Frieze Names Abu Dhabi Exhibitors

Artnet Bulletin Frieze Names Abu Dhabi Exhibitors—and Other Art World Matters Plus: When Dolly Parton met Dave Hickey, and a handsome new Willem de Kooning book. Plus: When Dolly Parton met Dave Hickey, and a handsome new Willem de Kooning book. Andrew Russeth ShareShare This Article The Artnet Bulletin is our daily digest of five items from around the art world that are worth knowing. A different writer takes over each morning. Will the Iran war be over by the time Frieze Abu Dhabi opens on November 19 at Manarat Al Saadiyat? Frieze released its exhibitor list today, and if all goes as planned, the inaugural event will feature 84 galleries, including global heavyweights Gagosian and the Pace Gallery, but not David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth. (All four took part in the first edition of Art Basel Qatar back in February.) Perrotin and Thaddaeus Ropac are on board, too. There is a strong contingent from the region, and young guns include Management, of New York, and Commonwealth and Council, of Los Angeles. President Trump said yesterday that the U.S. is “achieving a very big victory” in the conflict and that he is “not in a hurry” on negotiations. Frieze’s fifth Seoul edition lands next week, and its flagship London shows arrive in October. Words fail when attempting to chart the vast talent, influence, and generosity of Dolly Parton, who is being mourned around the globe after her death on Tuesday at the age of 80. Her stature in the art world was formidable. Andy Warhol painted her. Sam McKinniss painted her. Alex Da Corte, dressed as Fred Rogers, dances to “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” in his great Rubber Pencil Devil (2018). The late art critic Dave Hickey profiled her in 1974 for Country Music magazine. When that lucid article was reprinted in 2023 by Art Issues Press (a bit of it is online here), Parton wrote that Hickey had “captured what I wanted to believe about myself at the time but he had a better take on it than I did. That article gave me strength and confidence.” I had a really nice time in London earlier this year, after not visiting for a long time. The food was great. Tracey Emin’s barnburner at Tate Modern was a pleasure. Young galleries seemed to be doing interesting things. Was I just enjoying the oddly good weather? A longtime Londoner—Yana Peel, the president of arts, culture and heritage at Chanel—just weighed in. In a Financial Times op-ed, Peel writes, “The last time the city felt this charged was in 1997—’Cool Britannia’ and the era-defining exhibition ‘Sensation’ at the Royal Academy.” How do you keep the good times going? “The conditions for economic growth, the celebration of private and corporate philanthropy, and an open door for those around the world who wish to support are paramount,” she writes. “We must also hope the technology titans of today will invest in the artists of tomorrow.” I share the sentiment, but on that last point, I am not optimistic. The BTS leader and art collector RM (aka Kim Nam-joon) often shares images of exhibitions he visits on Instagram, but I missed that he highlighted an art book in a recent post. Thankfully, the eagle-eyed X account Namjoon’s Library⁷ spotted it: Seth Price’s Fuck Seth Price (2015), which was released in Korean in 2021. It’s a wild little volume that stars an unnamed male protagonist who, Price writes, “found himself carrying out strange and horrible acts: murder and abduction, most disturbingly, but also other furtive activities that he couldn’t quite make sense of.” It’s about the contemporary art world, and it’s about so much more. Be like RM. Buy this book! The catalogue for “Willem de Kooning Drawing,” which the Art Institute of Chicago has organized with the Rijksmuseum, just landed on my desk, and it is handsome. Perusing it while taking a little break from writing this column, I was pleased to come across a fine reproduction of de Kooning’s very weird Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brother, which the artist drew around 1938, when he was in his mid-30s. (He actually had a half-brother, but not a brother-brother.) Have any other artists made portraits of imaginary siblings? I cannot think of any. Please drop me a line if you know. The show is on view in Chicago through September, then moves to Amsterdam in October under the title “Willem de Kooning at Work.” My colleague Richard Whiddington has more on the exhibition. My colleague Margaret Carrigan will pilot this mighty vessel tomorrow. Please return.