Frieze London
The 2019 edition of Frieze Art Fair features over 160 galleries from 35 countries. Among this year’s highlights is a new themed section curated by writer, critic and Executive Director/Curator of ParaSite, Hong Kong Cosmin Costinas. Entitled ‘Woven’, it brings together eight artists whose practices are informed by rich and complex art genealogies, and who work with vernacular, indigenous, or underground traditions by employing textiles and weaving either in a direct or expanded way. This year’s Frieze Talks programme is curated by Lydia Yee, Chief Curator, Whitechapel Gallery, and Matthew McLean, Senior Editor, Frieze Studios. In celebration of 100 years since the founding of the Bauhaus, the programme takes inspiration from the school’s pioneering, interdisciplinary approach, and its questioning of art’s relationship with a wider social world. A highlight of the LIVE performance programme is a newly commissioned multi-layered work by Shezad Dawood, The University of NonDualism, that draws on the legacy of visionary Bangladeshi architect Muzharul Islam and takes place on an adaptable stage set of spatial elements that function between architecture and tapestry. Plus this year’s winner of the Frieze Artist Award Himali Singh Soin will premiere her new film, we are opposite like that, exploring questions about environment, history and myth.
3-6 October 2019, Regent’s Park, London NW1. Tickets: Various price options up to £43. frieze.com/fairs/frieze-london
Frieze Masters
The 8th edition of Frieze Masters once again features historical galleries from around the world, showcasing art from the ancient era and Old Masters to the late twentieth century. New for 2019, Laura Hoptman, Executive Director of the Drawing Center in New York, has selected the Spotlight section which features solo presentations by artists including Ming Smith, Gordon Parks, KP Brehmer and the radical collective General Idea. This year’s Frieze Masters Talks programme, which is curated by Royal Academy of Arts Artistic Director Tim Marlow, looks particularly enticing and includes in conversation events with Ai Weiwei, Elizabeth Peyton, Mark Bradford, Michael Craig-Martin and Edmund de Waal.
3-6 October 2019, Regent’s Park, London NW1. Tickets: Various price options up to £43. frieze.com/fairs/frieze-masters
Frieze Sculpture
Frieze Week is also the last chance to see this free programme of outdoor art which has been on display in Regent’s Park over the summer. Selected by Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Director of Programme Clare Lilley, Frieze Sculpture features new works by 20 international artists including Tracey Emin, Lars Fisk, Barry Flanagan, Robert Indiana, Zak Ové, Jaume Plensa, Lucy Skaer, Bill Woodrow and Emily Young.
Until 6 October 2019, Regent’s Park, London NW1. Free.
Denzil Forrester: Brixton Blue
This Art on the Underground commission by Denzil Forrester sees the Grenada-born, British artist reinterpret his 1982 work Three Wicked Men, which is now in the collection of Tate, London, into an immersive, large-scale painting displayed above the station’s main stairwell. Originally made during his time at the Royal College of Art, Forrester has returned to Three Wicked Men several times over the decades. The work borrows its title from a track by Reggae George, released in 1981, in which Forrester identifies the three men as a policeman, a politician and a businessman. In Forrester’s painting, the latter figure has been replaced by a Rasta. Reflective of the contemporary black experience and the racial tensions of the time, the painting features Winston Rose, a friend of Forrester’s who died whilst under police restraint in 1981. An Artist’s Talk with Forrester in conversation with Matthew Higgs, Director of White Columns, New York, takes place at the Royal College of Art on 23 October.
