Frieze Week: Cork Street Galleries welcomes Studio Voltaire, Sadie Coles HQ, Lisson Gallery, Frieze Live and Stephen Friedman Gallery.
While this year’s edition of Frieze transforms from sprawling Regent’s Park structure to an online viewing room, with all its comfort and intimacy, Cork Street Galleries are pleased to announce an exciting physical programme in Mayfair.
Studio Voltaire, Sadie Coles HQ, Lisson Gallery, Frieze Live and Stephen Friedman Gallery join the permanent roster of galleries to become the epicentre of cultural activity during London’s busiest art market month, taking over gallery spaces on Cork Street and Old Burlington Street.
Studio Voltaire presents a new series of paintings by Dawn Mellor, titled The Trials and Tribulations of Wet Horse Hair, at 27 Cork Street from 5th – 10th October. Mellor has been making images of public figures for over twenty years, often exploring ideas of identity, fan culture and status. For this series, the artist has drawn primarily from British television legal dramas, in which Mellor’s recognisable protagonists – Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Daniela Nardini, Julie Walters – have been cast as members of an imaginary judicial system. This new presentation follows the recent unveiling of Mellor’s first permanent public artwork, George Michael TV Outside, a nine-metre-high mural of singer, songwriter and LGBTQ+ icon George Michael, as part of Studio Voltaire elsewhere, a programme of offsite commissions taking place throughout London.
Taking over 24 Cork Street from 6th October into November 2020, Sadie Coles HQ opens with the first UK presentation of Martine Syms’ latest project Ugly Plymouths, an immersive video installation comprising a one-act play of three screens starring Hot Dog, Doobie and Le Que Sabe. The three characters talk and sing alongside and over each other, one receding as another moves into the foreground. Only their surroundings and surrounding thoughts are visualised, the video taking the Los Angeles described in Bob Kaufman’s poem Hollywood as its establishing environment.
Taking over 22 Cork Street from 6th October into Spring 2021, Lisson Gallery opens with a group exhibition, Horizon, featuring works by Ai Weiwei, John Akomfrah, Anish Kapoor, Mary Corse, Haroon Mirza, Hugh Hayden, Lee Ufan, Stanley Whitney, Laure Prouvost, Ryan Gander, Allora & Calzadilla and Joanna Pousette-Dart.
For the 2020 Live programme, Frieze presents The Institute of Melodic Healing (IMH), an “institute of sound and performance” located at 9 Cork Street from 8th – 11th October (broadcasting online from 6th – 11th October). Curated by Victor Wang, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of M WOODS Museum, Beijing, the programme will last for 111 hours, rethinking the parameters of live art during a time when distance, the body, and movement are regulated in post-Covid Britain. The IMH aims to promote community and heal-ing by thinking through sound and body, to emphasise that listening and feeling is as important as seeing, and to support artistic experimental development.
Haroon Mirza, Denzil Forrester, Mandy El-Sayegh, Alvaro Barrington, Anthea Hamilton, Zadie Xa and Benito Mayor Vallejo and Cécile B. Evans are the IMH’s participating artists.
Stephen Friedman Gallery takes over 30 Old Burlington Street from 5th – 31st October with exhibitions by Holly Hendry and Denzil Forrester.
Hendry’s Busy Bodies is a selection of new works by the British sculptor Holly Hendry. Presented in a specially designed space, the works feature kinetic elements, exploring the blurred relationship between our bodies, emotions and mechanisation – stuck on repeat or requiring continual maintenance.
Denzil Forrester in Rome explores the formative role of Forrester’s fellowship at the British School at Rome from 1983 to 1985. Exhibited together for the first time, these paintings reverberate with light and colour, synthesising Forrester’s new-found experiences of Rome with his West Indian roots and love of London’s dub scene. Working directly from sketches made back in London of nocturnal revellers dancing to the sets of legendary DJs such as Jah Shaka, removed from the original experience, he could revisit the subject from memory with renewed intensity.
Additionally, Stephen Friedman Gallery will present a special exhibition, 25 Years, celebrating the gallery’s 25 year anniversary at 25-28 Old Burlington Street, their home since 1995.
Don’t forget: Frieze’s West End Day
Friday 9th October marks Frieze’s West End Day, where participating galleries will host a programme of gallery tours, talks and special events.
Vistor information:
The galleries on Cork Street are taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of both their staff and visitors and ask that masks are worn throughout the duration of your visit. Please note that there are limited visitor numbers at any one time in the galleries to respect social distancing. Please contact the galleries individually for further information.