Each October, art lovers, critics and collectors flock to London’s Regent’s Park in their droves, filling the two cavernous marquees stationed at either end of the green expanse for a five-day frenzy of art perusal and — most importantly — purchasing. The cause for this is, of course, Frieze London, the original edition of the now-globetrotting art fair — inaugurated 20 years ago — which remains a pinnacle of the global art calendar. Imagine what PFW is to fashion, basically.
For many, the main draws to both Frieze and Frieze Masters are the booths manned by the big blue-chip galleries — your Gagosians, David Zwirners, Hauser & Wirths — replete with works by artists who are essentially household names. For us, though, the fair’s Focus section is our main cause for braving the autumn drear in the name of the arts. Supported by Stone Island, Focus is the fair’s critically acclaimed showcase of presentations by galleries in operation for 12 years or less — by its very nature, it’s where you’ll find some of the most salient, engaging and provocative work on show.
This year’s edition is testament to that, featuring 34 exhibitors from across 18 countries, with a focus on emerging talent seen throughout. Among them are a number of debuts, including buzzy London newcomer Ginny on Frederick, who’ll be presenting a solo booth by Jack O’Brien, and São Paulo’s HOA, the first Black-owned gallery in Brazilian art history, showing a dual presentation of paintings by Laís Amaral and Mariana Rocha. Below, six of the artists behind some of Focus’ most noteworthy presentations discuss their practices and the themes underpinning their work treats — from the inbuilt sociopolitical biases of video games to connecting with one’s inner octopus.
Jack O’Brien, Ginny on Frederick, London, Booth H21
Tell us about the work you’re presenting at Frieze.
I’ve always explored symbols within my practice. The first aspect of the Frieze presentation is an exploration around ‘icons’. I take the symbol of ‘the cherry’ and unravel its place within society, looking at its role within fashion image-making and popular culture, from a stylistic motif and pattern, to an icon on slot machines and within historic painting. There is a quiet presence to this symbol that I hope to unlock through the work; its place within contemporary media has been as a symbol of sensuality and the erotic.
The other aspect is a continued investigation into cultural symbols. I take the uncanny object of a 20th-century horse carriage and seek to abstract it through applying a ‘skin’ of cellophane. The carriage symbolises a fraught and violent past, with those sentiments only seeming to become more apparent as we look to a current state of political unsteadiness.
What attracts you to your chosen subject matter?
I’ve often followed my nose with regard to my research and the direction in my work. My dear friend and great artist Beatriz Olabarietta often called me a ‘magpie’ when it came to finding and harnessing subject matter, always finding a means to highlight and unlock an object or image’s potential. For the Frieze presentation, the work continues my interests around ornamentation, the baroque, the erotic or violent codes within materials and the complex etymology behind symbols and icons.
Are there any other booths you’re excited to see at the fair?
I’m looking forward to seeing my friend Débora Delmar’s booth with Llano Gallery, who are based in Mexico City. I also can’t wait to see Adham Faramawy’s Frieze Film commission; and then my other close friends Michael Ho and Gray Wielebinski are showing some works with their galleries at High Art, Paris and Hales Gallery, London.
Where can people discover more of your work?
My next project will be a solo presentation at Between Bridges, Berlin in the residency space currently home to Viscose Journal. We are working together on producing a show that will be the closing of their residency period.
Laís Amaral, HOA, São Paulo, Booth H3
Could you briefly introduce your practice?
I’ve mostly been dedicated to non-figurative painting in recent years, discussing and breaking some of the patterns and vices of a Eurocentric perspective on painting through my work. I aim to bridge the gap between my research on contemporary environmental collapse and the whitewashing of existence and nature, swimming against the tide of the fragmentation of being, and enabling the freedom of our dissident existences. I believe that what I do is first and foremost a path of materialising my spiritual connections through the creation and organisation of codes that dwell between the earthly, the essential and the mysterious.
Tell us about the work you’re presenting at Frieze.
This set of paintings is part of my solo show, No meio do peito um buraco fundo, o mais fundo da cachoeira, onde a luz não vem de fora (In the middle of the chest, a deep hole, at the deepest depths of the waterfall, where the light from outside does not reach) at HOA in São Paulo. I dedicated myself mainly to feeling and observing how everything that forms our innermost, deepest layers of being is “translated” into a plastic surface that reveals and creates a codified, non-figurative language. The image that often came to mind when making these works is one that has long recurred; I’ve always tried to imagine what a waterfall is like, in the pitch-black depths of its lowest waters. What it’s like to be deeper and deeper within that space, observing the layers that form our natural essence. In my paintings, I try to bring a little part of this place I visit out. The title refers to the first experience of grief I experienced with the passing of my grandfather, Paulo Amaral. That changed everything I am, exposing deep holes; since then, it’s taught me to find ways toward light, presence, love and longing.
