{"id":507821,"date":"2025-10-17T21:49:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/507821\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T21:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:49:20","slug":"frieze-london-diary-art-historical-speed-dating-and-frozen-faeces-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/507821\/","title":{"rendered":"Frieze London diary: art historical speed dating and frozen faeces – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art historical speed dating at the National Gallery<\/p>\n

The talks series Unexpected Views\u2014when eight contemporary artists are invited to speak for ten minutes in front of their favourite works at the National Gallery\u2014is always a Frieze week high point. \u201cIt\u2019s like art historical speed dating,\u201d quipped a befrocked Grayson Perry, who chose to talk about William Hogarth\u2019s Marriage A-la-Mode painting cycle, which he praised for its \u201cstorytelling, observation and sense of humour\u201d. He added that \u201chumour is greatly under-rated\u201d and that \u201cwe over-privilege misery\u201d. Perry also stated his admiration for Hogarth\u2019s graphic skills, confessing, \u201cI\u2019m staging a one-man campaign against Expressionist brushstrokes.\u201d Other participants included Shirazeh Houshiary, who said Francisco de Zurbar\u00e1n\u2019s St Francis in Meditation was \u201can image of interconnectedness\u201c, and Haegue Yang, who enjoyed the deathly connection between the hidden crucifix and the anamorphic skull in Hans Holbein the Younger\u2019s The Ambassadors. The National Gallery\u2019s current artist-in-residence, Ming Wong, added that Gerrit van Honthorst\u2019s Saint Sebastian was not only a queer icon image but also \u201csuch a drama queen!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tracey Emin and the British Museum director NIcholas Cullinan<\/p>\n

Emin confesses and Cullinan coos<\/p>\n

Tracey Emin was on fine form on Friday during a Dunhill x Frieze Masters talk with the British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan, intriguingly titled \u201cConfessions in the Museum\u201d. Emin was her typically frank self, describing how \u201crecently big museums have started buying my work which is important. I think it\u2019s because when I had cancer\u2026 they thought, \u2018Fucking hell, we haven\u2019t got any of her work.\u2019\u201d Cullinan meanwhile gave his reflections on recently having a child. \u201cMy husband Mattias and I have a ten-month old daughter\u2026 what will be wonderful especially at the British Museum is seeing that through a child\u2019s eyes. I\u2019m sure she\u2019ll come into work at times and see what I do.\u201d An Emin project is in the pipeline at the British Museum. \u201cWe are going to do a show [there],\u201d Emin exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The art collective\u2019s provocative piece at Phillips<\/p>\n

Courtesy Konn Artiss<\/p>\n

Frozen faeces for Frieze week<\/p>\n

The elusive art collective Konn Artiss caused a stir during Frieze week by placing 40-stone blocks of ice outside London\u2019s major galleries and auction houses. Passersby were surprised to see a framed picture of faeces taped to the window of Phillips auction house this week beside an ice block encasing another \u201cimmeasurable piece of poo\u201d, said a project spokesperson. \u201cI froze a block of shit because that\u2019s what the market feels like right now. The frame on the wall is the context; the ice on the pavement is the reality. Make of it what you want,\u201d Konn Artiss says. \u201cAs the ice melts, what remains is residue, puddles, curiosity, and a city that can\u2019t look away\u201d. Konn Artiss also placed ice blocks outside Frieze London that contained effigies of famous artists such as Damien Hirst.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Max Cisotti\/Dave Benett\/Getty Images for Frieze<\/p>\n

Salmon, Sampha and speculation<\/p>\n

Art world glitterati descended on the Frieze London tent on Thursday evening for the lavish Collectors\u2019 Dinner attended by gallerists, patrons and (some) journalists. Guests including the Frieze owner Ari Emanuel, the dealer Sadie Coles and the collector Christian Levett, joined a throng of luminaries who dined on dishes such as salmon rillettes and coq au riesling. Art world tongues wagged about hot topics of the day\u2014who will win UK Celebrity Traitors?\u2014while quaffing a scrumptious Fortnum\u2019s wine. Goodie bags included Loewe perfume and a BMW test drive experience. As the evening wore on, attendees waited for \u201ca secret live music performance\u201d (\u201cis it Madonna?\u201d said one rather optimistic partygoer). The act turned out to be the Mercury Prize winner Sampha, who wowed the crowd.<\/p>\n

Leonardo, Leonardo and Michelangelo<\/p>\n

Leonardo DiCaprio is not just a top-notch movie star\u2014he\u2019s also an art history buff ready to opine on his Renaissance namesake, Leonardo da Vinci. In a post on Instagram, the star of The Revenant is seen huddled around an image on a smartphone, alongside the legendary Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and the dealer Lorenzo Fiaschi of Galleria Continua, who posted the pic. The trio can be seen pondering on a painting by Piero della Francesca alongside\u2014but what exactly were they discussing?<\/p>\n

According to a spokesperson for Galleria Continua, \u201cMichelangelo and Leonardo talked about the Renaissance. Michelangelo explained the perspective in The Flagellation of Christ(1459-60) by Piero della Francesca, describing how this work was important to him and saying that this masterpiece is not only a work of art, but also a scientific inquiry. <\/p>\n

\u201cLeonardo DiCaprio then highlighted the importance of the depth of the landscape in Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Mona Lisa\u2014the way it was painted, softly blended and with light colours.\u201d This then apparently generated an interesting exchange about how architecture and landscape, along with artifice and nature, produced similar results through different artistic procedures. Go Leo(s).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Galleria Continua, via Instagram<\/p>\n

Kate Bush makes a deal with artists<\/p>\n

Art lovers splashing their cash around town might want to dig deep for a special cause. Kate Bush has invited 52 artists to respond to her lyric \u201cIf I only could, I\u2019d make a deal with God\u201d\u2014from her song Running Up That Hill\u2014in aid of War Child, which raises money for children caught up in global conflicts. Big names obliged, such as Peter Doig, who donated works titled The Hill and Child of War. Other contributors include Susie Hamilton, Corbin Shaw and Maggi Hambling. The works feature in an online auction (28 October-13 November) and will also be displayed at London\u2019s Iconic Images Gallery (4-8 November).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art historical speed dating at the National Gallery The talks series Unexpected Views\u2014when eight contemporary artists are invited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,7792,393,163891,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-507821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-diary","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-frieze-london-2025","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115391718753122904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507821","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=507821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}