Issue 96
Jan - Feb 2006

'Is Mike Kelley's Day is Done the best show ever? The term Gesamtkunstwerk doesnt do justice to the vast territory it explores and explodes.' Matthew Higgs

'The conceptual choreography of the Istanbul Biennial was intelligent and fun; critical without being smug and political without being preachy.' Tirdad Zolghadr

'The survey of Jonas Mekas films in the Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was a show that provoked the tragically uncommon sensation of receiving a cerebral gift.' Maxine Kopsa

'Walls influences are clear: history painting, the construction of image and narrative, social anthropology, the language of spectacle and, in Milk (1984), the formidable use of the colour brown.' Polly Staple

Issue 96 of frieze looks back over 2005 by asking 16 critics and curators from around the world to choose what they feel to be the most significant shows and artists of the year. Looking forward Jörg Heiser talks to the Wrong Gallery about the forthcoming Berlin Biennial while Dan Fox and Jennifer Higgie interview the curators of Manifesta 6 and James Trainor talks to Lisette Lagnado about her plans for the San Paulo Biennial in September.Also featured Andrew Hunt and Neil Mulholland consider the relationship between culture and geography in the British Art Show 6 and Waling Boers and Pi Li discuss Beijings rapidly changing art scene, its exoticism and its international success.

From this issue

The rapidly changing scene of the Chinese capital

BY Waling Boers |

frieze asked critics and curators from around the world to choose what they were looking forward to in 2006

A discussion with Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick, the team curating the 4th Berlin Biennial

Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, has been chosen to host Manifesta 6 in September, 2006. The curatorial team comprises Mai Abu ElDahab, an independent curator based in Cairo; Florian Waldvogel, a curator and writer living in Frankfurt and Essen; and Anton Vidokle, a Moscow-born artist who lives in New York, and who is a founding director of e-flux. Inspired by Black Mountain College, which opened in 1933 in North Carolina, and whose teachers and students included some of the most important artists, writers and thinkers of the time, the Manifesta team intends to start an experimental art school in Nicosia

Lisette Lagnado is Chief Curator of the 27th San Paulo Biennial which will open in October, 2006. Lagnado’s pioneering approach to the work of Hélio Oiticica will be incorporated into the framework of the Biennial, which is titled ‘Borderless Blocks’

frieze asked critics and curators from around the world to choose what they felt to be the most significant shows and artists of 2005

frieze asked critics and curators from around the world to choose what they felt to be the most significant shows and artists of 2005

frieze asked critics and curators from around the world to choose what they felt to be the most significant shows and artists of 2005

frieze asked critics and curators from around the world to choose what they felt to be the most significant shows and artists of 2005

Curated by Alex Farquharson and Andrea Schlieker, the British Art Show 6 opened at Baltic, Gateshead in September and will be touring to Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol. What does it reflect about the relationship between culture and geography in the UK?

frieze asked critics and curators from around the world to choose what they felt to be the most significant shows and artists of 2005

From newspapers to dresses, the design highlights of the last year

The best art and literature books of 2005

BY Max Schumann |

An interview with Richard Burdett, Professor of Architecture and City Planning at the London School of Economics, who is curating the 10th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2006

From Hollywood thriller and 11-hour Filipino epic to Minimalist monuments in celluloid, favourite films of the year

Looking forward

Free-Folk, Grime, R&B, the return of Hardcore – what defined pop music in 2005?

Has the magnitude of China’s second Cultural Revolution only been noticed by those with vested interests?

Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla live and work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They have forthcoming solo shows at The Moore Space, Miami and The Renaissance Society, Chicago.

Emily King talks to Richard Burdett, Professor of Architecture and City Planning at the London School of Economics, who is curating the 10th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2006

The recent boom in prediction markets has added a streak of clinical capitalism to the prophecy industry

BY George Pendle |

There is a fine line between representing other people’s suffering and perpetuating it. In much contemporary art the exploitation of misery could be termed ‘poornography’