In 2023, as Frieze London celebrated its twentieth anniversary, long-term observers famous that whereas the artwork honest had modified immensely since its inception, it didn’t truly look all that totally different. The 100,000-plus guests nonetheless headed for a similar patch of Regent’s Park and what was basically the identical tent.
It’s a testomony to Frieze’s quest to stay on the sharp finish of the artwork world that the honest is defying expectations in 2024 and turning 21 with a bang. “In contrast to many different gala’s, that are nonetheless in reasonably boring convention centres,” says Frieze London’s creative director, Eva Langret, “we’ve the privilege of working inside Regent’s Park.” A full revamp of the tent will maximise the affect of that inexperienced haven with large home windows, an entrance amid the tree tops and a deal with the longer term.
The design apply A Studio Between labored to a quick, its founder Richard McConkey says, that foregrounded “curated programming, discovery, rising voices and house for trade. And you possibly can say, trade means conversations.” The honest’s footprint itself can’t be altered due to a protected line of bushes. Working up 50 3D-rendered floorplans over about 4 months, McConkey’s workforce set about making the prevailing areas (equal to about six soccer pitches) work tougher.
Grand new entrance
Guests now arrive and exit by way of a brand new entrance on the facet of the tent, up a grand staircase, from throughout the park itself. The wall across the entrance has been opened up with home windows to let extra mild and leafy views in. “It makes a extremely good tree cover viewpoint,” McConkey says.
As soon as inside, the very first thing you see is a pair of solo artist displays. Frieze is aiming to upend the standard market-driven method that centres on established names and pushes smaller, usually extra fascinating issues, to the periphery. Langret says Frieze London has two to 3 instances as many younger galleries—30—as most different gala’s. “Rising voices have all the time been on the coronary heart of Frieze, however not essentially on the coronary heart of the tent.”
The Focus part, curated with Angelina Volk (of Emalin, London), Piotr Drewko (Wschód, Warsaw) and Cédric Fauq (chief curator at CAPC Musée d’Artwork Contemporain, Bordeaux), options 34 exhibitors, representing 21 international locations. Guests shall be met with a cinematic Eva Gold showcase at Rose Easton’s stand; Hamedine Kane at Selebe Yoon; and dozens of strolling penguin balloons by the Danish artist Benedikte Bjerre at Palace Enterprise. In the identical part, a outstanding house has been carved out for the Frieze Artist Award 2024, given this 12 months to Lawrence Lek.
A rendering of the brand new structure of the tent, which guarantees simpler navigation for fair-goers, with clear sight strains and no useless ends © A Studio Between
The broader gallery grid is organised round a central, arterial loop, giving guests clear strains of sight and avoiding useless ends. As Langret places it, no gallery doesn’t have a great place. The principle route is punctuated by hubs with smaller routes facilitating connection and dialogue between them and the key galleries organised round a brand new sq. additional into the house.
“Frieze was by no means only a commerce honest,” says Langret, who remembers coming for the primary time in 2005. “It has all the time been in regards to the many conversations you could anchor across the galleries and the various methods during which they work for the artists. The honest that we’ve in the present day consists of many galleries from geographies that will have been utterly missed 20 years in the past. We now have galleries from India, from Saudi Arabia. We’ve got our first gallery from Senegal coming this 12 months. Frieze has been international from version one, however the scope of what we perceive to be ‘international’ has actually grown to be extra inclusive.”
Throughout the park, Frieze Masters has not been redesigned to the identical extent, however it’s increasing the Studio part it debuted final 12 months. Curated by Sheena Wagstaff, every of the part’s ten stands will deal with a pioneering artist nonetheless making work, from the nonagenarians Isabella Ducrot and Thaddeus Mosley to the Indian luminary Nilima Sheikh and the Korean artist Kim Yun Shin.
The palette on this 12 months’s Frieze Masters tends in the direction of earthen hues. And the floorplan has been refined to offer guests clearer sight strains and a larger sense of symmetry and vacation spot. The director of Frieze Masters, Nathan Clements-Gillespie, says he hopes that when folks stroll in they may really feel “the honest invitations you in, and naturally and effortlessly you navigate and uncover what’s on view”.