Brixton Station, Brixton Rd, London SW9 8HE. Free. art.tfl.gov.uk/
House of Voltaire
Studio Voltaire’s pop-up fundraiser returns with over 150 new and unique artworks, limited edition prints, homewares, clothing, furniture and objects by world renowned artists and designers. All proceeds directly support the Clapham-based organisation’s exhibition, participation and studio programmes. New products this year include a 100% Cashmere Blanket by Rose Wylie, a Tablecloth by Linder, Cory Arcangel’s Fuck Negativity Beach Towel, and a limited edition print by Wolfgang Tillmans made exclusively for House of Voltaire. Studio Voltaire will also be at Frieze London showing limited edition works by Camille Henrot, Jeremy Deller, Sophie von Hellerman and Super Group (John Booth & Ian McIntyre), as well as previously sold out editions by Tillmans, Phyllida Barlow and Charlotte Prodger.
Until 21 December 2019, 31 Cork Street, London. Free. houseofvoltaire.org
Coventry Biennial 2019: The Twin
For its second iteration Coventry Biennial presents artworks by more than 100 artists in 14 venues across the city. Highlights include ‘The Twin at The Row’, a major group exhibition that offers a unique opportunity for artists to experiment within the visually and politically loaded setting of a disused NHS facility, and ‘The Twin at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum’ which sees artists including Mona Hatoum, Lis Rhodes, Grace Williams and Dylan Fox exhibiting in both the gallery’s temporary spaces and within its permanent collection through a series of interventions. Elsewhere around the city Šejla Kamerić’s moving image artwork 1395 Days Without Red will be exhibited in the Chapter House at Coventry Cathedral and Edinburgh-based artist and ‘cosmoecologist’ Alix Villanueva will be presenting a series of activities as part of her residency project at city centre café space The Pod. Follow a-n on Instagram where we will be posting highlights from the Coventry Biennial 2019: The Twin later this week.
4 October – 24 November 2019, various venues, Coventry. Free. www.coventrybiennial.com
Sunday Art Fair
Returning to London’s Ambika P3 building for its 10th anniversary presentation, Sunday Art Fair features 30 galleries from over 20 cities. Citing itself as ‘London’s international contemporary art fair for young galleries and artists’, this year’s selection of galleries includes 16 which will be participating in the fair for the first time. Among the UK galleries taking part are London-based Annka Kultys Gallery, Roman Road and Sid Motion Gallery, and Glasgow-based Patricia Fleming. And as an alternative to its yearly editions booths which previously invited UK regional institutions to present dedicated projects, for 2019 the fair is partnering with Glasgow International for a special exhibition curated by GI director Richard Parry and featuring editions that address the theme of ‘distraction’.
3-6 October 2019, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 33 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS. Free. www.sundayartfair.com
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair
The 7th London edition of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair features 45 galleries from across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America, exhibiting more than 140 artists. 16 of this year’s galleries are from Africa itself including Addis Fine Art, AFRONOVA GALLERY, Gallery 1957, Guns & Rain, and WHATIFTHEWORLD. Gallery presentations are complimented by a number of Special Projects taking place alongside the fair including ‘Came Apart at the Seams’, an exhibition of new and existing works by one of South Africa’s most prominent contemporary artists Mary Sibande (continues until 5 January 2020), and Water Life, a series of Afrofuturist tableaux by Ethiopian artist and photographer Aïda Muluneh shot against the extreme backdrop of one of the driest places on earth, Dallol, in the Afar District of Ethiopia.
3-6 October, Somerset House, London. Tickets: £25. 1-54.com/
The Other Art Fair
Presented by Saatchi Art, The Other Art Fair features works by 120 emerging and independent artists. Exhibitors include Norwich-based Alec Cumming whose paintings make reference to his time travelling and living for three years in India, dance photographer Cody Choi whose photographic practice has developed alongside his career as a dancer and choreographer, London-based Mark Petty who creates hand-pulled screen prints embellished with precious materials such as gold and diamond dust, and Brighton-based sculptor Simon Shepherd.
3-6 October, Victoria House, Southampton Row, London WC1A 2QP. Tickets £5-£25. www.saatchiart.com/theotherartfair/
House of African Art Part 2: Seeing Sounds
‘Seeing Sounds’ explores the connection between sound and visual art and includes works by visual artists Derrick Ofosu Boateng, Emmanuel Unaji, Euan Roberts, Moufouli Bello and Williams Chechet. Accompanying the exhibition is a programme of events featuring spoken word, poetry and sound art focused around how sounds and music influence the imagination. The House of African Art is a new platform that represents established and emerging artists from Africa and the diaspora.
