Writing on Water and Other Amazements

The VIP Preview Night of the London Art Fair 2013 at the Business Design Centre.

The long line of taxis on Upper Street this evening is no coincidence. The London Art Fair is taking over the neighbourhood, and high-heeled women and men in fashionable suits enter the Business Design Center en masse. Tonight is for invited guests only, but some lucky coincidence allowed me ashy silver invitation too. And while I am already being offered a sponsored Macallen whiskey at the entrance hall, I can see the first art works behind the masses of people. A colossal marble burst, or actually only a head, gives me the first impression that this Fair could be really interesting, and huge.

Indeed, there is not just the three-storey main hall, filled with galleries from all over England (and some from overseas), but also an almost bigger wing, dedicated to the critical platform called  ‘The Art Projects”. A very intriguing collection of works that demonstrate the breadth and depth of contemporary art.

Most innovative was a small installation by Sangjin Kim called the In Visibility Bible (see image above). He designed a printer that actually writes on water. Viewers can see how the contents of the bible sink through the liquid and slowly dissolve into a black mass at the bottom of the tank. “Its temporality and momentary quality resembles the fragility of our belief, where often our reality relies upon”, the lady of the Hanmi Galleryexplains. Right next to it the Disillusion Coin Face by Shin Kiwoun is turning coins into dust, to eliminate “fetishisms of the cultural iconic objects”.

Susan Stockwell’s 3D map of the streets of London; a network of tiny paper ribbons.

On the other side of the hall Tag Fine Arts has an extensive collection that would inspire any graphic designer. Saptarishi seems a replica of a large London Underground map, but a closer look reveals more interesting names at all stops. The Northern line turned into one called ‘Assassinations’, its stops including ‘Lincoln’, ‘Caesar’ and ‘Kennedy’, and the Bakerloo line has for instance become one of ‘Spies’.

The gallery seems to have chosen for a recurring ‘map’ theme for their stand: Claire Brewster’s out-of-date maps cut out in forms of ‘urbanised nature’, mostly mockingbirds, would look great on anyone’s wall and Susan Stockwell has cut out every part that is not a street, which leaves a spiderweb-like network of little paper threads, with the big ribbon called ’Thames’ slithering across it. A beautiful result, but the carving must be an endless job.

One floor up some multimedia sculptures attract the attention, among which a seemingly shapeless white piece of plaster. Closer inspection actually shows that the metallic bottle next to the white object is part of the installation and reflects its white inside: a perfectly proportioned gypsum skull. The neighbours of this Millennium Gallery show some drawings created with a pen’s tip as thin as a hair, but made heavy with big pools of dried candle-grease. And next to that one, two tiny arms of a big-eyed dragon sculpture crawl out of a painter’s brush. The whole sculpture is not more than two inches high, excluding the brush itself, and is the cutest ‘monster’ I have ever seen.

The hidden form of a skull is reflected by a metallic bottle at the Millennium Gallery.

A tiny sculpture of a dragon is hidden in a painter’s brush at one of the upper floor galleries.

The two-and-a-half hours dedicated for the official preview turn out to be not enough, because the offer is very extensive and really interesting. It is said that the London Art Fair gets better every year, and its two curated sections (the Art Projects and Photo50)  clearly prove that. A must-see for every Londoner who loves contemporary art, or anyone who just wants to be amazed and enchanted by all the beauty that has assembled in the big hall at Upper Street.