Context affects how we see things, and Frieze London—a crowded galaxy of art starlets—is no exception. Many works on show set out to dazzle but, en masse, may overwhelm. Unsurprisingly, this leads some of us to be drawn to works on show that are comparatively small, restrained, and more intimate. (It’s worth interrogating the idea of ‘intimate’, but here is not the place.) 

1. Neil Tait’s scumbled landscape merges a prostrate body with its natural surroundings to wield the spell of an indecipherable myth (selected by Chris Ofili, at LUNGLEY).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. In Daniel de la Barra’s ‘Free Trade Agreement’ (at LIVIA BENAVIDES), three unmarked shipping containers (and a nearby pile of logs: their mates?) imperiously scorn agitated waves churning powerlessly before them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. In ‘Morning in a City, after Hopper’ at SOUTHERN GUILD) Roméo Mivekannin blatantly subverts (or ‘appropriates’) one of Edward Hopper’s hallmark whiter-than-white tan-free nudes (these were invariably modelled on Josephine, his wife, who, protective or proprietorial, apparently permitted him no model other than herself). Mivekannin replaces the habitually averted blank expression of Hopper’s nudes with this black artist’s own glare, which not so much engages as challenges the chutzpa of the viewer’s regard (and also, one assumes, the ‘hegemony of the white male heterosexual gaze’ etc. etc.) Simply by recalling (but not quite matching) Hopper’s signature poetic lifelessness, Mivekannin reminds us that a picture’s power derives not solely from its ‘message’ but also from how it’s painted. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. The attractively fresh and deceptively simple iconography of Magdalena Jitrik’s paintings (at W-GALERIA) seems to channel, and possibly lampoon, the daft bright optimism that first ushered in what was once known as the ‘The Atomic Age.’ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Robert Russell (at ANAT EGBI) paints small disposable candles. To remember and honour deceased family and friends, so-called ‘yahrzeit’ candles are lit at nightfall to mark the anniversary of a death and burn for just 24 hours. These exquisite, small-scale works perpetuate indefinitely the small glow of flickering candlelight that evokes the soul of the departed. This is Russell’s take on ‘ars lunga vita brevis.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. In Christopher Williams’ photograph (‘Blocking Template: Ikea Kitchen (Frontal)’ at DAVID ZWIRNER) ‘Life’ intrudes: a boy

grasping a deeply saturated red cloth evades focus. Seemingly too near the lens, blurred and dark, he conceals and defies a luminous, rectilinear kitchen. But this description does little to capture this photograph’s powerful clout. 

7. Ling Chang’s ‘If My Hometown – Plantain Garden’ is a deliciously virtuoso fantasy landscape (at DON GALLERY).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Black trees add disconcerting magic to what otherwise might be a prosaic suburban scene in the fourth of John Maclean’s quartet of small watercolours (‘Tree House’ at THE APPROACH).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. “Sneeze without covering your mouth and the devil will piss in it… When a man walks under a rainbow, he turns into a woman…” Omar Fakhoury shows what happens in visualising literal interpretations of popular superstitions. In ‘Touch Wood’ (MARFA’ / Frieze Focus), the artist assembles an engaging ensemble of small raw paintings, like dirty spellbinding little secrets, to explore the uncanny dark underbelly of these and other popular Lebanese sayings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Perhaps because its subject is unidentifiable, Reina Sugihara’s small, enigmatic, almost airless painting’s quiet intensity commands attention (‘Madder Rosy Hill’ at ARCADIA MISSA).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11)  Sarah Buckner’s tellingly diminutive portrait of C.G. Jung (‘Talk to the Wind’ at ESTHER SCHIPPER)

does away with the august sagacity normally associated with this politically ambivalent pioneer of psychoanalysis. Here is Jung, hair wind-blown, more shabby than omniscient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12. You’d be unwise not to be drawn to this statuette of baboon god ‘Toth’ (Egypt, c. 664-332 BCE), god of wisdom (thanks to NFO for pointing this out at ART ANCIENT).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13) Magnus Plessen’s painting of two heads (‘Untitled’ at WHITE CUBE) suggests a taut drama where to shape, to hold, and to caress are actions that can be simultaneously sweet, sad, and spiteful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14) Characteristic of Flemish painting, ‘The Circumcision’ (Southern Netherlands, Brabant, Brussels? c.1520, at SAM FOGG) has catchy idiosyncratic details. Check out the fellow at the window with his (or someone else’s?) hand on his head, and a cow, grumpily distracted from its lunch. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15. Lukas Quietzsch (‘Untitled’ at GISELA CAPITAIN). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16. Greek statuette of a nude torso (Smyrna, c. 3rd century BCE, at CHARLES EDE) fuses noble, time-ravaged beauty with honesty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17. A Brief Encounter, anyone? Helena Foster’s deft ‘Vexation’ (at OLNEY GLEASON) lightly traces the intimate complexities of a spontaneous, fleeting exchange. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18) Andrew Marvell in his poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ (1681), augurs that ‘My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow.’ George Rouy’s Desireline II’ (at HAUSER AND WIRTH) evokes comparably rich, exuberant, dreamlike fecundity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19) Liorah Tshiprout’s work evinces a strongly hewn, charm-like mythical energy in ‘Nothing feeds a hunger like a thirst, Holloway Gothic II’ (at PIPPY HOULDSWORTH). M.C. sees a bridge between this work and Paula Rego’s.  

20) Three’s a Crowd’ (Cece Philips, at ALMINE RECH) is a tense, three-women melodrama hung with ominous, Munch-like viscous sunset strands of bilious yellow—the impending catalyst: a carefully delineated bottle of strong drink, centre-stage. Even the glasses, waiting to be filled, are tellingly arranged as a pair and an excluded third.

 

 

21) In Joya Mukerjee Logue’s ‘Lamplight’ (at VADHERA), three lamps, almost magically suspended, preside over a panorama of guests. The cordial gathering of Asian and white folk is rendered in cream, beige, brown, soft grey, dusky pink; variations on a single chromatic measure. Tension is absent from this quiet nocturnal garden scene, and the contained gestures of laid-back socialising are mysteriously hieratic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22. In ‘Flow’ (Philipp Fürhofer at KNUST KUNZ), a lake or stream, rainbow-crossed, is fed by torrents emanating from several hovering, anxious disembodied faces.  

23) Alberto Perera’s signature wallpaper provides a quirky backdrop to the stand at OMR.

24) Venkanna’s plumply robust mother is with her pronounced areolae,

mid-parturition, source of the cycle of life and death (‘Various titles’ selected by Bharti Kher at MASKAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25) The inscrutable mystery of ‘Hope’ (Leiko Ikemura, at LISSON) evokes an amorphously

spiritual stretch of embryonic water fed by pillar of light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26) . Kamrooz Aram’s ‘Awkward Embellishment’ (at ALEXANDER GRAY) is

another of his consistently refreshingly open explorations of varying ogive-like motifs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27. In ‘Early Skyscraper Redecorated’ Pablo Bronstein wraps an austere mid-century, anonymously corporate office block, replete with pseudo-Palladian ground floor, in improbably delicious baroque icing. Bronstein’s daring imagination and delicate draughtsmanship demonstrate that the genre-mixing post-modern horse can still work up a sweat (at OLNEY GLEASON).