C2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2019LONDON — Britain might be convulsed by
Brexit, but the contemporary art world, and
the 0.1 percent of the population that makes
it go around, carries on as normal. At least,
so it seems.
Last week thousands of international col-
lectors, dealers and curators gathered here
for the Frieze London and Frieze Masters
fairs in Regent’s Park, as well as a dizzying
array of dealer shows, auctions and other
satellite events.
“Geopolitically, it may seem as though
the world is going sideways, but the art
market chugs ahead,” said Wendy
Cromwell, an art adviser based in New
York, in town for Frieze Week.
“Primary sales are alive and well, as is
the secondary market for top quality, rare,
in-demand work,” added Ms. Cromwell, re-
ferring to the “primary” market for new
works from commercial galleries and the
“secondary” trade in re-offered pieces, such
as at auction.
“Auction material is a little weak this fall
with concerns around Brexit,” said Ms.
Cromwell last Tuesday, unaware that a
Banksy would sell at Sotheby’s on Thurs-
day for $12 million. “But the pound is at a
record low,” she added, “so these sales favor
the bold.”
London’s less than stellar auctions
(Banksy apart) were balanced by a formi-
dable lineup of dealer shows. Within just a
square mile or so of the city center, there
were new works by Mark Bradford avail-
able at Hauser & Wirth, Damien Hirst at
White Cube and Peter Doig at Michael Wer-
ner.
A survey exhibition of old and new paint-
ings by the admired German artist Albert
Oehlen at the Serpentine Gallery coaxed
discreet secondary market offerings of old-
er Oehlen pieces at the Max Hetzler and
Lévy Gorvy galleries. And there was even a
show of new paintings and sculptures by
the wildly popular American street artist
KAWS at Skarstedt.
Boosted by recent exceptional auction re-
sults, the former graffiti tagger Brian Don-
nelly, a.k.a. KAWS, is the market phenom-
enon of the moment. Skarstedt offered 10
new vibrant acrylic abstracts by the artist,
as well as two large-scale resin sculptures,
all of which found buyers, according to the
gallery. The unique paintings were marked
at $450,000 to $575,000, while the sculp-
tures, each available in a total edition of sev-
en, were priced at $850,000 each.
“The problem is that if there’s a good
show you get 200 people wanting to buy it,”
said Candace Worth, another New York art
adviser, who was also in London. “There’s a
huge clientele for a relatively small number
of artists. It’s a pressure cooker.”
A case in point was the show at the
Stephen Friedman Gallery of 20 new paint-
ings and works on paper by the South Afri-
can artist Lisa Brice, who had a solo show at
Tate Britain in 2018.
“Challenging and reinterpreting tradi-
tional depictions of the female nude from
the perspective of a female artist,” accord-
ing to a statement from the gallery, these
politically charged images were perfectly in
tune with the mission of many museum cu-
rators and private collectors to widen the
art historical canon. They sold out for prices
ranging from 9,000 pounds — about $11,000
— for drawings, to £175,000 for large-scale
painted folding screens, said Mira Dim-
itrova, the gallery’s spokeswoman.
Works by female and African-American
artists are immensely popular in today’s artmarket. Last Wednesday, at the preview for
Frieze London, new paintings by Stanley
Whitney and Kerry James Marshall were
quickly snapped up.
Mr. Marshall’s wryly observational “Car
Girl 2,” showing a woman leaning on a car
from which a dog is leaning out, was sold by
the New York dealer David Zwirner for $3.8
million, while the London-based Lisson
Gallery sold four new colorful geometric ab-
stracts by Mr. Whitney, priced between
$350,000 and $450,000, to buyers in the
Middle East, Norway and the United States,according to Lisson. The dealership was
concurrently hosting a show of Mr. Whit-
ney’s paintings, which also sold out.
While the Frieze London preview was
busy, there was a distinctly more subdued
atmosphere at its sister fair Frieze Masters,
which presents a “crossover” mix of works
ranging across 6,000 years.
Old masters have proved a hard sell at
this elegant event, but so too have 20th-cen-
tury masters. Leading “secondary market”
dealers in modern art, such as Lévy Gorvy
and Luxembourg & Dayan, both based in
New York and London, and Galería Elvira
González, from Madrid, were notable ab-
sentees from this latest edition.
But on Wednesday the New York dealer
Van de Weghe did sell an elaborately de-
tailed 1986 Jean-Michel Basquiat drawing
with an asking price of $2.2 million, and the
London-based old master dealership
Moretti Fine Art found a buyer for a little
circa 1400 Florentine painting, “Christ at
the Column,” priced at $200,000.
With Brexit beckoning, and major gal-
leries such as David Zwirner, White Cube
and Pace opening or exploring options in
Paris, can London maintain its long-held
status as the international capital of the Eu-
ropean art market?
Max Edouard Hetzler, a dealer in contem-
porary art who runs spaces in Berlin, Paris
and London, said he thought the British
capital wasn’t going to give up that status
anytime soon. Mr. Hetzler’s gallery in the
upmarket Mayfair district was presenting a
show of seven 1980s “Spiegelbilder” (Mir-
ror Paintings) by Oehlen, from private col-
lections. Some works were discreetly avail-
able for sale, priced between $2 million and
$4 million.
“There are too many museums, art col-
leges and collections here,” Mr. Hetzler
said. “They’re not going to go away.”What Brexit? The Art World Carries On at Frieze London
Gallery shows and a weak
pound drew many visitors.
