Frieze London

On Sunday I went to one of the biggest (and coolest!!) art fairs in the world - Frieze London. It is unique because the work featured is from all contemporary, living artists. It also takes place in NYC in May but the fair in London is the original one, conceived of 10 years ago.

In Regent's Park, a HUGE tent is set up over the park. Once you walk inside you don't feel like you're in a tent at all, until you see a tree popping out of the ground that is...

Galleries rent space in the tent to display work from hundreds of artists - I was there for 4 hours and I still don't think I saw absolutely everything. This was the entrance...

And here is a sense of the space - there were a few places to sit and rest but art is in your face absolutely everywhere.

Although these are no Picasso's, just to give you an idea of what these types of works go for, the one below was $50,000

close up of the pins- 

Although I was certainly not buying, it was SO much fun to see everything! Here are a few of the most amusing pieces I saw...

and I loved all the neon I saw...

This was a show-stopper by Paul McCarthy - huge piece and in a very central location - got a lot of attention 

And then there were pieces that were deliberately playing with and challenging traditional artistic conventions, like for example keeping paint inside the frame...

Or what it means to paint a portrait - the skin of the Mona Lisa figure is actually wood, not paint - her skin is just the part underneath that has been left unpainted, inverting the idea of what it means to paint a figure

 Loved this because Annie and I saw it at the New Museum as part of an exhibition on Carston Haller and the Fluxus movement last summer...

And I actually really loved this piece - I spoke with the girls that work at this gallery and was right on target when I guessed the artist was heavily influenced by Edvard Munch and van Gogh - 

And loved the pieces that made use of heavy impasto - see the detail below to see how thick some of the paint is!

and I just loved this :-)

It was completely overwhelming but such an incredibly exciting atmosphere. Really glad I went not just for the experience but to see what kind of art is on the market right now and what the contemporary art scene is all about right now (even though we are in the middle of the High Renaissance in lecture right now...)