On Wednesday 14th October, I had the chance of going to the Frieze Art Fair for the VIP day mingling with some of the world’s most famous (and best looking) journalists. As far as fashion goes, the art world is the place to find it. Frieze is as much about the fashion as the art. If your personal style is cutting edge, the art you own will be Avant Garde. But is the necessity for art to be Avant Garde still there? In a falling economy, is art still selling? Pen and paper in hand, I strutted down the long catwalk-like alleys of the fair to find out.Fur jackets, destroyed jeans, boots in all their guises and opulent handbags were the thing to wear. Streaks in hair, stencilled tights and a ludicrous amount of fake gold was the industry accompaniment to the wardrobe. Frieze, amongst other art fairs, really is a place where looking the part is as important as being the part itself. Other must-have qualities aside from your clothes involve speaking more than one language otherwise you’ll miss half the gossip around you. If you have white hair make sure to tint every single strand of it, keeping your age a secret is what the art society does best. If you know someone, say hello, keep it brief, make a bad joke, and run. Everyone is here to be seen, to see, not to linger and chat. After all, the art is the main focus, so let’s not waste time and converse.
The true celebrities are probably those who don’t dress up, hiding themselves under shabby t-shirts, tweed jackets, silver trainers, and plenty of denim. Gwyneth Paltrow and Lily Allen were both dressed in navy blues, blacks, free from accessories and not a trace of make upon their pretty faces. Suzy Menkes arrived late, quiff in gear, wearing a demure full length purple cardigan and simple black beaded necklaces. The prize for must have piece of the year is shared between a blackberry, colored nails for men, and men’s suits for the ladies. Any leopard prints and monogrammed items are to be avoided. Finally, the look wouldn’t be complete without sunglasses, the darker the better, guaranteed to give that instant “It” status.
But enough about fashion trends, and more about the art.
There’s no denying that the mood amongst critics and dealers before the fair was nervous and apprehensive following the crash that the Art Market did not escape from earlier this year. However, with 165 galleries around the world representing some of the world’s most intuitive artists and their creations, the Frieze brand (sadly, it is a brand) is eager to set the market back on track. If there’s anywhere fit to see who’s emerging, and what the correlations are between the works, the white tent, buzzing with camera clicks, languages, and designer dresses, is the place for it.
Yes, the prices have been cut, but business is still working. The chill of the recession hasn’t emptied out the galleries and if the crowded alleys of the fair are anything to go by, the art world has not lost its customers. The issue is now buying what’s right for the times, seeing what trends are emerging and what’s going to stick. Indeed, I find that now is the perfect time to seek art, as it detracts from fad, attacking the very consumer culture that propelled/propels it to success. The art on display is not catering to the fashionistas in the crowd in the same way that it was at the height of the boom last year when Damien Hirst was selling butterflies and hearts like mass produced tea cakes, it appears more liberated, less street wise. (It should be noted that a Damien Hirst piece of art is now worth about 40% less than a year ago, and his recent exhibition has had some painfully morbid reviews.)
But enough about fashion trends, and more about the art.
There’s no denying that the mood amongst critics and dealers before the fair was nervous and apprehensive following the crash that the Art Market did not escape from earlier this year. However, with 165 galleries around the world representing some of the world’s most intuitive artists and their creations, the Frieze brand (sadly, it is a brand) is eager to set the market back on track. If there’s anywhere fit to see who’s emerging, and what the correlations are between the works, the white tent, buzzing with camera clicks, languages, and designer dresses, is the place for it.
Yes, the prices have been cut, but business is still working. The chill of the recession hasn’t emptied out the galleries and if the crowded alleys of the fair are anything to go by, the art world has not lost its customers. The issue is now buying what’s right for the times, seeing what trends are emerging and what’s going to stick. Indeed, I find that now is the perfect time to seek art, as it detracts from fad, attacking the very consumer culture that propelled/propels it to success. The art on display is not catering to the fashionistas in the crowd in the same way that it was at the height of the boom last year when Damien Hirst was selling butterflies and hearts like mass produced tea cakes, it appears more liberated, less street wise. (It should be noted that a Damien Hirst piece of art is now worth about 40% less than a year ago, and his recent exhibition has had some painfully morbid reviews.)
Art today is dashingly more fun, and ready to take risks that challenge the client. Tracey Emin for example, the Royal Academy original YBA, offers a personalised neon filament sentence as a response to 15 questions that the customer must answer, for £65,000. I don’t know in what way she is qualified to make such a life changing statement, but I can’t deny the concept is enticing.
If a trend emerged, it seemed to be about putting the past in a new frame. Grayson Perry, known for his ceramic vases and cross-dressing was a sure hit at the fair, selling every work on display. The very fact that he was present at the fair, dressed up in an exuberant maids outfit, complete with red stockings, gathered bloomers, a baby’s bonnet, and a multicoloured cardigan ensured he had everyone looking at him, asking who he was, and as a result, paying attention when his art came up. A traditional Warholian techique guaranteed to seduce the public eye. He returned to the old art of tapestry but gave it a modern twist, infusing a large tapestry, “Walthamstow”, with symbols of consumerism, brand names, and dogs labelled Sotheby’s with their masters as Charles Saatchi. Following Banksy’s footsteps, by mocking the people he needs to survive, irony was the name of Perry's game.
