Apollo Magazine : Galleries are thinking bigger at Frieze Masters this year

By Melanie Gerlis

Triton (1770–76), Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley after Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Tomasso Fine Art (around £50,000).

The art fair industry is trying to get back in the swing after 18 months of postponements and cancellations. For London, this means a relatively bumper October season, anchored around Frieze London and Frieze Masters (Regent’s Park, 13–17 October). ‘Contemporary art can work quite well online, but when you are considering a multi-million-dollar picture, for example, it helps to see it on the walls,’ says Nathan Clements-Gillespie, artistic director of Frieze Masters. To sum up, ‘We are champing at the bit to get going.’

Those galleries that have committed to this year’s event – down from 104 in 2019 to 99 in the main section – understand the pulling power of the fair. ‘We are unlikely to do as many physical fairs in the future but are excited about Frieze Masters,’ says Stephane Custot, owner of London’s Waddington Custot gallery. At a time when sourcing supply has been tricky, he has done well to secure around 21 works from the same collection by the first generation of US photorealist painters, dating from 1969 to 1992. The images are all-American – roadside diners, large cars and ticket booths – by artists including Don Eddy, Richard Estes and Ralph Goings. ‘It’s a change of direction for the gallery too; we will have more photorealist exhibitions over the next 10 years,’ Custot says. Prices will range from $35,000 for John Baeder’s Blue Sky Diner (1975) to $450,000 for Interior with Trash Cans (1976) by Goings.

While there are fewer dealers in the main section of Frieze Masters, their total square footage is about the same, Clements-Gillespie says, meaning that many have taken bigger stands this year. This includes Marian Goodman Gallery, whose booth dedicated to early work by the South African artist William Kentridge is likely to be a showstopper. The display focuses on works made between 1985 and 1991, a turbulent time in South Africa’s apartheid history. The booth will be designed by Kentridge’s long-time collaborator, the set designer Sabine Theunissen, and is centred around the artist’s first trademark charcoal-and-collage animation, Vetkoek – Fête Galante (1985). The display will also include unique works on paper, etchings and silkscreens from the period, such as the haunting charcoal and ink wash Let Go Scot Free (1989).

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