{"id":500552,"date":"2025-10-15T04:23:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500552\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T04:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:23:27","slug":"frieze-london-diary-a-boozy-gallery-bar-head-turning-headlines-and-talking-mice-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500552\/","title":{"rendered":"Frieze London diary: a boozy gallery bar, head-turning headlines and talking mice – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Make way for Mezcal<\/p>\n

Visitors to Thaddaeus Ropac gallery during Frieze week can expect a caffeined, boozy boost thanks to the artist Tom Sachs, who has set up a working coffee and mezcal bar during his show A Good Shelf (until 20 December). \u201cIt is high-quality coffee. I have one a day but maybe today I need two. It is a whole ritual,\u201d Sachs says. \u201cThe mezcal is 43% so it\u2019s not that powerful. What\u2019s dangerous is that it goes down easy, so watch out!\u201d Sachs is showing a selection of 30 ceramics inspired by chawan (Japanese tea bowls), which are artfully displayed on shelves built from found materials. \u201cEvery morning before I let the electronic world come in, I touch clay between the subconscious state of dreams and the liminal state of waking up,\u201d says Sachs, who usually wakes at 5am. \u201cI try to exist for a few moments before language.\u201d The rest of us mere mortals just settle for a cup of coffee at that time.<\/p>\n

Art hits the headlines at satellite fair\"\"<\/p>\n

The performance artist Artist Taxi Driver plastered one-liners over the UK newspaper Daily Mail<\/p>\n

One of the art world\u2019s most entertaining and likeable provocateurs, Artist Taxi Driver, is showing racy works at Minor Attractions, an art-selling event held in the Mandrake hotel in Fitzrovia. The taxi man is none other than Mark McGowan, a minicab driver whose performance art pieces are part of art world legend\u2014who else would push a monkey nut along a road for seven miles in protest at student loans? McGowan\u2019s subverted Daily Mail works are turning heads, with headlines plastered in white across the pages. \u201cI\u2019m not sure why I\u2019m here, I might pack up soon,\u201d McGowan said when asked about taking part in Minor Attractions. The dour art star is nonetheless a magnet, drawing in visitors savouring the headlines.<\/p>\n

Ryan Gander lets the mice do the talking\"\"<\/p>\n

Animatronic mice poke their heads out of walls and wax poetic, acting as alter egos for Ryan Gander<\/p>\n

Ryan Gander is apparently not happy with the current state of art. I\u2019ve Fallen Foul of My Desire is the disconsolate title of his new solo show at Camden Arts Projects, where he has also unveiled the fourth in his series of disconcertingly lifelike animatronic mice that he describes as \u201clittle moralistic fable making critters\u201d. The mice poke their heads out of holes in gallery walls, spouting forth philosophical musings in the voice of the artist\u2019s daughter. According to Gander, these chatty rodents\u2014three of which currently reside in Fran\u00e7ois Pinault\u2019s galleries in Paris and Venice\u2014act as alter egos, \u201csaying the things I really think\u2014a bit like therapy\u201d. Past discourses include a treatise on growth and an adaptation of Charlie Chaplin\u2019s speech from The Great Dictator (1940). So, what does this latest oracle reveal? \u201cThis one is about how shit art has become, how we\u2019ve lost our way and champion politics and identity over creativity,\u201d Gander says. \u201cArt is not about art any more, it\u2019s just about the people that make it.\u201d Seems like he has arrived at his elder art world statesman phase. Let\u2019s hope he feels better having had a bit of a vent.<\/p>\n

Supernatural substances for sale\"\"<\/p>\n

Extraction (2025) by the painter Mathew Weir Courtesy of Mathew Weir<\/p>\n

Those with an interest in the afterlife should head to the Gallery of Everything in London, which is showing works depicting ectoplasm, the sticky substance supposedly exuded during contact with the spirit world (Ectoplasmix, until 30 November). Plasma oozes from all sorts of orifices in featured works by artists such as the Czech palaeontologist Franti\u0161ek Jaroslav Pecka and the UK painter Mathew Weir (look out also for striking photographs by Susan Hiller). Crowds flocked to the gallery earlier this week to ponder on the supernatural substance in all its arty forms, savouring a performance by a pair of Montenegro poets. The gallery founder James Brett was keen to point out some real ectoplasm hanging in the gallery window. \u201cThat\u2019s from my mum who tried to contact my lovely father who passed away some years ago at the age of 88,\u201d he said. He was joking (we hope).<\/p>\n

The Secret Gallerist: anonymous reports from behind the scenes at the fair<\/p>\n

Another year, another art fair cycle. The travelling circus has once again landed in Regent\u2019s Park\u2014and this time, it\u2019s personal.<\/p>\n

London has had a rocky few years, having taken an unscheduled pit stop in limbo post-Brexit and Covid. Fast forward to 2025, the public messaging seems to be: \u201cLondon is back, baby!\u201d My source? Every art world news outlet publishing ludicrously similar articles about London\u2019s booming commercial scene, with emerging spaces opening at a rate of knots, and established gallerists betting big on this fine city via upgrades to their property portfolios.<\/p>\n

Whether this renewed focus on London translates into a dynamic and upbeat fair remains to be seen, but the mood on the ground during the installation days was\u2026drumroll please\u2026lukewarm at best. Already, I have spied in the first hang a few repeat appearances from artworks debuted (and presumably unsold) earlier this year at Art Basel (Basel). No doubt the real gems are being saved for next week\u2019s Art Basel Paris\u2014I am certainly guilty of this. At least I have the self-respect to wait until the weekend here to wheel out inventory gathering dust in the cupboard\u2026<\/p>\n

However, to all my fellow gallerists\u2014hang in there! With the resignation of another French prime minister after just 26 days in the job, who knows, perhaps Le France will falter and the Parisian chokehold on Frieze will loosen. Although having said that, don\u2019t you just love the Grand Palais?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Make way for Mezcal Visitors to Thaddaeus Ropac gallery during Frieze week can expect a caffeined, boozy boost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[9929,748,7792,393,163891,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-500552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-art-market","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-diary","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-frieze-london-2025","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115376279987384810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}