Frieze 2009 - What do you see?

I overheard one old lady say to another “What do you see?”. Both were staring at a rather large abstract painting at Frieze Art Fair. The painting wasn’t memorable but the question stuck with me. Frieze is about seeing. A marathon see-a-thon. It took me 3.5h of non-stop walking to “see” all the art along the 6 long corridors of the Frieze “tent”.

What did I see? I saw collages, lots of them. Traditional 2D ones and huge sculptural 3D ones. I saw lots of bored gallerists sitting in front of their macbooks surrounded by art books. Or telling the life story of the artist they represented to a prospect client. I enjoyed inspecting the rich collectors with their expensive eccentric outfits. I spotted Ron Arad. The art students running around, choosing to take notes, makes sketches rather than take photos of the art works. There were of course artists pitching themselves to gallerists.

And the art? Mindmaps as art (great!). Kinetic sculptures. In fact sculptures were my favorites. Anish Kapoor never ceases to amaze, even the pieces I’ve experienced before. Or the new ones (artist unknown). There’s something about art that incorporates YOU and lets you experience something sensorial, like those two sculptures.

What didn’t I enjoy? Most of it actually. Either too traditional/straight forward. Or too weird. Lots of this category present. Nothing I could connect with on any level. Just stuff with no impact. Intrigued? Sorry no photos to share.

Check out what Frieze looked like in 2008. And in 2007.