By Luisa Terzulli
During the second week of October the art world in London seemed to go mad: numerous event and activities concentrated in few days. Ok, ok, not that in London nothing usually happens, but why events such as Frieze Art Fair and Scope Art London were scheduled exactly for the same period, both from 12th to 15th of October?!
We went to see then, because the temptation to find an answer is too strong, and also because Italian galleries were not missing in either fairs. So what is that, competition? Or do they just target different audiences?
The first thing impressing of Frieze Art, even before gaining the entrance, is the dimension: everything is enormous, and there is a kind of Sculpture Park prepared inside Regent’s Park. Having a look around there are trees wearing jeans, giant rabbits, a kayak into a mound of mould, a Plexiglas fire… I quite like the idea of spending the whole day in the park between these two obese, twice myself tall rabbits, but perhaps I had better go to see what is inside the tent prepared a few steps over there. Once again, it is the exaggeration to impress. The tent is huge, the queue is long and even the people look all tall. After walking in the temperature too is very high, and after a few more steps we bump into Claudia Schiffer. Inside, each gallery can enjoy a capacious space, and everything is a jubilation of shapes, colours and – it goes without saying – exorbitant prices.
The galleries participating were very many – everything at Frieze was very-something – coming from all around the world, and particularly strong was the German and American presence. Also the Italians were present in a fair number, and we have obviously visited their stands and had a few words. Very interesting was the Francesca Kaufmann Gallery from Milan, in whose exhibited works colours, materials and superimpositions alternate, while the artwork selected by the Frieze Art Special Acquisition Fund 2006 to be exhibited to the Tate Modern belongs to the Franco Noero Gallery from Turin.
Outstanding was the crowd of visitors too, for this fair all played on the bigness, the much, the super and the top (not only in the meaning of the presence of the top models Claudia Schiffer and Kate Moss).
Scope Art London, instead, immediately presented itself as the exact contrary of Frieze: “confined” in the Old Truman Brewery, everything is characterised by the detail, the smallness, the prices are lower too and the artists less known. And still, for some reasons it reveals itself to be even more interesting and surprising despite the absence of majesty and the nature far less exclusive. Perhaps this is exactly why the works exhibited still preserve that kind of unconscious freshness proper of whom still is at the starting, or simply has not arrived yet to the very-everything fairs. It is then interesting to see how an event maybe provided with fewer means is able to give birth to a more intimate environment, in which is possible to dilate time and dedicate more attention to everybody, to explain, listen to, recount. And this is the way we met Giampaolo Paci, proprietor of the Paci Arte Gallery in Brescia, who explained to us the study, the research and the work hidden behind the art pieces of the artists he brought to London: Paola Pansini, Paolo Conti and Nicola Evangelisti. Giovanni Bonelli from the Bonelli Arte Contemporanea in Mantua, besides, talked about his just inaugurated project called BonelliLab: a real laboratory for young artists in the Mantuan countryside, a bit like Fabrica and Sterpaia, the creativity centres ideated and founded by the Italian creative Oliviero Toscani.
Even here is interesting to notice the prevalence of American and German galleries, like the TZR Galerie from Düsseldorf, whose proprietor Kai Brückner told us about his activity, the importance of exhibiting in London and the very particular works of his artists.
If then we look beyond these two fairs, Frieze and Scope, at a distance of exactly one week – from the 19th to the 22nd of October – followed the “younger sister”, the Affordable Art Fair, held in the marvellous setting of Battersea Park. “Younger sister” because of the surely more unconventional, informal and relaxed attitude of the whole event, and prices below £3,000: the underlined concept indeed is that art can be popular, can enter homes and not only the wealthy museums that can afford a high amount of money.
The only Italian gallery present here was the Gagliardi Gallery which, in spite of having been founded and being based in London, presents in its artists range many Italians too. A pleasant surprise was furthermore discovering amongst the exhibitors a gallery called like our magazine!: the StART SPACE, belonging to the Brazilian Eduardo Sant’Anna, which can boast a portfolio of fanciful creations, such as the paper bras realised by Sarah Hall.
What should I say? At the end of the day – as it used to be said – Frieze Art, Scope London and the Affordable Art Fair showed different qualities each and drafting up a classification out of them would be almost impossible: too different from each others, this is a further proof of the impossibility of categorising art, labelling it and put it away in watertight compartments. These fairs, with their peculiarities and characteristics, demonstrated once again.
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