HIGHLIGHTS FROM ACROSS THE OCEAN
OCTOBER 2024
Between Frieze London ending on a Sunday and Art Basel Paris starting the following Wednesday, the two-hour ride on the Eurostar was the only time anyone involved in both mega-fairs could catch their breath. The turnaround was rapid for the 31 galleries who decided to set up shop on both sides of the Channel. Those dealers were hoping Frieze’s decent results would carry over to Art Basel Paris’s new regal turf, the Grand Palais.
Before Frieze, talk of the apparent demise of London’s art scene—and of the ascent of Paris’s market—threatened to pour cold water on proceedings. Local auction results didn’t inspire confidence and galleries were concerned that collectors were holding out from buying in London in order to peruse the refreshed version of the Paris art fair. However, this year's edition of Frieze rose to the challenge and aimed to highlight smaller galleries and younger artists in an effort to get back to its roots as a platform for groundbreaking contemporary art, meaning, among other things, an updated layout of the fair. Emerging galleries were situated at the front of the fair in prime locations while the typical behemoth booths were pushed to the back of the tent.
As for the newly rebranded and renamed Paris fair, Art Basel Paris moved to the bigger Grand Palais, which recently underwent a $500 million facelift. A total of 195 exhibitors (up from 154 in 2023, and including 53 first-timers) from 42 countries participated. Both fairs proved to be successful in their own right and showed the art world that each city brings its own unique energy -- while the crowd in London is always dynamic, Paris has a certain elegance tied to its deep-rooted cultural history.
Below are just a few of the many works we loved from both fairs...
BILLY CHILDISH
Lehmann Maupin's solo booth at Frieze London was hung with Billy Childish paintings, though a large chunk of it was set up like the artist’s studio—stretched Belgian linen canvases, a jar of brushes, reference images, and piles of hefty paint tubes were all arranged on tables and chairs, anticipating the act of painting. The makeshift workspace was in fact for the British artist himself: Childish appeared and began drawing with charcoal, sketching out a landscape that would become his latest work. Childish was painting live in front of a rapt audience for two days of the fair.
Though it may sound gimmicky, it was actually a rare glimpse into an esteemed artist’s process, lifting the veil on a facet of the art world that’s not typically accessible to the masses. Childish—clad in a denim, paint-speckled jumpsuit, a jaunty hat, and his signature mustache—was unphased by the gawkers and the unusual ambiance and appeared to be going about his work as usual. The gallery sold 11 of Childish’s canvases in the fair’s first few hours, including one of the new works made on site.
Billy Childish is slated to have a show at the gallery's temporary Mayfair space in January 2025
HUNTER REYNOLDS
On an exterior wall of P·P·O·W’s booth was one of Art Basel Paris' most poignant works: Hunter Reynolds’s Ray Navarro’s Bed of Mourning Flowers (1990/2018), whose title refers to one of the many artists who died of AIDS-related complications. Reynolds’s seemingly simple work contains snapshots of floral bouquets that have been stitched together into a tapestry. Those flowers are, in fact, the ones that Reynolds purchased ahead of a funeral or memorial service for a friend lost to AIDS. At the time, these deli flowers were especially ubiquitous in New York, and because of the vast number of artists and friends who died due to governmental indifference to the AIDS crisis, they were an economical way to mark these people’s passing. In many ways, this is Reynolds’s AIDS Quilt.
For over 30 years, Hunter Reynolds (1959-2022) explored issues of gender, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, politics, mortality, and rebirth through performance, photography, installations, and his alter ego, Patina du Prey. Reynolds' work was directly influenced by his lived experiences as an HIV-positive gay man living in the age of AIDS. His work is in numerous public and private collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; the Shelly & Donald Rubin Foundation, New York, NY; and the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA.
NENGI OMUKU
For Frieze's curated Artist-to-Artist section, Nigerian artist Nengi Omuku was nominated by fellow Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare to present a solo project at the fair. Comprising three new paintings made on sanyan, a fabric traditionally crafted by the Yoruba people, Omuku’s work was suspended within the booth so visitors could view the works in the round, experiencing both the artist’s painting and the hand-spun quality of the cloth that is so integral to its meaning.
The trio of works combine the serenity she felt during a residency in the stunning environs of Perugia, Italy, this past summer. They reference the natural world and horticulture, featuring portrayals of individuals and social groups set in spectacular landscapes. Melding representations of the world around her with expressions of her innermost thoughts, Omuku’s mesmerizing perspectival shifts, instinctive brushwork, and luscious colors affirm the imaginative power of belief, reverie, and empathy. The landscape has long proved to be a grounding force for Omuku, who attributes her embrace of plants as a primary subject in her paintings to her formative experience working as a gardener.
