The 2024 edition of the contemporary art fair Frieze London, which opens its doors on Thursday in London, devotes for the first time a section to ceramic works by artists mainly from Latin America, who experiment with clay while based on ancestral traditions.
Like every year, some 60,000 gallery owners, influencers and visitors are expected until Sunday under the gigantic white tent pitched in Regent’s Park, where big names and emerging artists are exhibiting.
“Frieze brings together the entire art community, with collectors from all over the world, galleries with exceptional presentations (…) and already great sales,” underlines Eva Langret, director of Frieze London, met on Wednesday by AFP during the day reserved for professionals.
For this 21st edition, the curator of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Pablo José Ramirez, created a thematic section that he called “Smoke”, in reference to the art of ceramics and the work of 11 indigenous or diaspora artists, mainly from Central and South America.
This space “gives visibility to artists who, otherwise, would probably not be present in an international art fair”, tells AFP this curator born in Guatemala, who was previously responsible for bringing in works from contemporary indigenous art in the Tate Modern collections.
“The work of ceramics and clay has always existed, but it is only recently that it has been recognized as a form of art”, which has given it “a rise in the world of contemporary art.
But more than technique, it is the fact of navigating between several worlds, between “indigenous, ancestral stories” and globalized contemporary art that unites the artists of “Smoke”.
Lucía Pizzani, an artist “in exile” who arrived in London in 2007, is one of “seven million Venezuelans who left the country” because of a long political and economic crisis.
His totems which stand like guardians are made of deep black English clay, on which are printed Latin American plants such as corn or eucalyptus, a mixture which “reflects my migration story”, says she told AFP.
Her other terracotta ceramics were made in the pottery community of El Cercado, on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, by collecting clay from the mountain and then cooking it over an open fire, according to traditions passed down orally since the pre-Hispanic era.
– Art market in slow motion –
In parallel with this unmissable commercial event, for which 160 galleries from 43 countries have reserved their “box” at a high price, exhibitions, auctions and private parties will take place every day in the four corners of the British capital.
Visitors will be able to discover the Francis Bacon exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, works by Tracey Emin at the White Cube gallery or Yayoi Kusama at Victoria Miro.
After two years of excitement following the Covid-19 pandemic, Frieze London opens in a gloomy context for the global art market, whose sales have slowed by 4% in 2023, according to a report from the bank UBS and Art Basel.
Cooled by economic uncertainties and geopolitical tensions, buyers are showing more reluctance to purchase contemporary works whose value often fluctuates.
The United Kingdom remains a stronghold for art, with 17% of the global market share in 2023, according to UBS and Art Basel. But it has seen its shine weaken since Brexit and its new tax regulations, and was notably overtaken for the first time by China (19%) last year.
Born in London in 2003 before spreading to New York or Seoul, Frieze is also facing the emergence of a competitor across the Channel with the “Paris + by Art Basel” fair, opening on October 16 in a restored Grand Palais could overshadow it.
“Many young galleries have opened in the capital, it’s a very dynamic sector,” assures Eva Langret, adding that there is “a lot of excitement, and (that) London is still London.”
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