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The London Art Fair: This Is Not Frieze

by Zoe Strimpel
Wed, 16 Jan 2008 at 4:50 PM

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The London Art Fair kicked off today at the Business Design Centre in Islington, with 100 galleries of Modern and contemporary art showing their wares. But wait! Where's the champagne? Where's the manic buzz in Franglais, Britalian, and cut-glass German? Where are Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow?

Not in Islington. Folks — this isn't Frieze. This is an honest-to-goodness trade fair drawing largely on provincial sellers, and is more suited to ordinary mortals than the very chicest money-spinners of the international contemporary art world. "It's more about keeping it real than Frieze," a PR rep for the show tells me.

For a start, the core of the show is British (though there are three galleries from Paris), so the international cachet isn't there. Good thing, too — can the world's art-eratti really be expected to flock somewhere as unsexy-sounding as the Business Design Centre? Hardly: It's marquees in Regent's Park or nothing, thank you.

Then there's the fact that the art starts at £100. Of course, those with more money to burn can find pieces for £500,000. And there are some very good works here. Highlights include an impressive sculpture by the British artist Emily Young, which sits outside the fair on trendy Upper Street. Called "Howl," it is a stone head made from 600-million-year-old Chalcedony stone, a "response to climate change." Elsewhere are inkjet prints from Boo Ritson, pop-art portraits by Julian Opie, and a whole Gilbert and George gallery, put on by Bloomsbury Auctions. The collection contains early, outrageously political work (between 1974 and 1981), with pieces costing from £18,000 to £25,000.

The fair runs until Sunday.

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