Frieze Art Fair - 12 May

Okay this is the big one. Frieze wasn't around when I lived in NY so this is my first time and didn't really know what to expect. It is held on Randalls Island which is just up the east river from Manhattan. You can get there by bus or ferry, we took the tourist friendly ferry option (like most of the locals who we're soaking up a great spring day where the temperature hit 85 Fahrenheit after being in the 60's all week). Let's hit the tent ...

So there were hundreds of galleries and therefore thousands of works.  It was a lot to take in.  More exciting however (but old news to my loyal twitter followers) was bumping into New York magazine art critic (and sometime TV star courtesy of Bravo TV's work of art) Jerry Saltz.  What a great guy. Thankfully I think my accent helped deflect the stalking angle a little bit but I don't think Jerry knew what a lamington was when I told him my twitter handle! We had a brief chat and a quick selfie, although apologies as I may have opened the floodgates to a few more fan requests (you know the one place everyone will recognise you as an art critic is at Frieze!). Anyway, I was still counting my good luck as we trawled up and down the aisles looking for our favourites. I've got to say there was quite a bit of tat. As well as the big recognisable works by Gursky, Yayoi Kusama, Shonibare, Kehinde Wiley, Kara Walker and others that you would expect at a fair. But I was here to see new (for me) stuff. And there was a lot of that. Far too much for a brief post on the go. So I'll jot down some highlights now and come back with a part II when back home. Espaivisor Gallery from Valencia had a great series from Sanja Ivekovic (pic above). She has taken sunglasses adverts from fashion mags and teamed them with stories from women's shelters. Liked how the sense of anonymity was dealt with. Points below, I will add some more once I am back at Big Lamington HQ.

Points: it's such a hard task to single out 3 work from such a diverse show. I will give 3 points to Sanja Ivekovic for her sunglasses series. 2 points for Haegue Yang for the belled sculpture and 1 point to Janice Korbel just because I like text in art.