Issue 231
November/December 2022

‘What if artists were in control of the funding and distributing the money that powers are?’ – Bhavik Singh

In the November/December issue of frieze, senior editor Terence Trouillot convenes a roundtable discussion with artists and writers on decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Plus, Skye Arundhati Thomas profiles artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, whose games, installations and videos centre around Black Trans experience. 

Roundtable: DAOs: Parties on the Blockchain

‘DAOs are a collaboration between code, capital and community.’ Terence Trouillot speaks to Ruth Catlow, Rhea Myers, Penny Rafferty and Bhavik Singh on how DAOs can support creative communities, construct a more equitable art world and promote social play within the digital sphere.

Profile: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

‘Brathwaite-Shirley’s creations have raw, cracking edges that are alive and seething.’ The artist makes lively, immersive artworks that build towards a community archive. Skye Arundhati Thomas takes a trip through her many worlds.

Also featuring  

Suzanne Treister speaks with writer and curator Lars Bang Larsen about predicting the future, time travel and the questions she’s put to the European Organization for Nuclear Research; Dan Hicks explores whether 3D printing and NFTs can alter debates about the cultural restitution of looted objects in Euro-American museums; in ‘1,500 words’, time-based media conservator B. Fino-Radin discusses navigating art and obsolesce.

Columns: Control Freaks

Paul Chan highlights passages from Tominaga Nakamoto, the philosopher who possibly inspired Bitcoin’s inventor; associate editor Marko Gluhaich speaks to Metahaven about its explorations of quantum physics; Josie Thaddeus-Johns on how Adina Pintilie traverses the raw edge of VR; Orit Gat considers whether you should fear your toaster. Plus, American Artist and Alex Vitale speak about predictive policing and the alternatives to an expanding police state.

Plus, on the occasion of Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’s exhibition at Berlin’s n.b.k., artist Cory Arcangel looks back at an early video piece by the collective. Finally, Going Up, Going Down charts what’s hot and what’s not in the global art world and the latest iteration of our Lonely Arts column.

 

From this issue

The age of digital reproduction is forever altering Euro-American collections

BY Dan Hicks |

Orit Gat unpacks the rise of ‘smart’ technologies and how they’re being harmfully manipulated

BY Orit Gat |

The artist and the sociologist unpack the myths behind police technologies and the risks they pose to communities

BY American Artist AND Alex Vitale |

Paul Chan selects passages from the philosopher whose work may have influenced the creation of the biggest cryptocurrency

BY Paul Chan AND Yuzo Sakuramoto |

Skye Arundhati Thomas profiles the young artist and takes a trip through her many immersive game-worlds that celebrate Black trans life

BY Skye Arundhati Thomas |

Cass Fino-Radin on what it means to keep projects like Ian Cheng’s BOB (2018–19) alive

BY Cass Fino-Radin |

Terence Trouillot speaks to Ruth Catlow, Rhea Myers, Penny Rafferty and Bhavik Singh on how DAOs can support artists, create a more equitable art world and promote social play within the digital sphere 

On the occasion of their exhibition at Berlin's n.b.k, Cory Archangel revisits a net art project by the collective

BY Cory Arcangel |

Josie Thaddeus-Johns looks at the work of Adina Pintilie and VR technologies in the search for a more perfect simulation

BY Josie Thaddeus-Johns |

The artist collective shares the process behind their latest film, showing at Kunsthall Trondheim, that bridges art, anthropology and the philosophy of science

BY Metahaven AND Marko Gluhaich |

The prophetic new media artist speaks with Lars Bang Larsen about her practice and collaboration with CERN

BY Suzanne Treister AND Lars Bang Larsen |

At Kunsthaus Glarus, the artist draws on the authoritarian and curative connotations of serpentine forms

BY Gabriela Acha |

At Galerie Max Mayer, Dusseldorf, a new series of paintings continue the artist's interest in education and pedagogy

BY Moritz Scheper |

At Felix Gaudlitz, the artist’s installation-cum-exhibition blurs the line between display and artwork

BY Francesca Gavin |

At Sharjah Art Foundation, a landmark group exhibition explores art inspired by popular culture in South Asia

BY Rahel Aima |

The duo’s solo exhibition at the New Museum, New York, shows multiple facets of Brazilian identity

BY Mariana Fernández |

At Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam, a group show explores the myriad of ways that artists claim space

BY Jim van Geel |

In the artist’s solo show at ICA/Boston, figurative sculptures articulate the social power of family and community

BY Caitlin Chaisson |

With simultaneously mournful and irreverent works, ‘F’ at Empty Gallery is haunted by our inability to process grief in the internet age

BY Cassie Kaixin Liu |

At Palace Enterprise, Copenhagen, the artist shines a light on gender bias in male design

BY Alice Godwin |

The artist’s first posthumous exhibition at Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, defies easy assumptions about her work and life

BY Jonathan Griffin |

At Instituto Moreira Salles, the writer anchors an exploration of Brazilian women’s art and literature in the mid- to late-20th century

BY Meg Weeks |

Paired together at Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York, Friedman-Pappas explores the continuing drive toward industrialization while Black critiques the world of racial capitalism born from it

BY Jessica S. Kwok |

At Muzeum Susch, a posthumous retrospective showcases the artist’s liberating use of latex

BY Barbara Casavecchia |

‘Anka Au Cas Par Cas’, at CAPC Musée d’art Contemporain de Bordeaux, presents the life and career of the critic, curator, gallerist and teacher in all her multitudes

BY Vincent Simon |

A group exhibition at blank projects, Cape Town, brings together artists whose work experiments with the materiality of the earth

BY Zoë Hopkins |

‘Still Alive’ registers the inequity inherent in the world while imagining a trajectory to a future unburdened by rigid categories of identity

 

BY Christopher Whitfield |

At Tanya Leighton, Berlin, the artist’s labour-intensive portraits suggest an art historical fever dream

BY Mitch Speed |

The collective’s retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada extends from foundational mail art to hard-hitting installations about HIV/AIDS

BY Charlene K. Lau |

The artist’s first show at White Cube, London, contains new paintings full of narratively ambiguous scenes derived from popular culture

BY Ella Slater |

At New Art Projects, London, the artist evokes visceral experiences of growing up queer in Britain under Section 28

BY Sam Moore |

Nature and culture are inseparable in ‘Strike-Slip’, the artist’s first solo show at Bel Ami, Los Angeles

BY Jan Tumlir |

The first extensive exhibition of the self-taught artist’s work at Telfair Museums, Savannah, is filled with fact and fantasy inspired by his unconventional life at sea

BY Daniel Fuller |

At Gasworks, London, the artist explores the possibilities that come with rejecting forms imposed by outsiders and creating our own

BY Juliet Jacques |

At Stills Centre of Photography, Edinburgh, the artist holds the spirits of her absent subjects in the gallery, forcing us to commune with their stories

BY Lisette May Monroe |

In collaboration with Voloshyn Gallery in Kyiv, this exhibition at Fridman Gallery foregrounds the Ukrainian women at the discursive frontiers of history

BY Zoë Hopkins |

The artist and DJ’s first solo show at Tramway, Glasgow, is a stunning exploration of West African music

BY Tom Hastings |

An exquisitely designed exhibition at Fondazione Prada brings together millennia of thought about thought itself

BY Laura McLean-Ferris |