We all went to the Frieze Art Fair yesterday, with three goals in mind: to check out this extraordinary snapshot of contemporary art, to make a radio documentary about the Fair for broadcast here in London, and to view a film from 1973 by John Schott & E.J. Vaughn that had been programmed – purely by chance – for screening at the Fair. You can expect a post about our radio documentary – and of course an MP3 version – for London's Resoance FM in the next days. Rather a tall order for a single day, but that's now what we do.
London's Frieze Art Fair has become England's leading art event of the year. Focusing on the most interesting galleries working today, from Beirut to Glasgow and Sao Paolo to Tokyo, the fair introduces new artists and established favorites such as Olafur Elusson, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince and Rachel Whiteread to visitors from around the world who pile into London for the event.
In addition to being able to see and buy art by over 1000 of the world's leading artists, visitors may participate in Frieze Projects, a cureatorial program of talks, screenings and related events. It's housed in a wonderfully diaphanous white tent located in Regent's Part.
As for my film, America's Pop Collector: Contemporary Art at Auction, it's a feature documentary made in 1973 with collaborator and producer E. J. Vaughn. It was programmed by Stuart Comer from Tate Modern in a wonderful schedule of artists' films and films about art that are both playing at Frieze and traveling after through Britain.
The film was an experiment in "writing art history with a camera": where films about art at the time were typically portraits of individual artists, America's Pop Collector was a study in the sociology of the art world. It took as its immediate subject the watershed auction of contemporary art by taxi cab magnate and art collector Robert Scull. It's made in a style known as "direct cinema" or cinéma vérité where events are narrated by the camera rather than interpreted through voice-over narration.
America's Pop Collector has emerged as a unique visual document of American contemporary art history. In addition to picturing a Soho art scene that has now disappeared, the film's themes include the nexus of money and art, the role collectors and dealers play in the art market, and the inner workings of an auction house, among others. Because the film looks at '70's art in its larger sociological context, and because it pictures now legendary characters like Robert Rauschenberg, Leo Castelli, Ivan Karp and Robert Scull, it is being widely shown in museums and festivals like the Frieze. Now that the 70's have been digested and historicized many are interested in a film whose subject is less about art than about the art world. I introduced the film at its two Frieze screenings, and thoroughly enjoyed my VIP pass to the Fair.
- John Schott
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Posted by: make solar | January 03, 2012 at 04:58 AM