Issue 196
June - August 2018

‘The human race has always clung to notions of borders, be they mental or physical. In recent years, though, welcome cracks are appearing – and that, as the great Leonard Cohen once sang, is how the light gets in.’
– Jennifer Higgie

Marking 80 years since the invention of LSD and 200 years since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the new issue of frieze is themed around ‘Altered States’ – cultural eruption, artistic experimentation and transformation. Featured artists, writers and designers include Sonia Boyce, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lantian Xie, David Lynch, Misheck Masamvu, Nick Mauss and Linda Stark among many others.

From this issue

On the eve of the World Cup, Harry Thorne on the art world’s petulant refusal to embrace the beautiful game

BY Harry Thorne |

From Stormzy at the Brit Awards to a Steve McQueen film to Forensic Architecture's media archive, what Grenfell has shown us about ourselves

BY Ismail Einashe |

Undulating lines, meandering colours and the crackle of an electric current in the work of the Hungarian artist 

BY Anya Harrison |

The Dubai-based artist discusses making work that mobilizes peoples, objects and symbols

BY Amy Sherlock |

At Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp, Kowalski's works point to our anxious existence in a brave new world

BY João Laia |

The pioneering designer and building scientist reveals the buildings and artworks that influenced her

BY Mae-Ling Jovenes Lokko |

What is the future of our photos in an age when images – and the machine-readable data they contain – no longer belong to us? 

BY Christy Lange |

Michelle Orange traces the recent history of Iranian films, from Jafar Pahahi’s Taxi (2015) to Mani Haghighi’s Pig (2018)

BY Michelle Orange |

Dolphins, ketamine and leaky realities: Mark Pilkington considers Altered States, 40 years after its release

BY Mark Pilkington |

From Kader Attia's couscous sculptures and Isa Genzken's 'towers', to Rorschach tests and Tony Kushner's Angels in America

BY Lynne Tillman |

Jörg Heiser on memes, memory and Errol Morris's Wormwood

BY Jörg Heiser |

Meticulous, gently humorous paintings isolate a deeply personal encounter with the obdurate structures of society and culture

BY Jonathan Griffin |

In this era of rapid change, an introduction to some of the artists responding to the here and now

BY Jennifer Higgie |

Thoughts on an unpredictable series of local disasters

BY Roy Scranton |

With her retrospective at Manchester Art Gallery, the artist and curator talks censorship, stereotypes and dismantling power in the age of #metoo

BY Jennifer Higgie |

Ahead of a show of his new works at Kayne Griffin Corcoran, LA, this autumn, the cult filmmaker and artist answers our Questionnaire

BY David Lynch |

The artist-investigator tunes his work to the undocumented, the surveilled, immigrants and prisoners; those fleeing the talons of the state

BY Ben Mauk |

In the face of 'hyena politics', five artists from the Zimbabwean capital who explore the human form as a symbol of resistance 

BY Sean O'Toole |

Informed by her heritage, the Athens-based artist reflects on technology’s gradual erosion of social relations at Spike Island, Bristol 

BY David Trigg |

Spectral lone female figures pose and recline in a series of nebulous paintings on view at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich

BY Saim Demircan |

The artist explores the interplay between fact and fiction, and the individual versus the collective, at Ujazdowski Castle CCA, Warsaw

BY Krzysztof Kościuczuk |

Exploring self-exoticization and the migrant experience, the artist reprises her father's kebab shop as a cyclical performance at Kim?, Riga 

BY Chloe Stead |

In ‘Terra Infirma’, the artist creates a dark and distorted vision of domesticity at Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis

BY Daniel McGrath |

At Stockholm’s Index, riffing on the dangers of Fascism, bad corporations and big tech

BY Adam Kleinman |

At Shanghai's Power Station of Art, a retrospective of the artist's large-scale installation work asking: why are we here? How will we be remembered?

BY Arthur Solway |

Comic book images of female vulnerability become symbols of liberated sexual energy at Anton Kern Gallery, New York

BY Rainer Diana Hamilton |

A diverse range of shows, exploring ideas ranging from authoritarianism and free speech to interiority and tenderness

BY Martin Herbert |

The artist creates a dreamy, domestic space in which ideas of intimacy and concealment are explored at Oakville Galleries, Ontario

BY Aryen Hoekstra |

Retrospectives at Musée des Arts Decoratifs and Palais Galliera, Paris showcase the designer's unique ways of relating garment to body

BY Aaron Peck |

At the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Lynne Cooke's debut exhibition turns the spotlight on so-called 'outsider' artists

BY Jack McGrath |

At this year’s GI festival, directed by Richard Parry, a future-focused assemblage of what it means to be human

BY Tom Jeffreys |

Inti Guerrero’s show taps relentlessly at the question: what is the human cost of industry?

BY Mimi Chu |

At Haus der Kunst, Munich, artists including Ed Atkins and Otobong Nkanga explore compliance and resistance in an era of wild digitalization

The Argentinian artist's playful, wise and, at times, prophetic work on show at Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires

BY John Quin |

At Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, cheap post-modern furniture becomes a symbol of failed social and economic integration

BY Moritz Scheper |

With neo-fascist populism on the rise, two shows in Milan and Florence offer a timely look at a turbulent period in Italian history

BY Ara H. Merjian |

The artist's materials include avocado extract, wild walnut, yew berries, nettles, hematite and tea at David Lewis, New York

BY Michael Wilson |

The Berlin-based German artist’s highly distinctive canvases at Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover 

BY Kito Nedo |

In a two-part exhibition at Maureen Paley, London and Morena di Luna, Hove, Donachie's portraits free female beauty and desire from the male gaze

BY Rosanna McLaughlin |

Inspired by L. Frank Baum’s illusory city, K11’s first in-house curated show looks to the hidden forces structuring how we see the world

BY En Liang Khong |

 In the late artist’s paintings, on view at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, good is evil, right is wrong and no one is innocent 

BY Jonathan Griffin |

Two brilliant shows at mumok and Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna, revive the late artist’s surreal visions

BY Jennifer Higgie |

 At David Zwirner, London, studies in mortality and intimacy from the artist's final years display his remarkable stylistic range

BY Cal Revely-Calder |

For the three-day event in the UAE, the best works and talks were ones in which geographical and cultural hybridity shone through

BY Pablo Larios |

Titled 'Superposition: Equilibrium & Engagement', the invitation is to consider accelerating global conflicts from opposing perspectives

BY Jon Bywater |