3. official opening thursday, 9:30am Breakfast
becomes quite the social occasion during Frieze Week. Last year, for instance, Other Criteria served up a spread of strawberries and assorted viennoiseries in the presence of Damien Hirst, to celebrate his work. Other dealers will be following suit this year. 11am Frieze Art Fair is only one of a host of events in Frieze Week, which spans the city. Take, for example, PAD London Art + Design (till 20 October), which is also held in a tent (admittedly not as splendid as those that architects Carmody Groarke and Annabelle Selldorf have designed for, respectively, Frieze and Frieze Masters), this time in Berkeley Square. It’s arguably London’s leading fair for 20th-century art, design and eclectic decorative arts, 4pm Bonhams hosts the first
of the week’s contemporary art auctions at its New Bond Street headquarters (with Phillips’ evening sale later tonight at 7pm, at its Westminster HQ.) 6pm Back at Frieze, the smaller collectors and art-world mavens are now admitted, plus the press. This is your signal to leave; it’s the time many dealers take down their prime exhibits. 7pm The Christie’s/Vanity Fair party is traditionally the hottest ticket tonight, an event only rivalled by Jay Jopling’s dinner – held last year at Harry’s Bar, with a guest list that ran from hip hotelier André Balazs to hedge-fund whizzes Arpad Busson and Ian Wace, by way of the designers Agnès B and Bella Freud – and this year’s Alexander McQueen-hosted one for Frieze itself (McQueen is a new sponsor of the fair for 2013). But don’t overlook the more low-key events. Who knew the party for the Iranian artist Reza Aramesh at One Marylebone would be the most talked-about soirée in 2011? 10:45PM If the night still feels young and you can’t face the annual Frieze-related shindig at the Groucho Club, the Coburg Bar at the Connaught is the place for a last flute of vintage Krug. If that revives you, then someone will surely be throwing an after-party at 2&8, the nightclub in the basement of Morton’s, the private members’ club on Berkeley Square. (Frieze VIPs have membership for the duration of the fair.)
drawing 60 galleries from across Europe and the US. Look out for the stand belonging to David Ghezelbash, a French expert, formerly of the Louvre, who specializes in near-Eastern antiquities (think of Picasso and Brâncusi, and you’ll get a sense of their aesthetic, though the prices are less inflated compared to modern art). 2pm Phillips hosts its contemporary art day sale, the highlights of which have been shown at its gallery in Claridge’s. 3pm You might want to be back at Frieze Masters for the first in its annual programme of Frieze Masters Talks (daily at 3pm), where those in conversation will include Beatriz Milhazes with Martin Roth, director of the V&A; and Catherine Opie with Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 5pm Christie’s and the Saatchi Gallery auction large-scale installations and sculptures from
50 artists – among them Tracey Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Conrad Shawcross. The sale, entitled ‘Thinking Big’, has no estimates or reserve prices, which should make for exciting bidding. (The preview is being held at The Sorting Office, a still palpably industrial space on New Oxford Street.) 6pm This evening is also Frieze’s official VIP West End Night, when galleries such as Alan Cristea, Anthony Reynolds, Carl Kostyál and Johann König host special events. 9pm Within five minutes by cab is 45 Park Lane, the latest addition to the Dorchester Group of hotels, in which a rib-eye of prime Australian Wagyu at Wolfgang Puck’s Cut, in a room hung with Damien Hirst paintings, may be just the ticket. Hotel guests will have had a chance to meet Jane McAdam Freud, daughter of Lucian Freud, over breakfast, followed by a private tour of her studio.
the received wisdom is that unless you stay within 10 minutes of claridge’s or the connaught, you’re nowhere.
Clockwise from left: Frieze’s Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover; ‘Door’ (2012), Gavin Turk; the entrepreneur Evgeny Lebedev; Harry’s Bar; a giant sausage, part of food art at Frieze 2012; the Hospital Club held a private event last year.
49 Baku.