For a few weeks in October, London becomes one big, walkable gallery and it is quite incredible to witness. With PAD London and Frieze welcoming an international audience and bringing together some of the most exciting names in contemporary art and design, the city takes on a different energy.
Galleries across the West End come alive as Berkley Square and Regents Park is inundated with collectors, critics and fans alike, but venture to any corner of the capital in autumn and you will find independent galleries and artist-led spaces adding to the conversation and offering a fresh perspective in the cultural landscape. It really is this mixture of everything that makes London so very special and within the art world this commentary is ever welcome – the variety of perspectives and ideas gives us in the industry an opportunity to move between the established and the unexpected, discovering our own inspirations beyond our imagined boundaries.
Here are the top things to see at PAD, Frieze and across art and design events in the city this season.
PAD London sets up in Berkeley Square from 13 to 18 October, with the collectors’ preview on Tuesday 13th and the public opening from Thursday 15th. It is the one fair that is entirely about twentieth-century and contemporary design, and it is small enough to take slowly. Here are the stands I’ll be seeking out.
Simon Stewart founded the gallery in 2009, and its appreciation for sculptural, materials-led work is what first drew us to it. We were delighted to feature Charles Burnand in our magazine released earlier this year ‘Beyond Interiors’. This year the gallery is moving to a new Mayfair location and opening a large gallery in the Cotswolds soon.
I love seeing a woman who is a designer, dealer and gallerist make a stand feel like a room you want to move into. Rose has won PAD’s Best Stand award twice, in 2015 for her use of blue and in 2017 for a fresh yellow. I always make time to visit, and I hope you will too.
The Roman-born architect and designer has his atelier on Grafton Street in Mayfair. He brings an architect’s discipline to everything, and much of his work is in bronze, with new experiments in Murano glass. We have specified one of his lights in a study in a recent London project, overlookin the River Thames. I’m sorry I can’t show you the room, but I can say it looks fantastic.
Aurélien trained as an architect in Bordeaux and fell in love with the design of the 1960s and 70s and who can blame him. He began at the Marché Serpette flea market in Paris in 2012 and now shows his own contemporary furniture from a gallery on Rue des Saints-Pères. It is all beautifully made and each piece has an incredibly calm presence about it.
His gallery is located in Fitzroy Square in a beautiful Grade I Georgian townhouse. Works shown include a focus on ceramics, glass, painting, photography and textile mediums, while each year he puts together a group exhibition that tells a story through one common shared thread.
A little wander around Mayfair offers the perfect opportunity to pop into NIJ? for exquisite Japanese dining – the Black Cod is to die for and the Chef’s Selection of either Sashimi or Nigiri is presented on the most beautiful plates. Elsewhere in the neighbourhood, discover beautifully crafted handbags at Misela along with a selection of elegant boutiques dotted along Mount Street. Audley Public House is always a good idea for lunch, with their upstairs dining room holding its own, with a gallery-worthy amount of art gracing the walls.
Frieze London, 14 to 18 October in Regent’s Park, has 172 galleries this year. The big names will take care of themselves, so I would rather point you to four artists from Artist-to-Artist, the section where established artists each nominate someone they believe in.
(Embajada), nominated by Gala Porras-Kim. He makes collaborative weavings and smoke-dyed drawings rooted in Puerto Rico’s landscape and materials. His artistic practice serves as a platform for the recovery of Boricua (Puerto Rican) material culture, in an attempt to create new narratives between the indigenous and the modern.
(Martins&Montero), nominated by Otobong Nkanga. She combines painting, new ceramic sculptures and a large accumulation of raw earth. The sonic and visual matter of words plays an important role in her practice, as well as the resilience, capacity for memory and ephemerality of materials. Her powerful work often relates to anti-colonial critique and gender disobedience.
(Bolanle Contemporary), nominated by Firelei Báez. Her work includes paintings, works on handmade paper and clay sculptures based on a Yoruba story of creation. She is an artist, writer and community organiser from the South Bronx, now based in London. From an intersectional, femme and Afro-Diasporic perspective, she challenges perceptions of trauma and reality through saturated hues that evoke joy.
Neighbouring Marylebone offers the perfect opportunity make a day out of attending the show and taking a stroll through the park before stopping at Orrery to appreciate the rooftop terrace while the days are still crisp. Afterwards, explore The Conran Shop for beautifully considered home accessories, and finally no trip to Marylebone is complete without a pop into Daunt Books on the High Street.
ELSEWHERE
The LAPADA Berkeley Square Fair follows from 27 October to 1 November, with more than 80 specialist dealers in fine art, furniture, silver and ceramics. Today and through Sunday 11th, The Other Art Fair at the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane brings together more than 135 independent artists. In Notting Hill, Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s Ladbroke Hall is showing new work by Vincent Dubourg and František Vízner. Battersea’s Decorative Fair has just finished its autumn edition, and its next one is in January. The Affordable Art Fair is at Battersea from 14 to 18 October, and Focus Art Fair and 1:54 both run from 15 to 18 October.
We hope you find something that inspires you and takes your breath away this season!