Nengi Omuku was born in 1987 and currently lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria and London, UK. She received her BA and MA from the Slade School of Art, University College London. Works can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; The Whitworth, Manchester; Women's Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Government Art Collection, UK; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL.
WANDA PIMENTEL
Wanda Pimentel was one of Brazil’s most important female artists during her lifetime, though she has only recently begun to receive proper recognition. In 2017, she had a survey at São Paulo’s Museu de Arte de São Paulo and made an appearance in the Hammer Museum’s “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1980.” Pimentel's paintings use a pop repertoire of home appliances, furniture and design objects. Her work is distinguished by a precise, hard-edge quality encompassing geometric lines and smooth surfaces in pieces that often defy categorization as abstract or figurative.
In Untitled (From the Involvement Series), seen here and featured at Art Basel, there are a pair of white legs set in front of several sets of confusing stairways and passageways that seem to lead to nowhere. Near the top of the canvas is a tape measure that gives a distorted sense of scale, further increasing the tension present in the work. Made during Brazil’s dictatorship, these “Envolvimento” paintings act as sly commentaries on the country’s fragile political situation.
JI XIN
For this edition of Frieze London, six new works by the renowned Chinese artist Ji Xin were featured. Based in Hangzhou and Shanghai, Ji Xin explores the convergence of Eastern and Western classical aesthetics through his large portraits of ethereal women in timeless, graceful states. His imposing canvases often depict life-size models with elongated limbs and enlarged eyes, set in elegant Art Deco interiors. Drawing inspiration from the Italian Renaissance and Song dynasty painting, his works are characterized by serene, pastel palettes, promoting introspection and delving into themes of self-reflection and poetic contemplation. These tranquil pieces invite viewers to deeply engage with the enigmatic figures depicted.
Ji Xin (born in 1988) received his BA and MA degrees in the Oil Painting Department from the China Academy of Art, and also studied in Paris as a visiting artist via an Exchange Project of CAA, in 2012. He is currently a PhD candidate at the China Academy of Art. His works are included in many renowned public and private collections, including Long Museum, China; ICA Miami; Deji Art Museum, China; X Museum, China; ASE Foundation, China; Song Museum, China; Fairyland Art Centre, China; Hong Art Museum, China; and Museu Inimá de Paula, Brazil.
JOHANNA UNZUETA
Johanna Unzueta’s work draws from the natural world and the balance between the earth and its living counterparts. In Nel pomeriggio non ci serà la luna, featured here and at Art Basel Paris, Unzueta combines several mediums and disciplines in an intuitive exploration of nature through form. Informed by time spent in Italy over the summer, Unzueta titles the work in Italian, translating to “In the afternoon there will be no moon”. Shifting on its axis and rotating like a planet in orbit, this work reflects on Unzueta’s ongoing fascination with the cosmos, drawing inspiration from the intricate pathways connecting stars and planets. The work’s wood surface is hand-dyed with indigo and mapped with drawings of elliptical geometries that play and overlap in rich green, blue, red, and gold hues. Raised and woven linen threads accentuate both the surface and circumference of the work, echoing the drawn line and the shape of a loom. Through the kinetic structure of the object and its connection to her nomadic life, Unzueta generates a cyclical path, where movement and time are at the core of the artist’s approach.
Johanna was born in 1974 in Santiago, Chile and currently lives and works between Berlin and New York. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Tate Museum, UK; Museo de Artes Visuales (MAVI), Santiago, Chile; PAMM, Miami, FL; Queens Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
CHARLES GAINES
Charles Gaines’ solo booth at Frieze London debuted the newest works from his acclaimed Shadows series, which began in 1978. This marks the first time he revisits this subject in over four decades. Shown alongside his complete set of ‘Shadows X’ from 1980, this new body of work continues Gaines’ long interest in engaging with formulas and systems that interrogate relationships between the objective and subjective realms.
The new works are comprised of sub-series that depict different species of plants commonly found throughout California, including Jade, Dragon, Aloe, Ferox and Yucca plants. Each sub-series is made up of four ‘sets,’ which consists of a photograph of the plant together with its shadow, alongside a densely rendered black ink drawing and a watercolor. Over each sub-series, Gaines rotates and sequentially plots the forms of the plant and its shadow on a numbered grid in both mediums. To complete the series, Gaines turns each plant 90 degrees and documents it through the same process, so that each plant is shown rotated 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees. As each set progresses, the ink drawings and watercolors depict a combination of all the prior rotations of the plant and its shadow, resulting in a complex, layered map of the complete subject collapsed into a final image.
