Issue 118
October 2008

Wolfgang Tillmans discusses trust, photography, politics, abstraction, success, friendship, vulnerability and art with Dominic Eichler. James Elkins puts forward five reasons to be gloomy about the art world today and five reasons to be optimistic. Specially commissioned artist’s projects by Matthew Brannon, Cory Arcangel & Dexter Sinister, Wolfgang Tillmans and Donelle Woolford. Polly Staple explores Seth Price‘s multi-media approach to making art, including music, writing, curating, performance, film, video – and plastic.

From this issue

Quotation: ‘The act of repeating erroneously the words of another’

BY Jennifer Higgie |

The art market, insider trading and judging greatness

BY George Pendle |

In an ongoing series frieze asks curators, artists and writers to list the books that have influenced them

Svetlana Boym (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008)

BY Brian Dillon |

Federico Fellini (Rizzoli, New York, 2008)

BY Martin Stanton |

Simon Critchley (Granta, London, 2008)

The strange and wonderful world of gallery assistants

BY Jennifer Allen |

The artist lives and works in Istanbul and Berlin

Portraits, patterns and fashion; post-colonialism and mortality

BY Jenni Sorkin |

Identical dimensions and precarious constellations

BY Christy Lange |

Cuba, performance and society’s relationship to its history

BY Jonathan Griffin |

Publishing as an act of performance; the materiality of language

BY Sam Thorne |

What exactly do we mean when we call an artist or writer a charlatan?

BY Brian Dillion |

A commission that involved the artist filling a condemned building with 90,000 litres of chemical liquid

The artists employ voices for the first time in an installation that comprises film, sound and kinetic elements

The artist’s first web-based project began with the barest of ideas

Bridget Riley has conducted an endlessly enriching inquiry into the relationships between form, composition and visual perception

BY Michael Bracewell |

Five reasons why the art world is a desperate mess, followed by five responses. Do not read the conclusion until you've read the rest

BY James Elkins |

Seth Price’s exploration and manipulation of music, writing, publishing, plastic, curating, discursive performance

BY Polly Staple |

For 20 years, Wolfgang Tillmans’s photography has been a sustained meditation on observation, perception and translation

BY Dominic Eichler |

Mark Tribe, West Oakland, California, USA

BY Julian Myers |

Tate Britain, London, UK

BY Brian Dillon |

Andrea Winkler, Hotel Alpenhof, Oberegg, Switzerland

BY Burkhard Meltzer |

Alexander Tucker (ATP Recordings, 2008)

In an ongoing series, frieze asks artists and filmmakers to list the movies that have influenced their practice

Artist Olafur Eliasson’s forthcoming professorship at Berlin’s Universität der Künste will be an experiment in art education

BY Christy Lange |

Recent developments in Russian and Chinese contemporary art

BY Ekaterina Degot AND Carol Yinghua Lu |

Translation and political subjectivity in the work of Julia Meltzer and David Thorne

BY Hannah Feldman |

A new, expanded edition of Lawrence Weschler’s classic, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin is a cause for celebration

BY Eugenia Bell |

Ilya Kabakov’s return to Russia and Moscow’s refurbished Pushkin Museum

BY Robert Storr |

The Sculpture Center, New York, USA

BY Jenni Sorkin |

Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China

BY Martin Herbert |

South London Gallery, UK

BY Jonathan Griffin |

Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

BY Douglas Heingartner |

Various sites, New York, USA

BY James Trainor |

Huerta de San Vincente, Granada, Spain

BY Jennifer Higgie |

Metropolitan Museum, New York and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA

BY Morgan Falconer |

Media Art Bath at the Holburne Museum, Bath, UK

BY Chris Fite-Wassilak |

Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland

BY Małgorzata Charyło |

Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York, USA

BY Kristin M. Jones |

Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, Brazil

BY Fabio Cypriano |

Stuart Shave / Modern Art, London, UK

BY Michael Bracewell |

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany

BY Christy Lange |

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, USA

BY Joanna Kleinberg |

Milton Keynes Gallery, UK

BY Andrew Hunt |

Galerie in Taxipalais, Innsbruck, Austria

BY Burkhard Meltzer |

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA

BY Kristin M. Jones |

Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

BY Sarah Lowndes |

Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany

BY Catrin Lorch |

Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany

BY Michael Hübl |

Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany

BY Amanda Coulson |

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA

BY Bradley Horn |