London Art Fair

Jaw-dropping prices, gallery owners hovering like buzzards around the fat-of-wallet and pretentious conversations carrying through the air: “This is Christophe’s latest work, he’s currently juxtaposing renaissance frescos with imagery from Countdown.” A a entitled “Profane Impossibility of Diametric Neurosis” (it’s not pretentious because it’s, like, obviously ironically pretentious, you know?) and a gallery called Pratt Contemporary... It can all mean only one thing – the London Art Fair (LAF) has rolled into town for another year, bringing with it all that is both bad and good in UK art.

The bad? See above. It’s hard not to feel a tinge of cynicism when viewing the commercial art-world in all its pustulent glory. Maybe it’s the idealist – and former art student, fact-fans – in me, but somehow the sight of an object dragged kicking and screaming from the deepest depths of an individual’s tortured soul, or painted surfaces of delicate and shimmering beauty, or scribbled sketches that somehow capture the very ‘now-ness’ of the moment in all its simplicity and complexity – all these sit slightly uneasily with the sight of some bloke with a dodgy cravat trying to flog it to you for fifty grand. Ah well, everyone needs to make a living I suppose.

And the good? Well – the art itself, happily enough. Not all of it, obviously – some of it was rubbish, RUBBISH I tell you – but a lot of it was very good indeed. The LAF is a basically a trade fair – much like you get in any other industry, such as plumbing for example – only instead of ball-valves, stop-cocks and brass nipples, all the stalls sell... paintings. I heartily recommend a visit to next year’s event – although a minor Lottery win may be required if you want to leave with anything more substantial than the Fair Guide.

I should also add that it’s bloody massive, so my five highlights are just there to the right. (For a fun interactive reading experience, why not try Googling them to have a look?)

Highlights

Grayson Perry – “The Walthamstow Tapestry”. Turner Prize-winning ceramicist turns his hand to another traditional medium and fills it with his trademark snippets of modern life (and lots of actual trademarks, funnily enough).

Marcus Rees Roberts – “Catalunya” series. My highlight of the fair – claustrophobic interiors, primitive figures, Spanish darkness. A cheery combination of brooding menace and anguished psychosis.

Colin Self. Various small drawings from the 1970’s onwards. Witty, sarcastic and weird.

Alice Attie. Delicate typographical structures, like spider webs made of numbers.

Joel Clifford / Anka Dabrowska. Two young-ish artists, both represented by Jealous Gallery. Both good.