History
Frieze magazine was launched in 1991 by Amanda Sharp, Matthew Slotover, and artist Tom Gidley. The magazine served for a time as an alternative to more established art publications like Artforum , drawing contributors like Hilton Als, Peter Schjeldahl, and Lynne Tillman. [7]
In 2003, Slotover and Sharp parted ways with Gidley and launched Frieze Art Fair. [1] Early editions of the fair saw steady increases in attendance, rising from 27,700 at the first fair to 105,000 in 2016. [1] Frieze has been noted for being among the first art fairs to implement practices like commissioning works from artists and holding artist talks during the fair. [7] [1] Multiple writers have stated that the original Frieze Art Fair helped unite London's art scene, which was gaining in prominence after significant investments in institutions like the Tate Modern. [7] [1] Despite high attendance, it was suggested in 2006 that only 20% of the fair's 68,000 visitors intend to buy work. [8] Frieze stopped self-reporting sales figures in 2006, claiming that the figures were not accurate given that many sales happen in private or following the end of the fair's run. [9] In 2007, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise booth at Frieze was transformed into a flea market, showcasing the fair's willingness to embrace unconventional and immersive art experiences. [10] Since the mid-2000s, auction houses like Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips have expanded their mid-season contemporary sales to coincide with Frieze London. [11]
In 2010, Slotover participated in a formal debate at London's Saatchi Gallery with artists including Jasper Joffe, on the subject of whether "art fairs are about money." [12] Joffe claimed that his criticisms of Frieze and Slotover led to his work being banned from the fair that year. [13]
In May 2011, Slotover and Sharp announced the launch of two new art fairs, Frieze New York and Frieze Masters, with their first editions occurring in 2012. [14] Frieze Masters, held concurrently to the original Frieze Art Fair, comprises art made before the year 2000. [1]
In 2016, American talent agency and holding group Endeavor acquired a 70% controlling stake in the Frieze brand, including the magazine and art fairs. Following the acquisition, Slotover and Sharp continued to lead the company until 2020 when Simon Fox, a former media executive at Reach plc, was named CEO, overseeing all publications and fairs. [6]
In 2017, Hauser & Wirth invited classics scholar Mary Beard to open a fake museum at Frieze consisting of artifacts bought on ebay. [15]
In 2019, the fair expanded again with the addition of Frieze Los Angeles, [3] followed by Frieze Seoul in 2022. [4] Writers have compared Frieze's presence in Los Angeles and Seoul to its original presence in London, noting the similarities in both cities' art scenes to London's art scene in 2003, as both cities are considered to be rising in importance in the art world. [3] [4]
Frieze acquired two additional, locally grown art fairs in 2023: The Armory Show in New York, and EXPO Chicago. Both fairs will continue to operate under their independent brands. [5]
Kiki Smith is a German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS, feminism, and gender, while recent works have depicted the human condition in relationship to nature. Smith lives and works in the Lower East Side, New York City, and the Hudson Valley, New York State.
Art Cologne is an art fair held annually in Cologne, Germany and was established in 1967 as Kölner Kunstmarkt. It is regarded as the world's oldest art fair of its kind. The fair runs for six days and brings together galleries from more than 20 countries at the Cologne Exhibition Centre, one of the world’s largest exhibition centers. It is open to the public and attracts about 60,000 visitors.
Matthew Slotover is an English publisher and entrepreneur. He is co-founder of Frieze, a media and events company, which now includes the Frieze Art Fair, frieze and Frieze Academy.
Amanda Sharp is an English publisher and entrepreneur, who joined Frieze in July 1991 and, with Matthew Slotover, co-founded Frieze Art Fair in October 2003.
Zoo Art Fair was a London-based non-profit art fair held annually in October. The event got its name from its first venue, the London Zoo in Regent's Park, and it "established a reputation for showcasing new and innovative contemporary British art". According to Kit Hammonds, a lecturer at the Royal College of Art, in London, the event was "doing something quite interesting", but later "lost its viability" due to competition from the Frieze Art Fair. The last Zoo Art Fair was held in 2009.
Jasper Joffe is a British publisher at Joffe Books contemporary artist and novelist who lives and works in London.
Matt Johnson is an artist based in Los Angeles,
SCOPE Art Show (SCOPE) is a contemporary art fair held annually in New York City, Miami Beach, and Basel. The art fairs, which focus on young galleries and emerging art, each include between 60 and 100 exhibitors.
Claes Oldenburg was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. Many of his works were made in collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died in 2009; they had been married for 32 years. Oldenburg lived and worked in New York City.
Frieze is an international contemporary art magazine, published eight times a year from London.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is an art gallery founded by Tanya Bonakdar, located in both Chelsea in New York City and Los Angeles. Since its inception in 1994, the gallery has exhibited new work by contemporary artists in all media, including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. The New York City location is at 521 W. 21st Street and the Los Angeles gallery is located at 1010 N. Highland Avenue.
Jordan Wolfson is an American visual artist who lives in Los Angeles. He has worked in video and film, in sculptural installation, and in virtual reality.
Kavi Gupta is a contemporary art gallery owned by gallerist Kavi Gupta. Headquartered in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago, the gallery operates multiple exhibition spaces as well as Kavi Gupta Editions, a publishing imprint and bookstore.
Hannah Greely is an American mixed media artist. She mainly creates site-specific sculptural works that seek to redefine the boundary between art and life. Her sculptures are colorful and often replicate ordinary objects or subjects, with subtle incongruencies in material or form. Her material experimentations lend the work an uncanny quality, as recognizable objects fade from real to fictional. Greely’s work explores open dialogue between object and environment, as well as the theatrical otherness of sculpture.
Simon Fujiwara is a British artist.
Cultural Traffic is a multi-discipline arts fair within the art book fair scene. It was inaugurated in October 2016 in London and has since held events in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Miami. The fairs generally feature artists and dealers of counterculture media and art including books, zines, catalogues, posters, prints, tapes, vinyls, and others.
Tau Lewis is a Jamaican-Canadian artist working in a variety of mediums including hand-sewn, carved, and assemblage pieces.
Lauren Halsey is a contemporary American artist. Halsey uses architecture and installation art to demonstrate the realities of urban neighborhoods like South Central, Los Angeles.
1:54 is an annual contemporary African art fair held in London during the October Frieze Week since 2013. It was organized to improve the representation of contemporary African art in worldwide exhibitions, and is the foremost art fair dedicated to contemporary African art in the primary art market. By 2016, the show had become three times the size of the original exhibition with 130 artists represented. A spin-off, pop-up show, 1:54 NY, has been held annually in New York City during the May Frieze New York since 2015. A third location, in Marrakech, began in 2018. Critics have described 1:54 as a highlight of the Frieze event, and wrote that the show's publicity for contemporary African art outweighs the issues of lumping disparate geographic traditions together. The fair's representation from African galleries has improved as the international market for African art expands.
Anahita Razmi is a German-born contemporary artist, of Iranian and German descent. She works with installation, sculpture, video art, and performance. Razmi’s work deploys an art processes of appropriation, in which the meaning(s) of existing images are altered by situating them in another temporal context. Her work often deals with both political and social issues, ones in fact that are often related to Iran, the homeland of Razmi's father. She lives in Berlin, and London.
