Curtain up
The Premiere of Frieze New York
In record speed, London’s Frieze Art Fair has established itself as one
of the most important trading posts for young art worldwide. Since its
second run in 2004, Deutsche Bank has acted as main sponsor for the art
fair, which regularly boasts more than 60,000 visitors. Now, Frieze has
made the big leap over the Atlantic: the first Frieze New York opens on
May 4, also with the support of Deutsche Bank. An overview by Achim
Drucks.
Frieze New York, Randall's Island Park. Photo: Niv Rozenberg. Courtesy of Frieze
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Frieze New York Tent. Rendering courtesy SO – IL and Frieze New York
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Frieze New York, Randall's Island Park. Photo: Niv Rozenberg. Courtesy of Frieze
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Ulla von Brandenburg, Kulissen, 2011. Installation view at Biennale de Lyon, Lyon. Photo Blaise Adilon, Courtesy Art : Concept, Paris
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Cerith Wyn Evans, ‘And If I Don’t…’ 2012. Cortesy White Cube
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Isa Genzken, Hallelujah (Portraits), 2012.Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
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Ryan McGinley, Whirling Swirl 1, 2011. Courtesy of Team Gallery, New York
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He An, What Makes Me Understand What I Know?, ready made neon, dimension variable, 2009.Courtesy Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing
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Tony Oursler, Soft 79, 2011. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York
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Gillian Wearing, Self Portrait of Me Now in Mask, 2011. Courtesy of Maureen Paley, London
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Adrian Ghenie, Study for Self Portrait (detail), 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Plan B Cluj / Berlin
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Dana Schutz, Talk Talk, 2010. Courtesy of the Artist and Friedrich Petzel Gallery
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Penny Slinger, Who Turns Her Back, 1977. Collage mounted on board. © Penny Slinger, 1977. Courtesy of the Artist and Broadway 1602, New York
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Tim Rollins and K.O.S., A Midsummer Night's Dream (after Shakespeare and Mendelssohn), 2008. In collaboration with neighborhood youth from the Henry Street Settlement House. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
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Tim Rollins and K.O.S., late 1980s. © Tim Rollins and K.O.S.
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A circus tent, a curved mirror, a mobile home in the form of a huge
human body—Frieze
Projects will transform Randall’s Island into “a fantasy
world.” At least that’s the promise made by the young curator Cecilia
Alemani, who selected the artists for the project series of
the first Frieze New
York. The setting and date of the new fair were excellent
choices: with a splendid view of the Manhattan skyline, the park
landscape on Randall’s Island is at its most beautiful in the spring.
Most of the Frieze Projects are situated outdoors—such as Ulla
von Brandenburg’s striped tent, site of a shadow play
performance, and Virginia
Overton’s curved mirror installed between trees, a work that
transports the viewer into a kind of Alice in Wonderland world. The sculpture
park is curated by Tom
Eccles, renowned director of the Center for Curatorial
Studies at Bard College;
it offers possibilities for encountering contemporary art not only to
Frieze visitors, but anyone making a day trip to the island in the East
River. The popular artist Tomas
Saraceno, for instance, creates one of his interactive
installations, while Cerith
Wyn Evans stages a fireworks piece. Ernesto
Neto and Katja
Strunz also have new works installed that were conceived
especially for the sculpture park. Also on view along the waterfront of
Randall’s Island are pieces by Louise
Bourgeois, Ryan
Gander and Jeppe
Hein.
Along with the high-profile display by international galleries, the
ambitious events program will ensure that the New York run of the
Frieze Art Fair will be as huge a success as the London fair, which Deutsche
Bank has supported since its second run in 2004. It was
logical for the bank to initiate its cooperation with Frieze New York
as well. The expansion of the partnership also furthers Deutsche Bank’s
global art program; after acting as main sponsor in Asia with Art
Hong Kong, it now supports one of the most promising young
art fairs on the American continent.
