Issue 223
November/December 2021

‘I’m trying to get at where these two things – the Caribbean and Britain – overlap or clash. Where they meet or don’t meet.’ – Hurvin Anderson

In the November/December issue of frieze, Hurvin Anderson and Peter Doig discuss Caribbean landscapes and the British imaginary ahead of Tate’s ‘Life Between Islands’ show. And an extended dossier on Black artists working in clay: Theaster Gates speaks to Allie Biswas about the importance of ceramics to his practice; Helen Cammock pens a personal essay about her father, a self-taught ceramicist and art teacher in post-war Britain, who is the subject of her work in the current British Art Show 9; Phoebe Collings-James and Julia Phillips discuss the relationship between clay, their bodies and the world with curator and academic Dr. Jareh Das; and Magdalene Odundo speaks to how travel to Kenya and Nigeria transformed her understanding of ceramics and what it means to be an artist.

Conversation: Hurvin Anderson and Peter Doig

‘I’m trying to challenge my own ideas: do I think that the Caribbean is a perfect place?’ As a survey show exploring seven decades of artistic exchange between the UK and the Caribbean opens at Tate Britain in London, the painters Hurvin Anderson and Peter Doig discuss how the Caribbean – as a place and as an idea – figures in their life and work.

Dossier: Black Clay

‘Working with clay isn’t a one-way conversation: there is this constant potential for movement.’ Drawn from the earth and moulded by the hands, clay has traditionally been marginalized as a craft form. Artists Helen Cammock, Phoebe Collings-James, Theaster Gates, Magdalene Odundo and Julia Phillips reflect on what we might learn from centring ceramics, as well as its politics. They share what brought them to clay and how this medium, malleable and brittle, has shaped them.

Also featuring   

Ysabelle Cheung profiles artist and choreographer Eisa Jocson, whose forthcoming book, published later this year, will launch the Rockbund Art Museum ‘Conversations’ series in Shanghai, China. Lucy Ives considers the attachments, repetitions and obligations that define Sophie Calle’s unique approach to something more nuanced than objective truth. And in ‘1,500 words’, Ida Marie Heda evokes Marianna Simnett, fairytales and feminism.

Columns: Second Chances

Kareem Reid examines Black Obsidian Sound System’s community-centered art practice and the legacy of Jamaican sound-system present in their Turner Prize presentation; Jamila Prowse writes about how disability-inclusive resources provide more opportunities for working in the arts. Plus, Renata Lucas reimagines her artworks in the face of bureaucratic obstacles; Dan Fox dives into Michael Bracewell’s account of London in the 1980s to search for signs of the city’s present; and Aria Dean, Calla Henkel, Rene Matic, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger and Yukinori Yanagi answer the question ‘who or what deserves a second chance?’

Plus, artist John Vincler responds to a single work by Thomas Eggerer, Ei Arakawa answers our questionnaire and the next iteration of frieze’s Lonely Arts column.

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From this issue

The artist recounts constructing transitory interventions in the face of inflexible bureaucracy

BY Renata Lucas AND Ela Bittencourt |

From pole dancing to Disney princesses, the artist ‘hijacks’ modes of performance to show the power dynamics inherent in the way we move

BY Ysabelle Cheung |

Dan Fox reviews the writer’s memoir of a twilight capital of art, fashion and music

BY Dan Fox |

Novelist Ida Marie Hede reflects on bad dreams, Marianna Simnett and Disney princesses

BY Ida Marie Hede |

Kareem Reid on how the group’s Turner Prize nomination conflicts with the B.O.S.S community-oriented aims

BY Kareem Reid |

In a cross-continent phone conversation, one author traces the narrative artist’s evolution through her books

BY Lucy Ives |

The artist’s new works at Maureen Paley, London, dwell in the ambiguities of how we connect among collective action

BY John Vincler |

Aria Dean, Calla Henkel, Rene Matić, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger and Yukinori Yanagi tell us what deserves a rebound

The artist answers the frieze Questionnaire

BY Ei Arakawa |

As 'Life Between Islands' opens at Tate Britain, two painters reflect on the importance of place to their work

The artist speaks to Allie Biswas about the medium’s gimmick-free nature

BY Allie Biswas |

The artist reflects on the talents of her self-taught ceramist father, whose work was a constant character within her family home

BY Helen Cammock |

The artist recalls how the importance of trips to Nigeria and Kenya transformed her relationship with clay and teaching

BY Magdalene Odundo |

Artists Phoebe Collings-James and Julia Phillips speak to Dr Jareh Das about clay’s physical registers and the ways the material will outlive us

Jamila Prowse reflects on how disability-inclusive resources can create a better art world

BY Jamila Prowse |

The 17th edition of MOMENTA Biennale de l'image presents a smattering of artworks and immersive installations that transcend Western environmental values

BY Didier Morelli |

In her forth exhibition at dépendance, Brussels, the artist's slick images of oil fields reflect our petroleum-fulled dreams and desires

BY Emile Rubino |

At the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, the artist's new show ‘In a Perpetual Now’ at the iconic Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed building articulates the kaleidoscopic possibilities of looking

BY Isabel Parkes |

On view at Kunstverein Gartenhaus, Vienna, the artist’s emotive, fragmentary films shift the locus of desire with feminist determination

BY Francesca Gavin |

At SESC Sorocaba, Brazil, the third edition of the Frestas Triennial of Arts respond to the debates around decolonialization that have dominated the discourse in Latin America for the past two decades

BY Fernanda Brenner |

At Galleria Franco Noero, Turin, the artist's current series is exposed to the elements and requires avian participation

BY Saim Demircan |

At Swiss institute, New York, a well-earned survey of the late artist charts her early experimental works and textile sculptures of the 1970s

BY Paige K. Bradley |

The artist’s poignant solo exhibition, part of Antenna Space's Antenna-tenna programme in Shanghai, captures queer life through fleeting touches and whispered speech

BY Alvin Li |

At Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, the Austrian artist mines epochs of ancient history to bring painting back to a time before consciousness

BY Aaron Peck |

At Gasworks, London, the artist queers the conventional masculinity of the action-adventure video game 

BY Chris Hayes |

At Zollamt MMK, Frankfurt, the artist's barren landscapes reveal the ugly legacy of Apartheid

BY Eric Otieno Sumba |

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents the artist’s first major retrospective in 20 years

BY Arthur Solway |

At Morán Morán’s new space in Los Angeles, the artist presents an array of makeshift objects that reveal the mutability of identity

BY Jonathan Griffin |

At Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, the artist’s first major retrospective traces the complex entanglements of colonial and personal histories

At The Breeder Gallery, Athens, the Nigerian artist tethers the superficial conventions of European portrait painting to the semiotics of Blackness

BY Shiv Kotecha |

At Komaba Museum, Tokyo, a retrospective showcases the late postwar artist and theorist’s dedication to transforming polarized media representations

BY Azby Brown |

At Leeds Art Gallery, the artist's multimedia installation follows the shamanic goddess Princess Bari and a host of avatars on a hero’s journey through climate collapse and renewal

BY Alice Bucknell |

For his latest solo outing at Matthew Marks, Los Angeles, the artist presents a series of paintings inspired from the news lines during the pandemic and the minutia inside his studio

BY Jan Tumlir |

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, the late artist, who died tragically during 9/11, is remembered for his trenchant works that reflect on the transcendence and vulnerability of the Black male body

BY Jackson Davidow |

At Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, the artist’s retrospective approaches materials in a child-like manner with little regard for the objects’ origins or histories

BY Tom Jeffreys |