Issue 214
October 2020

‘I’m increasingly interested in those possibilities outside and beyond the solely human.’ – John Akomfrah 

In the October issue of frieze, the ground-breaking UK filmmaker John Akomfrah is in conversation with The Otolith Group’s Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar; Akinbode Akinbiyi, Natasha A. Kelly, Mahret Ifeoma Kupka and Susan Neiman draw attention to the history of Afro-Germany; and Willem de Rooij answers our questionnaire.

The cover artwork, Our Skin Is A Monument (2020), was specially designed by John Akomfrah for the issue. It is available to buy as an exclusive limited edition, with 60% of sales proceeds benefiting the Frieze x Deutsche Bank Emerging Curators Fellowship, which supports UK-based Black and POC curators. 

Also featuring: A thematic essay by Stephen Squibb on the aesthetics of disinformation. A profile by Muna Mire of the filmmaker Tourmaline. 1,500 words by Elvia Wilk on how Nancy Baker Cahill’s augmented-reality works are freeing public monuments from the ideology of control. Maika Pollack responds to Thao Nguyen Phan’s Perpetual Brightness (2019). 



Kyle Chayka on Patreon’s new model of art patronage; Liv Fontaine offers ten tips on how to be a performance artist; Evan Moffitt interviews Stefan Benchoam and Jessica Kairé, the co-founders of Guatemala City’s NuMu; Jessica Loudis on the new magazines giving speed to cultural revolution; and Ana Tuazon on the emerging alternative spaces, led by artists of colour, that are leaving a stagnant art world behind. 

Plus, a special supplement with selected texts from Frieze Masters: contributing editor Jonathan Griffin on how Gianfranco Gorgoni’s photographs documented the Land Art movement and Charles Saumarez Smith on the changing fashions in exhibition design. Also, 28 reviews from around the world and online, including exhibitions by James Benning, Sonia Boyce, Marlene Dumas, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Tai Shani. 

Our Skin Is a Monument I (2020), the artwork which is the cover for this issue, is also available to purchase as an exclusive limited edition.

From this issue

Commsisioned in partnership with Chisenhale Gallery, Okon’s latest exhibition at Void Derry captured creative labour in complicated states of flow and arrest

BY Eva Kenny |

Ahead of his exhibition at Portikus, Frankfurt, the Berlin-based artist answers our questionnaire

BY Willem de Rooij |

Tourmaline’s films speak a simple truth: Black, queer and trans people were always here and always will be

BY Muna Mire |

Jessica Loudis on the magazines attempting to upend contemporary media

BY Jessica Loudis |

A new, limited edition made by John Akomfrah for Frieze 

Can the story of performer and activist Paul Robeson help us reconcile universalism with Black progress? 

BY Susan Neiman |

The photographer retraces the history of the German capital's 'African Quarter'

BY Akinbode Akinbiyi AND Pablo Larios |

A look at Germany’s exhibition landscape shows the importance of identifying blind spots

BY Mahret Ifeoma Kupka |

Germany's Green Party wants to get rid of the word ‘race’ in the German constitution. Natasha A. Kelly writes about what actually needs to change in Germany

BY Natasha A. Kelly |

In 'Perpetual Brightness', Phan’s ailing animal becomes a metaphor for a culture, and a world, adrift on the verge of ecological disaster. 

BY Maika Pollack |

During the turbulent summer of 2020, the filmmakers decided on decentring the human in their practice 

BY John Akomfrah AND The Otolith Group |

How Gianfranco Gorgoni’s photographs documented a radical art movement

BY Jonathan Griffin |

The art historian recalls standout displays from the past five decades

BY Charles Saumarez Smith |

For the inaugural exhibition at I.L.A. Gallery, the artist used the Japanese paper-making technique of washi to connect with rural histories

BY Yosihiro Yabe |

At Birmingham’s Eastside Projects, the artist’s latest curatorial project probes at what might happen when the digital bleeds into the physical

BY Aurella Yussuf |

With works by 11 artists, ‘Study of Things’ at Guangdong Times Museum offers regional perspectives on rampant industries

BY Alvin Li |

The founders of Guatemala City’s NuMu, Stefan Benchoam and Jessica Kairé, discuss how their program extends far beyond its shell

BY Evan Moffitt |

The artist's augmented-reality works are freeing public sculpture from the ‘ideology of control’

BY Elvia Wilk |

Does the crowdfunding platform live up to its promise to ‘change the way art is valued?’

