London Art Fair 2023: A More Accessible Art World?
We present our highlights of this year's London Art Fair, and consider the various changes in the art world it may represent...
January 19, 2023
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
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Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
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Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
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Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
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Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The London Art Fair is altogether warmer than Frieze. It’s a similar parade – now cooing over origami cranes, carefully pinned behind glass – but this time, sensible waterproof jackets are seen too. I even spy a laddered pair of tights.
One hundred art galleries sprawl across Islington’s Business Design Centre, but still, it’s easy enough to find your way around. Indeed, only halfway through did I find a floor plan – post-war and contemporary art on the ground floor, prints and modern on the first, and NFTs filed away in the basement.
From Cumbria to Wolverhampton, there’s a greater emphasis on regional representation; You can still stop in Sweden, at Mollbrink’s, or the Visit Malta, on the second floor, yet the more focussed curation is this Fair’s highlight.
Works marked Encounters, in purple, promise meetings with the unknown, or challenges between opposites. Photo50 (in blue) exposes the work of women and non-binary photographers in the UK of Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
At Ben Uri Gallery, Art, Identity, Migration highlights the works of Jewish and/or migrant artists in Britain, in three principal waves. Captions detail the years and locations of artists’ movements, and tell of the heroism of Eva Frankfurther, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and the ‘girl genius’ Clara Klinghoffer. Jacob Epstein’s sculptures of the ‘Whitechapel Boys’, and rare watercolours by George Grosz, painted in exile in New York, provide familiar points of access.
Hockneys can be found at Gerrish Fine Arts, Emins and Regos at RAW Editions. (Hugh Mendes’ small obituary to the late artist, placed in a doorway, might too easily be missed.) A sculpture of Salvador Dali’s Elephant and Obelisk, cast after his paintings, stands testament to these collections’ prestiges, and price tags.
But this is not a fair for big names; instead, we get something more interesting, in revisions of the art historical canon. Simon Casson’s oils swipe out at classical subjects and still lifes, whilst at Purdy Hicks, Tessa Traeger reinvents historical portraits with natural ruffs. Kate Milsom’s ‘Antique Surrealism’ draws as much from strewn museum leaflets in Venice as the artist’s own background in restoration and book binding.
GBS Fine Art displays Joseph Gandy’s 1838 painting of the history of architecture reworked with layers of photographs. Emily Allchurch here emphasizes the Egyptian origins of European art, grounded atop Japanese gardens, and shadowed by modern skyscrapers, surveillance cameras, and crumbling Blue Plaques. More widely, painting is prioritised above photography and sculpture – save for Harriet Mena Hill’s ‘The Aylesbury Fragments’ (2022), salvaged from the demolition of the estate in South East London.
Above all, the London Art Fair celebrates the breadth of modern and contemporary women artists. Kate McCrickard - Zambian-born, Edinburgh-educated, and Paris-based - is well-represented, showing across galleries including Julian Page and Art First. Neither wholly abstract nor figurative, her imagined, entangled scenes draw as much from Italian Mannerism as the 1980s music scene of the New Romantics. (Her solo exhibition at Art First, from March 2023, will no doubt feature more of her tongue-in-cheek titles.)
Sheila Rennick’s works play on satire and isolation, whilst the ‘super tactile’ Sophie Derrick blurs the boundaries of painting and photography, using scraped acrylic to imitate the muscular fibres of her own face. Nearby, Nikoleta Sekulovic offers something more stripped back, in acrylic and graphite, recalling Klimt and Schiele.
Reframing the Muse, this year’s Platform presentation, pays homage to the contributions of artist’s real-life models. Curated by art historian and author Ruth Millington, these works present muses not as passive, but ‘empowered and active agents’.
In this green refuge are some of the Fair’s most interesting artworks. Shtager Gallery presents a powerful collection by Katya Granova and Iryna Yermolova, who draw from their upbringings in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Founded by the Business Design Centre in 1989, the London Art Fair has sought to provide a space for visitors to ‘discover and buy’. Talks and tours promise wider access, but be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, and ambiguous art speak. I overhear the ‘audacity’ of using green and red, interpretations like ‘I see this as abstract Impressionism, but you might completely disagree’. A fellow attendee arrives at the meeting point, clutching his £7 guidebook, and remarks ‘I like being told what pieces to like’.
Of course, there’s only so much that a single fair can do to challenge the exclusivity – and the idea of exclusivity – in the art market more widely. There’s still a private Collectors’ Lounge, and an exorbitant entrance fee, but beneath the high ceilings of the Business Design Centre is something a little more open.
The London Art Fair is on show at the Business Design Centre, Islington until 22 January 2023. Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
