Lonnie’s been making work for decades; we can always rehang the booth.”

Okay, this wasn’t a great start to fair: Pace showed a bunch of Richard Tuttle that look like bulletin board assignments. The dotted floor below adds an extra talking point for Pace gallerists. Dots are in.

Incredible selection of Phillip Guston’s at McKee Gallery. There are so many on view, it’s hard not to feel like there’s subtle decadence at play when you enter the booth.

Here are three because they are so awesome: Phillip Guston at McKee Gallery

TJ Wilcox at Gladstone Gallery

Andy Coolquitt at Lisa Cooley. This two-person booth was one of the highlights of the fair.

Andy Coolwitz at Lisa Cooley. These are derelict deodorant bottles that washed up on the beach. They’re not only strangely phallic, but reference a bathroom shelf where one might keep both toiletries and decorative accents like seashells. Beach-combing full-circle.

Jason Josh Faught at Lisa Cooley. A fibers piece proclaiming "Finally a GAY Driving School!" We love this.

Josh Faught at Lisa Cooley. A fibers piece proclaiming “Finally a GAY Traffic School!” We love this.

Hauser & Wirth Roni Horn photographs paired with Martin Creed stripes. Eye candy.

Galerie Nicolai Wallner installation view

Kevin Beasley at Casey Kaplan. This is one of our favorite sculptures at the fair. Michael stood in the booth and pointed and laughed for a good two minutes. In a really good way. Pretty much everything at Casey Kaplan is great this year.

It’s even better from the other side!

Jeppe Hein at Nicolai Wallner. Shiny and likeable, like so much of the booth and fair.

Almine Rech, installation view. The palette here looks a little dated—art fair 2012—which is mostly why we posted the image.

Almine Rech, installation view. On their own, none of these works would be particularly remarkable, but together they..match.

Lehmann Maupin, installation view. At first, we thought this was kind of dumb. Then we realized that the square in the middle might allude to the Kaaba in Mecca, personifying the crunched beer cans as some very-haram pilgrims huddled in prayer.

Bortalami, Installation view

Temnikova & Kasela, Kris Lemsalu "self-sufficient otherworldly narratives, or a stage for performances. Appearing at once luxurious and explicitly fragile, her works highlight the cynical aspect of art’s desirability, while"

Temnikova & Kasela, Kris Lemsalu
This looks like a reference to “A rebours” an 1884 novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans, who wrote about a rich aesthete who, at one point, bejeweled the back of a tortoise until it died under the weight of its own shell. A little obvious.

A weird penial sculpture by Ken Tisa at Kate Werble titled “Singing Loud”. Tons of ceramics available this year.

Artnews macarons. People love bringing macarons to art fairs. We have no idea why this is a thing, but theirs is a pretty mountain.

Karla Black at Galerie Gisela Capitain

Richard Saltoun Shelagh Wakely, 1997

Daniel Rich at Peter Blum. These super hard-edge paintings of buildings almost read as photographs at first, but up-close are comprised of meticulously defined planes of single color. The end result is a painting that almost feels like a computer-generated architectural rendering.

Coffee or Tea by Japanese artist Aki Sasamoto, Frieze commission. This was a really strange “choose your own adventure” installation that was part maze, part personality test. Each door brought the viewer to two new options until we had been sorted into different categories and awarded a button based on which door we ultimately emerged from. In the beginning, Paddy chose “Tea” and Michael chose “Coffee”. Several decisions later Paddy was classified as someone who “Loves Details” and Michael fell into the “Loves Candy” category. We both decided that those were the least appropriate of the possibilities.

Andrew Kreps, Frank Benson, Locked Frame and Roe Etheridge, “Scissors and Andy’s Studio “

Richard Prince’s Instagram prints at Gagosian.

Ceal Floyer, Mirror Globe, 2014, Lisson Gallery

For all the ups in the fair, there were certainly downs. Take for example, this disco globe by Ceal Floyer at Lisson Gallery. Is the world really best summed up as one giant party?

Neil Beloufa at Fracoic Ghebaly Gallery. We loved this and were really confused by it. When those two feelings come from one artwork, you know it’s great.

Société Réaliste, detail.

A stand out booth by Société Réaliste, that includes a weird stipple dog painting a bunch of wonky ceramics depicting things (people, a camera etc.). Oddly charming.

Herald St. Peter Coffin, “Untitled Alphabet”, Nicole Wermers, “Untitled Chair”, Ida Ekblad, “A Day of Toil”. A note here: Nicole Wermers office chairs with fur coats hanging over them are displayed not just at Herald Street, but at Tanya Bonakdar as well. These are works that are indistinguishable from the non-art occurrence of draping a fur coat on a chair, and yet there’s enough of a demand for Wermers work to get them shown at two booths? What?

Adam Putnam at PPOW. What a great booth.

Zhan Wang at Long March Space: What is with the weird shiny crater trend? We also saw an asteroid in gold early on in our travels as well as what appeared to be a ceramic astroid. Has there been more progress in commercial space aviation recently that might explain this interest?

Sean Kelly Installation view

Daniel Arsham at Galerie Perrotin. A much-larger version of this piece opened during Art Basel Miami Beach at Locust Projects, where the entire center of the gallery had been excavated to create a concrete trash crater. These are great and feel like a Pompeii-treatment of the past few decades’ copious detritus.

Ibid, Archinect, detail

Edwardo Berliner at Casa Triangulo. Of all the navy blue, cool grey, and black canvasses at Frieze this year, this lonely duck was our favorite.

Installation view of Marian Goodman

Travesia Cuatro, Guadalajara. As we mentioned earlier, ceramics were everywhere this year, but this gallery’s presentation stole the vase show. Everyone who worked the booth wore matching colorful dresses and seemed genuinely ecstatic to be hanging out in a room full of flowers all day.