LONDON: FRIEZE ART FAIR #2 - BEST OF THE REST

From the top: Image 1-3: installation by Nicole Eisenman, courtesy the artist and Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin; Leo Koenig Inc., New York and Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles; Image 4-5: Peter Doig “Riding in Water (Red)”, 2012 and “Fall in New York (Central Park)”, 2002-2012, Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York and London

So the big tops have come down and the Frieze circus is over for another year. However, lasts week’s dizzying programme included many openings, private views and events at more permanent spaces, which remain open and are highly recommended. 

As well as having put on a lovely spread for Friday’s brunch view, Clapham’s Studio Voltaire bring together two female artists exploring the erotic charge of the human body through very different media in their current double show. Created during a month-long residency at the gallery, Nicole Eisenman’s large-scale plaster sculptures are the long, liquid-limbed cousins of the bulbous faces that inhabit her most recent paintings and prints. Limber and expressive, they hunch, fold, bend and slump against the gallery’s walls and floor, which are splattered with chalky smudges of dried plaster. Next door, a looped YouTube clip in which a pair of trainered feet scuff and scrape in a stylised game of footsie with the flinty ground plays on one of two screens. A separate voiceover narration intersperses a description of the artist’s experience of watching an internet video of a man carving a hand axe with the semi-erotic comments left online beneath the trainer clip. Perverse but somehow seductive, Charlotte Prodger’s installation uses the trappings of 21st century consumer culture to tap into a potent sensibility of the properly ‘digital’ - hands and feet – and a primitive intermingling of violence and sexuality.

On the other side of town Peter Doig’s hazily tropical latest offerings at Michael Werner outshine their muted counterparts in Luc Tuymans on show at David Zwirner’s new Mayfair space, just up the road. Heavingly, muggily romantic, they share the sunlit pallete of Chris Ofili’s recent paintings, whilst still retaining the brooding, otherworldy atmopshere of Tuyman’s dark frames.

At Alan Cristea, lightness is all. In ceramicist Edmund de Waal’s installation, a thousand hours (2012), two glass vitrines are filled with an accumulation of 1000 hand-thrown porcelain vessels. The dry, ashy hues of unglazed clay, these slender tubes have mute, pale and timeless beauty.

LONDON: FRIEZE ART FAIR #1

from the top: Valeska Soares, Galeria Fortes Vilaça, Sao Paulo; Frieze London; Anish Kapoor, Untitled (2012) Lisson Gallery, London; Vitamin Creative Space - winner of the 2012 Frieze London Stand Prize; Thomas Bayrle 'Sloping Loafers : Smooth' (2012) Courtesy of Polly Braden; Henrik Hakansson, The Y Swarm (Sturnus Vulgaris) #2 (2011) Meyer Riegger Berlin; all images Courtesy of Linda Nylind and © Frieze London

Frieze week started in earnest on Wednesday, with the vernissage of the 10th edition of the London fair opening its doors to the well-heeled of the world. In spite of the attendant peacockry and pageantry - the old refrain, ‘I don’t know what is more interesting to look at, the people or the art,’ got a good airing last night - the fair felt fresh and slick, and, as ever, it gives a decent overview of the notoriously slippery terrain of the contemporary art world. Or, at least, of what is being sold there, which is never quite the whole story. For example, it was interesting to note the relatively subdued presence of screen-based art. Especially since it feels as though film and video artists are currently running riot in London’s young art scene (witness ringleader Ed Atkin’s show at Chisenhale, the cavernous space dedicated to screen-based works in the V22 Young London exhibition and Hannah Sawtell’s just opened installation at the ICA, to take three very current examples). The installation of Ryan Trecartin’s sprawling and chaotic sculptural and multi-screen works at Andrea Rosen felt notably flattened by the tightly regimented, white-walled set-up of the fair booth. 

The exception to prove this particular rule was Elizabeth Price, shown as part of a three-artist presentation at MOT International. Her film, which appropriates the fetishistic and slightly sinister imagery and language of car advertising, shows why she is a hot tip for this year’s Turner prize.

