Pushing boundaries both conceptually and in execution, these four celebrated artists stand out at London’s Frieze Art Fair. Taryn Simon’s show at the Tate Modern (coming to MoMA in 2012) explores the bloodlines of feuding families in Brazil, victims of genocide in Bosnia, and the body double of Saddam Hussein’s son. Christian Jankowski creates a yacht dealership in the middle of the fair, and Oliver Laric takes his video camera in order to release footage into the public domain. Bik Van der Pol installs a live scoreboard, but instead of spending $40 million on a Cowboys Stadium style digital screen, he uses people to spell out the score.
Taryn Simon, Excerpt from A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, 2011, Photography. Courtesy of the artist and Tate Modern Museum.
Look for Taryn Simon in Gagosian’s booth, on Frieze’s panel about photographic representation, and in her exhibition at the Tate Modern. Simon received a Guggenheim fellowship after graduating from Brown, and began conducting investigative documentary projects that were shortly followed by her well-known American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, a catalog of inaccessible or unknown aspects of the country, from nuclear waste to the CIA’s art collection. She produced her latest project, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, over a four-year period researching and recording the bloodlines of subjects including feuding families in Brazil, victims of genocide in Bosnia, the body double of Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, and the living dead in India. Now at the Tate Modern, the show travels to MoMA in May 2012. She is represented by Gagosian, and her works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Modern, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Oliver Laric, Still from Versions, 2010, Four channel video. Courtesy of artist and Frieze Art Fair.
You might run into Oliver Laric shooting footage around the fair, but not for his own videos. Laric will publish the stock footage for free use in the public domain, open to anyone for anonymous online collaboration. The Berlin-based artist and curator is a sharp observer of the internet’s visual culture, and his video essay Versions is a manifesto on the subject. His ultra-simple website showcases clip art, reinterpretations of a Mariah Carey music video, and a recorded video chat between himself and Andy Warhol’s spirit channeled through a psychic. Read about the Frieze commission here.
Bik Van der Pol. Courtesy of artist and Frieze Art Fair.
Bik Van der Pol’s Frieze commission is a massive scoreboard unlike any you have ever seen. (Jerry Jones should take note for Cowboys Stadium.) The scoreboard is animated live by assistants who spell out idioms, quotations, and maxims, “providing a narrative for visitors to the fair.” We hope “art market bubble” and “we are tired of art fairs” are not some of them. In 1995 Dutch artists Liesbeth Bik and Jos Van der Pol began a collaboration under the name Bik Van der Pol, and they have been critiquing public institutions and the exclusivity of “high art” ever since. The Rotterdam-based duo initially produced guides and texts intended to encourage art’s accessibility to the masses, and they are presently leading tours in New York City as part of Creative Time’s Living as Form exhibition. Their work has been recognized with the ENEL Award, resulting in a site-specific installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome, amongst numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. Read about the Frieze commission here.
Christian Jankowski. Courtesy of artist and Frieze Art Fair.
Christian Jankowski is turning a Frieze booth over to a luxury yacht dealer, with the yachts for sale as Jankowski artworks. The Berlin-based, German multimedia artist could be likened to a mad lib author – his performance pieces and installations rely on the reactions of performers and participants to complete the work. Jankowski shed light on what society regards as sacred with a casting call for an actor to play Jesus at Complesso Santo Spirito hospital in Rome, judged by a Vatican-approved panel. Jankowski took aim at reality television home improvement with The Perfect Gallery for Pump House Gallery. Whether he gets a laugh, pushes buttons, or encourages change, Jankowski’s work definitely turns heads. Read about the Frieze commission here.