What do you hope people will be drawn to in the work?
I think that one of the most interesting parts of my work is the fact that I have never studied painting. I started my practice not so long ago, through trial, error, lack of material and money. I’m happy with the opportunity to show this more mature body of work, which I actually consider a perpetual study. Nowadays, after experiencing many crises and feeling “inadequate” in art spaces, I can live in my own pursuit of freedom – and that’s something I treasure, having the chance to study within the process itself.
Are there any other booths you are looking forward to seeing at the fair?
I’m very excited about meeting new artists and becoming more familiar with an international scene of racialised and Black art. But my greatest joy, really, is seeing my work alongside the artist Mariana Rocha – we come from neighboring cities, and know what a victory it is to be artists. She’s a great abstract painter and I am very curious to see our works assembled together.
Mariana Rocha, HOA, São Paulo, Booth H3
Tell us about the work you’re presenting at Frieze.
These paintings are part of the research I’ve developed over the last three years, which starts from the idea that there is a sea inside my body. The paintings are, accordingly, like records of journeys towards my inner waters. I am also interested in marine animals from the mollusc family, especially cephalopods, such as octopuses, squid and cuttlefish, and I’ve extensively compared our physiologies, origins, histories and skins. The fact that the octopus has a remarkable ability to camouflage itself – changing colors, shapes and textures – already brings with it an incredible potential to be explored through painting. But, beyond that, what matters a lot to me is the fact that, millions of years ago, the ancestors of cephalopods one day gave up their protective shells in pursuit of the expansion and freedom of having a soft and flexible body. I think this may relate to my – or our – own pursuit.
What attracts you to your chosen subject matter?
What moves me in relation to my work is the search for freedom and becoming who I am. I chose the sea as one of my themes because I feel close to the waters – this is perhaps also because, one day, one of my ancestors arrived in South America against their will, brought across the Atlantic Ocean by force. This sea, composed of the element that made human existence possible, is also, in its depth and ability to hide anything, a great cemetery. But these waters are also regenerative: I see this return to them in the company of molluscs as a way of recovering, of creating new spaces of freedom, and of developing defense and healing strategies.
What do you hope people will be drawn to in the work?
The possibility of connection, not only through the themes covered or through conceptual research, but also through images that evoke memories that we didn’t know we had — of primordial elements, of distant histories, of the forces of nature.
Conceptually, one of my proposals is that we “disturb” our skin and our bodies in the same way that octopuses do by activating their skin cells to radically change. May we connect to the world through arms with sensitive suction cups, like thousands of languages; may we release a cloud of ink composed of melanin to deceive our tormentors; and may we be able to explore the internal universes that each contains within themself.
Josèfa Ntjam, Nicoletti, London, Booth H30
Could you briefly introduce your practice?
My multimedia practice mixes sculpture, photomontage, video, installation, writing and performance without any hierarchy. I create ecosystems that are all linked by narrative, speculative fiction and the search for new ancestrally futuristic worlds that speak to us of love, revolt and impossible futures.
Tell us about the work you’re presenting at Frieze.
An underwater ecosystem that links forgotten archives, past and future revolts. Each of the photomontages contains a multitude of images (family and political archives, microscopic images, AI, drawings), all reminding us how important it is to bring back from the abyss (of history) stories that have been pushed into silence. Ghosts appear; forgotten figuresl tales and divinities that speak of the multitude and our identities. There are also traces of Cameroon’s struggle for independence, and of the transatlantic crossing that created new mythologies, albeit with great pain.
This ecosystem also tells us how plants and animals accompany these memories, sometimes lost but preciously kept within the confines of their cells.
What attracts you to your chosen subject matter?
What I like to do is to tell stories that fill in the gaps of history. Using fiction, but also science as a methodology, but it’s also a discursive way to create worlds that are impossible to map, without borders, without linear time.
It’s more than important for me to talk about what drives me, whether it’s joy, love or anger. There’s nothing happy about many of the stories I tell here, but I like to bring out characters who have never met in real life and network them through these ecosystems.
My work refers a lot to music, to black musical culture (SunRa, Drexciya, Kool Keith, Alice Coltrane, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Underground Resistance…). The Blackness is an essential part of the construction of my sonic and visual landscapes.
How can people discover more of your work?
I have a number of projects happening at the moment in London, beginning with second solo exhibition at Nicoletti (21.09 – 04.11.2023), and my participation in RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology at Barbican Art Gallery, London (5 October 2023 – 14 January 2024). I’m also excited to present my first performance in the UK at FormaHQ on Saturday 14 October, 7:30 pm.