There was far too much to take in on an evening largely concerned with shepherding wayward friends/awkwardly greeting vague acquaintances/procuring moderately but not outrageously expensive wine. For me, early stand-outs included two sets of painting of domestic interiors - both by male Americans; both very different. At David Kordansky, Jonas Wood’s large canvases were bright, flat and angular, whilst at the other end of the tent, Algus Greenspon’s stand was given over to the rippling, smoothly-folded pastels of Mathew Cerletty’s small-scale bedrooms. Elsewhere, at Salon 94, the accumulation of Matthias Merkel Hess’s glossily ceramic buckets, baskets and petrol cans impressed, as did Paul Kasmin’s solo presentation of works by William N. Copely. In these pieces, shown in a stand painted the bawdy stripes of the big-top, Copley’s trademark female figures, curvy and scandalously naked, are all the more titillating for having been cut out of mirrored Perspex.

More to come…

BOOKS: BRINK MAGAZIN #2

from the top: photography by Christina Lechner, text by Florian Sprenger, photography by Klaus Wefringhaus, poem by Jean-Luc Nancy and translation by Almut Pape, installation by Sarawut Chutiwongpeti and photography by Sarah Jones, images by artfridge, courtesy Brinkmagazin, the artists and authors

A jump is always a balancing act. In the case of the student-run brink magazin, it is a balance act between art and research. Theory and practice shall walk hand in hand, interdisciplinary and frank. In their second issue, which was released this year in June, the editors and artists concerned themselves with the phenomenon of the jump - the in-between, the before and the yet-to-come. It is treated quite delicately, such as if a jump was holy moment, a sort of sparkle in a never ending monotony.

Jonas Leonhard Tinuis, who wrote the introduction essay, skillfully ventures a dangerous path that leads him from poetry to science - to questions on anthropology and theatre, and eventually, on the freedom of writing an essay, the jumps that one may and should dare, including all the bridges, the metaphors. Another striking contribution is Florian Sprenger's interpretation of Christina Lechner's photography, understanding her dynamic jumping pictures as an attempt to grab hold on the ephemeral and pending interval.

The single-topic brink magazin provides 24 chapters on 74 pages, including many art works that elevate the texts' and interviews' interpretation on a much more visual level, putting it into new perspectives. The magazine's design is beautiful, in times a bit of an overkill of limitless design-freedom, which is, however, recompensed with a reasonable interaction of text, illustration and image. brink's second issue ultimately comments on its own concept: it discusses the balancing act of a jump, away from the ordinary  text - art - separation, into a curated, printed exhibition.

We already look forward to read the next issue!

BERLIN: COULD IT BE LOVE?

From the top: Letizia Romanini 'Mat der Nues beilaafen', Maria Anwander 'The Kiss', Max Mertens 'Affection', Kay Walkowiak 'Ich, Ich'; images by artfridge and Grimuseum, Berlin

Love - the most beautiful phenomenon in the world that humans still aren't capable to describe with words. Music, poetry, theatre and art, on the other hand, often come much closer to what remains unspeakable. In their touring group show 'Kann es Liebe sein?', the curators Nora Mayr and Gilles Neiens have got themselves inspired by singer Falco and actress Desirée Nosbusch's 80s duet of the same title and indulged themselves in the peculiar and rather stiff anti-romanticism of 80s-aesthetics.

Symbols, longings, pain and kitsch - love's common associations are played out by 11 artists, exploring the phenomenon from different angles, suggesting however a constant alteration between serious affection and complete naivety. This naivety, as we all remember it from our first school-crush, is fantastically evoked in Letizia Romanini's installation 'Mat der Nues beilaafen' (2009), which displays a huge black spot on the wall and, underneath, a large pile of paper aeroplanes whose front edges were dipped in ink. But Romanini's work similarly reminds of the time, which usually comes right after the first school-crush: obsession, love-sickness, despair.

