Frieze's Top 10 Articles of 2021

  1. An Alternative Art History of the 1990s

First featured in frieze 220, Isabel Waidner imagined a different version of the decade that gave us the yBas (and frieze magazine)

2. Celebrating SOPHIE (1986-2021)

Shon Faye paid tribute to the pioneering musician and producer whose generation-defining music will live on in the exultations of the dance floor

3. Kanye West’s Quest for Perfection

Harmony Holiday examined the US rapper's erratic process amid the cult-like fanfare surrounding his elusive album Donda

4. How Ibrahim Mahama's Installations Exhume Political Ghosts

Featured in frieze 222, Vanessa Peterson spoke with Ibrahim Mahama about Ghana’s post-independence era, architecture and the importance of his collaborators in the run up to his solo show at White Cube, London

5. A Tribute to Kaari Upson (1970–2021)

Jonathan Griffin remembered the life and career of the Southern Californian artist whose multimedia work dealt with themes of trauma, selfhood, family and home

6. Marilyn Minter on Overcoming Censorship and Bringing Back Pubic Hair

Chloe Stead sat down with the artist during here solo show at MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain to talk up the female gaze and why as an 'old lady' you can do just about anything

7. Joshua Cohen on Truth and Half-Truths in Fiction

For frieze 222, Lincoln Michel spoke with the author about his latest work, ‘The Netanyahus', and how his definition of ‘truth’ changes with every novel

8. The Artists Building a Future out of Mushrooms

In a column for frieze 218, Francesca Gavin asked if fungus can help us better understand what it means to be human

9. The Art of Dressing: How Sartorial Choices Shape the Artist

Chloë Ashby reviewed What Artists Wear, Charlie Porter's reflection on the importance of clothing to the artistic practices and identities of figures from Georgia O’Keeffe to Gilbert & George

10. Understanding ‘L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’

Wilson Tarbox addressed how Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s mummified reimagining of Napoleon’s monument speaks as much to the present as it does to the past

^{Main image: Seana Gavin, Untitled, Mushroom Chimney, 2020. Courtesy: © the artist and Somerset House, London}