Inspiring growth

Bianca Bonomi

• Last Updated: October 17. 2009 5:57PM UAE / October 17. 2009 1:57PM GMT

For four days every year, the international art world congregates in London. Collectors, curators and curious spectators unite to determine the forthcoming cultural landscape and the city comes alive with the gossip and enthusiasm generated by the return of one of the world’s most respected art events. It can only mean one thing: the Frieze Art Fair is back, and this year the UAE presence has been stronger than ever.

Showcasing the work of 164 galleries, including market leaders from across America and Europe, over 1000 artists have been represented at the event which ends today. The strength of emerging territories has been reinforced again this year by a significant UAE contingent that included The Third Line gallery making a triumphant debut, two exchange groups visiting London to promote cross-cultural links and Art Dubai organisers mingling with the international art community.

Middle Eastern artists have been well represented. Shiraz-born Farhad Moshiri, who currently lives in Tehran, exhibited bright, loud and quirky canvases. The crowds gathering around his work, shown by Dubai’s Third Line gallery, paid testament to the UAE’s growing stature on the international art market. “We’re really excited to be a part of this”, says the gallery director Claudia Cellini. “I’m feeling more confident these days about our artists and their trajectory. The collector base hasn’t completely spilled, but now it is moving and flowing. People are cautious but optimistic.

“In terms of global recognition our presence at Frieze is very important,” Cellini added. “We want to be taken seriously as an international gallery and not as a gallery from the Middle East that’s ‘sort of exotic’. Our artists deserve to be internationally recognised.”

The Lebanese artist Marwan Rechmaoui also featured heavily and demonstrated the changing perceptions of Middle Eastern art. Represented by the Galerie Sfeir-Semler in Beirut and Hamburg, Rechmaoui’s Monument for the Living (2001–2008) was selected by the Tate’s acquisition team and will now become part of the world-renowned gallery’s permanent holdings.

Elsewhere, a delegation of Emirati women artists arrived in London as part of the Sheikha Manal Art Exchange programme, founded by Sheikha Manal Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Women Establishment and wife of Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs. Designed to foster artistic and cultural ties between the UAE and the global community, participants travelled to Frieze to experience the contemporary art scene in all its diversity and depth.

“Programmes such as these allow talented young women the opportunity to experience artistic expressions of a very high calibre first-hand,” the project founder Sheikha Manal said. “London is a city where contemporary culture plays a decisive role in fashioning the fabric of daily life and we hope that this visit will serve as an inspiration to the programme’s participants to develop their creative abilities in imaginative new ways.”

Six UAE art students have attended the fair as part of another exchange programme, this one organised by Thinking Cloud and supported by the British Council in London. The Thinking Cloud Art Exchange Programme will see a collaboration between the students and six UK artists. The results will be shown during Art Dubai in 2010.

As with London Fashion Week, Frieze isn’t just about what goes on in the campus tents. The influence of the fair can be felt throughout the capital, spawning a heady mix of talks and debates, art and installation, private views and parties.

Off-site, Contemparabia held an event to increase recognition of their unique initiative. A joint project of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage; Art Dubai; the Sharjah Biennial; and the Qatar Museums Authority, Contemparabia offers an itinerary focusing regional and international attention on the quality and diversity of cultural projects underway in the Gulf.

“Highlighting the seriousness of the region’s cultural ambitions, this important collaborative project proved enormously popular with international journalists, collectors, curators as well as benefactors and supporters representing over 80 international museums including the Tate and the Museum of Modern Art, New York,” says Art Dubai director John Martin.

“Art Dubai has been committed to providing an open platform for the region’s most innovative, independent art initiatives and we are delighted that Contemparabia can play a part in bringing greater international attention to the quality of art and art institutions across the Middle East today.”

Back at the Regent’s Park base, Frieze Projects presented a series of site-specific artworks. This year’s initiatives created aesthetic opportunity out of the uncertainty that has become the hallmark of our troubled times; whether taking the form of grand architectural obstruction or finding new ways of looking at our relationship to the objects we make, look at and buy.

One such project involved artist Ryan Gander setting up an instant photo studio to produce portraits of visitors looking at an artwork of their choice. Interestingly, the work itself didn’t feature in the final image, but viewers could possibly gauge something about it from the expression on the spectator’s face or a reflection in their eye. The work is self-reflective and challenges traditional notions of spectatorship. A copy of the work was displayed near the Frieze entrance, while another was gifted to the participant without charge. “It’s not often that you get something free at an art fair,” says Gander.

“There’s a lot of good stuff here and I’m getting a fairly settled, positive vibe about people,” says legendary arts commentator Anthony Haden-Guest. “I get the feeling that people are comfortable here. I’ve seen very little routine work, very little just product,” he said. “Everything seems to have an intention behind it. This place used to be filled with really theatrical work, big theatrical installation pieces. I’ve seen nothing like that.”

Theatrical installation may have been thin on the ground, but Frieze was not without its drama. A monumental sculpture intended to provide a startling entrance to the fair was dismantled before opening at the artist’s request. Monika Sosnowska’s work was designed to appear as if a concrete monolith had crash-landed on a corner of the Frieze tent, as part of Frieze Projects. But the Polish artist said that once realised, the work appeared fake and asked that it be taken down.

A dent in the Frieze tent was the sole physical token of the project. The work survived only in concept and in the memory of those who witnessed its brief presence, becoming an extreme case of the inversion apparent in much of the work at Frieze. The sculpture’s absence left us talking about something that did not exist.

In last year’s ravished economic climate, the dismantling of the work might have been dismissed as profligate. Frieze Projects’ support of the artist’s decision demonstrates that much has changed.

Last year, the fair was awash with false confidence and over zealous salesmanship. This year, the mood was relaxed; defiance had become acceptance. Talk of the recession, which last year left galleries reeling, became somewhat lighthearted, with a large red banner positioned above an exhibit stand reading “Long Live and Thrive Capitalism”. This was art with a sense of humour and its message spilled out onto the growing crowds.

“There’s an incredible buzz about Frieze,” says artist Adam Dant. “You can always discover something new. This year has been great. It no longer feels like a trade fair.”

“There has been less frantic buying this year. But that is positive,” said Louise Blouin of the eponymous foundation, currently exhibiting the Russian Kandinsky Prize nominees in London.

“We need consistent growth, but not exaggerated growth,” she said. “The recession has moderated the market and there is less pressure on the artist to keep producing. The art world is not meant to be a place of mass production. Artists have more time, so the work is of a higher quality.”

With such an air of meritocracy, it was disappointing to encounter works that failed to subscribe to the changing conditions. The celebrity artist Tracey Emin presented Neon Life: A Portrait, where she posed a series of questions to potential buyers. Depending on their answers, Emin promised to create a neon especially and individually for the collector. A framed letter from her studio informed buyers that a sketch of this neon would cost £10,000 (Dh60,096); the finished product, an additional £50,000 (Dh300,500).

“If the recession does anything, let’s hope it helps to weed out authentic art from inflated, media-hyped concepts like this one,” one collector said. “So much of the work here is new and innovative. That’s the kind of artistic sensibility we need to nurture.”