More Than A Hipster Art Safari

The Frieze Art Fair, now in its 11th year, is one of the world’s leading contemporary art fairs, and has helped shape London into a nucleus of creativity and vision.

This year, 152 galleries were invited to assemble in one space in Regent’s park, and display the best of what they could offer. And they did not disappoint; from Tokyo to New York, together they brought an international feel to the fair and gave it dynamism truly unique to Frieze. This diversity makes for a thrilling and eye-opening experience where you do not know what to expect from one gallery to another. But the true beauty of Frieze is that it showcases artists currently at the forefront of innovation, the ones that are defining what the future of art shall be. Frieze Frame, a specialist section of the fair, offers less established galleries a chance to exhibit a single artist in depth and, for me, this is where you really saw the innovation. Here, up-and-coming artists have an opportunity to display their works and you are really able to see how art is evolving, especially when you compare it to the older contemporary art elsewhere at the fair.

As you walk into the fair’s main pavilion, it is as if you are walking into another world, a world that leaves behind the hectic reality outside and suspends you in a white bubble of imagination. Unobtrusive lighting and architecture create a cloud of clean minimalism, perfectly designed to display art of any kind, and expansive space allows viewing without any intrusion on your intimate experience of the art. The people of Frieze are almost as intriguing as the art itself. To see a man in platforms, a fur coat and Viking helmet adds to the bizarre spectacle. You feel it is an opportunity for all the arty types of London to flaunt their stuff – or maybe they are seeing just how far you can push definitions of art and fashion. But it does create vitality and a playful – if not a tad surreal – atmosphere that really enhances my yearly pilgrimage to Frieze.

The idea of people as art is not just limited to how visitors dress. A number of interactive works included the viewer as an integral part, none more so than James Lee Byars’ Four in a Dress. It is exactly how it sounds: four people facing each other in a circle, all wearing one dress. What I loved about this piece is how inclusive it was. The four people were allowed to talk to one another and the audience, giving everyone a slightly different experience.

Viewer participation seemed a common theme this year and Ian Cheng’s Entropy Wrangler Cloud gave it a modern, scientific feel. He created a virtual world, viewed through simulator goggles that immersed the viewer in the new reality. The comically large goggles and amazed expressions on the participants’ faces as they experienced this world made for hilarious viewing.

In fact, alternate realities featured heavily as a concept this year, reinforcing the progressive modernity of the fair. Because so much of our daily lives are now online and virtual, this art felt up-to-date and was thus instantly relatable.

In the end, the idea of a fair is to sell art. But that was never really obvious at Frieze, bar the huddle of curators you would see every so often. It was heartening to see the artists were also not too preoccupied by the financial side of art. They did not ostensibly create works that would be an easy sell, for example Jennifer Rubell’s Portrait of the Artist; a gigantic sculpture of a pregnant woman where you are meant to crawl inside her womb. Not the most practical of pieces… However, with the Tate buying four works from this year’s fair, maybe there is a market for the kind of piece that doesn’t quite fit on a rich patron’s wall.

The Frieze Art Fair really is a key cultural event and I can only see it becoming bigger and even more influential. It really is cutting edge, and is shaping the future of art as we know it. And despite the hefty entrance fee (£23 for students!), it has become not only a significant hub for contemporary art, but also the kind of chic place any young Londoner would want to be seen.

The Frieze art fair this year took place 17th – 20th October. The fair is held annually in Regent’s Park, NW1, entrance £32, students £23.