Issue 227
May 2022

‘With La Noche Del Cisne, I always had the feeling that we were just doing it for fun.’

– Pia Camil

The May issue of frieze leads with an oral history of La Noche del Cisne, a cabaret night founded by artists Pia Camil and PJ Rountree in their shared studio in Mexico City. Plus, an extensive dossier on contemporary photography, featuring John Berger, Jack Halberstam, Julian Irlinger, Graciela Iturbide, Charlotte Jansen, Zoe Leonard, Zanele Muholi, Sophie Thun and five emerging photographers – Marcel Pardo Ariza, Koral Carballo, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Paul Niedermayer and Cameron Ugbodu.

Oral History: La Noche del Cisne

‘We had no idea what to expect or if anyone would even turn up, and we really just used the materials at hand.’ – PJ Rountree. A look back on the storied cabaret night in Mexico City – with contributions by Alejandra Acosta Chávez, Pia Camil, Susana Vargas Cervantes, Don Charles, Brenda Munguía, Luis Pablo Osorio, Kristin Reger, PJ Rountree and Alberto Perera.

Photography Now 

‘As art practitioners, we can encourage or support those who want to become the next generation of artists.’ – Zanele Muholi. The issue closes with a special dossier dedicated to contemporary photography, including essays on the medium’s most pressing issues and interviews with acclaimed and emerging artists.

Also featuring  

In the features: Simon Wu profiles Kayode Ojo, whose shiny sculptural configurations reflect the art world’s taste back at itself; in ‘1,500 words’, Patrik Sandberg dives into the world of the legendary gay filmmaker James Bidgood, who died in January; ahead of a large public installation on Governor’s Island in New York, Charles Gaines speaks with Harmony Holiday about seeing faces, trees and the bigger picture. Plus, an exclusive extract from a forthcoming book of Philip Guston’s composed notes, sketches, letters and pictures, I Paint What I Want to See (2022).

Columns: Do It Yourself

Patrick Kurth speaks to Siddhartha Lokanandi, the owner of the Berlin bookshop Hopscotch Reading Room; Rory O’Connor examines the playful cinema of director Hong Sang-Soo; artist Megan Plunkett tells Diana Hamilton about her work as an unlicensed private investigator; Paige K. Bradley profiles experimental broadcaster Montez Press Radio. Plus, Richard Hawkins on the painter Forrest Bess’s correspondence with one of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers, psychoanalyst Carl Jung.

Plus, Marko Gluhaich responds to a single work by Rose Salane, featured in The Whitney Biennial. Going Up, Going Down charts what’s hot and what’s not in the global art world, and, finally, the latest iteration of our Lonely Arts column.

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From this issue

On the occasion of Salane’s inclusion in the Whitney Biennial, Marko Gluhaich considers the artist’s new installation 64,000 Attempts at Circulation

BY Marko Gluhaich |

Ahead of his Creative Time commission in New York, the artist speaks with poet Harmony Holiday

BY Harmony Holiday AND Charles Gaines |

Chloe Stead talks with the artists about their personal approaches to mining the past

Richard Hawkins on the crucial correspondence between the artist and the psychoanalyst

BY Richard Hawkins |

Jonathan Carver Moore speaks to the artist about building Black queer communities through art

Paige K. Bradley profiles the NYC radio station that subverts the role of the celebrity and has a place for everyone on its airwaves

BY Paige K. Bradley |

Colin Edgington on how images of COVID-19 attempted to capture the invisible

BY Colin Edgington |

Mariama Attah, Anna Frances Douglas and Jeremy Millar revisit John Berger’s famed television series and book

Patrick Kurth speaks to Siddhartha Lokanandi about his Berlin bookstore and creating a space for seduction and indecipherability

BY Siddhartha Lokanandi AND Patrick Kurth |

Rory O’Connor watches the filmmaker’s distinctive oeuvre which brings low-budget austerity to the film festival circuit

BY Rory O'Connor |

Patrik Sandberg on his years of friendship with the legendary filmmaker

BY Patrik Sandberg |

The photographer recalls her experiences working undercover, and how they informed her art practice

Jessica Lynne speaks to the artist about photographing the Rio Grande and deconstructing borders

BY Jessica Lynne AND Zoe Leonard |

An extract of Philip Guston's thoughts on painting and drawings taken from an upcoming book, I Paint What I Want to See (2022), featuring his notes and interviews

BY Philip Guston |

On the occasion of her retrospective at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, the photographer reflects on some of her best-known projects

BY Charlotte Jansen AND Graciela Iturbide |

Jack Halberstam on how abstraction can offer a means of representing, complicating, dispersing and concealing trans embodiment

BY Jack Halberstam |

Simon Wu considers how the artist’s shiny sculptural configurations reflect the art world’s taste back at itself

BY Simon Wu |

frieze contributors and editors nominate a young photographer whose work excites and intrigues them