Bengi Ünsal’s Top Picks from Frieze London Viewing Room 2023
The Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts London revels in the intimacy Tanoa Sasraku’s pigment-based work, responds to Mark Barker’s reflections on the moon and finds a sense of home in Evgeny Antufiev’s mosaics
The Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts London revels in the intimacy Tanoa Sasraku’s pigment-based work, responds to Mark Barker’s reflections on the moon and finds a sense of home in Evgeny Antufiev’s mosaics
TANOA SASRAKU
Newsprint, foraged Cornish and Ghanaian earth pigments, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater, 107 cm × 58 cm × 5 cm
Tanoa works intimately with landscape – pigments from the earth of Plymouth, where she grew up, and Ghana, her father’s home, as well as the sea – to make these amazing artworks. Her father’s body is patterned into her work, making these objects metonyms of family and memory – I find it very emotional that she is immortalizing her father in this way. A true labour of love made with deep, literal geological history.
GRAY WIELEBINSKI
Steel, dimensions vary with installation
It’s great to see Gray’s work in the context of Frieze, where his recurring themes of private versus public, and intimacy and vulnerability take on new meaning. This screen relates to the work included in his solo exhibition at the ICA, ‘The Red Sun Is High, the Blue Low’. Come and see it in the context of his immersive exhibition. I like how this work is both domestic and brutal, restrictive and transparent: Gray understands the power of ambivalence in art so well.
EVGENY ANTUFIEV & LYUBOV NALOGINA
Malachite, travertine, onyx, serpentine, cement, 130 × 56 × 5 cm
I love how each mosaic piece in this work holds its own story of crossing borders, making it a beautifully intricate map of transition and movement. Antufiev’s works evoke archaic folklore and cultural tradition yet speak to that innately human feeling of familiarity paired with a sense of “home”, even if that isn’t defined by a physical space. Mosaics very much remind me of my own home, Turkey, and the centuries of culture they represent.
CASSI NAMODA
Oil on linen, 1.7 × 1.2 m
I love people-watching. I find it very moving observing (sometimes discreet) public displays of affection. There is something delicately fulfilling and intriguing about the way that you feel alive when you see life and love in front of you. This painting by Cassi Namoda, reminds me of me in the primary colours at the front, looking upon the loving figures in the background.
MARK BARKER
Graphite, cigarette ash, laser print on paper, 30 × 21 cm
I love the moon. Ever-changing, one minute different to the previous one. Sometimes clear as the day, sometimes behind the clouds, or on the other side of the world waiting to come out as hours pass by. Never as clear to the photographic eye as it is to ours. Mark’s versions tend to be both mechanical and ethereal. Architectural and transcendent, the sharp structures of drawing are blurred and made subliminal through the smudge of the graphite, adding the impression of movement to an otherwise still frame.
About Bengi Ünsal
Bengi Ünsal is Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. Before the ICA, Bengi was the Head of Contemporary Music at the Southbank Centre, responsible for a year-round programme of more than 200 contemporary music performances across its venues. She oversaw the award-winning artist-curated Meltdown festival, alongside guest curators M.I.A (2017), Robert Smith (2018), Nile Rodgers (2019) and Grace Jones; launched new initiatives including Purcell Sessions, a series dedicated to multidisciplinary artistic innovation; Concrete Lates, the Centre’s first late-night series; and futuretense, a high-profile public performance platform presenting the best untapped talent in British and international music. Ünsal also commissioned works such as Cowpuncher (2018) and Cowpuncher My Ass (2020), which brought together choreographer Holly Blakey, composer Mica Levi and designer Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood. Before joining the Southbank Centre in 2016, Bengi was the Artistic & Managing Director of Istanbul's live performance and multi-arts venue, Salon IKSV, and Managing Director of Doublemoon Records in Istanbul.
In the latest video in our new series exploring London’s cultural life, join Bengi Ünsal as she shares her favourite spots in London’s West End.
About Frieze Viewing Room
Frieze Viewing Room is a free digital platform connecting global audiences with Frieze’s galleries and artists.
Open to all from 4–18 October, Frieze Viewing Room is the catalogue for Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2023 and offers visitors a preview of the wealth of gallery presentations coming to the fair, as well as the chance for audiences around the world to experience and acquire the artwork on show.
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Main Image: Gray Wielebinski, Privacy Screen, 2022, steel, 205 × 60 × 10 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Hales
