An Artist Reimagines Frieze London's Loos
Gray Wielebinski's scented artworks for the fair's bathrooms, Michelle Grabner’s gift to a Wisconsin museum, Gagosian's real estate footprint shrinks, and other news.
Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.
Frieze London Is About to Get Less Shitty
One of the most demoralizing aspects of attending an art fair — and there are many — is surely using the restrooms, which are either sad Coachella-style portapotties or perfectly functional yet drab facilities with one absurdly labeled “exhibitors only” stall. Maybe that's why Frieze London invited artist Gray Wielebinski to reimagine its public bathrooms “as a site of refuge and exposure” (that's a real quote from the press release) for its upcoming September edition. Wielebinski is developing a series of urinal and toilet rim deodorizers that diffuse a custom scent, produced by the aptly named creative studio Dean's Bottom. What will they smell like — a stack of freshly printed cash? The inside of a Geneva Freeport storage unit? Turpentine? Duchamp could never.
Michelle Grabner Gift Works to Midwest Museum
Artist Michelle Grabner has made a landmark gift of more than 2,000 works to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The trove includes Grabner's own artworks as well as 300 pieces by 50 artists in her personal collection — among them Mary Heilmann, Robert Longo, Pat Steir, and Victor Vasarely — and several decades’ worth of archives from her tenure at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Gagosian Ditches London Space
Gagosian Gallery is closing its two-story space in central London after three years of programming, leaving just two outposts in the city as the mega gallery identity crisis continues. Gagosian is planning to vacate its Basel location as well, the Art Newspaper reported. Earlier this summer, Pace also said it was shrinking its London footprint, after shockingly laying off 50 staffers and removing 50 artists from its roster.