Other pieces approach the paradoxes of intimacy and distance, such as Max Merten's two cheesy chandeliers, which are entwined around each other, reacting with rotations to a movement sensor, as soon as a visitor passes the 'Affection' installation. Christodoulos Panayiotou's video 'Slow Dance Marathon' (2005) goes in a similar direction, however, with its melodramatic love songs and dull countryside backgrounds, the video is also critiquing our overrated media-manipulated expectation from love and its side-effects.

Even though one can't do anything but fail trying to explain what love could possibly be, Mayr and Neiens did an applaudable curatorial job, introducing positions, which have so far been quite unknown in Berlin. 

BERLIN: SUBLIM KURSIV

From the top: Robert Montgomery, 'The City is Wilder Than You Think and Kinder Than You Think (Recycled Sunlight Poem)'; Imi Knoebel, 'Anima Mundi 6-3'; Junior Toscanelli, 'Cafaggio - Himmelfahrt'; Markus Keibel, 'Marx  Engels ausgewählte Werke Band 1-6'; Douglas Gordon, 'Self Portrait of You + Me (Wilhelm Furtwängler 03) und Self Portrait of You + Me (Wilhelm Furtwängler 02)', images by artfridge and epicentro art, Berlin

Last week the curator and Berlin-based gallery owner Anna Jill Lüpertz invited the public to her new group show sublime kursiv. Following the mobile concept of her project room AJLART, which aims to display art at various places around the city, she now chose Marc Fiedler’s gallery space Epicentro Artspace that is based in one of the monumental socialist buildings at the boulevard of Karl-Marx Strasse in Berlin Mitte. The show presents a high volume of well known artists, such as Ralf Ziervogel, Christian Boltanski, Douglas Gordon or Robert Montgomery. Such a gathering of prestigious artists sometimes seems to leave the curatorial work behind – not so this time. Anna Jill Lüpertz did a great job in combining and opposing the different point of views and made sure that the focus was on the art itself, rather than interlacing them in an overall concept. Although the artists’ names are well known, there pieces didn’t fail to surprise.

STOSCHEK'S FLAMING CREATURES

From the top: video still Mike Kelley, 2x installation views Bruce Nauman, photo montage by Ed Ruscha, video still and site-specific video installation by Ryan Trecartin, video K-CoreaINC.K by Ryan Trecartin, installation by Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin, hallway with works and video still by Paul McCarthy, all images by artfridge, courtesy Julia Stoschek Collection

In the backyard of an office building lies the realm of media-art-collector Julia Stoschek: Restored by the architects Kühn Malvezzi, a shut-down factory serves as an accommodation for her art collection (and her private home). Stoschek's sixth exhibition, titled 'Flaming Creatures' after Jack Smith's scandal film from 1963, displays the works of 14 artists, whose coherence was developed around the concept of 'camp'. 'Camp', as Susan Sontag has put it, is a “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration” - it is flashy and alienating. A burning circus, in every way...

ARTIST WATCH: PATRICK NIEMANN

   

all images courtesy Patrick Niemann and Chaplini Gallery, Cologne

A couple of days ago I visited Chaplini Gallery in Cologne to see their current group show 'Where were you when it happened?' and discovered the hilarious drawings by Berlin-based artist Patrick Niemann. Having studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Prof. Albert Oehlen, Niemann's humor and cynicism resembles his former class-mates. Specifically the drawings' titles are worth a closer look: 'Asi mit Niveau' (Anti-Social dude with niveau), 'Die Bedeutung von Nichts ist Etwas' (The meaning of Nothing is Something) and - my favourite - The cow with a boner 'Käptn Rinderherz Arterienverkalkung ist geheilt' seriously confronts me with one of the hardest translation I have ever done, but I'll give it a shot: Captain Cow-Heart's arteriosclerosis is healed. That says it all - doesn't it?
Have a happy weekend!