In its lounge at Frieze New York, Deutsche Bank shows selected works
from the corporate collection. The focus is on artists working with the
theme of music. Gerhard
Richter is present with his painted records of Glenn Gould, as
are 12 panels of Hanne
Darboven’s series Hommage
á Picasso, made as a commissioned work for the Deutsche
Guggenheim. “I write mathematical literature and mathematical
music,” the conceptual artist once said about her works. Before she
decided to make art, Darboven wanted to become a pianist; she had been
writing music since 1979. Her composition Opus 60
was performed as a part of Hommage ŕ Picasso.
Visitors to the lounge can listen to the symphony for 120 voices using
a QR Code, as can ArtMag readers on this page.
Hanne Darboven, Opus 60, Symphony for 120 players
Junge Sinfonie Berlin, Conductor: Aurélien Bello
John Cage, one of the
most influential composers of the 20th century and currently undergoing
a rediscovery as a visual artist, is also on show in the lounge.
Currently, the Akademie der
Künste in Berlin dedicates a large exhibition to Cage’s art. Christian
Marclay also works between the disciplines of music and
visual art; his Graffiti
Composition is on view, a 150-part series in which
Berlin inhabitants took part in a collective composition. Representing
the younger generation are artists like Xaviera
Simmons, with her homage to the singer Grace Jones,
and Jennie
C. Jones, whose drawings have the casual elegance of Bebop
and Cool Jazz.
Although New York counts among the world’s most important art
metropolises, up until now there hasn’t been an art fair that properly
reflected this status. The Armory
Show suffered from the fact that it has grown larger and more
unwieldy with the years, while the Art Show
put on by the Art
Dealers’ Association of America (ADAA) only admits native
galleries. Thus, Frieze New York has an excellent chance to establish
itself here. In any case, the list of over 170 galleries participating
in the fair’s premiere is impressive and includes heavyweights like
Hauser & Wirth, White Cube, and Gagosian, which means that the
most important gallery worldwide is participating in a New York art
fair for the first time. The Breeder, kurimanzutto, and Neu also
represent pioneering positions that make their mark on the art
discourse. Added to this are interesting newcomers reserved for the
sections Focus and Frame. Here, for instance, the gallery Tang
Contemporary Art from Beijing presents works by He An, whose neon works
and installations investigate the influence of western mainstream
culture on Chinese youth. Cinzia Friedlaender of Berlin shows Vincent
Vulsma; the Dutch artist sheds light on the conditions of production,
presentation, and distribution within the art market. An apt choice, in
that Frieze repeatedly calls its own role in the art world into
question in its projects series.
Some of the visitors to the fair can already familiarize themselves
with the fair’s somewhat subversive agenda on the way to Randall’s
Island. Limousines for VIP guests are equipped with UGPS instead of
GPS—the “Undependable Global Positioning System” is an invention of
Rick Moody’s. The author of the novel The Ice Storm is also a
musician and songwriter and was invited to contribute a project to the
series Frieze Sounds. His UGPS sends listeners on a poetic journey of
confusion that could just as well be named after a jazz classic by Chet
Baker, Let’s Get Lost. Along with Moody, two other artists were
invited to create sound pieces. Martin Creed composed a hypnotic
lullaby, while Frances Stark’s sound collage creates a humorous
counterpoint to the usual fair chitchat. The contributions to Frieze
Sounds can also be heard outside the VIP limousines: starting on May 4,
they can be downloaded from the fair’s website.
On the other hand, classical sounds are the mark of what is perhaps the
most beautiful of all Frieze Projects: beneath a canopy of large oak
trees, a 40-foot table is installed where Tim Rollins and Kids Of
Survival (KOS) will conduct their first open workshop for children and
youths. Using watercolors and inks, a vast painting-collage will be
created on a musical score of Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream. The romantic chords that set Shakespeare’s most poetic play to
music can be heard beneath the oak trees—and will surely inspire the
children in their creative “work.”
Frieze New York
May 4–7 2012
Randall’s Island Park,
Manhattan, New York
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