History
Frieze magazine was launched in 1991 by Amanda Sharp, Matthew Slotover, and artist Tom Gidley. The magazine was initially conceived of as an alternative to more established art publications like Artforum , and drew 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 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, directed by Victoria Siddall. [14] [15] Frieze Masters, held concurrently to the original Frieze Art Fair, comprises art made before the year 2000. [1] In 2014, as Global Director, Siddall launched Freize's fairs in Los Angeles, New York, and London. [15]
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. [16]
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, local art fairs in 2023: The Armory Show in New York, and EXPO Chicago. Both fairs will continue to operate under their independent brands. [5]
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.
Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern art gallery.
Derek Fordjour is an American interdisciplinary artist and educator of Ghanaian heritage who works in collage, video/film, sculpture, and painting. Fordjour lives and works in New York City.
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.
Meg Cranston is an American artist who works in sculpture and painting. She is also a writer.
Los Carpinteros is a Cuban artist collective founded in Havana in 1992 by Marco Antonio Castillo Valdes, Dagoberto Rodriguez Sanchez, and Alexandre Arrechea. In 1994 they decided "to renounce the notion of individual authorship and refer back to an older guild tradition of artisans and skilled laborers” in an attempt to emphasize their belief that art always, to some extent, involves collaboration. Both Valdes and Sanchez were born in Cuba and live and work between Havana and Madrid. They have exhibited in Cuba, Europe and North America, and have received a number of awards.
The Armory Show is an international art fair in New York City, known as New York's Art Fair. Established in 1994 as the Gramercy International Art Fair by dealers Colin De Land, Pat Hearn, Lisa Spellman, Matthew Marks and Paul Morris, the annual fair is now held every fall for four days and attracts crowds of 65,000. The art fair reports sales of $85 million as of 2008. Many smaller fairs and special events are held the same week in New York, effectively called "Armory Show Week" or "New York Arts Week". The Armory Show was acquired by the London Frieze Art Fair in July 2023.
EXPO CHICAGO is an international contemporary and modern art exhibition held each year in Chicago, Illinois. In 2012, it subsumed the role of Art Chicago, which was Chicago's longest-running major contemporary art exposition, running from 1980 until its cancelation after the 2011 fair due to financial problems.
Franz West was an Austrian artist.
Lee Bul is a South Korean artist who works in various mediums, including performance, sculpture, installation, architecture, printmaking, and media art. Lives and works in Seoul, Lee's work has extended from the late 1980s to the present.
Frieze is an international contemporary art magazine, published eight times a year from London.
Sprüth Magers is a commercial art gallery owned by Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers, with spaces in London, Berlin, Los Angeles, and New York, and offices in Cologne, Hong Kong, and Seoul. The gallery represents over sixty artists and estates, including John Baldessari, George Condo, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Andreas Gursky, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, David Ostrowski, and Rosemarie Trockel.
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.
RETNA is a contemporary artist, primarily recognized for graffiti art. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and started his career in the early 1990s. He developed a distinctive constructed script which is derived from Blackletter, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Arabic, and Hebrew calligraphy, as well as more traditional types of street-based graffiti. In addition to exhibiting at institutions and galleries in Los Angeles, Miami, London, New York and Hong Kong, Retna has done advertising work for brands such as VistaJet, Louis Vuitton, and Nike. His artwork adorns the cover of Justin Bieber's Purpose album that debuted in 2015. Retna has many high profile patrons, including fast food magnate Sam Nazarian.
Clare Lilley is a British art curator and Director at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. She previously held the post of Director of Programme.
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.
Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga, is a Kenyan sculptor and visual artist. She was shortlisted for the Financial Times/Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Awards in 2016 and 2017.
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.