1-7 October 2019, Copeland Gallery, Copeland Park, 133 Copeland Road, London, SE15 3SN. Free. www.houseofafricanart.com
Cultural Traffic Arts Fair
The roving art fair that hosts artists, independent and experimental publishers, together with dealers of vintage books, ephemera and pop culture returns to Old Spitalfields Market in London for its 4th edition in the city. This year’s talks programme, taking place across the day, includes Dinah Gold discussing the work she produces through the alias ‘The London Vagabond’, Iris Luz who will focus on the different ways tech and humanity collide, and Luisa Le Voguer Couyetin discussing Hate Zine, the publication she co-founded in 2015.
5 October, Old Spitalfields Market, London E1 6EW. Free. www.culturaltraffic.com
Coming soon:
Art Licks Weekend
The annual festival that showcases the work of pioneering young artists, curators, and project spaces in London returns with a programme featuring over 60 artist-led and non-profit project spaces across the city. This year the festival takes on the title ‘Art Licks Weekend: Interdependence’ and considers how participating projects work within a network of friendship, exchange and shared dialogue. The festival also includes fifteen exhibitions from projects based across the country which will be hosted by London spaces for the festival. These include Caraboo, Bristol; EastCheap Studio, Letchworth Garden City; Edition Residencies, Manchester; Common Clay, Hastings; Gaada, Burra Isle, Shetland; Recent Activity, Birmingham; Underpinning, Aberdeen; and Women Artists of the North East Library, Newcastle upon Tyne. Plus there’s the launch of the Art Licks Weekend radio station run in partnership with a-n Assembly Thamesmead curators TACO! and RTM.
17-20 October 2019, various venues across London. Free. artlicksweekend.com/
The Manchester Contemporary
Featuring around 30 artist-focused galleries The Manchester Contemporary aims to showcase the strength of the UK’s regional artists and galleries alongside key international presentations. This year’s exhibitor list has been curated for the second year by Nat Pitt, Director of Division of Labour and includes Manchester’s Pink, Paradise Works from Salford, Platform A Gallery from Middlesbrough, Vane from Newcastle upon Tyne, plus international installations from Madrid’s Espacio Liquido and New York-based LMAKgallery.
11-13 October 2019, Manchester Central Convention Complex, Windmill Street, Manchester M2 3GX. Tickets: £5 in advance, £6 on the door. www.themanchestercontemporary.co.uk/
Images:
1. Alec Cumming, Hazy Pool Day, oil on canvas, 92x107cm, 2019.
2. Himali Singh Soin, we are opposite like that, 2019
3. Lars Fisk, Tudor Ball, 2019. Presented by Marlborough.
4. Denzil Forrester, Brixton Blue, 2018. Commissioned by: Art on the Underground; © Denzil Forrester; Courtesy: the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; Photo: Angus Mill
5. Alix Villaneuva, The Pod Gleaners Library.
6. Tuli Mekondjo (Namibia), Onghulungubu Hai Pwa Makiya / Grandmothers always have wise things to say, mixed media on canvas, 2019. Courtesy: the artist and Guns & Rain Gallery
7. Alec Cumming, Pool daze, Sun Daze, oil on canvas, 102x152cm, 2019.
8. ‘O B S O L E T E (Second flush)’ at Art Hub Gallery as part of Art Licks Weekend 2018. Photo: Stephen Palmer
More on a-n.co.uk:
a-n Artist Bursaries 2020: open for applications from a-n members
a-n Assembly 2019: Thamesmead and Stoke-on-Trent events announced
Turner Prize 2019 exhibition in Margate: papier mâché people, acoustic evidence, feminist histories
