15 October 2021 After a year’s forced hiatus, Frieze London has returned to Regent’s Park, offering up displays from some of the world’s best galleries in celebration of contemporary art’s most brilliant beacons. Ahead of what’s set to be a bustling weekend for the fair as event-starved art lovers descend on its booths, we’ve put together a handy list of some of its highlights to help you navigate the vast floor plan, spanning esteemed favourites and fresh talent alike.
Noémie Goudal at Edel Assanti
Noémie Goudal, Below the Deep South, installation view, Edel Assanti, Frieze London, London, UK, 2021
The climate crisis is a recurring theme throughout this year’s Frieze, with many works and stands shining a light on the ill effects of our actions upon our planet, with a tangible urgency. Perhaps the most memorable of these is Below the Deep South, a film by French artist Noémie Goudal, showing on a vast screen at Edel Assanti. What at first glance looks to be a verdant tropical jungle soon reveals itself as an installation that is being engulfed by spreading flames – a window onto our doomed future if action isn’t taken, fast.
Deborah Roberts at Stephen Friedman
Ahead of her first institutional solo show in Europe, opening at The Bluecoat in Liverpool next week, Stephen Friedman gallery gives us a sneak peek at a new series of paintings by the brilliant African-American artist Deborah Roberts. As with Roberts’ previous work, the large-scale pieces depict Black children, beautifully composed, in collage form, from found imagery and hand-painted details. Each one features an array of skin tones, hairstyles, facial features and clothing in a powerful exploration of what the gallery terms “the challenges encountered by Black children as they respond to social constructs perpetuated by the white gaze and western visual culture”.