Frieze Art Fair lands in Regent’s Park next week, opening its sprawling tents and sculpture park to the international art world. Elsewhere, London will transform into a veritable playground, with galleries timing their most important shows to coincide with the annual event.
Bigger and more bombastic each year, Frieze week isn’t just about the artworks – it’s about how they’re presented. From recreated art studios, to parodical Chinese supermarkets, here are this year’s must-see exhibitions to see at Frieze London and beyond…
Superflex at Tate Modern
Danish collective Superflex will create the third annual Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern. Details about the trio’s installation are scant, but the collective – whose interests lie in unifying urban space and humorous social commentary – will have plenty of room to play with in the gallery’s vast Turbine Hall. Superflex follows in the footsteps of Philippe Parreno, who turned the space into a giant ‘tank’ complete with robotic floating fish.
The Hyundai Commission: SUPERFLEX, Tate Modern, 3 October – 2 April 2017
Enrico Baj at Frieze Masters
In tribute to Italian post-war artist Enrico Baj, Luxembourg & Dayan have collaborated with Gió Marconi to recreate elements of Baj’s beloved villa in Lombardy’s Alpine foothills. Like the artist’s home, it will be a total work of art, decked in his textural paintings, antique furniture, and ornamental flourishes.
Luxembourg & Dayan in collaboration with Gió Marconi, ‘Enrico Baj: The Artist’s Home’, Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park, 4 – 8 October 2017
Ryoji Ikeda at The Store Studios
The Store Studios at 180 The Strand will host a bumper collaboration between Lisson Gallery and The Vinyl Factory, to mark the gallery’s 50th anniversary. Kicking of the celebration is group show Everything At Once, which brings together new and seminal works by global stars including Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, Anish Kapoor, Susan Hiller and Rodney Graham for the multi-sensory show.
Running parallel are three site-specific Vinyl Factory commissions by Ryoji Ikeda, Jeremy Shaw and Arthur Jafa. Perhaps the most visceral will be the work of Ikeda, whose ‘test pattern No 12’ plunges visitors into an immersive light and sound installation. Ikeda converts data into barcode patterns, creating transmogrifying expressions of flickering imagery, convulsing in the darkness to a beat.
Ryoji Ikeda’s ‘test pattern [N°12]’, The Store Studios at 180 The Strand, 5 October – 10 December 2017
Daniel Buren at Lisson Gallery
Colour pop wizard, and master of architectural space, Daniel Buren mounts a number of wall-based sculptures to illusory effect at the gallery’s Lisson Street space. Aluminium prisms jut out from the space, reflected by mirror paneling that follows the contours of the building. The monochromatic works retain their physicality while deftly pointing to the ideological context in which they were made.
‘Daniel Buren: PILE UP: High Reliefs. Situated Works’ at Lisson Gallery, 67 Lisson Street, 22 September – 11 November 2017
Xu Zhen at Sadie Coles
Sadie Coles has gone downmarket for Frieze, selling beer and M&Ms – all thanks to Shanghai artist Xu Zhen. Known for riffing on consumerist culture, Zhen will transform the ground floor the gallery’s Kingly Street space into the XUZHEN Supermarket (2007/2017), complete with rows of shelves stocked with authentic Chinese product. There’s just one caveat – everything is empty.
‘XUZHEN Supermarket’, Sadie Coles, 62 Kingly Street, 21 September – 04 November 2017
Mary Reid Kelley at Frieze London
Mary Reid Kelley will conjure the cabin of the USS Sturgeon – a WW2 submarine that features in her film ‘We are Ghosts’ – for Pilar Corrias’ Frieze booth. Featuring grotty, unmade bunk beds blu-tacked with busty pin-up girl drawings and strewn with DIY bootleg liquor brewing remnants, the installation takes viewers deep into surreal subaquatic life.
Mary Reid Kelley at Pilar Corrias, Frieze London 2017, Regent’s Park, 4 – 8 October 2017
Lloyd Corporation’s archive at Frieze London
British-based collaborative Lloyd Corporation will present a sculptural installation at the Carlos/Ishikawa booth, styling it as an archival storage unit. Entitled Bankrupt. Bulk buy. Liquidation. Repossession, numbered boxes of lost belongings are entombed, questioning cycles of economic exchange and consumption.
Lloyd Corporation at Carlos/Ishikawa, Frieze London, Regent’s Park, 2017, 4 – 8 October 2017
Peter Blake’s studio at Frieze Masters
Waddington Custot’s recreation of pop-artist Sir Peter Blake’s studio builds context around the artist’s eclectic work. Brimming with piles of books, loose papers, faded photographs and wrestling memorabilia, the booth is crammed full of curio providing a window into the painter’s life and myriad collections.
‘At Work with Peter Blake’ at Waddington Custot, Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park, 5 – 8 October 2017
Katharina Grosse at South London Gallery
Katharina Grosse will bring a dramatic splash of colour to South London Gallery’s exhibition space with her deliciously juvenile-sounding work, This Drove my Mother up the Wall. Painting on-site, the artist will layer swathes of colour upon stencils that leave expanses of white visible when removed, playing with the conventions of pictorial viewing.
‘Katharina Grosse: This Drove my Mother up the Wall’, South London Gallery, 65-67 Peckham Road, 28 September – 3 December 2017
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