ART WEEK BERLIN: PREVIEW

From the top: Booth LEM-ART, Medellin, Columbia: 2x Alejandro Tobón and painting by José F. Munoz; Booth Galerie LUX Berlin: Benedikt Richert; Booth Galerie Bart, Amsterdam: Femke Dekkers; Booth ASPN Galerie Leipzig: Matthias Harman; Booth Burg Giebichtenstein, Kunsthochschule Halle: Paul Werner: Booth Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin: Wilhelm Klotzek; all images by artfridge

The Preview Berlin Art Fair has again opened its doors on time for the beginning of this year’s art autumn. Based in a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport, the extensive rustic space offers a grand surrounding for a set up of contemporary art galleries that is mainly dominated by German exhibitors. Thus, Preview enables some of the most important art schools over here to display their works: Akademie für Malerei Berlin, Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach, UdK Berlin, Kunsthochschule Kassel and Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin.

I was happy to see some works by young artists, such as the little wood-stilt and wood balls by Alejandro Tobón and José F. Munoz' paintings of urban areas in bird's perspective. Both of them are represented by the Columbian gallery LEM-ART. Also Femke Dekkers abstract geometrical paintings and Wilhelm Klotzek's video installation were striking. However, the overall impression of this year’s Preview did not fully meet my taste. The booth arrangement is rather conventional and the genre is mainly restricted to classical paintings and plastic sculptures that - unfortunately - often seemed more vulgar than tasteful - I would have hoped for a more contemporary and less familiar program. Especially after seeing ABC, Preview somewhat turns out to be Art Week Berlin's sore spot. Doors are still open till Sunday the 16th.

ART WEEK BERLIN: ABC

From the top: Booth Galerie Christophe Gaillard, Paris: Isabelle Le Minh; Booth Klosterfelde, Berlin: Dan Peterman; Booth Krome Gallery, Berlin and Galleria Fonti Neapel: Lorenzo Scotto Di Luzio; Booth Galerie EIGEN + ART, Berlin: Birgit Brenner; Booth Aurel Scheibler, Berlin: Neil Gall; Booth Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp: Kati Heck; Booth Galerie Crone, Berlin: Norbert Bisky; Booth Wentrup, Berlin: Florian Meisenberg; Booth neugerriemschneider, Berlin: Thaddeus Strode; Booth Sprüth Magers, Berlin/London: Michail Pirgelis; Booth 2P Contemporary Art Hong Kong: Yotaro Niwa; Booth Anselm Dreher, Berlin: John Armleder; Booth Blank Projects, Cape Town: James Webb; photos by Lars B. Petersen and Anneli Botz

This year’s abc art berlin contemporary is off to a good start for the upcoming days: As opposed to the years before, where galleries where asked to respond to a general concept, they now had the chance to present one single position of their repertoire of artists. This concentration pays off: The booths seem less overloaded but more focused and elaborated. Instead of a strict trade fair structure the galleries are arranged in open spaces which generates an unrestrictive, creative atmosphere. The open minded curatorial ambition of the organizing abc team corresponds well with the wide range of international artists and genres displayed at the fair. It was nice to see that many galleries decided to take a chance and use the event to show rather unknown and upcoming artists: Galerie Thomas Fischer exhibits the simplistic works by young Marcel Frey, which seem inspired by the minimalist design of the 80s, but are nonetheless a novelty itself. Berlin-based artist Hugo Canolias is represented by the Italian Galleria Collicaligreggi with one of his large and colour-intensive panels of fabric. Japanese Yotaro Niwa has made some impression with his wood installation that plays aesthetically with the viewer’s conception of stability. Of course some of the more established positions don’t fail to convince either, like Douglas Gordon’s hanging installation of oversized glasses, or Dan Peterman’s cheese tent that won’t go unnoticed to many, also because of the already intense scent evaporating from its inside.

This year’s abc: overall a refreshing cross-section of contemporary art worldwide that is definitely worth a visit.