The 20 Best Booths at Frieze London and Frieze Masters
By Molly Gottschalk
London’s Frieze has swung open its doors to commence the fall season. Now in its 15th year, Frieze London gathers no fewer than 160 galleries from 31 countries beneath its massive white tent in Regent’s Park. Programming ranges from the curated section “Sex Work: Feminist Art & Radical Politics,” presenting pioneering feminist artists of the 1970s and ’80s, to Focus, the future-generation gallery sector focusing on emerging artists, co-curated by SculptureCenter’s Ruba Katrib.
Meanwhile, a short stroll through the park’s majestic greens brings you to the sixth edition of Frieze Masters, where more than 130 galleries present work made before the year 2000—whether that’s Lynda Benglis’s 1974 Artforum centerfold or Dan Flavin’s first-ever fluorescent. Between both fairs, you’ll encounter over 1,000 artists spanning 6,000 years of art history. That’s a daunting array, so we’ve combed the aisles for you to bring you the 20 presentations you absolutely cannot miss.
Venus Over Manhattan
Frieze Masters, Spotlight Section, Booth H9
With works by John Dogg
As the story goes, in the mid-1980s, beloved New York dealer Colin de Land wanted to show work by Richard Prince—but the artist would only accept the offer if he could show under a pseudonym. And thus, “John Dogg” was born. Beneath this alias, Prince mounted solo exhibitions in 1986 and 1987 and produced a total of 23 works, six or seven of which have gone entirely missing after artist Ford Beckman’s art collection was seized by the IRS in 2002, said the gallery’s Zach Fischman. Save for a couple group shows, the remaining works haven’t been shown together in a presentation of this size since the 1980s. At Frieze Masters, they offer a fascinating peek into early Prince: sculptures made from tire cases, tires, and vinyl tire covers. The Dogg pieces were created around the same time that Prince was exhibiting car hoods under his own name, suggesting a generative period where the artist wasn’t afraid to freely experiment.