If a trend emerged, it seemed to be about putting the past in a new frame. Grayson Perry, known for his ceramic vases and cross-dressing was a sure hit at the fair, selling every work on display. The very fact that he was present at the fair, dressed up in an exuberant maids outfit, complete with red stockings, gathered bloomers, a baby’s bonnet, and a multicoloured cardigan ensured he had everyone looking at him, asking who he was, and as a result, paying attention when his art came up. A traditional Warholian techique guaranteed to seduce the public eye. He returned to the old art of tapestry but gave it a modern twist, infusing a large tapestry, “Walthamstow”, with symbols of consumerism, brand names, and dogs labelled Sotheby’s with their masters as Charles Saatchi. Following Banksy’s footsteps, by mocking the people he needs to survive, irony was the name of Perry's game.
Artist Richard Wentworth, until recently head of the Ruskin art school in Oxford, agreed when he stated he detected something of a return to DIY, to the skill of one’s own hand, among the young artists he knows. "There's a reduction in the idea that someone else will do it," he says (although Anish Kapoor and Jeff Koons, among others, continue to run large studios). He describes the young graduates he knows as tribal, non-conformist.
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There were also trends of recycling luxury icons such as the destroyed photos of celebrities, which I found particularly fascinating, by Maljkovik (acquired today by the Tate). But the most interesting works came from the Middle East with emerging artists such as Behrouz Rae (In Beimeister we Trust) whose works trace the absence of the individual through a suspended wandering in and out of space and place, or Ali Banisdar’s The Charlatans (2009), an abstract expressionist reiteration of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1503-4). Polish artists, such as Artur Zmijewski who represented Poland in the 51st Venice Biennale with his film on prisoners entitled Repetition, were also highly popular. As to art from China, not only was it sparse, its prices have been significantly slashed. Considering how well it was doing last year, it proves that art is just as subject to trends as any other material based activity, and we should thus be very careful with the label Avant Garde.
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Another phenomenon I found interesting was the way in which artists are finding new ways to lure customers, from a money making/saving perspective. The San Francisco-based artist Stephanie Syjuco and a group of colleagues are producing cheap knock-offs of the expensive masterpieces at the fair. Nothing is priced higher than a bargain-basement £500. And on Sunday, the last day of the fair, she is planning a "total liquidation”. Here you can buy a copy of a self-portrait by the Turner prize-winning Mark Wallinger for £500; the real thing, at the London gallery Anthony Reynolds, is £75,000. "We are counterfeiting and bootlegging," said Syjuco, "but it's a little more complex than that: it's about translation and mistranslation. The objects that we are making are objects in their own right, made by artists in their own right, so the resulting works have a kind of dual lineage, from the original artist and the remake.” Syjuco described it as "a commentary on the fair in general".
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Apart from already established names like Richard Prince or Gilbert and George on view, I must say I very much appreciated the Baldessaris being presented such as Beethoven's Trumpet (With Ear) worth $400,000 from the Spruth Magers. Baldessari has a show at Tate Modern at the moment and has been an avant-garde great for many years. The older he gets, the funnier he becomes. Many artists are more fun at the beginning of their careers, but Baldessari keeps up the energy. Artworks that play in different ways, by being artworks — and being in context — are the things that survive best..
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So, if the art market is down by 40%, it is not out. There are still a lot of people who want to look at contemporary art, and who have the means to buy it, especially the Americans. David Roberts, an English art collector explained to me that now was an exciting time to buy art, as people are looking to pay what they would pay 2/3 years ago. Real business is evidently been done privately though, and Sotheby’s and Christies are the guys suffering (far from dying though). Art sales are happening at the back end of the market, with people looking to liquidate their assets to get cash to buy better things.
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There really is an opportunity right now to make a great collection with exceptional prices. Most importantly, trust your instincts and research the artists to validate their training and inspiration. Try and get in the way of artist and medium, to arrest the thought process as it develops. Once you’ve grasped the concept and judged the work aesthetically, if both score highly and work within a context and a history: success.
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At the 2007 Frieze Art Fair, you got in at 11:01am, as by 11:15am everything worth buying was sold out. By these standards, the 2009 fair isn’t as strong. However, with an eye on the right things, even if the artwork is taking 24 hours more to sell, if you arrive anywhere within those 24 hours, you’re a winner.
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At the 2007 Frieze Art Fair, you got in at 11:01am, as by 11:15am everything worth buying was sold out. By these standards, the 2009 fair isn’t as strong. However, with an eye on the right things, even if the artwork is taking 24 hours more to sell, if you arrive anywhere within those 24 hours, you’re a winner.
