PAD certainly knows how to put on a good show. Opening to the public today, the 8th edition of London’s Pavilion of Art and Design feels more confident than ever before—perhaps the surest sign of its hard-won place in the British capital during Frieze Week. One could almost forget the fair is housed in a tent, so opulent is the interior design, all navy hues and golden lighting. Only a bunch of tree trunks sprouting through the booths and onto the ceilings act as a reminder of the “real” Berkeley Square.
Over the years, the selection has got tougher. “We have an ever better pool of galleries to choose from,” PAD president Patrick Perrin told artnet News, “and 99 percent of those who show here want to come back. It’s the good restaurant-type scenario: a good restaurant is always busy, it’s always good, and you come back. It’s the same thing here.”
It doesn’t mean that PAD isn’t open to new faces. Newcomers in this 8th edition include the Swiss Galerie Gmurzynska and the Spanish Mayoral, both boosting the fair’s art offering with blue chip works by the likes of Robert Indiana, Andy Warhol, and Alexander Calder. Hamiltons Gallery has come up with a seductive interior combining an erotic nude by Nobuyoshi Araki with some of Robert Mapplethorpe’s most suggestive flower photographs.
But design remains PAD’s primary focus. Galerie Pascal Cuisinier asserts its scholarly credentials with an encyclopedic display mapping the development of chair design in France between 1951 and 1961. Yinka Shonibare MBE turns furniture designer at Carpenters with a throne inspired by his signature wax fabrics. And design doesn’t always mean domestic: Hamiltons and Jousse are both showcasing architectural blinds by Jean Prouvé, equally successful here as a wall installation and a room divider.
artnet News beat the crowd and picked its top 10 booths (in the slideshow in no particular order).