Silver, Slate, Steel: Experience an ‘Ode to Gray’ at Frieze Seoul
See how the many shades of the colour infuse a plethora of artworks, in a video supported by Noroo
See how the many shades of the colour infuse a plethora of artworks, in a video supported by Noroo
In 1993, writer, filmmaker and artist Derek Jarman called grey a ‘sad world into which the colours fall’. In 2014, artist David Batchelor observed how it is ‘close to impossible in practice to find a grey that is not inflected by some other colour’. In 2024, ‘charcoal grey’ was selected as one of Noroo’s ‘Colours of the Year’.
For US poet Dorianne Laux, grey can be ‘the most cliché-maligned of colours’. ‘It needed a poem to stand up for it,’ she explained in a 2010 interview. Laux’s masterful list-poem ‘Ode to Gray’ champions the deep variety of the colour through a winning assembly of images, memories and examples.
A special recording of a reading by the poet is paired with examples of the shade as found in works at Frieze Seoul 2024: from nails to clouds to wolves, from a painting of smoke plumes by Anne Imhof to a stringy sculpture by Kim Doki.
As Official Paint Partner of Frieze Seoul, Noroo provided paints for exhibitors throughout the fair and highlighted its colour technology through a media wall, celebrating individuality through a spectrum of colours. Grey will never seem dull again.
Discover more about Noroo’s philosophy of ‘Bright Colour, Smart World’ at noroopaint.com.
