Issue 216
January/February 2021

‘You don’t have to produce a certain kind of art and you don’t need validation from certain kinds of institutions.’ –  Ajamu   

In the January/February issue of friezeKevin Brazil profiles Brixton-based photographer Ajamu, whose solo exhibition at Cubitt, London, opens in early 2021Jane Ure-Smith interviews the painter Michael Armitage on the occasion of a major show at Haus der Kunst, Munich; and Vincent Fecteau answers our questionnaire. 

Profile: Kevin Brazil on Ajamu   

‘The darkroom teaches you that maybe waiting, and nothing happening, can be enough’. In his darkroom in Brixton, south London, the photographer Ajamu celebrates the pleasures of community and the Black male body

Conversation: Jane Ure-Smith and Michael Armitage 

‘I only have a sense of belonging in Kenya’. With a solo show at Munich’s Haus der Kunst, the Kenyan-British artist Michael Armitage speaks with Jane Ure-Smith about the canvas as conflict, his painterly East African influences and founding an experimental arts space in Nairobi. 

Also featuring 

Susan Bernofsky contributes ‘1500 words’ on her experience translating the words of German novelist Thomas MannCarson Chan’s essay explores artists’ elemental turn towards water and alchemy. Plus, a dossier on the history of domestic exhibition spaces in Los Angeles with contributions from 10 artists, curators and dealers, including Taylor Renee AldridgeLiz CraftDiana Thater and a commissioned photography by Janna Ireland. 

Columns: Mirror Image  

Artist Barbara Bloom speaks to Evan Moffitt about the use of mirrors in her works and the nature of perception; Priya Khanchandani looks at the phenomenon of the ‘cyborgian face’ in an age of Zoom, and contributing editor Barbara Casavecchia remembers designer and artist Enzo Mari. Also, in anticipation of its final series, Alissa Bennett watches every episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (2007-2021) and Christy Lange examines the rise of ‘deepfakes’.

From this issue

Liz Craft, Emma Gray, Pentti Monkonnen and Thomas Solomon discuss the exhibition programmes they launched in their homes

Artists and writers reflect on domestic exhibition spaces in Los Angeles, from 1940 to the present

Brian Butler, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer and Diana Theater discuss why LA has been home to so many experimental venues over the last 40 years 

Art and the climate share a crucial trait – rapid change. Carson Chan explores how a theory of ‘liquid modernity’ has made new waves in art and asks: What if art institutions acted like water?

BY Carson Chan |

As the iconic reality series airs its 20th and final season, and amongst rumours of ‘Kimye’s’ divorce, Alissa Bennett explores how the Kardashians changed American culture – and themselves

BY Alissa Bennett |

In Bashinda (2020), Rahal constructs an imaginary world very much rooted in India’s current sociopolitcal landscape

BY Mahan Moalemi |

The need for a digitally touched-up ‘public face’ has become constant and commonplace

BY Priya Khanchandani |

In his home studio the artist explores pleasure, privilege and how ‘through our body, we bring our archives’

BY Kevin Brazil |

This year’s edition of the nomadic biennial highlights Marseille’s vibrant art scene while simultaneously looking at historical international power relationships

BY Oriane Durand |

From Stephanie Lepp to Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund, artists are using AI to reveal the fragility of our trust in basic information

BY Christy Lange |

The artist discusses her use of mirrors and their ‘destabilizing’ effects

BY Barbara Bloom AND Evan Moffitt |

The exhibition dedicated to contemporary Russian art looks at how the country’s past two decades under President Vladimir Putin informed art production

BY Valerie Mindlin |

A century ago, the novelists Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann depicted a world recovering from war and pandemic. What can we learn from translating their works today?

