In some other alternate reality, where all notions of art and expression are nonexistent and everyone just sits around doing whatever they must to survive, a giant tent full of miscellaneous pretty, colorful, or just plain bizarre objects would probably spark a lot of debate and confusion.
At the Frieze Art Fair, there was certainly no short supply of bizarre objects and paintings, and more than enough confusion if your name is Isaac.
I was graced with the opportunity to explore the massive sold-out fair by helping our old friend Heide out with her Rusty Dog project. In a response to the massive Balloon dog by Jeff Koons selling for all that Cash-Money-Dolla-Dolla, she made 180 rusted balloon dogs with little penises and sold ‘em for a mere $25 a pop, as a commentary on the Art Market and a subtle kick in the rear of Jeff Koons.
The layout of the fair was more or less like walking through an Ikea, but full of paintings rather than flimsy furniture and what looked like wealthy art collectors and students rather than divorced men and young hapless doofuses shopping for their first apartment. A labyrinth of paintings, sculptures, and other various forms of whatsit.
The only thing that somewhat disappointed me was the total lack of any artist statements, or lack of a clear intention or statement with any of the art shown. The artists stood by their work proudly, unable to wait to tell you about their labours bending metal into butterflies or painting windmills on the back of a tortoise or what have you, but when asked what their intentions were, the artists I spoke to for the most part said something along the lines of “Well, I just wanted to make it.”
I find that incredibly admirable, and I’m of the belief that that’s the basis of how all art is made, but there was little to indicate why you bothered to take a bunch of hammers and make a spiny ball out of them, or why you wanted to make a giant unfolded paper crane out of aluminum and frame it. There surely had to be SOME idea that you’re expressing buried in all this obscurity on your canvas, but it seemed nearly non present underneath the six inches of paint you’ve layered on it.
That isn’t to say that none of the work was impressive, it clearly took a lot of dedication and creativity to make the stuff you find in such a place. But a lot of it seemed like the artists were either blabbering to themselves, or relying on you, the viewer, to interpret the piece yourself and attach your own meaning to it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course, but I like being able to compare my interpretation of a piece to that of the artist.
As I walked through the valley of the shadow of “What?” I couldn’t help but shake the nagging fear that these aesthetically pleasing pieces didn’t have a lot of thought put into them as they were made, and like the infamous balloon dog that everyone there seemed angry about, (Out of jealousy or annoyance or both) were made with an incredibly simple statement plucked out of a high schooler’s notebook and then made to look as pretty as possible to sell to some rich collector with fading grey hair and an old wife with a feather boa.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt in this case, but the idea that everything here was made for the sake of monetary gain and the idea of expression taking a back seat to marketability kind of lingered in the back of my head the whole day. MAybe it was because of Hatry’s piece that day, or maybe I was just being paranoid.
Either way, it gave me a lot to think about.
Go see it if you can, if you can’t, you can look through an Ikea catalogue for the same effect.