A quick trip to London

I have not been in London in a few years.  We decided to make a quick trip to London to see the Frieze.  We got in and met up with Jessica, who was installing work, before she flew back to NYC.  We went over to the Pillar Gallery to see Ian Cheng’s work with her right before she hopped into a cab.  I am a huge fan of the piece he has at the gallery.  It is a live simulation built on a gaming platform set in the future.  The graphics and story evolves over time which makes the work really unique and fascinating.  This photo above does nothing for the beauty and depth of work.

Then we stopped in Dover Street Market (one of my favorite stores in London) before heading out to dinner.  We had dinner at Nopi.  The owners behind Ottolenghi is the team behind Nopi.  We went to the first Ottolenghi when it opened and have been buying their cookbooks ever since.  I have always loved the partnership between two men, an Israeli and Palestinian.  The food is unique and leans towards vegetables.  The photo above is of the bathroom downstairs.  The entire room is mirrored and each bathroom is behind it.  It is very cool.

The food on the other hand was insanely disappointing.  This a chickpea dish and honestly they all looked like this. Very mediocre.  Alas.

We got up the next day to take on the Frieze.  Our first stop was at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery to see the Rachel Rose installation.   It is her first solo show in London.  She is the winner of the 2015 Frieze Award.

There are two videos in separate rooms.  One is a video of an apocalyptic hail storm in Siberia intertwined with Philip Johnson in his Glass House.  The work would seem not related but there is a thread between all of it with a connection to history, mortality, technology and catastrophes.  Super impressive young artist who is taking the art world by storm.

We then made our way over to the Freize.  Really liked the artists at the Breeder Gallery out of Athens.  This is one piece by Petrasevic.

This long small house is another installation by Rachel Rose.  Fred is inside.  Everyday is changes with a different animal theme.  This was mouse day.

Donald Moffett at Marianne Boesky gallery.

Olafur Eliasson at Tanya Sonkadar gallery.

Jeppe Hein at Konig gallery.

Not sure the artist but it was from the Corvi-Mora gallery in London.  The wood cutting is pretty amazing.

Damien Hurst at White Cube

Kelley Walker at Galerie Gisela Capitain.

Tomas Saraceno at Johnen Gallerie.  His work was in a few galleries.

Upside down playing on the ceiling by Anra Sala at Marian Goodman gallery.

My favorite piece was this.  The cocktail party by Tom Friedman.

Robert Longo, this was another fave.  New works, all done by charcoals at Galerie Thaddeus Ropac.

Antony Gromley at the same gallery.

Wondering Where to Go by Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing at ShangArt.  Second carpet piece I saw in the show.

The show is definitely emerged contemporary artists.  Many of the pieces are either from well known artists and certainly respectable galleries.  I have to say that I preferred the NYC show this past spring vs this one.

It was time for lunch and we hit up a new pub, the Grazing Goat.  Excellent fish and chips.  We also went to the new Simone Rocha store, her first and Victoria Beckmans store.  Both really well done.

We ended up walking into the available work at the Phillips auction.  Saw a lot of great work in one fell swoop.  Not sure what the work went for but all excellent pieces.  This piece we saw in the Boros Bunker in Berlin.  Danh Vo.

Urs Fischer.

Inside the square across the way was PAD.  Mostly furniture galleries.  This was a really cool piece, shelf room divider by Noe Duchaufour Lawrance at Galerie BSL.

Another piece I liked was this metal divider.

This one gallery had some video art.  This was of birds.  It is called Ruffled by Dominic Harris.

Dinner was at Amaya.  One of the best Indian restaurants.  We have been back now four times over the past decade.  This is shrimp tandoori.

Back to the hotel and return to Paris in the morning.