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Frieze London 2016

Looking Forward: Natasha Ginwala

Curators from influential institutions predict their Frieze London highlights

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BY Natasha Ginwala in Frieze Week Magazine | 01 SEP 16

Bracha L Ettinger, Lichtenburg Flower & Medusa, 2010-12, India ink & xerography on paper, 22x36 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Callicoon Fine Arts, New York

I am very happy to see the emphasis on an intergenerational mix of artists in Focus, and the number of Asian artists represented: both established and less well known. I am looking forward to seeing the presentation by Yin-Ju Chen (Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei, G25) – the third part of her recent ongoing project on struggles against state violence; she is steadily developing a language that can embrace the cosmic while unleashing repressed earthbound histories. The work has been at the most recent Sydney and Shanghai biennales, and it’s great that it’s coming to London, where it’s more rarely shown.

Yin-Ju Chen, Spaceship sketches of The Lemurian nos 1-3, 2011, charcoal on paper, 30x42cm. Courtesy: the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei

The joint presentation of mother-and- daughter pair Vivian Suter and Elisabeth Wild (Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City, H21) should be excellent. Both conceptually and in terms of process, their practices exist in an exquisite relationship: they were presented together at Kunsthalle Basel, and I think it’s great that this level of display can be attempted at Frieze London. Another intergenerational dynamic I’m intrigued by is the pairing of Bracha L Ettinger and Lee Relvas (Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, H34): to prioritize feminist practices like these and to reference Ettinger’s own published writings is a really ambitious gesture for the gallery – and that should make for a quite beautiful presentation.

Lee Relvas, Looking, 2016, wood filler, expo, polyurethane, 160x71x38cm. Courtesy: the artist and Callicoon Fine Arts, New York

Natasha Ginwala is associate curator at Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany, artistic director of Gwangju Biennale 2020 (with Defne Ayas) and curator of Colomboscope 2019 ‘SEA CHANGE’. 

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