SARAH URIST GREEN: This episode is supported
by the Great Courses Plus.
London is a big city-- a crowded and lively global metropolis.
It holds an embarrassment of cultural riches,
and we had only a few days to take advantage of them.
Our timing aligned with what a handful of art and media people
call Frieze Week in early October,
when the Frieze London Art Fair pitches
its tents in Regent's Park.
All of the galleries and art venues
put forward some of their best shows of the year,
and fancy art collectors descend.
We were there too.
We began our art trip in Trafalgar Square, whose
fourth plinth was intended to hold a statue of William IV,
but instead stood empty due to lack of funds for over 150
years.
In 1999, the plinth became a site
for temporary art commissions, and has since
featured an inverted replica of itself
in resin, an architectural model for a hotel,
a platform for members of the public to say and do anything
they wish, a replica of Horatio Nelson's
ship in a bottle with sails made of African batik fabric,
a boy on a rocking horse, a big blue rooster,
and the skeleton of a horse around
whose front leg is tied a live ticker of the London Stock
Exchange.
And it's now host to a very large thumbs up forged
in bronze by David Shrigley, and it's titled Really Good,
which doesn't sound right unless you have a Brit say it.
WOMAN: (BRITISH ACCENT) Really good.
SARAH URIST GREEN: Our mistrust of this symbol
of positivity creeps in almost immediately.
The unnaturally elongated thumb makes us notice not only
how phallic the sculpture is, but also
how phallic Nelson's Column is, and how
grandiose architectural expressions of confidence
in general can be.
So here, we have this monumental expression
of confidence in London's locus of protest--
and just post-Brexit.
Despite uncertainty and unrest at home and abroad,
we're still really good, everybody, right?
We then took a short walk to the National Portrait Gallery,
which is filled with a great many painted portraits of kings
and queens and generals and wealthy people
throughout British history walking
through the galleries I kept thinking about the stories not
told through these pictures-- contemporaneous events not
reflected in these highly staged portraits-- even,
or perhaps especially, in the more recent portraits,
which made me think about how and why portrait painting kept
being a thing after the invention of photography.
And then, as if the curators could hear my thoughts,
I came across a display of truly stunning photographic portraits
highlighting black presence in Britain before 1948.
The humanity and intimacy of these pictures
was in stark contrast to those in the previous galleries,
telling more compelling, nuanced stories, and showing off
a rich collection, only a fraction of which
can be on display at any time.
They also had a temporary exhibition of photographs
by American photographer William Eggleston, a pioneer and master
of color photography.
These photographs were printed using a dye transfer process
that yields brilliantly saturated colors and brings
Eggleston's subjects from the '60s and '70s
to startling life.
It's not just the people in the pictures.
It's the frame, the time, the place,
and the light that make me feel like I was there,
taking complete strangers and causing them to feel familiar,
sympathetic, and dimensional.
We moved on to the Royal Academy of Art,
which is hosting a big, bold, celebratory exhibition
about abstract expressionism.
It has all the heavy hitters-- Still,
Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Newman, Kline, Rhinehardt,
a woman artist, Smith.
To be fair, there are more women in the show
than the magnificent Joan Mitchell.
And there are efforts throughout the show
to complicate the usual story about this time
in the mid 20th century when a number of artists,
mostly in America, mostly white men,
started making big, expressive paintings.
Of course, they weren't all big and they weren't all expressive
and they weren't all made by serious macho
dudes in New York.
But in general, it reinforces the usual heroic narrative
about this time in art.
And I couldn't help but think about how
it's as much about the stories we choose
to tell as how we tell them.
OK, it is impressive.
You will like it.
But what if all the effort of bringing these works together
in one place had been devoted to another subject?
A new subject?
One that hadn't yet been told?
We made a final stop at the Courtauld Gallery
to check out a few paintings that might look familiar,
like van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear,
Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere,
and incredible works by Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin.
And then I just short circuited because of masterpiece
overload, and we escaped back to East London for beers
and fries and delicious food at Blixen
and reveled in the sundry joys of not looking at art.
The next day, we spent the morning
with the truly delightful Peter Liversidge,
who charmed us with his studio full of unusual collections
and sent us off with numerous album recommendations,
our own mix CDs, and an assignment
that you're going to very much enjoy.
Then it was onto Whitechapel Gallery,
where along with saluting the Guerrilla Girls exterior
banner, we took our time delving into the interior display
of their recent research into diversity in European art
organizations.
We also had the extreme pleasure of seeing
Whitechapel's exhibition of six large scale video installations
by South African artist William Kentridge.
Each is an exquisitely thoughtful arrangement
of materials and moving images and light and sound,
animating Kentridge's distinctive charcoal drawings
and synthesizing the creative talents
of a number of collaborators.
The works delve into a deep pool of subjects,
particular and universal, from apartheid
and histories of colonialism to his own artistic process
and to the nature of time.
We made our way west to Hauser & Wirth, a commercial gallery
running two shows that the time, one of which
is a multi-room installation by Mike Kelly, which recreates
the Seven Star Cavern, a landmark in LA's Chinatown,
which he positioned adjacent to an inaccessible enclosure that
is part security fence, part traditional Chinese gate.
They also had a show up of works by renowned Brazilian artists
Lygia Pape, including two of her remarkable Tteia installations.
Pape diverged from the harsh geometries
of Brazil's concrete art movement in the 1950s,
and evolved her own approach to abstraction
that is simultaneously geometric and expressive.
This installation, originally constructed in 1976,
is made of metallic thread strung across the room
to create volumes that transform as you
move throughout the space.
