ON THE GROUND AT LONDON’S ART OPENINGS

Hello from London! I’m sure you’ve heard it by now, but chatter on the ground here is that sales have been slow, parties have been pretty dull, and most of the energy is being saved up for next week’s festivities in gay Paree. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a good dose of excitement and, more importantly, gossip on the ground here in the United Kingdom.

From my perspective, most of the interesting action went on at the gallery openings surrounding the fair. They kicked off Monday with Gagosian hosting new Jonas Wood paintings at its Grosvenor Hill location and Sadie Coles opening a new Jordan Wolfson show, titled “Mirror and Bear,” at her small gallery on Bury Street. Wood’s camp had perhaps the most well-attended party I saw all week, at Chiltern Firehouse, with starchitect Kulapat Yantasast, podcast celeb Eileen Kelly, and Larry himself all milling around the dark, crowded room. (An aside: Can we all agree to migrate more parties here instead of the tragically tacky Groucho Club?)

Later in the week, several people passed around a post from @whos__who (which, for the uninitiated, is basically the Diet Prada of the art world) comparing Wood’s painting Robot and Bear to an extremely similar piece by fellow Los Angeles-based artist Gabrielle Garland. “Meh, everything is a copy!” Garland commented in good humor. The big question for me is: Whose house inspired two artists to create essentially the same picture?

 

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Anyways, over at Coles’s gallery, the notoriously, er, complicated Wolfson took a somewhat unusual approach to his opening: he refused to allow anyone inside. “An opening is not conducive for an artwork!” he proclaimed to me outside of the space, where it had begun to drizzle. “I only want the viewing experience of the work to be as correct as possible. When too many people are in the space, it becomes harmful for the work!” The scene outside was plenty buzzy, with artists Matt Copson and Alvaro Barrington and musician FKA Twigs all milling about.

Wolfson’s decision seemed a bit bratty to me, but he’s certainly not wrong about viewing art at openings. I did eventually wedge my way inside to see Mirror and Bear. It’s a painted wall work with a mirror at its center and a ticker-tape-like digital feed circulating around it that offers very Wolfson-y lines like “GOD WANTS TO CRIPPLE ME,” “GOD WANTS TO MOLEST ME,” and so forth. Coles was gazing at the work at the same time. “It’s a really surprising piece, because normally with Jordan’s two-dimensional works, you expect them to be silkscreened on metal, but this one is so beautifully painted in a folky style.”

“It kind of looks like a carnival attraction, doesn’t it?” Coles said. I look forward to the day when the folks behind Banksy’s “Dismaland” (remember that?), or perhaps the Luna Luna team, decide to work with Mr. Wolfson.

Onwards. The next evening’s star opening was for Anna Weyant’s show at Gogo’s gallery on Davies Street. Back in January, I made the promise, upon the news of her breakup with Larry, to stop reporting on the artist’s personal life, and I’ll keep that promise (while turning up the volume on a favorite album of mine from my days in Athens, Georgia, Drive By Truckers’s Decoration Day, which introduced a new member of the band on its release.) No, I will remain professional and only point out that the show’s title, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolves?,” sounds a bit like a play on a memorable quote that Larry gave the Wall Street Journal—that, by taking on representation of Weyant, he was “just trying to protect her from the big bad wolves.” When Patrick Radden Keefe used that in his sweeping New Yorker profile of Gagosian, he quipped, “Talk about being in on the joke.” Now it seems that the joke belongs to Weyant, as word on the street is that the title was unknown to her ex-boyfriend until it had already been announced.

While we’re talking Gagosian, did anyone else notice that the gallery has quietly added the one-and-only Jamian Juliano-Villani to its official roster? I’ve heard that she has another show in the works. When I congratulated JJV on the news, she thanked me, and said, “I busted my ass for this.”

To round out the week, I’d like to shout out Plaster Magazine‘s amazing Frieze Week merch. I think this sentiment is felt by all.

 

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WE HEAR 

 

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Here’s an all-timer Instagram post from the indefatigable Henry Taylor… My dream to become as corrupt as Mayor Eric Adams is so close I can taste it: Turkish Airlines has announced a collaboration with tech artist Refik Anadol to premiere the work he brought to Art Basel in Switzerland in June, Inner Portrait, in Istanbul. Business-class seats are included for curious journalists who’d like to see the piece… Speaking of beloved artworks that made their debut in Basel, Chloe Wise’s film Told a Vision has been acquired by the Musée d’art Contemporain de Montreál…  Sebastian Gladstone’s new show in New York by Juliana Halpert exhibits photos of former Artforum publisher Knight Landesman’s office from spring of 2017, just a few months before he was accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit… Madonna has been recording new music in front of her Ulala Imai print… Two unrelated but similarly foreboding corporate moves: Netflix’s corporate Instagram account has its occupation listed as “art dealer” and Saks Fifth Avenue now has a fine art department…. Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, senior sales director and global head of online for Pace Gallery has announced her departure… And finally, I’d like to congratulate all of the exhibitors out in Los Angeles on the successful first run of Art Basel Lincoln Heights…

Courtesy a tipster.

GRIEVANCES

Good grief! This new section of the column has already gotten pretty popular, and I have thoroughly enjoyed sifting through all of your petty remonstrances. For this week, I present a Grievance sent in from an anonymous gallery director in Chelsea, with a bone to pick on the etiquette of gala invitations… 

Here is my grievance: formal “invitations” that are really just asking for you to spend thousands of dollars on a ticket. It feels like such a bait and switch—if you need to raise money, just ask for money! I have no problem buying a ticket to a fundraiser or a benefit. But I am annoyed when I get an email saying that I’ve “been selected to join the benefit committee,” or have “been invited to chair the event,” and the details show that being the chair or on the committee just means buying a higher-tier, more expensive ticket. It doesn’t make me want to support you more, it makes me feel like you think I am like a child who can be fooled by flattery into doing what you want.

What has been bothering you? Send your contribution to me at [email protected] with the subject line “GRIEVANCES.”