Tonight:
2°c
The heavyweight and affluent of the international art-buying world poured through the gates of a Regent's Park tent this morning as the annual Frieze Art Fair got underway.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich and government minister Lord Myners were among the art-lovers who arrived early to scour the stands of what is now the seventh fair.
The banking collapse last autumn meant slightly fewer dealers had booked places by the cut-off date earlier this year and advance ticket sales to the public were slightly down until the eve of opening.
But more VIPs than ever have registered for what has rapidly become a must-do date in the art/social calendar.
Keira Knightley, Kate Moss and Daisy Lowe, expressing a new-found interest in contemporary art, all asked to come.
The eclectic first-day guest list saw TV presenter Johnny Ball rubbing shoulders with award-winning authors Colm Toibin and Andrew O'Hagan and Dazed and Confused magazine founder Jefferson Hack. Serious collectors included Don and Mera Rubell from the States and London banker Amir Shariat.
The first day buzz grew quickly despite fears that the economic situation would prove a dampener on proceedings.
Amanda Sharp, co-founder, said they were delighted with how it was going. “Galleries have brought great works and great collectors are coming through the door,” she said.
Amid the serious business of buying and selling, the organisers have commissioned a series of works to add fun to proceedings.
In the far corner, visitors can watch other visitors in a camera obscura. Ryan Gander, 33, a London-based artist is photographing fair-goers looking at works of art and presenting them with a copy of the portrait.
And Jordan Wolfson, a 29-year-old conceptual artist from New York, is giving one on one string theory tours of the fair which require more space than this article can provide to explain. “We have a conversation about string theory for 45 minutes and that conversation is recorded and then reenacted in the park by two young actors the next day,” he said.
Stephanie Syjuco, 35, an artist from San Francisco on her first visit to Frieze, has set up a studio in which she and five other artists are making copies of works of art on sale in the fair but from very simple materials such as newspaper.
“I have a rich history of working with issues of re-fabrication. You could call it bootlegging, you could call it counterfeiting. A memo was circulated to the stands that this was happening but whether anyone realised is another issue.”
A radical note is sounded amid the commercialism with a radio set by London-based artist Ruth Ewan, 29, on which fair-goers can hear protest songs such as those performed by Ewan McColl.
The fair opens to the general public tomorrow. But for those unwilling or unable to pay the entrance fee, a free exhibition of large-scale sculptures can be viewed in the grounds of Regent's Park outside.
Frieze Art Fair, sponsored by Deutsche Bank, runs until Sunday.