Gaines will exhibit recent works from his acclaimed Numbers and Trees series at The Phoenix Art Museum from October 30, 2024 – July 20, 2025. ‘Charles Gaines. The Fresno Years’ is currently on view at the Fresno Art Museum in California until January 5, 2025.
PAULINA OLOWSKA
Paulina Olowska curated a special booth at Art Basel with works that exuded representations of mysticism, femininity, and transformation. Named for its connotations both of pleasure and capacity to transform, Mystic Sugar presented the ‘witch’ not merely as folkloric figure, but as an embodiment of feminine liberation. For Olowska, witchhood is an expansive category that abandons patriarchal life for the pastoral, the ethereal, and the unseen.
Paulina Olowska’s engagement with feminine mysticism reflects her broader interest in Slavic mythology and the natural world. Expansive and adaptable, her imagined witch is in commune with her surroundings, and her physical and psychic self. Both Kiki Smith and Louise Nevelson (included in the grouping) have profoundly influenced Olowska, inspiring her to explore the power of self-expression and the rich symbolism of the feminine.
Shrouded in darkness, works included by Louise Nevelson absorb light, creating a void that invites contemplation of the unseen. Nevelson’s use of black—a color often linked to the occult—serves as a powerful metaphor for hidden forces and the energies that reside in the spaces between reality and perception.
CAROL BOVE
In an ambitious Frieze London booth, Carol Bove installed a slew of nine large-scale sculptures, titled Grove I–IX. These sculptures represent an idea Bove had been toying with for nearly a decade—an immersive “forest” of abstract forms. Each of these nearly 10-foot-tall “trees” reflects her crumpled, stainless steel tubes painted in electric greens and yellows which snake up along and around rough, rusty metal beams, some dangling with chains or adorned with painted discs. Tall and lithe, the sculptures have a compelling edge, though they’re also quite elegant.
Viewers were meant to move about these towering pillars, experiencing them indoors or outdoors, with Bove envisioning Grove I–IX potentially living in nature, where they can weather and change as they’re exposed to the elements. The palette was devised with a changing outdoor setting in mind—one that would appear to transform with the green of spring and summer, the brown of fall, and the white of winter.
Carol Bove was born in 1971 in Geneva, and lives and works in New York. Collections include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Contemporary Austin, TX; among others.
ALBERTA WHITTLE
Alberta Whittle’s creative practice is motivated by the desire to manifest self-compassion and collective care as key methods in battling anti-Blackness. Her multi-media practice encompasses drawing, digital collage, film, sculpture, performance, and writing, through which she develops a visual, oral, and textual language that questions accepted Western constructs of history and society. The work seen here and featured at Art Basel Paris is from Whittle’s series of round works and depicts Whittle’s friend Blessing Amos, aka Precious, seated on a tiled floor with her face veiled by the same colorful mists that comprise the background. As Whittle explains of her tondos, they are meant to feel like portals....a space of transcendence where we can rethink ideas.
Alberta Whittle was born in Bridgetown, Barbados and currently lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She received her MFA from Glasgow School of Art and is now a PhD candidate at Edinburgh College of Art and a Research Associate at The University of Johannesburg. The artist represented Scotland at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia and has been the recipient of a Turner Bursary, Frieze Artist Award, and a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award.
EILEEN AGAR
Regarded for her brilliance as a colorist, Eileen Agar was one of the most dynamic British artists of the mid-20th century generation. Shellflower, shown above and featured in Paris, is wonderfully collage-like, with a central flower form showcasing swoops of red and aqua blue, beneath a mechanical blue wheel with spoke-like bars. The layering of small shapes, in various shades of blue with bursts of vivid color, infuses her scenes with a spirited energy that reflects the artist's unique aesthetic.
Over the course of seventy years, Eileen Agar developed a deeply personal artistic language that linked diverse forms and objects through both spiritual, and formal relationships. Born in Buenos Aires, Agar relocated to London as a child, first studying art at the Brook Green School, and later, the Slade School of Fine Art. Joining the London Group in 1934, Agar would rise to prominence as one of the few women to exhibit in The International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936 in London. In spite of this, throughout her career, Agar would maintain a tenuous relationship with surrealism, taking cues from concurrent movements like cubism and abstraction, while interjecting a consistent irreverence and wit. Additionally in 1936, Agar’s work would be included in the landmark exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, furthering her international reputation.
Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Tate, London; the British Museum, London; National Portrait Gallery, London; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, among others.