Frieze London and Frieze Masters revealed yesterday, June 22, the standout features of their upcoming 2016 editions, and there’s plenty of news to report.
The art fairs announced a new partnership to purchase a major work at the 2016 edition of Frieze London for Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. The Collections Fund at Frieze currently stands at £50,000 including a match-funded gift, and was awarded to the museum following an application process open to the Contemporary Art Society’s 70 museum members across the UK.
Collector and patron Valeria Napoleone visits the booth of David Kordansky during the preview of Frieze London 2015.Photo Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.
The Collections Fund at Frieze is co-chaired by Lady Lupton, Cathy Wills, and Anna Yang and its committee includes Nicola Blake, Hugo Brown, Theo Danjuma, Jill Hackel, Helen Janecek, Ken Rowe, and Paul Smith.
“As the political climate continues to change, regional museums are increasingly adapting to find new ways to work with artists, develop collections and connect with their audiences,” Alistair Hudson, director of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, said in a statement.
Courtesy Frieze London.
This new fund complements the long-running Frieze Tate Fund, which is now supported by the Hollywood agency WME|IMG, and provides £150,000 to buy works at the fair for the collections of Tate Britain and Tate Modern.
“I am […] thrilled that we will have two official museum acquisition funds at the fair this year, including the Frieze Tate Fund—this was used to purchase Tate’s first-ever performance work at Frieze Art Fair 2004, Roman Ondák’s Queue, which is now showing in the new extension,” Victoria Siddall, director of Frieze Fairs, said in a statement.
The 2016 edition will also see Raphael Gygax’s debut as curator of Frieze Projects, after he took up helm of the non-profit program last November, following the departure of Nicola Lees.
Raphael Gygax. Courtesy of Frieze.
The artists commissioned to create new works for the 2016 edition of the fair include Sibylle Berg & Claus Richter, Coco Fusco, Martin Soto Climent, Julie Verhoeven, Samson Young, and the winner of the Frieze Artist Award, Yuri Pattison.
Operndorf Afrika (Opera Village Africa), an arts project initiated in 2009 by the late German film and theater director and artist Christoph Schlingensief, will also take place across the fair as part of the Frieze Projects program.
“An art fair can be described as a climax of communication, a heyday of social interactions with incredible transformative potential,” Gygax said in a statement. “It seems obvious to think about the meaning of relationships when you visit an art fair today, and this year’s edition of Frieze Projects features artistic collaborations with a strong performative aspect—moments of human and artistic empowerment.”
But perhaps the most surprising new feature of Frieze London is the launch of a new section, alongside its main section, Focus, and Live.
The 90s, curated by Nicolas Trembley, is a new section in which galleries will revisit seminal exhibitions that took place in that decade—such as the “Aperto” of the 1993 Venice Biennale or Wolfgang Tillmans’s very first exhibition at Daniel Buchholz that same year.
Sprüth Magers, Frieze Masters 2015. Photo: ©Kris Emmerson.
Over at Frieze Masters, the 2016 edition will see the debut of Toby Kamps, from Houston’s Menil Collection, as curator of the renowned Spotlight section, which is also expanding from 15 to 21 booths.
In light of the success of previous editions—and continuing a trend seen in most important fairs all over the world—this next edition will feature joint presentations between 18 galleries, including Hauser & Wirth and Moretti Fine Art, and German newcomers Sies + Höke Galerie and Kicken Berlin.
And, in case you need a little help to discriminate with all the artwork on offer, Frieze Masters is also launching a new partnership with the art advisory service Beaumont Nathan, whereby VIP card-holders seeking to purchase work at the fairs will receive expert advice, including the sourcing of specific works of art, identification of hidden gems, and valuations.
The 2016 editions of Frieze London and Frieze Masters will take place from October 6-9 at Regent’s Park.