Time is of the essence at Frieze, as visitors make the mad scramble from A to B, furiously snapping and dashing from pillar to post, always one cultured step ahead. In ode to the Frieze frazzle, selected works at this years annual London Art Fair have resigned themselves to a similar, breathless state.
Wondering Where to Go (2012) is the aptly named small-scale installation by artists Ji Wenyu & Zhu Weibing. From the fluffed plains of the carpet, a perturbed group of suited figures attempt to traverse their horizons in search of pastures new. Ridiculing the absurdity of modern society, the husband and wife duo deliver a subtle joke, amidst the disoriented Frieze crowd up above.
Over at the Campoli Presti Gallery, John Miller’s life-size cardboard cutouts Untitled (2015) are pulled straight off the street and into the gallery. Expertly detailed sketches mounted on the wall show a hurried businesswoman shouting into her phone, a Starbucks-welding yuppy and busy shoppers. Each fragments of city life, that capture our short-attention spans, perhaps because we are confronted with a mirror image of our own windswept selves. Equally lost in thought, Polish painter Marcin Maciejowski’s painting titled Buste de Femme (1910) (2015) found at Wilkinson Gallery, depicts a scene of nervous apprehension, a woman sweeps past a Picasso oblivious to the work, drawing parallels with the jostling Frieze floor.
Doug Atiken’s Earth Plane (2015) holds centre stage at 303 Gallery, a soaring emblem of Frieze’s multinational scope and its plethora of VIPs and elegant collectors that gathered yesterday. A literal translation of A-B, Elephant wishes it too had a private jet. Elsewhere over at Galeria Raucci/Santamaria Gallery, Hany Armanious delivered a joke in the form of Running Man (2009), a neon exit sign that has escaped its traditional context. An ironic visual pun considering we couldn’t find the exit for at least 20 minutes.
Bewildered onlookers are to be spotted everywhere at Frieze, despite excellent signage and detailed maps helping us to navigate the fair, the overwhelming amount of gallery booths, compelling works on show and the sheer size of the venue, means awkward re-encounters are quite possible, as is hopeless circling in search of an loo. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
