“Laughs. The joy of the absolute absurdity of opulence and elitism. A fun conversation.”
Tom Pope promises all of this to visitors to his
One Square Club,
the world’s smallest private members’ club measuring just one square
meter. Featuring a bespoke bar, stylish wallpaper, and cozy lighting,
it brings British lifestyle to
Paramount Studios. Or to be more precise, to its
backlot,
the part of the studios where outdoor scenes are shot. The British
artist got the idea for the installation, which is reminiscent of a
telephone booth when seen from the outside, a few years ago. At that
time, he learned that a single square meter of ground in London’s posh
Kensington neighborhood cost a whopping 11.365 pounds (approximately
13,000 euros). “I thought, that’s mad,” recalls Pope, who was the
recipient of a
Deutsche Bank Award for up-and-coming artists in 2011. “How did this value come about? What is it based on?” His
One Square Club
then not only became the world’s smallest club, but also the most
exclusive. Membership lasts only one day and its price is based on the
value of the square meter on which the installation is currently
standing. But now
Frieze Los Angeles is offering people the opportunity to visit the club for free as
Deutsche Bank is presenting Pope’s
work
in its ArtSpace. The respective guest can select music, drink
something, interpret a karaoke number with the artist, or talk with him
about how the value of the property – or that of art – arises.
At
the first Frieze Los Angeles, the club is situated in a setting that
looks astonishingly similar to the streets of New York, where film
classics such as
The Godfather and
Breakfast at Tiffany’s were shot. And
Frieze Projects are located nearby. For this section,
Ali Subotnick, who as the longtime curator of the
Hammer Museum
is extremely well connected with the local and the international art
scene, invited 17 artists to engage with the fair and its setting.
Paul McCarthy is represented with his giant inflatable sculptures. Like King Kong or Godzilla, his monumental
ketchup bottle stands in front of a skyscraper in the studio grounds’ “financial district.”
Trulee Hall’s
contribution conjures up trash horror films: she unleashes a huge
fluorescent worm in one of the mockup buildings. The strange creature
wends its way through the entire edifice. In addition, the LA-based
artist shot a video in which real and animated characters “perform” in
the backlot, ridiculing the conventional role models that are
repeatedly propagated in Hollywood movies.
Lisa Anne Auerbach
was inspired by New York clairvoyants and palm readers, who like to
attract attention with bright red neon tubes in the windows of their
stores. Her
Psychic Art Advisor combines clairvoyance with
art advising. Unfortunately, though, Auerbach “can make no claims to
correctly predict the future.”
Frieze Projects enhance
the slightly surreal feeling conveyed by the film sets, inasmuch as
fair visitors find themselves in two places at the same time, so to
speak – in an artificial New York and a real Los Angeles. Among other
things, this is a humorous allusion to the competition between the two
most important art metropolises in the USA. While New York was long
regarded as the uncontested number one, Los Angeles has caught up in
recent years. The boom there is abundantly clear. Some of the world’s
most popular artists live and work in LA, including
Laura Owens,
Ryan Trecartin, and
Sterling Ruby. Also, new private exhibition venues such as
The Broad and the
Marciano Art Foundation have become established there, enriching a museum landscape that was already outstanding beforehand with
LACMA,
MOCA, and the Hammer Museum. Young galleries are flourishing downtown, such as
Night Gallery and
The Box, the latter directed by Paul McCarthy’s daughter Mara. And global players like
Sprüth Magers and
Hauser & Wirth
have opened branches in the metropolis in the last few years. All of
these galleries have a presence at the first Frieze Los Angeles,
reflecting the tremendous breadth of the local art scene. A total of
some 70 galleries were selected for the fair. Most of the participants
come from three cities in which Frieze is active:
London,
New York, and Los Angeles. They are housed in a tent designed by
Kulapat Yantrasast. The former assistant of
Tadao Ando is currently one of the most sought-after museum architects. In Los Angeles, he designed the
Institute of Contemporary Art and the
Marciano Art Foundation, among others.
Deutsche
Bank has been involved in Frieze, which was founded in London, since
2004. As the Global Lead Partner, the bank has also accompanied the
expansion of the art fair, which initiated
Frieze Masters and
Frieze New York in 2012, and now the offshoot in Los Angeles. Aside from Tom Pope’s
One Square Club in its ArtSpace, Deutsche Bank is also presenting a current artistic position in its lounge in the
Paramount Theatre. In keeping with the cinema location, it selected
Victoria Fu,
an artist who works with motion pictures. Her immersive installations,
which amalgamate clips from the Internet with film and video material
she shoots herself, investigate the relationship between viewer,
canvas, space, and image. Taking a painterly approach as their point of
departure, Fu’s works rely on suggestive light effects. Her
installation in the lounge reacts to the elegantly curved architecture
of the movie theater’s lobby. She alludes to its circular elements,
plays with natural and artificial light, and deploys projections and
neon sculptures. Examining light and space in conjunction with digital
technologies, Fu is taking the tradition of Californian artists such as
James Turrell and
Robert Irwin
into the future. Her works combine the analog and the virtual, the
fictive and the real, and make the images shine – just like the current
Hollywood productions normally shown at the Paramount Theatre.
The focus of Frieze Los Angeles is on the West Coast art scene, which is apparent at the gallery booths.
Doug Aitken’s new video works, for example, are devoted to his home city of LA. And while
Wayne Thiebaud’s large-scale landscape paintings celebrate Californian light,
Kathryn Andrews‘ most recent project was inspired by LA’s dark side, the still unresolved
“Black Dahlia” murder of 1947, which provided the basis for the current television series
I Am the Night. Art and pop culture, high and low, have always been closely intertwined in California. A case in point is the work of
Mike Kelley, whose trailblazing installation
Unisex Love Nest
is on view for the first time in Los Angeles, the place where it
originated exactly 20 years ago, thanks to the Frieze fair. Other
highlights are works by
Carrie Mae Weems,
Tracey Emin,
Mona Hatoum,
Anri Sala, and
Roman Ondak, all of whom are represented in the
Deutsche Bank Collection.
While international fairs such as
Paris Photo
had previously failed to gain a foothold in Los Angeles, the Frieze can
look optimistically to the future. The participation of first-rate
galleries such as
Gagosian,
White Cube,
Perrotin, and
Ropac
heightens trust in the new venture. And the fair already is very well
connected locally. The Frieze’s 52-member (!) Host Committee boasts
many big names, from celebrities like
Salma Hayek,
Tobey Maguire, and
Serena Williams to the most important protagonists of the local art world. Among the supporters are mega collectors
Edythe and Eli Broad, as well as museum directors
Klaus Biesenbach
(Museum of Contemporary Art), Michael Govan (LACMA), and Ann Philbin
(Hammer Museum). The dates of the fair were strategically slotted
between the Grammy Awards and the Oscars. And the Frieze begins right
on Valentine’s Day. The best prerequisites for a long-term love story
between Los Angeles and Frieze.
Frieze Los AngelesFebruary 14 – 17, 2019
Paramount Pictures Studios, Hollywood
