Massimiliano Gioni

07/09/11

• 1

  The pilot issue (not online)

  'The cover of the pilot issue – with one of Damien Hirst’s butterfly pieces and that wonderful font and that strange Vienna Secession word, ‘frieze’ – well that did change some people’s life, mine included. I am not even sure whether I saw the magazine when it came out, or only got to the pilot issue a few years later, but that cover was like a wake-up call. Around 1991, I heard Billy Bragg’s ‘New England’ for the first time, and in a strange way in my head frieze and that song always stuck together.'

• 2

  Diamonds & Dirt by Greg Hilty

  Issue 1, September–October 1991

  The wonderful world of Richard Prince. 'The design of frieze was so different from Artforum and Flash Art, which were the magazines I got to read at the time. In frieze the art works looked like they were meant to be printed in the magazine. They didn’t feel like reproductions of works; they felt like they belonged there. In this issue, a feature on Richard Prince had a big spread with a Marlboro Cowboy and I remembered trying to understand for days and days why that ad could be an art work. I do confess that I didn’t really read the articles, but only looked at the pictures. Then again I was 17, what do you expect? When I did read the article, I mostly didn’t understand them anyway.’

• 3

  Under the Canary by David Batchelor

  Issue 4, June-July-August 1992

  Corporate art sponsorship. 'David Batchelor writes on art and corporate sponsorship (and the fate of London Docklands): the piece now seems to belong to another time, and probably to another planet, but it did raise some – I quote – “serious questions about where, how, why and for whom we make art” – questions that still resonate today.’

• 4

  Deep & Low by Stuart Morgan

  Issue 8, January–February 1993

  'Stuart Morgan reviews Madonna’s Sex and the Jeff Koons Handbook. God bless the 1990s.'

• 5

  The Pleasure Principled by Hilton Als and Laura Cottingham

  Issue 10, May 1993

  'Reviews of the 1993 Whitney Biennale and of Gilbert and George. And lost in the middle of the ads, a Chris Ofili intervention that simply recites ‘Elephant Shit’. By the way, in the summer of 1993 Matthew Slotover is one of the curators for the ‘Aperto’ section of the Venice Biennale: frieze gone global?'

• 6

  The Hall of Human Biology and Evolution by Andrea Zittel

  Issue 12, September-October 1993

  'Andrea Zittel writes about the Hall of Human Biology and Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History: the piece sounds strangely apocalyptic, but how great to read an artist taking on the history of evolution.'

• 7

  Issue 13

  Issue 13, November-December 1993

  'I am obsessed with 1993, for some reason. And issue 13 captures another moment in time, with Gavin Turk’s Sid Vicious on the cover... But my real favourite is the interview with Gerhard Richter, “Reflections on Painting”, so clear and precise.'

• 8

  Issue 16

  Issue 16, May 1994

  'The Andy Warhol issue...'

• 9

  An Ideal Syllabus by Edited by Jerry Saltz

  'That a magazine would give a book for free feels so last century, as I now sit here writing for a website…'

• 10

  The Story of I by Stuart Morgan

  Issue 34, May 1997

  An interview with Tracey Emin. 'Speaking of magazines and the Internet: in 1997, out of the blue, I emailed Matthew Slotover to ask for his permission to translate Stuart Morgan’s interview with Tracey Emin for an Italian magazine I used to run at the time (called trax.it, it was a webzine that would close down a year or so later). Matthew was very kind: he replied right away, and asked for a small fee. We told him we couldn’t pay. He didn’t write back. We published the piece anyway. They didn’t sue us: ever since I’ve liked frieze a lot.'

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