When Frieze magazine held its first art fair back in 2003, it solidified what had been happening on London’s contemporary art scene for the last decade. The city was buzzing, attracting people from around the world, but until Frieze, there had been no single location to bring them all together.
After the arrival of the YBAs in the late 1980s, galleries like White Cube, Sadie Coles HQ and Victoria Miro were on the ascendency, but a central meeting point was needed that could match the verve of what was happening in the galleries. ‘Right from the outset, it was about blurring boundaries and thinking about Frieze as not just a trade fair,’ says Frieze London’s director Eva Langret. ‘It’s also a commissioning outfit with the artists’ projects, it’s an educational platform with the talks programme, and it’s a meeting place for the wider arts community.’
Since its inception, the fair has been innovating the experience through citywide collaborations and free public initiatives like Frieze Sculpture. And 20 years down the line, galleries still bring new ideas creativity and commerce closer together, blurring the lines between art and its buyers. This later evolved into also offering live music and talks, as well as events that spilled out into other parts of the city.
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Bu hikaye Wallpaper dergisinin November 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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After a 20-year hiatus, design returns to the Dakar Biennale this year and, for curator Ousmane Mbaye, it comes at a pivotal time. ‘My curatorial practice is based on three aspects,’ he says. ‘A desire to do a design inventory in Africa; to record the materials being used; and to present the current generation of designers in Africa and its diaspora, and see their visions realised.’
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DREAM TEAM
A rewatching of a seminal film laid the foundation for JW Anderson's latest collection, a fantastical collaboration with artist Christiane Kubrick
