newsfromfrieze201110

For the first time, since I started to visit and follow commercial playgrounds for art, did an art fair looked so in vain (in particularly this one); in spite of all the brigth and colorful art works filling stands and crowds of collectors, advisers, artists and other professionals bumping into each others along narrow but comfortable corridors. Frieze VIP preview, this afternoon, presented the usual head-shots: Norah and Norman Stone, Daria (“Dasha”) Zhukova or even Paula Rego were just some of the VIP amongst an international flux of art aficionados.

If there is a crisis, it definitely stayed outside the big white tent installed at Regent Park. Frieze this year was looking into the bright side of life. “We’re always a little tense at the start,” said also Akio Aoki of Vermelho (H6), although he was more encouraged when, by the middle of the afternoon, nine of the artworks brought from Brazil into London had found buyers.

Between 2001 and 2008, galleries tended to bring with them fresh art works, directly from the artist studio, to the most important international art fairs; since 2009, for those who follow the programme delivered by those international commercial spaces, it became more evident that many of the works on show at the fair tended to reflected a long-run bet done by the galleries throughout their annual schedule of exhibitions. Which is good for the artist, since galleries have to liaise more with them; focused more on building an artist career, on one level, and strengthening his or her work, on the other. While, to collectors, they start to see new and more thoughtful work.

The down side of it is in that it is true that «in a recession, more challenging work is harder to shift», and this fact was even more perceptible as I strolled from one stand to the next. Nothing catchy, visually memorable - as the works by Murakami, Hirst or Koons who have market a decade - but instead pieces that anyone could buy for the right price (for more info on prices please read The Art Newspaper Fair edition).

In a quick chat with Brazilian artist, Ernesto Neto, we both come to the same conclusion, that this year it was more into looking for forms rather than into content: brightly coloured and with curveous lines, artworks that reinforced the feeling that the art world exists in a cheerful and leading parallel universe.

LEFT: Wangechi Mutu, 'Venus Trap' (mixed media collage, 22.9x29.8cm), 2011 at Victoria Miro (G5); RIGHT: Christian Jankowski, 'Christian' (The Finest Art on Water), 2011 at Frieze Projects (P5).