The Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London
The Turbine Hall in Tate Modern is part of what was once the Bankside power station and the enormous space has been used as a site for a series of commissioned site-specific installations since the opening of the gallery. The sheer volume of the space allows for monumental works to be created such as The Weather Project(2003) by Olafur Eliasson which created the impression of a huge sun and clouds within the hall. In fact part of the illusion was created by installing a mirrored ceiling, giving the impression that the hall was twice as high as it actually was. This gave rise to a visitor-led phenomenon of people lying on the floor of the chamber in such a way as to create patterns of bodies that were reflected in the mirrors, an example of the viewers interacting with the installation in a way that may not have been expected.
Photo: Tate Photography © Olafur Eliasson
More recently the space allowed Kara Walker to create Fons Americanus (2019) a monumental sculptural fountain based on the Victoria Memorial that references the links between Africa, Europe and America and their respective involvement in the slave trade. Again the volume of the Turbine Hall allowed for a monumentalism that few places could provide in an indoor space, allowing (or obliging) the artist to react to the scale of the site.
Frieze Art Fair, London
In contrast to the Tate Turbine Hall which presents the work of single artists with commissioned artworks specific to the site, the annual Frieze fair in London creates a space for galleries around the world to curate and present the artists that they represent. In this way the fair becomes a ‘gallery of galleries’. The works presented are all by contemporary artists and creates a space for collectors, critics and (some of) the public to view art trends on an international scale.
The Frieze fair London was started in 2003 and in the early days was more accessible to the general public, in fact my first OCA study visit was to the Frieze Fair led by Michele Whiting, but with entry prices now ranging from £32 (for children) up to £245 those days are gone. It seems fairly clear that they are targeting a specific audience rather than those with a general interest in the arts.
It seems also that with the individual galleries presenting works within the overall framework of the art fair that the artists themselves will have little or no input into how their work will be viewed. The transactional nature of an art fair is by definition a space within which art is bought and sold and this means that site specific works will not be on display, the works will be presented in a ‘white cube’ environment.