Issue 226
April 2022

‘Seemingly overnight, Venice was transformed into a laboratory for the future.’ – Jennifer Higgie

The April issue of frieze is dedicated to the Venice Biennale. Fernanda Brenner, Thea Havlin, Eric Otieno Sumba and Skye Arundhati Thomas each select an artist to watch at this year’s Biennale: Dineo Seshee Bopape, Giulia Cenci, Shubigi Rao and Luiz Roque. Plus, Jennifer Higgie dives into the age-old discussion of Venice’s national pavilion system, calling on thirty years’ worth of experience attending the Biennale.

Dossier: Four Artists to Watch 2022

‘The personal, historical and spiritual meet the currents of the ocean.’ While the Venice Biennale is often known for the established names who showcase at the national pavilions, it also hosts numerous young and emerging artists. In four short essays, writers profile Dineo Seshee Bopape, Giulia Cenci, Shubigi Rao, Luiz Roque from this year’s edition

Essay: States in Progress

‘Showcasing “the best” is a tricky proposition that begs bigger questions around the function of art.’ With the spotlight at the Venice Biennale falling all-too-often on the 30 national pavilions in the Giardini, while other countries are required to rent off-site venues, writer Jennifer Higgie asks whether this 19th-century format still makes sense.

Also featuring   

Adam Szymczyk profiles Maria Eichhorn, who will represent Germany at this year’s Biennale. in ‘1,500 words’, Avram Finkelstein, a former member of the activist group Gran Fury, remembers the fractions and disputes that led to their notorious 1990 Biennale show ‘Pope Piece’. And Roisin Tapponi speaks to Zineb Sedira ahead of her exhibition at the French pavilion.

Columns: Come Together

The issue opens with a series of columns on the theme of coming together: Imani Robinson profiles Sonia Boyce, the first Black female artist to represent Great Britain in Venice; Linda Yablonsky pens a satirical primer to Biennale, drawing on her years of experience attending exhibitions and parties; Terence Trouillot speaks to the member of Wochenklausur about their 1999 Kosovo Language School; Francesco Tenaglia explores the role of performance at the event. Plus, Barbara Casavecchia talks to the Biennale College Art students – Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Ambra Castagnetti, Andro Eradze and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami – about their experiences as the programme’s first cohort.

Plus, Elvia Wilk responds to a single work by Francis Alÿs and the latest iteration of our Lonely Arts column. And, finally, we re-instate a popular frieze format Going Up, Going Down, charting what’s hot and what’s not in the global art world. 

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Cover artwork: commissioned illustration by Timo Lenzen, 2022

From this issue

Imani Mason Jordan speaks to the artist about how the pandemic has affected her work and what her plans are for Venice

BY Imani Mason Jordan |

Ahead of her presentation in the French Pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale, Zineb Sedira speaks with Róisín Tapponi about the influence of Third Worldist cinema and transnational alliances on her practice 

BY Róisín Tapponi |

The writer shares her tips for how to navigate the opening week bustle

BY Linda Yablonsky |

Ahead of the artist’s contribution to the German Pavilion, Adam Szymczyk considers how she might embrace the loaded history of the country she will represent

BY Adam Szymczyk |

Featured in this year’s Venice Biennale, the artist zooms in on Singapore and Venice, two ports of the publishing world

BY Skye Arundhati Thomas |

Barbara Casavecchia interviews the four finalists of Venice’s new College Arte programme

BY Barbara Casavecchia |

The Austrian artist Wolfgang Zinggl looks back on his social practice collective’s project for the 1999 Venice Biennale

BY Wolfgang Zinggl |

Im Vorfeld von Maria Eichhorns Beitrag für den deutschen Pavillon stellt Adam Szymczyk Überlegungen hinsichtlich der Frage an, in welcher Form die Künstlerin das Thema Zugänglichkeit aufgreifen wird – angesichts einer Welt, die um den Begriff der Grenze herum organisiert ist.

