Issue 196
June - August 2018

‘The human race has always clung to notions of borders, be they mental or physical. In recent years, though, welcome cracks are appearing – and that, as the great Leonard Cohen once sang, is how the light gets in.’
– Jennifer Higgie

Marking 80 years since the invention of LSD and 200 years since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the new issue of frieze is themed around ‘Altered States’ – cultural eruption, artistic experimentation and transformation. Featured artists, writers and designers include Sonia Boyce, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lantian Xie, David Lynch, Misheck Masamvu, Nick Mauss and Linda Stark among many others.

From this issue

On the eve of the World Cup, Harry Thorne on the art world’s petulant refusal to embrace the beautiful game

BY Harry Thorne | 13 JUN 18

From Stormzy at the Brit Awards to a Steve McQueen film to Forensic Architecture's media archive, what Grenfell has shown us about ourselves

BY Ismail Einashe | 11 JUN 18

Undulating lines, meandering colours and the crackle of an electric current in the work of the Hungarian artist 

BY Anya Harrison | 06 JUN 18

The Dubai-based artist discusses making work that mobilizes peoples, objects and symbols

BY Amy Sherlock | 06 JUN 18

At Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp, Kowalski's works point to our anxious existence in a brave new world

BY João Laia | 05 JUN 18

The pioneering designer and building scientist reveals the buildings and artworks that influenced her

BY Mae-Ling Jovenes Lokko | 04 JUN 18

What is the future of our photos in an age when images – and the machine-readable data they contain – no longer belong to us? 

BY Christy Lange | 04 JUN 18

Michelle Orange traces the recent history of Iranian films, from Jafar Pahahi’s Taxi (2015) to Mani Haghighi’s Pig (2018)

BY Michelle Orange | 03 JUN 18

Dolphins, ketamine and leaky realities: Mark Pilkington considers Altered States, 40 years after its release

BY Mark Pilkington | 02 JUN 18

From Kader Attia's couscous sculptures and Isa Genzken's 'towers', to Rorschach tests and Tony Kushner's Angels in America

BY Lynne Tillman | 01 JUN 18

Jörg Heiser on memes, memory and Errol Morris's Wormwood

BY Jörg Heiser | 31 MAY 18

Meticulous, gently humorous paintings isolate a deeply personal encounter with the obdurate structures of society and culture

BY Jonathan Griffin | 30 MAY 18

In this era of rapid change, an introduction to some of the artists responding to the here and now

BY Jennifer Higgie | 30 MAY 18

Thoughts on an unpredictable series of local disasters

BY Roy Scranton | 30 MAY 18

With her retrospective at Manchester Art Gallery, the artist and curator talks censorship, stereotypes and dismantling power in the age of #metoo

BY Jennifer Higgie | 29 MAY 18

Ahead of a show of his new works at Kayne Griffin Corcoran, LA, this autumn, the cult filmmaker and artist answers our Questionnaire

BY David Lynch | 28 MAY 18

The artist-investigator tunes his work to the undocumented, the surveilled, immigrants and prisoners; those fleeing the talons of the state

BY Ben Mauk | 27 MAY 18

In the face of 'hyena politics', five artists from the Zimbabwean capital who explore the human form as a symbol of resistance 

BY Sean O'Toole | 26 MAY 18

Informed by her heritage, the Athens-based artist reflects on technology’s gradual erosion of social relations at Spike Island, Bristol 

BY David Trigg | 22 MAY 18

Spectral lone female figures pose and recline in a series of nebulous paintings on view at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich

BY Saim Demircan | 21 MAY 18

The artist explores the interplay between fact and fiction, and the individual versus the collective, at Ujazdowski Castle CCA, Warsaw

BY Krzysztof Kościuczuk | 18 MAY 18

Exploring self-exoticization and the migrant experience, the artist reprises her father's kebab shop as a cyclical performance at Kim?, Riga 

BY Chloe Stead | 17 MAY 18

In ‘Terra Infirma’, the artist creates a dark and distorted vision of domesticity at Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis

BY Daniel McGrath | 16 MAY 18

At Stockholm’s Index, riffing on the dangers of Fascism, bad corporations and big tech

BY Adam Kleinman | 11 MAY 18

At Shanghai's Power Station of Art, a retrospective of the artist's large-scale installation work asking: why are we here? How will we be remembered?

BY Arthur Solway | 10 MAY 18

Comic book images of female vulnerability become symbols of liberated sexual energy at Anton Kern Gallery, New York

BY Rainer Diana Hamilton | 09 MAY 18

A diverse range of shows, exploring ideas ranging from authoritarianism and free speech to interiority and tenderness

BY Martin Herbert | 08 MAY 18

The artist creates a dreamy, domestic space in which ideas of intimacy and concealment are explored at Oakville Galleries, Ontario

BY Aryen Hoekstra | 04 MAY 18

Retrospectives at Musée des Arts Decoratifs and Palais Galliera, Paris showcase the designer's unique ways of relating garment to body

BY Aaron Peck | 03 MAY 18

At the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Lynne Cooke's debut exhibition turns the spotlight on so-called 'outsider' artists

BY Jack McGrath | 02 MAY 18

At this year’s GI festival, directed by Richard Parry, a future-focused assemblage of what it means to be human

BY Tom Jeffreys | 01 MAY 18

Inti Guerrero’s show taps relentlessly at the question: what is the human cost of industry?

BY Mimi Chu | 30 APR 18

At Haus der Kunst, Munich, artists including Ed Atkins and Otobong Nkanga explore compliance and resistance in an era of wild digitalization

The Argentinian artist's playful, wise and, at times, prophetic work on show at Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires

BY John Quin | 28 APR 18

At Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, cheap post-modern furniture becomes a symbol of failed social and economic integration

BY Moritz Scheper | 27 APR 18

With neo-fascist populism on the rise, two shows in Milan and Florence offer a timely look at a turbulent period in Italian history

BY Ara H. Merjian | 26 APR 18

The artist's materials include avocado extract, wild walnut, yew berries, nettles, hematite and tea at David Lewis, New York

BY Michael Wilson | 25 APR 18

The Berlin-based German artist’s highly distinctive canvases at Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover 

BY Kito Nedo | 24 APR 18

In a two-part exhibition at Maureen Paley, London and Morena di Luna, Hove, Donachie's portraits free female beauty and desire from the male gaze

BY Rosanna McLaughlin | 23 APR 18

Inspired by L. Frank Baum’s illusory city, K11’s first in-house curated show looks to the hidden forces structuring how we see the world

BY En Liang Khong | 19 APR 18

 In the late artist’s paintings, on view at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, good is evil, right is wrong and no one is innocent 

BY Jonathan Griffin | 18 APR 18

Two brilliant shows at mumok and Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna, revive the late artist’s surreal visions

BY Jennifer Higgie | 17 APR 18

 At David Zwirner, London, studies in mortality and intimacy from the artist's final years display his remarkable stylistic range

BY Cal Revely-Calder | 16 APR 18

For the three-day event in the UAE, the best works and talks were ones in which geographical and cultural hybridity shone through

BY Pablo Larios | 13 APR 18

Titled 'Superposition: Equilibrium & Engagement', the invitation is to consider accelerating global conflicts from opposing perspectives

BY Jon Bywater | 29 MAR 18