FRIEZE art fair 2010

On the Frieze art fair 2010

My first time at the Frieze fair was not shockingly different from other international fairs I have visited before (Art Amsterdam, Art Rotterdam, Art Brussels, Art Forum Berlin). Many people, a lot of good art and a lot of bad art. What disappointed me was the amount of big galleries with known artists. I always like to go to art fairs to find out about new artists, to explore. But at the Frieze there was not so much to explore. Some artists keep returning in the stands of different galleries. In that way a lot of galleries keep on the safe side: show their greatest hits to be sure of good sales.

There were some interesting galleries from outside the UK: from Moscow, Amsterdam, Seoul etc. The chic galleries that represent famous artists were also there in quite big numbers (Perrotin Paris, Xavier Hufkens Brussels, White Cube London etc.).
The most expensive artwork that I saw and know the price of was a sculpture by John Chamberlain ($ 1.500.000). Also available was work by this year’s Turner Prize nominee Angela de la Cruz, which sculpture was listed for 40.000 pounds.

Interesting artists I saw were: Shirazeh Houshiary (Lisson Gallery), Sergej Jensen (Anton Kern gallery and Galerie Neu), Germaine Kruip (The Approach), Alex Buldakov (XL gallery, who were also selling the infamous ugly iPhone artwork) and Gabriel Lester (Fons Welters).