The vermin-cooking chef grabbed the headlines before Frieze even started. Roast vermin – squirrel and Canada goose with a side of honey fungus – was cooked up by Moro chef Sam Clark and served to visitors at this year’s contemporary art fair in Regents Park in London.
The project marked the first time food featured as art at Frieze and was a collaboration between the Yangjiang Group collective from China and the Grizedale Arts project in the Lake District. The next day they staged another performance – a human-sized fruit bat eating left-over fruit in the cave below the Colosseum of the Consumed (a cross between the Roman Colosseum and a cricket pavilion) as well as a harvest feast.
But the roast vermin feast aside, Frieze, now in its tenth year, turned out to be a rather tame affair. Last year’s fair had Pierre Huyghe’s Acquarium and Michael Landy’s huge credit card destroying machine. This year there was little that caught the imagination in a similar way.
South African artist Nandipha Mntambo’s cow woman was certainly eye-catching – a cow hide that was shaped like a voluptuous woman from behind, along with her paperworks made from cow tails at the Stevenson gallery from Cape Town.
A giant photographic diptych depicting several war scenes, entitled The Dreadful Details, by Eric Baudelaire at Galeria Juana de Aizpuru from Madrid, known for its vanguard photography, also stopped people in their tracks. This could be Iraq, or Syria. The microscene with the woman in the orange headscarf on the left looks almost biblical, despite the soldiers in 21st century army fatigues facing her. Fact or fiction? Friedrich Nietzsche famously stated: “There are no facts, only interpretations. “
A close look reveals the presence of a cameraman in the left image. Later I find out that the whole image has been reconstructed in a Hollywood studio using photos from Time magazine. Does this make the image any less real?
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographs of Henry VIII and his six wives at the Pace gallery also had an uncanny quality, reinforced by the unnaturally large hands. Were they paintings or photographs of real-life models? They turned out to be neither – photographs of wax models.
I was similarly intrigued by the sight of a woman in a black cloak wearing a black blindfold and a heavy chain around her neck, wandering around the fair with a man in tow. Was this a performance or simply an unusual visitor? You never know at Frieze (did the organisers manage to find a gallery owner to feign a heart attack?)
The mystery and ambiguity surrounding some of the art was probably the best Frieze offered this year. I also liked Sarah Lucas’ Mumum at Sadie Coles – her trademark stuffed tights resembling a multitude of breasts packed together in a hanging chair – and Tomás Saraceno’s intricate Network Sphere Network 4 installation made from polyester rope.
I’m told the new Frieze Masters companion fair showing older art up to 2000 from some 90 galleries, a 20-minute walk from the Frieze tent in Regents Park, near the zoo, made a successful debut (it was lauded for its photography).
Frieze has become Europe’s biggest commercial art fair and every year expands into new territories. The contemporary art fair had a new section for galleries established after 2011 showing up to three artists called Focus, which was first introduced at the newly launched Frieze New York in May.
But even this section failed to excite. Some say Frieze lost its edge long ago, and truly exciting work can only be found at the other art shows and events happing all over London during Frieze week. Nonetheless Frieze, and its outdoor sculpture park (which is free) are always good for an entertaining day out.
