Frieze London’s fresh look and more spacious aisles went down well with visitors at Wednesday’s VIP opening and gave welcome prominence to lesser-known, cutting-edge galleries, placed more centrally within the fair. “It’s significant to have a gallerist and artist of colour from South Asia at the entrance,” said Priyanka Raja, co-founder of India’s Experimenter, who has a solo booth selling work by Pakistan-born artist Bani Abidi ($5,000-$30,000). Three of Abidi’s works on paper were among those bought by Tate at the fair via a £150,000 fund from Frieze owner Endeavor. Most of the art this year is on the safe side, a reflection of a risk-averse market, but the energy at the contemporary art fair was high, a relief to many. “It’s way more buoyant than I was expecting, I’m quite taken aback,” said Margate gallerist Robert Diament, partner at Carl Freedman. Their early sales included 2024 paintings by Vanessa Raw (£35,000-£45,000) and Laura Footes (£20,000) . Elsewhere, booth highlights include James Cohan with sculptures by Kennedy Yanko ($65,000-$200,000) and paintings by Jesse Mockrin ($90,000-$550,000); Stéphanie Saadé at Marfa’ (€1,800-€8,000) and Gagosian’s nearly sold-out booth of nine new sculptures by Carol Bove (priced at $850,000 each, collectors said). The relative calm of the Frieze Masters tent for older art felt more flat this year, though business was being done, and at high levels for some. Hauser & Wirth’s sales included Édouard Manet’s 1865 painting of a Longchamp racecourse spectator (€4.5mn). Gallery president Iwan Wirth admitted he was “working harder than ever in a different art world” but added that “it gives back”. Other highlights in Frieze Masters’ broad range of offerings include 16 pieces of 20th-century Japanese bamboo art at Thomsen Gallery ($10,000-$75,000). The Frieze fairs run until Sunday.
The UK’s Arts Council collection, which comprises more than 8,000 modern and contemporary works to lend to museums and other public institutions, bought three works from Frieze London. With a fund of £40,000 raised by its patrons, this year’s selection was “The Light in Between” (2024), a dyed-fabric collage by Nour Jaouda (Union Pacific gallery), “Form i: Under the lonely sky” (2024), a painting based on male forms by Shaqúelle Whyte (Pippy Houldsworth), both up and coming artists, as well as “Reclining Female #3” (2020), a clay sculpture on an industrial cleaning trolley made by the more established Nicole Wermers (Herald St). Of the three artists, Alona Pardo, director of Arts Council Collection says, “they all migrated to London, from Libya, Wolverhampton and Germany, and show a diversity irrespective of the politics we are in.” The works were selected by a committee of seven, chaired by Nicholas Serota.
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