TOP 5 PICKS FROM FRIEZE 2021 BY SHALINI PASSI
Frieze opened its gates for art enthusiasts on October 13th in London, with Frieze Masters and Frieze Sculpture Park at Regent Park as one of the key features this season. There were several curated shows, talks and exclusive preview events, some of them starting as early as October 10th, hosted by respective galleries. There were overall 276 galleries participating. Frieze London 2021 was much awaited after being postponed last year (2020), so much so that few galleries reported being fully sold out within VIP preview hours. Experiencing a vast genre of art practices from across the globe, here are a few of my favourites from Frieze London 2021.
SIMONE LEIGH – Village Series 2021
This stoneware sculpture by artist Simone Leigh at Hauser & Wirth sets a tone apart with its striking composition, context, and ethnography. Her practice traverses across various mediums apart from sculpture, like videos and installation. The artist explores black-female identity through ethnography.
Leigh will be making history next year by becoming the first Black woman to represent the United States at Venice Biennale 2022. One can usually spot a kind of abstraction within her female figuration with eyes, ears, or mouth missing. The materiality itself becomes a metaphor in Leigh’s work.
DAMIEN HIRST – Considered, Stubbed Out, Forgotten, 1993
Frieze Masters selection was quite phenomenal and included Damien Hirst’s work titled Considered, Stubbed Out, Forgotten (1993). Damien Hirst is notoriously known for the confrontation of death through his works. His works are a poetic play between beauty and death which grips the audience. The cigarettes along with their bygone component are arranged very meticulously, in a very minimalist sculptural appeal. This work recontextualizes a mundane subject and gives it an odd sense of power with character.
BARBARA LEVITTOUX SWIDERSKA – Dwerno, 1969
Barbara Levittoux Swiderska is considered a pioneer in fibre and textile sculpture and one of the most important fibre sculptors of her generation. Her fibre sculptures are unique, deriving inspiration from traditional tapestries. Similarly, Dwerno (wood) is made of yarn, cotton and fabric. She merges diverse materials together, with varying thickness which result in a visual contrast. Her materials are usually both natural and man-made. This exhibit by Richard Saltoun Gallery was a part of Frieze Masters.
CAROL BOVE – Collage Sculpture Series, 2021
Artist Carol Bove is popularly known for her abstract steel sculptures with a unique colour composition. Also known as “collage sculptures”, these sculptures have a shiny key feature of a circular disk. The artist brings in visual contrast with her matte finish steel forms that look malleable clay structures. David Zwirner represented the artist at Frieze 2021. The Collage Sculpture series comprises sculptures from different forms of steel, including scrap metal. Bove describes these sculptures as “a story of movement and pressure, force and softness.”
DO HO SUH – Hub-2, Breakfast Corner, 260-7, Korea, 2018
Do Ho Suh traverses between multiple mediums including drawings, film, fabric which have a sculptural quality in them. His works almost force the viewer to re-think the traditional definitions of memory, space and home. The artist is popular globally for her fabric sculptures that imitates his Korean home structure. The artist was represented by Lehman Maupin at Frieze 2021, where Hub-2, Breakfast Corner, 260-7, was one of the few selected works exhibited.
Text by Shalini Passi
Image Courtesy: Frieze, Lehman Maupin and Shalini Passi
Find out more about the fair, galleries and artists:
https://www.frieze.com/fairs/frieze-masters
https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/exhibitions/do-ho-suh7
