Frieze-for-all at No. 9 Cork Street

Date: 14 Jun 2023

Karen Jones

Find the Frieze experience any time of year at No. 9 Cork Street, Mayfair.

Frieze Art Fair is known, as is Art Basel, for its ability to attract the art cognoscenti. With champagne, activist water and luxury brands, avid collectors throng through the many white stands and corridors awash with bright videos, paintings, watercolours and sculpture.

But not everyone can jet to London, New York, or Seoul to feast like a vampire on the latest curations from avant garde galleries. And why should they have to? A little-known secret is that Mayfair is full of high-end galleries and auction houses who are happy to welcome an idle art lover, and their proximity is such that five or ten could be seen within a couple of hours. Add a lunch or drinks at Maison Francois and any art lover is in for a perfect day that is both environmentally friendly – walking –  and in line with inflation – free.

One of these galleries is No. 9 Cork Street, which is a permanent spot for Frieze and welcomes short shows of galleries, chosen with the Frieze lens to secure quality exhibitions. The gallery owners are onsite to provide insights and background on the artists they represent. The selections range from video installations and sculpture to paintings and watercolours. All are presented in a smart townhouse building on Cork Street.

Video art from Korea met us on our visit and prompted a familiar question following the New York Frieze Art Show, which had chosen many unknown galleries from countries such as Iran and Nigeria, which was ‘who buys this’? Whilst the sentence ‘I could have done this’ has also become as legendary as Tracey Emin’s response to her bed ‘well, you didn’t, did you?’, the response initially seemed public institutions, which quieted my companion who could not visualize these 45-minute videos rolling around in his home. However, a gallerist said she had been commissioned over many years to create a collection for a private individual and was told to buy, perhaps like Saatchi, anything that they thought would remain of interest in the world of art over time, effectively building a historical art record.

This confirmed that the tangible view of art has changed. Should we still expect a frame and a painting within? The answer is maybe, but as assemblage, video and blurred concepts are presented, a frame may be found on the floor rather than the wall.

Activist art seemed to be a trend at the Frieze art fair and this also bleeds into No. 9 Cork Street. It is a good selection of contemporary art, some more edgy, some in classic formats. Other notable galleries in the area include Jhaveri Contemporary, Pace and Hauser & Wirth.

Incubator Gallery, 2 Chiltern Street

Finding the next big thing in art is a collector’s dream; a lower price tag and an ascending, future value. Finding these rare specimens though, is often a difficult task. Perhaps The Summer Exhibition at The Royal Academy or The Affordable Art Show? These stalking grounds can throw up mediocre or unsophisticated artworks, that may become your Picasso but can be artistically and technically disappointing. Although this is not always so.

Incubator Gallery has been a pop up but has now found its permanent residence at No. 2 Chiltern Street, London. Showcasing Marco Bizzarri a Chilean artist based in the UK, it offers a selection of his paintings which reveal hazy, ethereal images of places in Chile. The canvases and images are then covered in a fine paint splashing technique that provides a lens like a rainy window.

Bizzarri graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile with a BA in Fine Arts (2014) and to my eye, this expanse of his art education is obvious. He paints with contemporary innovation but with the intent of a master The speckling on the canvasses looks painstaking and delicate. The brown hue that emanates from the paintings is also highlighted with waves of fine colour to gleam blue or red dependent on the painting.

Chiltern Street also has excellent places for lunch and coffee to allow you to day dream and contemplate Bizzarri”s work.

https://www.incubatorart.com/artists/marco-bizzarri