Issue 146
April 2012

In the latest issue of frieze Jörg Heiser asks what our interest in the face tells us about contemporary communication. 

Other highlights of the April issue include: Face/Off: art historian Tom Holert on anonymity and iconography in contemporary protest culture. Picture This: photographer Christina Zück examines the ‘enraptured faces’ of photographic portraiture. A Life in a Day: Jennifer Higgie looks at the fictitious portraits of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, the London-based painter whose work is currently included in the New Museum Triennial, New York. Mike Kelley (1954–2012) – Ten Tributes: friends and collaborators remember his life and work—with an essay by John C. Welchman, and tributes by Monica Bonvicini, Emi Fontana, Ann Magnuson, John Miller, Dave Muller, Sterling Ruby, Jim Shaw, Michael Smith and Marnie Weber. 

From this issue

What does our interest in the face tell us about contemporary methods of communication?

BY Jörg Heiser | 01 APR 12

At frieze we receive hundreds of emails every day from artists, galleries and public relations companies around the world. We would like to share some excerpts with you. Names have been blocked out to protect the guilty. But they know who they are.

01 APR 12

The fictitious portraits of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

BY Jennifer Higgie | 21 MAR 12

Anonymity and iconography in contemporary protest culture

BY Tom Holert | 21 MAR 12

Lucy McKenzie’s work as part of the collaborative fashion studio, Atelier, embodies the artist’s enquiries into a romanticized past shot through with mythical meaning

BY Michael Bracewell | 21 MAR 12

From Roni Horn to Marina Abramović, Christina Zück examines the ‘enraptured faces’ of portrait photography today

BY Christina Zück | 21 MAR 12

Since 1995, Li Yongbin has been creating videos of faces in the Beijing apartment he has lived in for over 30 years

BY Carol Yinghua Lu | 21 MAR 12

Alessio delli Castelli considers Italian sculptor Medardo Rosso’s photographic legacy

BY Alessio delli Castelli | 21 MAR 12

Comic books and identity; innuendo and homoerotic iconography

BY Max Andrews | 21 MAR 12

The authentically real and the profanely cheap; ‘sperm, gold, money, black holes ... ’

21 MAR 12

Celebrity culture, film studio design and the Hollywood dream

BY Jonathan Griffin | 21 MAR 12

Bodily incursions, surgical violence and an ‘uncommon sense of objecthood’

BY Tom Morton | 21 MAR 12

Friends and collaborators remember his life and work

20 MAR 12

The donation of an art collection to the American University of Beirut has prompted plans to create two new galleries in Lebanon

BY Kaelen-Wilson Goldie | 20 MAR 12

The changing appearance of money

BY Jennifer Allen | 20 MAR 12

The hybrid genre of the film novelization

BY George Pendle | 20 MAR 12

The fall and rise of independent bookshops and publishing

BY Eugenia Bell | 20 MAR 12

Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK

BY Chris Sharratt | 19 MAR 12

WORKS | PROJECTS, Bristol, UK

BY David Trigg | 19 MAR 12

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

BY Lis Rhodes | 19 MAR 12

How are artists visualizing the financial crisis?

BY David Adler | 19 MAR 12

How can the genre attract a younger audience that might not have any engagement with the deeply furrowed traditions ingrained in its production, performance and reception?

BY Paul Teasdale | 19 MAR 12

A new translation of Julia Kristeva’s book on the art of beheading

BY Erik Morse | 19 MAR 12