Where to start with Frieze London
An insider's guide to this year's art fair. Plus: the magnificent world of Rose Wylie and 'Withnail and I' director Bruce Robinson.
Where to start with Frieze London
“This week in London, the autumn art calendar shifts into high gear in London as Frieze unveils a city-wide smorgasbord of gallery exhibitions, new major museum shows and art fairs. Blockbuster museum shows such as a much-anticipated Francis Bacon portrait show at the National Portrait Gallery open this week, and city streets are filled with art-centered homages such as the Bond Street flags that this year highlights works from Gucci’s art programme exhibition ‘Acts of Translation’. On view at its flagship store, textures and materials are placed in dialogue in the work of established and early-career artists, such as Bokani and Sonia Boyce.”
Now online, art advisor, consultant and curator Rachael Barrett gives the inside track to this year’s Frieze Week.
The magnificent world of Rose Wylie
“The garden at Rose Wylie’s house in Kent is a long rectangle that juts snugly into a field. It is a strange place, like something in an E Nesbit story, dotted with crumbling stone urns, awash with greenery that no one ever gets around to cutting, and peaceful but for the birds chirping happily and noisily in the trees.”
As she prepares for her star turn at Frieze in London, where David Zwirner Gallery will present a selection of new paintings by Wylie in a space dedicated to just her, Lucy Davies visits the artist at her home in Faversham. She discusses coming to prominence in her seventies (“I spent time with [my children] I talked to them about books and about trees. I still talk to them about my work,”) her new creative fascination with Lilith, the first wife of Adam (“I think she’s terrific. Made at the same time as Adam, made from the same clay as Adam and banished from Eden by Adam... because she was not submissive.”), posing for Juergen Teller in gold lamé (“I looked like a Zurbaran monk”) and why she always stays up late (“The village goes to sleep at half past ten—it’s a good time to work. But I never get up before nine.”)
Bruce Robinson: “You want to go up to 70 mph. That’s where the madness happens”
“Bruce Robinson’s Herefordshire farmhouse cannot be found on Google Maps. On our first attempt, my photographer Laurie Hills and I were led to a different site. “This can’t be it,” we said to each other, observing the nondescript newbuild, the gunmetal Audi SUV, and the disturbingly cordial hens. We had some preconceptions about Robinson— the writer/director famous for the cult comedy Withnail and I (1987)—and none of those things added up to them. ‘I’m expecting a bit more rock ‘n’ roll,’ my companion said. We had watched a documentary where Robinson was racing his Aston Martin up and down country lanes, wearing a leather jacket and aviator specs. ‘Where’s the Aston Martin?’”
Now online, A Rabbit’s Foot Deputy Editor meets the legendary director to discuss his career, writing routine and why he replaced Hollywood for the English countryside.
