LONDON - There was an air of focused intent-schmoozing later please-as Frieze, the annual contemporary art fair in Regent's Park, opened its doors for the VIP preview yesterday. Down a corridor of eye-popping green, yellow, black and red (a commissioned Frieze Project, from the German artist Thomas Bayrle) went the Serious Collectors, the museum curators, the art advisors and anyone well-connected enough to procure a coveted early pass.
Once inside, they didn't waste much time. If it wasn't quite the feeding frenzy that reputedly took place in more affluent times, there was still clearly plenty of money and appetite for contemporary art around. A massive flesh-pink Paul McCarthy sculpture, “White Snow Head†was sold by Hauser & Wirth for $1.3 million within ten minutes of the opening, Bloomberg News reported. A representative from the Sadie Coles Gallery said that they had sold “a substantial amount†within the first hour, with prices ranging from $100 000 â€" $550 000. The Michael Stevenson Gallery, the first South African gallery to show at Frieze, sold three of five large Nicholas Hlobo pieces, made from rubber tubing, hosepipe and steel (one of them to the Tate Modern) within four hours, said Joost Bosland, a gallery director.
But it wasn't all business. The most fun to be had at the fair was from some of the other commissioned Frieze Projects. You could hang out on Mr. Bayrle's blue and white “Laughing Cow†benches and carpets, or watch “Murder in Three Acts,†a CSI-type drama staged by the Turkish artist Asli Cavusoglu, that was being filmed as actors playing forensic detectives discover a corpse in the blood-splatte red booth of an art fair and set out to determine motive, means and opportunity. (There are no doubt metaphors to contemplate here.)
Elsewhere the Grizedale Arts &Yangjiang Group offered presentations from food historians and sold bread, milk, chutney and vegetables.
And at the Carlos/Ishikawa gallery, you could be part of the performance art that is “Characterdate,†which its creator Ed Fornieles describes as “a new kind of dating service.†You take a psychometric test, formulate a new identity with an assistant, then try it out in a date around the fair with an actor. (No, I didn't.)
By the evening, the crowds, the noise and the art-exhaustion probably made trying on a new identity far too much work. Well-known faces, many from the fashion world (Raf Simons, Christopher Kane, Laura Bailey) thronged and cooed as the party crowd arrived at 6.30. The toweringly tall performance artist Daniel Lismore arrived in a description-defying outfit that invol ved a pearl helmet, a huge collar of steel and jewels, much flowing white fabric and hoop earrings the size of kitchen implements. “I live my life as art,†he said. Price on demand?
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