Jordan Strafer, Hot Wheels, Athens & Heidi, Berlin, Booth H1
Tell us about the work you’re presenting at Frieze.
LOOPHOLE (2023) is a film I made that was first presented at Secession in Vienna. It is an erotic thriller inspired by the William Kennedy Smith rape trial that was widely televised in 1991. In the film, a juror and the defense attorney have an affair. This work is the most cinematic of my works so far, and I am interested in the grey area between film and art, as they are distinctly different contexts. I am pleased that this work can function in both capacities. LOOPHOLE is also maybe one of my least funny works. It is devastating.
What attracts you to your chosen subject matter?
I knew from when I was first invited to make a show for the Secession, that I wanted to make a work that represents America. So I couldn’t think of anything more American than a Kennedy rape trial. For this particular work, I have a personal connection with the trial because my late mother worked with the defense team. “The Pen” is the character I created after her. The complex moral position thinking through this puts me in, especially as I learned more details about the real-life case, is what drove me to make this. Plus, I love the idea of making a proper genre movie, so to attempt to conform to “a courtroom drama” or “erotic thriller” as a prompt was appealing, and also a great challenge.
What do you hope people will be drawn to in the work?
I think now in the art world there is a need for a political perspective that is not so neat or easy to discern right from wrong. I hope this work provides something different.
How can people discover more of your work?
I have a show up right now at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Trilogy, curated by Rebecca Matalon. We will be having a book launch in early November. Also, I’m presenting LOOPHOLE with a new second chapter of the film this summer at The Renaissance Society in Chicago and The Hammer Museum in LA. I’m having a show at Hot Wheels in London this spring with a new film shot on 16mm. Online you can find my recent show I had with Heidi, where I presented my first 16mm film work, MERCY NO NO.
Larry Achiampong, Copperfield, London, Booth H8
Could you briefly introduce your practice?
I work across a range of different media and physical approaches in my work. Some people know me for my film-making — I shot my first feature film last year, Wayfinder, which was showcased toured the UK, and is currently on show at Baltic in my first major UK museum solo show. I work with sound through beatmaking and sampling, but also through composition. I write, I make sculptural works, I work with paint in a plethora of ways… Making through these different forms is important for me; it allows me to expand upon my concepts relating to identity and the complexity of its make-up. I’m interested in what it means on both personal and interpersonal levels — how it touches upon class, race and culture as we know it.
Tell us about the works you’re presenting at Frieze. What are its main preoccupations?
I’m presenting a whole new body of work: a series of paintings that showcase popular video game characters from various gaming worlds. Some people coming to see the show may no longer recognise them, as I have retconned their histories. I’m quite concerned with the lack of diversity within gaming, but also the problematic issues around characters — most of which are designed by white cis middle-to-upper class men — and their very reduced nature. That extends to Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem… I’m even taking on the Master Chief from the Halo series. Within the space, you’ll be taken on a time-travel journey that brings the viewer into a taste of my own history of living in a council studio flat in East London, and the various influences that surrounded me as a young man beginning to try to understand the world.
These paintings are pretty strange in their aesthetic approach. They also explore a relationship with signage paintings, by considering my own heritage with respect to Ghanaian signage painting, but also linking across the meridian to paintings on funfair rides in the UK and the ways in which popular characters are skewed and altered, sometimes becoming other forms.
What attracts you to your chosen subject matter?
It’s without a doubt my love of gaming. I’ve always been a gamer, ever since I was 4 or 5, going back to the late 80s — the 8-bit era of the Sega Master System and the Nintendo NES. I’m still a big-time gamer, and I share that with my children — though they’re more into Roblox these days. It’s a deeply intergenerational conversation; the world of gaming has always been about the communal — the ways in which people are able to share dreams, and to control things with much more agency and urgency, shall we say, than in the unfair context of real life. That said, the work shown here is approaching the unfairness embedded within games — to highlight Lara Croft, her design was quite literally that of a white man’s fantasy of a blow-up doll that steals artefacts. A thief branded as a hero like Indiana Jones.
The approach I’m taking with these works is one that people might not expect from my practice. It’s going to be an odd thing for people to see, but that’s what my practice has always been about — it’s never been an entirely easy pill to swallow.
Are there any other booths you’re excited to see at the fair?
Quite selfishly, I’m very excited for Harlesden High Street. I think there’s a very unique crossover between what they’re doing and what I have in my booth, touching on questions of class, and how ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture is considered. They’ve been very consistent and true to how they’ve explored that over the years, and there’ll be no exception here at Frieze. They’ll be presenting this weird, talk show-y space that is centred within the traditions of Christian Pentecostal culture and Bible study groups, fed through VHS and television screens. It’s a weirdness that I grew up around; I’m all for it.