BY Kyle Chayka |

Emerging alternative spaces led by artists of colour leave a stagnant gallery system behind 

BY Ana Tuazon |

The artist's exhibitions at galeria stereo pays tribute to Blecher's ferible dream diary The Lit-Up Burrow 

BY Krzysztof Kościuczuk |

Glasgow-based performer Liv Fontaine’s top tips

BY Liv Fontaine |

For her first UK exhibition at London’s Barbican, the artist builds a narrative of two lovers caught up in a matriarchal society

BY Rianna Jade Parker |

A touring retrospective at Kunsthalle Bremen and Gemeentemuseum Den Haag reveals the comic side of the artist’s work and its unique position in the history of German painting

BY Kito Nedo |

At Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp, the artist takes a second look at the social and emotional aspects of images 

BY Noemi Smolik |

A public art exhibition by the artist whose life was claimed by the Grenfell Tower Fire is a salve for a wounded borough

BY Natalie Nzeyimana |

An exhibition at Kunstverein Braunschweig explores the life of the first African philosopher in Germany and an overlooked chapter in the country’s history

BY Stanton Taylor |

A retrospective at Taxispalais Kunsthalle, Innsbruck, shows that the artist was bold both in her combinations of typefaces and in her political statements

BY Carina Bukuts |

The artist’s bracing performances demonstrate that institutions – and perception itself – can never be neutral

BY Madeleine Seidel |

At Braunsfelder, Cologne, a series of painted rubber plants speaks to our need for calmness

 

BY Moritz Scheper |

Tender yet brutal, Deacon's work melds violence and merriment at the NGV, Melbourne

BY Sophie Knezic |

A new exhibition at Turner Contemporary, Margate, proposes a backyard narrative of the US civil rights movement

BY Amanda Holiday |

The artist’s online project enacts a daily fantasy of revenge – or reparation – for the Western history of institutional racism and colonialism

BY Simon Wu |

The artist’s exhibition at Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, shows the multiple faces of resistance

BY Oriane Durand |

The Turner prize winner's exhibition at Grazer Kunstverein shows how fate can always be challenged

BY Sonja-Maria Borstner |

At Friends Indeed, San Francisco, the artist mines European and indigenous American sources to form a new abstract language

BY Natasha Boas |

The artist’s new works at La Virreina, Barcelona, predict that the culture industry will never be automated

BY Max Andrews |

The late US photographer challenges perceptions of African Americans in a two-part series

BY Candice Nembhard |

At Capitain Petzel, Berlin, the artist pays homage to writers such as Jane Austen and James Joyce

BY Chloe Stead |

The artist’s current exhibition at Weiss Berlin is a nuanced critique of the notion of Black masculinity

BY Eric Otieno Sumba |

‘FIVE’, an online exhibition curated by artist Nina Chanel Abney, assembles moving-image works around ‘anxiety, stillness, isolation, escapism and fear’ 

BY Anthony Hawley |

A retrospective of the Japanese artist's work at Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, sheds new light on his merging of the biological and the artificial

BY Steven Zultanski |

A pop-up DIY exhibition across 400 homes became an unexpectedly timely evocation of resilience and loss

BY Joseph R. Wolin |

An online presentation organized by Julie Ault and Martin Beck documents the artists’ friendship and creative exchanges 

BY Gracie Hadland |

The artist’s online game, ‘Screen Talk’, satirizes the bad politics and fake news muddling responses to COVID-19

BY Travis Diehl |