Art13 London, the art fair that took us by surprise

You’d think that this town wasn’t big enough for another contemporary art fair. London has Frieze of course but also the London Art Fair, The Other Art Fair, the Affordable Art Fair, Kinetica, and i’m sure i’m forgetting others along the way.

But Art13 London, which took place a few weekends ago inside the stunning Olympia Grand Hall, demonstrated, if need be, that not all art fairs are created equal and that you can bring something different if you have enough taste and a clear vision.

Stephanie Dieckvoss, the fair director, gave the event the mission to bring to the city galleries and artists we haven’t seen much of here in Europe. Of course, all fairs claim to be ‘truly international’ but most of the time ‘around the world’ means Europe and the U.S.. Art13, however, sourced galleries and artists from Asia, the Middle East and Africa as well as the West. I can’t remember having discovered so many artists in such a short period of time.

Quick selection of the goods on show:

Aram Bartholl, Offline Monochrome (triptych), 2013. Photo DAM GALLERY

Aram Bartholl had a cunning and unassuming set of wifi routers at the booth of the DAM Gallery (Berlin/Frankfurt.) Each router is associated to a specific digital art work. The work is online and you can view it on your own smartphone. Connect to the network associated to the router and the work appears in your browser. If you want to see the second work, you have to repeat the operation and connect to the second router, etc. The pieces are available to everyone to enjoy online but they are disconnected from the Internet.

That work is pure Bartholl: simple and brilliant.

The other images don’t require much explanation:

Nyoman Masriadi, Godlike, 2013. At Gajah Gallery. Photo: Heru Wibowo/Gajah Gallery via Bloomberg