By SCOTT REYBURNAbove, “The Space of Possibility” (2019)
by Stanley Whitney, presented at Frieze
London by Lisson Gallery. Right,
“TAKE,” a sculpture by KAWS, shown at
Skarstedt Gallery in London.STANLEY WHITNEY; VIA LISSON GALLERYJONTY WILDEtrayal.
The New York Times spoke with several
Jokers at the convention on Friday about
their costumes and how they feel about Hol-
lywood’s latest interpretation of the Joker.
Andrew Santos, 32
Occupation: American Airlines manager
Hometown: New York
Santos hasn’t gotten a chance to watch the
“Joker” movie yet, but all he needed to see
was the trailer to decide that he was going
to dress like Phoenix’s Joker at Comic Con.
He loves the DC Comics version of the char-
acter, but Phoenix’s performance looked
like it was going to be special.
“The movie is going to be something dark
that you shouldn’t take children to,” Santos
said. “But I like movies where you see it
from the other side, the villain’s side. You
don’t necessarily sympathize with them,
but it’s a different view.”
He said he considers the definitive origin
story of the Joker to be his falling into a vat
of chemicals that turns his hair green, his
skin a chalky white and his mouth blood
red. But he appreciates the filmmaker’s at-
tempt to add depth to the character’s back-
ground — even if it’s a disturbing narrative.
Mei Velasco, 30
Occupation: Medical assistant
Hometown: High Point, N.C.
Velasco describes her costume as Ledger’s
Joker from “The Dark Knight” — but “girl-
ified.” (Her husband dressed up at Harley
Quinn, the Joker’s frequent accomplice and
love interest who fell for him while treating
him at a psychiatric hospital.)
She said the costume was easy to throw
together: She found the jacket at Target, the
neon green wig on sale and for the makeup,
she found an online tutorial for Joker-style
face paint.
Velasco said she considers the true-to-life
angle of the “Joker” film to be potentially in-
structive to audiences rather than harmful.
“I feel like what he’s trying to say is that
our society looks like it’s going toward that
way, so this is like a warning,” she said, “It’s
like, ‘Hello, everybody, wake up!’ ”
Andrew Rancy, 31
Occupation: Employed at a tile distribution
business
Hometown: Marlboro, N.J.
Rancy didn’t want to choose just one Joker,
so he took pieces of several versions of the
character to incorporate into his outfit.
He kept his mustache as a homage to Ce-
sar Romero, who didn’t shave his mustache
for the television adaptation of the Batman
comic book. The green dreadlocks were in-
spired by the Joker’s hair in the Batman
cartoon. And the royal purple coat came
from Ledger’s Joker.
Rancy said he was impressed by the new
movie but he could see the possibility for
some viewers to interpret Phoenix’s char-
acter as a figure worth emulating, some-
thing that relatives and friends of those
killed in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater
shooting expressed concern about in a let-
ter to Warner Bros.
“It does delve deep into mental illness
and how, in some areas of society, not a lot of
people understand or know how to handle
it,” Rancy said.He continued: “You can’t really predict
these things. But I can see some people tak-
ing it too far.”Julio Cruz, 25
Occupation: Wrestler and fitness center
employee
Hometown: Rahway, N.J.
Cruz was so set on dressing up as Phoenix’s
version of the Joker that he bought the mov-
ie-specific costume on Amazon just for the
occasion.
“I was the ‘Dark Knight’ Joker previ-
ously,” Cruz said. “I’m just a Joker-head.
This is one I wanted to take on.”
He committed to getting the makeup
right, too. When the first set of face paint he
purchased didn’t look right, he went to the
store at 1 a.m. to find the right stuff. He de-
cided to apply the makeup the night before
the convention, which meant that he had to
make himself fall asleep on his back in order
to not mess it up.
He said he considered it important that
the film takes on issues of mental illness,
but doesn’t think filmmakers should shy
away from that subject.
“It’s art,” he said. “The way you perceive
it is how you perceive it.”Krystal Valle, 27
Occupation:Phone technician
Hometown:New York
Valle knows the exact movie scene she’s
portraying: In “The Dark Knight,” Ledger’s
Joker dresses up in a white nurse’s outfit as
part of a scheme to blow up Gotham Gen-eral Hospital.
“I’ve already done Harley; Harley had
her time,” Valle said. “I wanted to do nurse
Joker.”
It’s a particularly evil version of the Joker
character. But Valle said it’s ultimately just
a character in a movie, and that if a person
does something violent, he or she should be
blamed — not the movie.
“It’s just like the whole ‘video games are
causing violence’ thing,” she said. “It all de-
pends on who the person is.”Vincent Giacalone, 21
Occupation: Stony Brook University
student
Hometown:New York
Giacalone’s Joker cosplay is a bit more
relaxed than his Comic Con counterparts.
He said it was just the easiest option after
he procrastinated on his costume.
Giacalone already had the velvet jacket and
vest lying around, and he could buy
inexpensive white gloves online.
He didn’t really know which particular
Joker he was playing, though someone had
suggested to him that he looked like a
steampunk Joker. He plans to see the film —
but not in costume. While riding the train on
Friday morning in his get-up, Giacalone
said he sensed some concern. He was
carrying an overnight duffel bag, and other
passengers looked worried.
“I felt like I was getting looks from
people,” he said, “so I tried to do normal
things like take out my granola bar and
have a snack.”Fans of the Joker Find Their Tribe
CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1
Clockwise from above:
Andrew Santos took in
Comic Con dressed as
Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker;
Vincent Giacalone said his
Joker get-up caused a stir
on the train; and Krystal
Valle cribbed her Joker
look from a nurse scene in
“The Dark Knight.”PHOTOGRAPHS BY NATHAN BAJAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES