Frieze Art Fair

This morning on my way to play rugby in Regent's Park I walked through the Frieze Art Fair sculpture park. Some of them I just don't understand, but two stood out for me. Firstly, Dan Graham's aptly named 'Rectangle Inside ¾ Cylinder'. It's made from curves of a mirrored glass so you can see through it as well as your own reflection. I'm sure this probably wasn't what he had in mind, but the falling leaves and chill in the Autumn air seemed to suit the ethereal ghost-like reflections perfectly, so, to me, it really fitted in. For those interested, it also reminded me of a poem by Amy Levy called 'In the Mile End Road'. (I'm in a fairly scientific career path at the moment, so I quite like to revel in culture sometimes!).

The second one I liked was a giant red fork with the tines sticking into the ground, entitled 'Pitchfork: Colour Blue' by Michael Craig-Martin. I don't have a clue what it's about, but a big fork means big meals, and I'm a massive foodie. Ok, actually I found this transcript of a radio interview with him in which Craig-Martin makes the point that the pitchfork won't work without earth to dig "or it isn't really a pitchfork". Similarly, a "light-bulb needs electricity" and "a socket to go into". So he's saying that these everyday objects need something that's absent in order to work. He develops this line of thought by saying that as these are "the most human of objects" without a human presence they'e also useless. I suppose this could be applied to humanity as a whole- people make other people work. I like this idea- unify mankind and all that. Very uplifting! How we're meant to get that from a pitchfork sticking in the ground I don't know. And it's still not blue.