During a week of reduced frieze, a focus on black art

LONDON In the same way that Voltaire described the Holy Roman Empire as neither a saint, nor a Roman, nor an empire, this year Frieze Week has not quite lived up to its title.

For starters, Frieze London, Britain’s premier contemporary art fair, and its sister event, Frieze Masters, have been canceled due to the pandemic and converted into mostly online offerings.

Then what happened was not the usual eventful week. There was no gala night auction, no groundbreaking exhibition at Tate Modern, no must-see parties or dinners.

Coronavirus restrictions make it impossible to hold large-scale artistic events, especially after German news media reports infections in recent months Gallery Weekend Berlin. Events director Maike Cruse said on Wednesday there had been fewer than five confirmed cases and they came from dinners outside of the official events setting. All of this helped ensure that there were few international visitors to what was left of Frieze Week.

Still, there was still a lot to see at least for those who had booked online. the 1:54 Contemporary African art fair went ahead, albeit reduced. And while they may not have occupied the usual Frieze booths in the tents of Regents Park, London’s contemporary art dealers have put on an impressive array of shows in their galleries.

The works of female and black artists predominate in these spaces, reflecting the current desire of public museums and private collectors to diversify what they exhibit.

Pilar Corrias, a gallery renowned for representing contemporary female artists, presents nine large canvases painted during a lockdown pandemic by Los Angeles-based artist Christina Quarles, who identifies as a queer woman. Born to a black father and a white mother, Ms. Quarles paints deeply ambiguous multi-layered paintings that are also admired by museum curators and market speculators. In July, one of his 2017 paintings sold at auction for $ 400,000, quadrupling the presale estimate.

Ms Corrias, the director of the gallery, could sell all of these new paintings several times, but said in an interview that she was negotiating to place half of them in public museums and the other half in private collections on which she is convinced she will not sell. to make a profit. Ms. Quarless’s latest paintings were priced between $ 90,000 and $ 200,000, the gallery owner said.

I have always represented very feminist artists, dealing with issues of race, sexuality and post-colonialism, Ms. Corrias said. Its important questions are discussed.

Art dealers representing names in demand face the ongoing challenge of selling works to buyers who will improve the artists’ reputations rather than the bank balance of a pinball machine, which quickly puts the work up for auction to quickly earn money. the money.

Thomas Dane, a leading London gallery owner who represents award-winning artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, said many buyers were interested in the money itself and their speculative activity was destabilizing the market.

The two St. Jamess merchant spaces host an exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by Brooklyn-based artist Dana Schutz. Mr Dane said he hoped to sell at least some of the enigmatically allegorical pieces to prestigious European institutions. Auction prices for Ms Schutz’s works have risen dramatically since the fury surrounding the inclusion of her Open Casket painting at the 2017 Whitney Biennale in New York City, hitting a record $ 2.4 million last year .

There is something extremely contemporary in his practice, said Dane. She looks at society and shows it to us. The new paintings in Ms. Schutz’s inaugural exhibition in London cost up to $ 600,000.

There was no shortage of takers for the sumptuously colorful summaries painted by Jad Fadojutimi, a young black British artist of Nigerian descent who is set to be the subject of a solo exhibition next year at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami.

Mayfair dealer Pippy Houldsworth presented 12 new paintings by Ms Fadojutimi, whose works have yet to be auctioned. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Studio Museum in Harlem are among five American institutions to have acquired paintings, ranging in price from 20,000 to 45,000 pounds (approximately $ 26,000 to $ 58,500).

Many museums are keen to acquire these types of works, said Marta Gnyp, a Berlin-based art advisor, who added that she felt like an endangered species as a foreign visitor to London this week.

Ms Gnyp said there was competition between collectors and the museum for works by emerging artists such as Ms Fadojutimi. Interest from museums is adding to the hype, she said.

Buyers of works by contemporary black artists were spoiled for choice during the week. There was Meleko Mokgosi at Gagosian, Rashid Johnson at Hauser & Wirth, Denzil Forrester at Stephen Friedman and an instagram-savvy group exhibition Unitary dealer. There was also an abundance of African material at the 1:54 fair.

But for those dealers who have supported black artists for years, the markets’ new enthusiasm for this long marginalized group needed some qualification. I’m worried about where this is leading and what will last, said Jo Stella-Sawicka, London branch manager of the Goodman Gallery. There is a need for criticality.

The Goodman Gallery was founded in 1966 as a pioneering non-discriminatory art space in apartheid-era Johannesburg by Linda givon, died Monday. The continued seriousness of the dealers program was highlighted in a group exhibition in his Cork Street gallery, which featured biko cabral (time / place), an ingenious 2020 mixed media work by Zambian artist Nolan Oswald Dennis. Composed of a wall printing machine spouting an imaginary conversation between political activists, it was still available for $ 9,000 on Friday.

However, the black portrait is a much more commercial commodity. The recent frenzy of demand for works by the young Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo, culminating in February with the extraordinary auction price of $ 880,000, is an extreme manifestation of current collectable fashion.

Almost all 30 exhibitors at the 1:54 fair, which was presented to VIPs on Thursday, showed African portraits in one form or another. 1957 gallery, from Ghana, who plans to open a London space this month, showcased eight taped corkboard portraits of Serge Attukwei Clottey. Visually and technically distinctive, all were sold at preview, priced at around $ 11,000 each.

According to the founder of the gallery, Marwan Zakhem, at least two of them were purchased by African-American collectors. Why would they want to buy white portraits? he said. They haven’t seen the works. They are happy to buy from PDF files.

At an entirely different price point, collectors were also happy to purchase Frieze London and Frieze Masters online viewing rooms. On Wednesday, mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth said it had collected more than $ 15 million in sales, including $ 3.5 million and $ 850,000 respectively from works by African-American artists Mark Bradford and Rashid Johnson.

Were rewriting the historical canon of art, said Ms Gnyp, the art advisor. Everyone expected it to happen, but no one expected it to happen so quickly.