BY Susan Bernofsky |

The San Francisco-based sculptor answers the frieze questionnaire

BY Vincent Fecteau |

At VITRINE, Basel, the artist creates a theatre-like setting, which reflects on the aesthetics of public transportation

BY Kito Nedo |

With a new show, ‘Paradise Edict’ at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Jane Ure-Smith chats to the artist about his influences and the power parallels between modern politics and historic Christian art

BY Jane Ure-Smith AND Michael Armitage |

At the Mosaic Rooms in London, Heba Y. Amin traces colonial footprints in the Arab world through communication technologies 

BY Hiba Mohamed |

At Vleeshal, Middelburg, the artist’s darkened spaces shed light on both the city's colonial burden and the invisibility of Black bodies

BY Hera Chan |

The Spanish Harlem museum presents a survey of the influential artist collective Taller Boricua

BY Erica N. Cardwell |

At Cubitt, London, the artist reenacts Caribbean rituals and pastimes to preserve the legacy of his loved ones

BY Kareem Reid |

In the Aranya Gold Coast Community, north of Beijing, an exhibition aims to critically intervene with its spectacular surroundings

BY Alvin Li |

A collaborative effort between authors, musicians and visual artists, this year’s edition presents site-specific works that focus on quotidian experiences and hidden histories 

BY Wooyoung Lee |

At Felix Gaudlitz, Vienna, a series of photographs by the French novelist beautifully captures the notion of intimacy

BY Max L. Feldman |

At the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the artist’s trio of short films explore the boundaries of language 

BY Jan Tumlir |

At Project Native Informant, London, the artist asks how one person’s labour is exploited to facilitate another person’s leisure 

BY Jamila Prowse |

The Austrian art festival creatively rethinks ways of exhibition-making during a pandemic with a collection of commissioned TV shows

BY Louisa Elderton |

In a generous survey at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, the artist reminds us that, even in times of adversity, art has the power to bring people together

BY Fernanda Brenner |

At von ammon co., Washington, D.C., the artist presents a series of new-media works that further his ‘New Peace’ polemics against the West’s exploitation of the natural world 

BY Ian Bourland |

At the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, the artist probes the ambiguity – and superstition – of everyday items

BY Gabriela Acha |

The artist’s portraits of Chinese expats at London’s Massimo De Carlo make for dissonant viewing 

BY Alex Estorick |

Combining archival material with contemporary art, an exhibition at Dresden’s Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau highlights the activist’s connection with the GDR

BY Sarah E. James |

At Gallery 1957, Accra, the artist’s use of both Ghanaian Kente and Malian textile traditions ‘offers new possibilities for the exchange of cultural knowledge’

BY Ayodeji Rotinwa |

At The Box, Los Angeles, the artist presents a series of paintings that reflect on the last four years and sees President Trump being devoured by a troupe of vagina-dentata figures

BY Natalie Haddad |

The artist’s show at Progetto, Lecce, speaks to how communication is both verbal and physical

BY Camila McHugh |

At Soft Opening, London, the artist’s new sculptures explore the psychic terrain of domestic space in the age of surveillance capitalism

BY Kate Wong |

At Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, the artist awakens novel patterns of figuration in her large-scale canvases

BY Leanne Petersen |

At Richard Gray Warehouse, Chicago, the artist explores the concrete and unconscious markers of his identity 

BY B. David Zarley |

At Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, the artist’s installations play with perspective and memory

BY Bárbara Borges de Campos |

At Bortolami, New York, the artist presents a series of text-based banners inspired by the words of two female modernist poets

BY Paul Stephens |

At Galerie Lelong & Co., the late artist’s paintings fuse real and imagined histories of his life in Eritrea

BY Rebecca Rose Cuomo |

At Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin, the artist’s amorphous figures question traditional gender narratives

BY Sonja-Maria Borstner |

A joint presentation at Arcadia Missa, London, centres female desire, from Iannone’s erotic (Ta)Rot Pack to Blightman’s sensual Instagram stories

BY Róisín Tapponi |

The last work by the artist leaves us in the company of painting’s favourite shape

BY Jamie Limond |

At COMPANY, New York, the artist presents nine, larger-than-life-size silicone figures, clad in the capitalist filth of a not-so-distant future

BY David Everitt Howe |

At Essex Street, New York, the artist presents an array of prefabricated objects through the lens of disability and chronic illness

BY Simon Wu |

At the Fondazione Giuliani in Rome, the artist looks at the playful and political aspects of disguises

BY Ana Vukadin |

At Mariane Ibrahim, Chicago, the artist presents nine, large-scale portraits of Black figures that recall Gustav Klimt’s symbolist paintings

At Petzel Gallery, New York, the artist presents a suite of paintings inspired by the life-simulation game

BY David Geers |