Elmgreen + Dragset's Frieze Top 10

The London Evening Standard asked Elmgreen & Dragset for their top ten works in this year’s Frieze fair. Here they are along with excerpts from the commentary:

John Baldessari
Beethoven’s Trumpet
(With Ear) Opus #133
$400,000, Spruth Magers

Many artists are more fun at the beginning of their careers, but Baldessari keeps up the energy. Things that are overly serious at art fairs often turn out to be a bit pathetic.

Stephanie Syjuco
Copystand
From £99
“Stephanie is making replicas of the works at the fair, and they will be cheap. That’s my style, and I love it.

Wolfgang Tillmans
Susanna, No Bra
€11,000, Maureen Paley

Tillmans has been really significant in shaping a new gay identity in the media, from a camp, kitschy stereotype to showing gay men with alternative lifestyles.

Sigmar Polke
With Potemkin Through The Villages
€2 million
$350,000
Both Michael Werner Gallery

I don’t know what this Polke is doing here, as it’s far too significant a piece to be shown at an art fair. Polke has been an important German artist for many decades.

Christoph Buchel
Socks
€20,000, Hauser & Wirth
Ten years ago, one of the first pieces Ingar and I did – because we had very little money to make sculptures – was to take off our underwear and jeans and dump them in the gallery – that was the sculpture.

Ugo Rondinone
A Day Like This Made Of Nothing And Nothing Else
$350,000, Galerie Eva Presenhuber

It’s a strong piece, and this is a great display. I’m not sure if the planks are the gallery floor or part of it

Duane Hanson
Man With Camera
$550,000, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin
I like Duane Hanson – he pays homage to ordinary people.

Sebastian Diaz Morales
The way Between Two Points (Terra Incognita)
€24,000, Galerie Catherine Bastide
My recommendation is, when your head is too filled with noise and there is horrible light outside, that it’s a good place to pause and get yourself together.

Henrik Olesen
Untitled
€8,000, Galerie Daniel Buchholz
This piece is everything an art fair piece shouldn’t be, and therefore I love it. It’s serious, and it’s not screaming ‘buy me’.

Gail’s Artisan Bakery
(cappuccino £2.50, glass of champagne £9)
“The café at Frieze is another kind of artwork. You can eavesdrop on what people are saying. You get an idea of what the audience, not the buyers, think.”

An Artist’s Guide to Frieze (This Is London)