During the second-annual Frieze Art Fair earlier this month, we put out a call to our readers to come up with new and interesting angles on art fair writing, offering a prize for the most creative. After sorting through the entires we received, the winner — who has a shiny new iPad Mini on his way in the mail — is Leo Curbelo of New York. Enjoy!
I’d bark if I could. The reason my “woof” remains silent is that I’m a 100-foot-tall crimson balloon pooch, standing on a lawn outside something called the Frieze Art Fair. For the second year in a row, this fair is being held on Randall’s Island, or what New Yorkers call “the strip of land holding up the Triborough Bridge.” It’s also the place where the fire department comes for training — and yet somehow no one has had the decency to provide me with a giant fire hydrant. I held it in.
With my red balloon eyes, I gazed upon the funky white tent beside me, where a throng of the world’s wealthiest collectors and those chic enough to don the correct shade of black battled for pieces of pop art created by Warhol-esque alpha dogs to emerging Basquiat-ish boot-strappy pups. The art-historical influences I glimpsed in works going into the tent included Barney, Calder, Magritte, Mondrian, Rothko, and possibly a hamster wheel. (Unfortunately for my tastes, no artists appeared to be influenced by canine art great George Rodrigue.)
With my giant snout, I picked up the scent of Frieze’s famous food program — pure torture, I assure you, given my notably empty stomach. In addition to Mission Chinese and Roberta’s, there was a secret watering hole for those who could only enter upon receiving a secret key, and “Food 1971/2013,” a working homage to the long-defunct artist-run eatery. Alas, no one thought to throw this 400-pound pooch a bone, or a large biscuit-shaped pneumatic objet d’art, or indeed even one of Tom Friedman’s giant-sized Twinkie snacks, on view at Luhring Augustine.
With my sensitive 30-foot ears, I could also pick up the cacophony emanating from Frieze Sounds exhibit. “Hercules” by Trisha Baga sampled everyday sounds and smoothly transformed them into a rave-era club mix, culminating with an array of found clips and soundtrack scores. It was catchy, had a bouncy beat, and you could bug out to it. Or in my case, you could sway gently back and forth in the breeze to it.
After a few days of braving end-of-times weather and the speech pattern of young women? who speak? like they’re always? asking questions? I began to hallucinate. Sunday night I thought that an advertising blimp was a flying dachshund coming to sniff me.
But I digress. As I waited for the curator’s assistant to come deflate and pack me away, I couldn’t help but ponder my existence. Was my creator Paul McCarthy thumbing his nose at Jeff Koons’s “Balloon Dog” or the garden-variety birthday clowns by making me? These are questions I leave for ARTINFO to answer as I’m folded neatly away for my new owner.
All I know is that come Art Basel I expect Paul to blow up an enticing poodle or Chihuahua beside me. Even inflatable art starts to feel a little lonely at the fairs.