Really keen to crack on with TOMORROW'S fine reportage from the black lungs of Londinium TODAY but just a couple more art related ones I'm catching up on from last year...do forgive me. Rewinding back to October last year for the Frieze Art Fair in Regents Park, I think in its 9th year now and increasingly reeking of rank commercialism as each year passes. The fair is just that - a huge commercial enterprise enabling more than 500 international galleries to hawk their wares in overcrowded marquees crawling with hipsters, art students (at least those that can afford the admission price) and various London ace-faces hoping to get their sweet mugs featured, drunk, at the opening in the Standard Evening's magazine.
Being a nit-picking little so and so, I thought the calibre of the work on show was disappointing...and again proved the art rule I swear by that you need to syphon through 90% of utter tosh in contemporary art to discover the 10% that truly, and often for reasons only know to yourself, resonates. The work pictured above (all artists featured in this post unknown as I was sans notebook...apart from Gavin "The Man" Turk, bottom pic) did just that, its initial shock value giving way to a general low-level creepiness and fascination with a situation that the majority of people would normally never have the misfortune to experience. The work is probably taking centre stage right now in the Saatchi/Nigella dining room, affording privileged guests like Rebekah Brooks and Dave Cameron the opportunity to drink Baileys from a shoe and suck Nigella's creamy eggnog off the toes. Hooray!
Having a healthy sense of smut, a feminist bent, appreciation for glorious architectural monuments, a taste for appendages, an Eastern European fetish, a long and tawdry history with British indie music and a well documented love of my man Gavin Turk...may I now present a selection of my favourite pieces from the Frieze.
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