BY Adam Szymczyk |

Elvia Wilk on the artist’s understated and poignant series ‘Children’s Games’ (1999-ongoing)

BY Elvia Wilk |

Avram Finkelstein looks back on Gran Fury’s contribution to the 1990 Venice Biennale, The Pope and the Penis, and considers how the immediacy of social media might have impacted the AIDS activist collective

BY Avram Finkelstein |

With the spotlight at the Venice Biennale falling all-too-often on the 30 national pavilions in the Giardini, writer Jennifer Higgie asks whether this 19th-century format still makes sense

BY Jennifer Higgie |

Francesco Tenaglia speculates on whether performance will have a repeat victory at this year’s Biennale

BY Francesco Tenaglia |

Fernanda Brenner on the artist's uncanny and transgressive films

BY Fernanda Brenner |

Ahead of Bopape's presentation at TBA21–Academy's Ocean Space in Venice, Eric Otieno Sumba reflects on the artist’s relationship with the sea

BY Eric Otieno Sumba |

Writer Thea Hawlin on Giulia Cenci’s dark installations, where the past, present and future converge

BY Thea Hawlin |

At Hakanto Contemporary, Antananarivo, a group show attempts to portray a Malagasy identity through figurative and conceptual work

BY Rebecca Anne Proctor |

At Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway, artists plant sites of refuge in an earth scarred by colonialism

BY Patrick Kurth |

For their first solo exhibition in Switzerland, the artist and energy worker uses multisensory environments to go beyond the fatalistic parameters of representation

BY Olamiju Fajemisin |

The artist's stripped back solo exhibition at Lucas Hirsch, Dusseldorf, imbues generic scenes with personality

BY Moritz Scheper |

An intimate new exhibition at London’s Two Temple Place explores how Black female artists – from Ladi Kwali to Shawanda Corbett – have reimagined one of the world’s oldest art forms

BY Chloë Ashby |

At FOMU Photo Museum Antwerp, the artist reveals the contrivances and ambiguities of documentary photography

BY Wilson Tarbox |

At kaufmann repetto, the artist presents a set of photographic text-based works inspired by droughts and the streets of New York City

BY Svetlana Kitto |

At the Brooklyn Museum, the artist presents a suite of works that centres on their experience as a queer, Muslim femme to question ideas of origin and belonging

BY Aruna D'Souza |

At Fondazione Memmo, Rome, the artist's latest installation voices concerns on power inequalities and global uneasiness

BY Ana Vukadin |

At Galeria Plan B, the artist aims to symbolically transform visitors into a state of extraordinary openness

BY Mitch Speed |

At New Art Gallery Walsall, a founding member of BLK Art Group depicts the near future through the anxieties of the present

BY Cathy Wade |

At Wschód, Warsaw, the artist uses digital tools to develop sculptures that confound scale, visual plane and function

BY Krzysztof Kościuczuk |

A survey at Art + Practice, Los Angeles, celebrates the artist’s unique combination of photography and dance

BY Tiffany Barber |

For his first solo show in Los Angeles, the artist transforms Rudolf Schindler’s famed Fitzpatrick-Leland House into a large-scale sonic installation 

BY Jan Tumlir |

A recent survey at The Polygon, Vancouver, showcases the painter’s varied practice in photography 

BY Aaron Peck |

At Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, the artist's photography is a personalized window into the material effects of social inequity

BY Octavia Bürgel |

‘She Keeps Me Damn Alive’ at Arebyte Gallery, London, is a digital game tasking visitors to protect Black trans lives against a monster feeding on marginalized groups

BY Lauren Dei |

An impassioned show of new works at Sim Smith, London, affirms the artist’s longstanding engagement with queer sisterhood, solidarity and survival

BY Kat Hudson |

At Seventeen, London, a group show engineered by Joey Holder and Omsk Social Club presents itself as a creepy ‘Squid Game’-esque clinic

BY Tom Morton |

At MIT List Visual Arts Center, the artist presents minimalist assemblages that reflect critically on the spaces and circumstances of the disenfranchised

BY Jackson Davidow |

At Nottingham Contemporary the group show – billed as an ‘exhibition-as-sci-fi-novel’ – presents a speculative reality shaped by environmental crisis

BY Aliya Say |

At Grimm, New York, the Peruvian artist presents a body of work that asks us to defang our baleful understandings of ghosts

BY Simon Wu |