FRIEZE 2013

Frieze is one of the most mentally and physically tiring days of the year, the vastness of this years art fair is extraordinary, with many adjoining parts like the sculpture garden or Frieze projects. It is a challenge in itself to even be able to see all of the art on display, as each gallery space seems to flow into something else and before you know it your systematic ‘I’ll just walk down each row’ mantra is lost.

The great thing about it all is crazy things you see – ranging from a giant fried egg on the floor to a video following around a porn star, you’d think it’d be quite easy to be shocked, but being in there for more than 3 minutes seems to desensitise you to the completely random content. Yes, you can say that the whole fair is just a money grabbing institution and you’re probably not wrong, some of the pieces were extortionately priced, having heard one gallery tell a woman that the spray-painted mattress on the wall was £20,000. But that was just the small one. Jeff Koons’ pieces offer the capitalist view of art too, drawing the most attention at the whole fair and costing an unknown price.

Another thing to consider is that contemporary art is extremely hit and miss with almost everyone. I am almost sure that there is no one in this world who likes everything that falls under the category of contemporary art. This definitely stands for me, I love huge, colourful canvases that are little more than streaking colours, like Jorge Galindo, Joan Mitchell or Katharina Grosse. I can appreciate other things, and see the value in them, but every time I’d stumble across a colour stained canvas I’d feel a wave of relief.

The sheer volume of galleries there was great too. It’s nice to see the work that they have picked from their collections and the way they’ve displayed them too – White Cube obviously offered us a great amount of Young British Artists like Emin and Hirst, with Hirst’s work having it’s own little body guard, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from White Cube, who’s collection seem to echo London’s love contemporary, revolutionary art. Other galleries fought to put as much stuff in their space as possible, making me nervous of knocking over something very expensive, and others simply chose one thing, like the Lisson Galleries large, spiralling, glass corridor.

Frieze is SO worth going to, I can’t wait to go again next year, and I also would love to go to Frieze Masters. Maybe I could get a press pass.