I have not seen Untitled, the new cinematic send-up of the contemporary artworld, but when I began to describe to a friend some of what's on view in Urs Fischer’s solo bout at the New Museum, I was told it sounded like it would be right at home as a setup for the film's many satirical gags.

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In stark contrast to the plethora of recently opened museum expansions, grandiose, overblown monuments to urban and institutional ego that too often function more as embalming chambers than as galleries, the newly renovated Museo del Barrio is a model of sensitive planning in the service of an institution dedicated to intellectual rigour and community outreach.

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This from Jean-Michel Othoniel, France’s glass-bead master, after receiving news that three of his ginormous bibelots had sold before FIAC even opened to the public. One sculpture went to the state, part of a 24-strong purchase of French artworks by the ministry of culture, another to a Chicago collector through a New York art advisor and a third to a Montreal collector, who bought it within five minutes of seeing it at Emmanuel Perrotin.

The return of the 1980s — the nascent epoch of the celebrity artist, when market hype eclipsed art, cultivated cynicism and killed off the avant-garde — is a bit of a stretch. How about 2007? There was certainly a pré-crise buoyancy in the air.

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Artists Stephanie Syjuco, Kim Coleman, Per-Oskar Leu and Ryan Gander speak with ArtReview about their projects for Frieze Art Fair. Interviews by Oliver Basciano and J.J. Charlesworth.

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By Oliver Basciano

Made homeless by gallery Haunch of Venison’s move into its traditional venue in the buildings adjoining the Royal Academy, Zoo Art Fair has holed itself up this year in an expansive network of former industrial buildings in the East End. Moving from west to east wasn’t Zoo’s only hurdle: the market slump has wreaked some havoc among its stalwart innovative mid-market galleries; and to top it all, Frieze announced their Frame section, the big-tent inclusion of galleries who might formerly have looked to Zoo for a venue. It is with satisfaction, then, that this year’s incarnation – which takes the hybrid format of a series of revolving curated exhibitions, together with a market-driven fair and prints section – not only happened but also managed to be critically interesting and economically innovative.

The 21 stands, from a range of emerging galleries and curatorial and artist-led groups, offer the occasional highlight, in particular Riflemaker. Their solo stand of work by Kent-born Juan Fontanive sees the artist mining his kinetic interests, but withstanding the clinical coldness of so much of the medium. Quickness (2009) is a standout example. Encased in a small tarnished metal box is a constantly revolving flip-board of elegantly watercoloured birds: the clatter of the changing imagery reminiscent of constant bird chatter. Not only do we enter a dialogue of mechanics in relation to the constant innovation/evolution of nature, but it is also visually highly engaging.

It is the exhibitions, though, specifically those curated by FormContent, LUX and Studio Voltaire, which most recommend Zoo this year. In a separate building, accessible via an alleyway, four floors are given over to works not directly for sale. LUX are ambitiously changing their display daily under the banner Film as Subversive Art (taken from the title of Amos Vogel’s 1974 collection of essays), and on opening night Ellen Cantor was drawing the crowds. The work by the American artist is such that when put down in cold type, it sounds kind of awful. But it’s not: it’s humorous, shocking and most of all touched by an angry melancholia.
 
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by David Ulrichs

A VIP shuttle service is just about the only thing that connects Berlin’s two biggest art fairs, Art Forum and Preview Berlin. Art Forum has always played in a league of its own, but in recent years, especially with its move to Berlin’s now out-of-service airport Tempelhof, Preview made a decent effort to become the playground for emerging artists. Sited in the main entrance hall of the airport, ‘the emerging art fair’ decided to opt for a fair without booths. Perhaps inspired by last year’s well-visited art event ABC, yet without the token curator, the hall appeared to be stuffed to the brimful.

The works on view ranged from barely noticeable interventions, such as a wallpaper installation by Heide Fasnacht, to colossal sculptures, like the stacked industrial pallets by Dieter Lutsch & Sophie Schmidt.

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By Oliver Basciano

Is it a good year? This seems to be the key question when engaging in conversation about the Turner Prize. At least once you have hazarded a hedged bet on who the winner will be. But what is really being asked? Is there some overarching, unspoken competition that stretches across the years? One that pits Howard Hodgkin or Malcolm Morley (from 1984) against any of this year’s nominees, Enrico David, Roger Hiorns, Lucy Skaer and Richard Wright? Are Tony Cragg, Damien Hirst and Wolfgang Tillmans in there too, fighting for top dog among the rest? I suppose we are asking the same old question about why we put artists in competition, especially given that the market takes care of this sort of thing much more effectively. Why do we create an environment in which the independent criticality of the institution (Tate) mimics the structures of capitalism (the art market)? Institutions, of course, do not operate separately from the market. Tate is largely government-funded, but it still needs footfall, publicity and the perception of being a ‘tastemaker’ to survive; all of which a competition and prize provide, and every bit as much today as in the time of the gladiators. The answer sadly lies in some dark recess of human psychology far removed from the airy halls of this riverside gallery.

All of which is a preamble to the problem of reviewing a show like the Turner Prize. One would not review the consignments of an auction. So if there is marginal difference, then why such an about-face in the treatment? For that, I think, one has to look at the very nature of the prize’s history. No, one would not review a sale at an auction house, but it might be interesting to review a sale today in comparison to one held 20 years ago. Thus, in an archival spirit, here goes.

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Ciprian Muresan is an artist based in Cluj, Romania. Untitled (Laces) is a short film, featuring unsteady hands tying shoes for the first time, currently on view on ArtReview’s Project Space. He has recently exhibited in the Drawing Room exhibition TINA, curated by Olivia Plender last year, and in a group exhibition at Wilkinson Gallery. He is represented by the renowned artist-run space Plan B, in Cluj, where he is currently preparing for a solo show. Here ArtReview discusses this short film with the artist.

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In one of those fortuitously revealing coincidences, Mark Leckey presented three performances of Mark Leckey in The Long Tail on the same week as The New York Times published an analysis by cultural critic Edward Rothstein of the new Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Disney, of course, built an empire on the back of a cartoon mouse. And as it happens, Leckey began and ended his piece with disquisitions on Felix the Cat, a less well known, but equally venerable anthropomorphic character, who happened, as Leckey explained, to be the subject of the first experimental TV broadcast in 1929. Cat and mouse, then, were the starting points of two – or, given Leckey’s rambling, fact packed, monologue, perhaps three – arcs of technological, artistic, and entertainment innovation.

Television and its impact on modern life need no explanation here. Disney created an integrated model of entertainment as business and entertainment as environment. It’s not just that the Magic Kingdoms – Disney Land and Disney World – present self-contained live versions of Disney’s imaginary visions. In his early animated features, like Snow White (1937), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Fantasia (1940), Walt crafted self contained “realities” in which even cups and saucers and brooms and pails react to, participate in, and precipitate the action.

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