Frieze Los Angeles 2023 is here, and one of the highlights is the exhibition ‘Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group, 1938-1945’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The Transcendental Painting Group achieved their modernity through potently charged shapes, patterns, and archetypes that they believed dwelled in the “collective unconscious.” The artists looked to a wide variety of literary, religious, and philosophical forces, including Zen Buddhism, Theosophy, Agni Yoga, Carl Jung, and Friedrich Nietzsche. 

Convinced that an art capable of being intuitively understood would have equal validity to representational painting in an era of uncertainty, political divide, and fear, they attempted to promote abstraction that pursued enlightenment and spiritual illumination. According to their manifesto they strove “to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, color, light and design, to imaginative realms that are idealistic and spiritual.”

The group, which came to include Agnes Pelton, Lawren Harris, Florence Miller Pierce, Horace Pierce, William Lumpkins and Dane Rudhyar, among others, followed the guidance of Raymond Jonson and Emil Bisttram, who were in turn heavily influenced by the colour theories of Wassily Kandinsky.

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1. Stuart Walker, Composition 55 (Convergence), 1938, Jean Pigozzi Collection

2. Agnes Pelton, Winter, 1933, Crocker Art Museum

3. Emil Bisttram, Oversoul, 1941, Private Collection

Whoever said London is a city to relax, certainly never visited the vibrant streets of the British capital. Sleep is something only a few know and boredom does only exist out of choice, certainly not because of lack of Events, Exhibitions, and Attractions. The restless city moved from one creative industry to the next, leaving fashion and it’s glamour behind, shifting on to art and its sophisticated elegance. Last week, Frieze Art Fair, dipped Regent’s Park into one of the busiest art hubs of the globe, showcasing avant-garde contemporary art and timeless classics at Frieze Masters.

Arriving upon the gates of Regent’s Park, distinctive signs led the way to the humongous white venue, hosting the greatest talents of all centuries. Art Dealers, Private Collectors, and Art Savvy Individuals gathered in front of the Frieze Art Logo installation, holding a cup of coffee in their left hands and the essential Financial Times in their right hands, breathing the creative air, before entering the buzzing venue. Inside, Tracy Emin’s nostalgic neon installations, Katherine Bernhardt’s playful Pink Panther and Michele Abeles Spiral of Insanity particularly captured the eyes of Team Twenty6 and showed that not only fashion, but also art has taken on the trend of pop-culture and youthful motifs. Alongside the breathtaking art, Frieze also hosted a number mind-expanding talks exploring how, in an age of ‘alternative facts’, art’s capacity to beguile, disorientate and disrupt conventional notions of ‘the real’ can take on new meanings. The presentations were, for the first time, curated by Ralph Rugoff of London’s Hayward Gallery.

The art space also showcased a number of fascinating performance artists with one particularly exciting; Agatha Gothe-Snape  presented Every Artist Remembered (2017), a series of informal and unrehearsed conversations between Gothe-Snape and invited artists in front of a live audience. It showed the natural reactions of two minds debating, discussing and getting to know each other, a process that is gradually being overshadowed, by digital communication. The conversations were fascinating and flaunted the beauty of interaction without any help of technology.


Victoria Siddall, Director, Frieze Fairs, was excited about the 15th Frieze Art Week in London and said:  ‘This year, Frieze Week followed our first ever summer opening of Frieze Sculpture, a free exhibition of monumental outdoor work in Regent’s Park. This is our strongest ever exhibition of Sculpture and this is mirrored in the exhibitor list for Frieze London which I am extremely proud of - the fair featured the best galleries from all over the world, from the emerging to the established. Alison M. Gingeras’ new section showcasing radical feminist artists, and the talks programme investigating art in an age of ‘alternative facts’, curated by Ralph Rugoff were definite highlights. All of this makes Frieze a vital destination for the art world and an important hub for international galleries.’

Frieze Art Week showed how versatile London is, and how important the city is for all sectors of the creative industry. Its 15th Anniversary certainly reinforced that art is an essential part of the world and highlighted the different ways of artists interpreting global issues and trying to address them when words can’t help anymore. Frieze Art Fair reminded that it isn't just about looking at interesting things, but about understanding the hidden messages, that try to make a difference in the way people think. 

TWENTY6X

Words by Constanze-Sophie Pilger