Issue 110
October 2007

The October issue of frieze looks at the slapstick method in visual art. Brian Dillon traces the history of slapstick comedy, from Laurel and Hardy to Itchy and Scratchy, and from Bruce Nauman to Phil Collins.

Jörg Heiser looks back over the career of Sigmar Polke, whose iconoclastic and innovative work is frequently comical, while Christy Lange explores the darkly humourous work of Nedko Solakov.

Jennifer Allen examines the installations and sculptures of Rachel Harrison, and Jan Verwoert enjoys Cezary Bodzianowski’s acts of everyday absurdity.

From this issue

Tanz im August, Various venues, Berlin

01 OCT 07

Southern Exposure, San Francisco, USA

BY Julian Myers | 01 OCT 07

Nine theses on slapstick

BY Brian Dillon | 01 OCT 07

With his acts of everyday absurdism, Polish artist Cezary Bodzianowski holds up a mirror to an institutionalized world

01 OCT 07

Nedko Solakov's darkly humorous work expresses a scepticism of authority and power

01 OCT 07

The Barcelona-based Cuban artist was the winner of the Cartier Award 2008 by Max Andrews

01 OCT 07

Designs for life: new takes on public furniture

01 OCT 07

Spinning tall tales: autobiography and politics in concocted histories

01 OCT 07

Sigmar Polke’s body of work since the mid-1960s has been consistently iconoclastic, enigmatic and technically innovative

01 OCT 07

Elegant and minimal in form yet charged with menace, Micol Assaël’s installations articulate the fear of violence and the terrible potency of technology

01 OCT 07

Sculpture and anthropology from the school of hard knocks

01 OCT 07

Modernity, violence, narrative, repetition: slapstick shares as much with contemporary art as it does comedy

01 OCT 07

Pádraig Timoney's visual language privileges diversity over uniformity

01 OCT 07

Keren Cytter's videos celebrate the role of cinematic cliche in our daily lives

01 OCT 07

Jeffrey Vallance is an artist, writer, curator, explorer, paranormal researcher, Visiting Assistant Professor in New Genres at UCLA and Special Correspondent for Fortean Times. He lives in Los Angeles.

01 OCT 07

Art and the importance of the slapstick method

01 OCT 07

Has technocracy replaced vision in top museum jobs?

01 OCT 07

Pro wrestling grapples with reality

01 OCT 07

Rachel Harrison's installations and sculptures explore hierarchies of display and cultural value

01 OCT 07

Politics and entropy in an exhibition about duration

BY Nancy Spector | 01 OCT 07

Do the record prices being fetched at auction for design mean it should now be considered art?

01 OCT 07

An archive of BBC films and a new documentary about Gilbert & George record the changing social fabric of London's East End

01 OCT 07

Whether designing schools or customized housing, architects drMM find freedom in the limits of materials and processes

BY Stephen Beasley | 01 OCT 07

The Cologne-based artist selects the films that have had the biggest impact on her

01 OCT 07

Shumon Basar, Antonia Carver and Markus Miessen (eds.), (Bidoun and Moutamarat, Dubai, 2007)

BY Max Andrews | 01 OCT 07

Miranda July (Canongate, Edinburgh, 2007)

01 OCT 07

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London, UK

01 OCT 07

Robert Wyatt (Domino, 2007)

01 OCT 07

Shape of Broad Minds (Lex Records, 2007)

01 OCT 07

Marnie Stern (Kill Rock Stars, 2007)

01 OCT 07

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London, UK

09 SEP 07

Brian O’Doherty (FORuM Projects/Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Columbia University Press, New York, 2007)

09 SEP 07