Rujeko Hockley's Top Picks From Frieze Los Angeles Viewing Room 2023
The Whitney Museum curator selects her favorite works, from a painterly ‘vision’ by Chioma Ebinama to Terry Adkin’s ‘intuitive and highly specific pairings’
The Whitney Museum curator selects her favorite works, from a painterly ‘vision’ by Chioma Ebinama to Terry Adkin’s ‘intuitive and highly specific pairings’
Garrett Bradley
1924 - Ball, 2019
Inkjet on soft matte paper
29 1/8 x 33 x 1 5/8 in; 74 x 83.7 x 4 cm (framed)
ed. 2 of 3 + 2 APs
$10-20k
Presented by Lisson Gallery
There are so many layers here, formally and conceptually. I love the narrative questions the picture raises; I love the visual contrast between the boys in profile and the girl facing forward, her glow literally emanating from the picture’s center; I love the hint of context in the suburban homes in the background and the girl’s rolled ankle socks. Garrett Bradley’s eye is so sharp, and always full of love.
Helen Evans Ramsaran
An Eloquent Wall
Bronze
17.99" x 17.01" x 12.01" (45.7 cm x 43.2 cm x 30.5 cm)
$75,000
Presented by Welancora
Helen Evans Ramsaran stopped me in my tracks. This sculpture is so visually striking, and I am taken with the idea of a wall having eloquence. It looks life-size, yet it could fit on a desk. I want to be inside of it, the bronze arches circling overhead, but I also want to hold it in my hand. I love it!
Che Lovelace
Tobago Bench, 2016-2022
Acrylic and dry pigment on board panels
50" x 60" (127 cm x 152.4 cm)
$40,000
Various Small Fires (VSF)
Che Lovelace’s paintings are evocative and transporting. I love that he is bringing the vibrant culture and massive creativity of the Caribbean, specifically Trinidad & Tobago, to Frieze. I could look at this painting for hours – the color, the composition, the figure, the story. Gorgeous!
Chioma Ebinama
Clouds observing the cruelty, 2022
watercolour, sumi ink, and coffee on paper
52.24" x 35.98" (132.7 cm x 91.4 cm)
$16,000
Presented by Maureen Paley
This drawing by Chioma Ebinama feels intimate, like it’s talking just to me, but it’s large; it has presence. There is a sincerity and a sweetness – something about the color palette and the perspective – but also a detachment – the clouds quietly observing the cruelty of life below, doing nothing (but what could they do?). It feels like a dream, or maybe a vision.
Terry Adkins
Marshall, 2013
Wood-handled fruit harvester, chrome, blown glass, and velvet cushion
45" x 12.01" x 12.01" (114.3 cm x 30.5 cm x 30.5 cm)
$100-250k
Presented by Paula Cooper
Terry Adkin’s practice of mining and repurposing objects is forever powerful, and this is no exception. His intuitive and highly specific pairings bowl me over. This sculpture is so beautiful, so tactile, and so mysterious. I want to know all the embedded histories, all the ideas, people, and places Adkins wanted us to remember and raise up.
About Rujeko Hockley
Rujeko Hockley is the Arnhold Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She co-curated the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Additional projects at the Whitney include 2 Lizards (2022), Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing (2021), Julie Mehretu (2021), Toyin Ojih Odutola: To Wander Determined (2017) and An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940-2017 (2017). Previously, she was Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she co-curated Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond (2014) and was involved in exhibitions highlighting the permanent collection as well as artists LaToya Ruby Frazier, Kehinde Wiley, Tom Sachs, and others. She is the co-curator of We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85 (2017), which originated at the Brooklyn Museum and travelled to three U.S. venues in 2017-18. She serves on the Board of Art Matters, as well as the Advisory Board of Recess.
About Frieze Viewing Room
Frieze Viewing Room is a free digital platform, connecting global audiences with Frieze's galleries and artists.
Opening to all from February 09–20, the Viewing Room offers fair visitors a preview of the wealth of gallery presentations coming to Frieze Los Angeles 2023, as well as the chance for audiences around the world to experience and acquire the artwork on show.
