Galleries in London are bringing their A-game—and many U.K. debuts for artists—during this year’s Frieze week, which may be the closest return to a sense of pre-pandemic “normalcy” the city has seen yet.
With travel restrictions relaxed in most part of the world, the U.K. capital is expecting an influx of international collectors, curators and artists. Add to that the frisson of competition brought by Paris+, the inaugural edition of the Swiss organizer Art Basel’s new art fair in France, and you have a recipe for some dynamic programming.
Here are the ten shows you should not miss between the art fair-hopping this week, from a tribute to the recently deceased painter Sam Gilliam, to some of the earliest computer-generated art.
“Carolee Schneemann: 1955–1959”
Just a stone’s throw from radical American artist Carolee Schneemann’s first major U.K. museum survey at the Barbican, Hales Gallery takes us back to her roots by focusing on the four-year period between 1955 and 1959, when Schneemann was just a teenager. Among the works on display is a series of studies of a naked couple embracing from 1957, which was painted only shortly after Schneemann had graduated from her BFA at Bard College; the works bring to light how much Schneemann had been influenced by Abstract Expressionism at the time.
Tea Building, 7 Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA
– Jo Lawson-Tancred