The highly anticipated 22nd edition of Frieze London, and 12th edition of Frieze Masters, returned to Regent’s Park from 9 – 13 October, 2024, bringing together over 270 galleries from 47 countries. Both fairs served as a nexus for art, ideas and people, presenting a comprehensive survey of contemporary practice alongside millennia of art history.
Fair director Eva Langret commented: ‘We are delighted to welcome more than 160 galleries to Frieze London this year, including new names from Senegal, Georgia, China and Korea. The redesigned geography of our space reflects the diversity of participating galleries, from the new and radical to the most established names, emphasising the connections between these different perspectives and Frieze’s role in fostering creative dialogues.’
The new layout relocated the Focus section for emerging galleries to a position at the heart of the fair. There, Public Gallery set to showcasing the French artist Nils Alix-Tabeling, whose multimedia practice revels in the ecstaticism and indulgence of pagan traditions, ritual, witchcraft and the occult. Director Harry Dougal spoke about the largest sculpture; a primitive goddess adorned with river water pearls hanging from web-like tripe casings, disrupting traditional archetypes and borrowing elements from camp and drag.
Following the success of its inaugural iteration in 2023, the Artist-to-Artist zone returned. The initiative provides an opportunity to observe a conversation between emerging and established artists selected by some of the most influential figures in contemporary practice. A highlight, among others, was Peter Uka, proposed by Hurvin Anderson. Uka presented a vibrant collection of his rich, joyful figurative paintings drawing from his childhood memories of Nigeria in the 1970s at the Mariane Ibrahim gallery.
The newly themed Smoke section of the fair, organized by Pablo José Ramírez from the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, presented ceramic and other works that explore diasporic and indigenous histories. The highlights included Guatemala-based Proyectos Ultravioleta, with a two-person presentation of historical miniature paintings by Rosa Elena Curruchich — recently seen at the Venice Biennale — alongside new works by Edgar Calel.
Curruchich miniature genre-paintings serve as a historical record of the daily life, rituals, and traditions of the first nations of the region. Calel, in his ‘They Are Selling Me’ (‘Me Venden’), series of paintings, which he created collectively with various family members, brings to the forefront the issue of land and cultural submission, stemming from the exploitation of the native Mayan peoples during the colonial period, which continues to this day.
Celebrating 100 years of Surrealism, Gallery Wendi Norris presented major landscape works from an international group including Leonora Carrington, Wolfgang Paalen, Marcel Jean and Bridget Tichenor.
Passing by the Counter Editions gallery on the way out from the main fair, Tracey Emin’s recent work in her series ‘Like I vanished and Reappeared’, included the intimate ‘Curled Up’, a limited edition series of prints created uniquely for Greenpeace’s 50-year anniversary at the studio in her native Margate.
Frieze Masters allowed face-to-face encounters with millennia of art history, like the sight of Egyptian sarcophagi from the late 25th to 26th Dynasty, (seventh Century B.C.E.) presented by the renowned David Aaron gallery based in Mayfair. The curators claimed that they have been in conversation with the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, with a view to returning and/or sharing some of the items in their collection with them.
A pleasant Autumn afternoon beckoned outside the canopies of the fairs, leading to the installations of Frieze Sculpture placed throughout the English Gardens of Regent’s Park. Curated by Fatoş Üstek, Frieze Sculpture has expanded for its 12th edition to include 22 leading international artists hailing from five continents. Üstek commented: “This year it features daring and experimental artistic approaches, carving a place for playful encounters, socially and environmentally conscious themes, as well as conceptual and spiritual practices that expand the notion of public sculpture”.
Many visitors were allured by (and tried to hug) Theresa Chromati’s ‘Steadfast’, part of a series representing a scrotum flower, a recurrent symbol in her iconography representing the union of energy of the feminine and masculine.
Frieze ran from 9th to 13th October at Regent’s Park, London
Julio Etchart was assisted by Juliette Suchel.
