Frieze Art Fair

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Frieze is an annual international contemporary art fair held in October in London's Regent's Park. The fair is staged by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, the publishers of frieze magazine.

1 Background
2 Facts
3 Outset Contemporary Art Fund
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Background

Although staged for the purpose of selling work, the fair has become a cultural entertainment and out of its 47,000 visitors it has been suggested that 80% attend purely to spectate.^[1] The fair also commissions artist projects and holds a programme of talks.

In 2003 Liam Gillick received a joint commission from the Fair and London Underground Platform for Art programme to create a set of posters to be put in unused spaces at Great Portland Street tube station.^[2]

A three-year sponsorship has been arranged with Deutsche Bank.

Frieze magazine is published 8 times a year and covers contemporary art and culture.

Tracey Emin launched her book Strangeland to coincide with the 2005 fair.

[edit] Facts

[edit] 1st Frieze art fair 2003

Space hire was £180 per meter.
The fair made £990,000 from 5,500 square meters (2,250 rentable).
Sales were £20 million.
There were 124 galleries.
There were 27,700 visitors.^[3]

[edit] 2nd Frieze art fair 2004

Space hire was £190 per meter.
The fair made £1.5 million from 8,000 square meters (4,000 rentable).
Sales were £26 million.
There were 150 galleries.
There were 42,000 visitors.
Public admission price was £12.
There were over 1,000 gallery applications for places.
Booths were 24–120 square meters.
The fair was sponsored by Deutsche Bank AG.
US galleries included Gagosian, Zach Feuer Gallery Matthew Marks and Barbara Gladstone.
British galleries included White Cube, Lisson Gallery and Victoria Miro Gallery.
European galleries included Hauser and Wirth.
Galleries came from Beijing, Melbourne, Moscow and Auckland.^[3]

[edit] 3rd Frieze art fair 2005

There were 160 galleries.
There were 400 gallery applications.
38 exhibitors were American and 35 British.^[4]
Celebrities at the opening included Claudia Schiffer, David Bowie and Alexander McQueen.^[5]

[edit] 4th Frieze art fair 2006

The fair is 12–15 October, 2006.
There is a preview for invited guests on October 11, 2006.

[edit] Outset Contemporary Art Fund

In 2003, in collaboration with the Tate and Frieze, the Outset Contemporary Art Fund was founded by Tate patrons Yana Peel and Candida Gertler to raise money for purchases from the fair for the Tate. The fund is administered by them with London collectors.

In 2003, the Fund raised £100,000 for the Tate to purchase work. Four artists were selected: Fikret Atay, Olafur Eliasson, Anri Sala and Yutaka Sone.

In 2004, the amount was £150,000 and the artists were: Pawel Althamer, Martin Boyce, Jeremy Deller, Alan Kane, Jesper Just, Mark Leckey, Scott Myles, Frank Nitsche, Henrik Olesen, Roman Ondák, The Atlas Group, Walid Raad and Pae White.

In 2005, £125,000 was raised with each donor giving £5,000 ("the donors all have a particular interest in supporting the Tate's acquisition of international contemporary art."^[6]) Work was bought from ten artists. These included Daria Martin, Jan Mot and Alexandre de Cunha. The selecting panel was Jan Debbaut, Director, Tate Collection, Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Suzanne Pagé, Director, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris. One piece, which cost £20,000 was Time, a conceptual work by David Lamelas, which consisted of an idea—that people should stand in line and state the time to the adjoining person in the queue. Another purchase for £15,000 was a grey filing-drawer containing 1,000 blank index cards by Stanley Brown.^[5]