Here with her work, I was able to appreciate
the softness, the subtlety, and the delicate beauty that
is possible in abstraction-- how these lines slip in and out
of legibility, as if by magic.
It was transportive, immersive, and meditative,
and I did not want to leave.
But eventually, we had to, and we found our way
to the Serpentine Galleries to see their outdoor pavilions
during the final weeks of their run.
The series was conceived in 2000 as a way
to introduce you to contemporary architecture
by commissioning some of the world's greatest architects
who had not yet completed a permanent building in the UK
to make a temporary structure on the gallery's lawn,
taking a maximum of six months from invitation to completion.
This year's pavilion is designed by Bjarke Ingels Group,
and is a play on one of the most basic elements
of architecture-- the brick wall.
Ingels' wall, however, has been unzipped and expanded
into space, forming a cavity beneath it that houses a cafe
and hosts activities.
The program is a clever way to address and move
beyond the strictures of a more traditional exhibition space.
But the Serpentine has those as well.
We took in their Marc Camille Chaimowicz exhibition,
which probes the territory between art and design,
public and private space, and the tenuous divisions
between the everyday object, decoration, and so-called fine
art.
We also checked out the exhibition of works
by Helen Marten in the Sackler Galleries,
a truly confounding amalgam of materials and textures
and images that caused me to walk round and round the space,
trying and failing to pin them down.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy them.
I did, but it's precisely because I couldn't quite
determine what I was seeing and what
I might conclude from them.
On our last day in London, we made our pilgrimage
to Tate Modern to film with the legendary Guerrilla Girls,
and also to check out the newly opened Switch House
building, which houses a number of impressive, new, and light
filled spaces that give the museum even more room
to show off their enormous and magnificent collection.
What you're seeing here is a display of works from the 1960s
forward that respond in various ways
to the architecture of the space.
I love many things about this institution,
but near the top of my list is how
they elegantly and non-braggingly bring together
works by a wide variety of artists
from all over the world, with near equitable representation
of works by men and women, making meaningful efforts
to tell wider and less expected stories about art today
and in the past.
They allow us as visitors to consider these works side
by side, room by room, and give us ample space
and encouragement to make connections
across time and geography.
We also got to see the just opened
installation in the Turbine Hall by Philippe Parreno.
Titled Anywhen, it was conceived as a giant automaton that
changes throughout the day and throughout the exhibition's
six-month duration.
Here, you might experience a sequence
of flashing lights, moving panels, video,
and sound environments, as well as floating inflatable
fishies, all of whose movements are triggered by software
informed by microorganisms, which react to
and activate parts of the commission
through a bioreactor at the far end of the hall.
How much of this is evident to the large crowd
that gathers here?
We'll never know.
But what we do know and what is palpable regardless
is the sensation that the building
is behaving unpredictably-- that we must pause or even lay down
to observe its workings, to try to determine what is the heart
and what is the building, and to stay attuned to an environment
where anything, small or large, might happen.
We then spilled out into a glorious fall
afternoon and headed toward Regent's Park
for the week's main event.
This tent and another tent not too far from here
is Frieze Art Fair.
Now, this is not the democratic kind of art fair
where anyone can sign up for a booth
and display their handmade wares to kindly passersby.
This is a highly competitive enterprise
that galleries from around the world
apply to and pay considerable sums to be part of.
They do this because many wealthy collectors
and influencers in the field come here.
And galleries can make a significant portion
of their annual income in a few days.
I like to think of this kind of fair as more of a sociological
experience than an art experience, per se.
And it's often as fascinating to people watch and eavesdrop
as it is to take in the art.
And there is a ton of art.
A lot of it is good.
But it's truly challenging to appreciate in such a space.
You get distracted by everything--
the people, the camera operators,
the way the wind whips at the tent around you.
And yet, you still stumble upon works and environments
that surprise and intrigue-- like Celia Hempton's occupation
of Southern Reid's booth, which she painted in its entirety
and presented within her series called Chat Random, where
she connects with men online and paints her interactions.
I and many others were drawn to Hauser & Wirth's
striking space, which was curated
with a collection of works from the 1940s and '50,
many from estates, presented as a fictional artist's bohemian
studio.
I enjoyed a curated section of the fair, where galleries
revisited exhibitions from the '90s,
highlighting moments and works that
had an impact then and now.
I also found refuge within the project room
that presented the artistic activities that take place
at Operndorf Afrika in Burkina Faso.
I welcome this access to a dynamic world
of art and artists seemingly far away, and yet functionally
the same as that which surrounded us here at the fair.
It costs 52 pounds to visit all of Frieze London--
not a small sum.
But what it lacks in calm it makes up for inefficiency,
allowing you a chance to see the works of more than 160
of the world's, quote, leading galleries,
all in the span of a few hours.
It also gives you a window into a world
that is largely inaccessible, but which
fuels the art world, or the web of gallerists, collectors,
curators, museum board members, and directors-- oh,
and artists, who decide which works belong in our museums
and public collections.
We saw an exhausting amount of art in London-- no, really.
Too much.
But what London gives us is the opportunity
to see art in a huge span of context.
You can see it in public spaces and private spaces,
in historical spaces and brand new spaces,
in intimate and highly social spaces.
You can see it in non-commercial spaces
and super commercial spaces.
And you can see an enormous variety
of art, arranged in such ways that
confirm prevailing narratives and those that subvert them.
And this is the glory of art in London.
It's all here.
And you have the good fortune to decide which way you like it
or whether you like it at all.
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