Fresh From Frieze: October 14

Monday, October 14th marked the opening night of the week of madness that is London Frieze. In celebration, the Tate Modern opened its Paul Klee show, which provided the opportunity to see a large body of his work— and what wonderful work it is, especially his watercolors which layer color over color to create a variety of visual effects. Moreover, Klee’s work is a reminder of the time when abstraction was intensely meaningful in contrast to a lot of contemporary abstract art, which seems empty in comparison. When we first walked into the museum, we bumped into Larry Bell, a colleague of mine from Los Angeles. In fact, he and I were born 6 months apart at the same hospital in Chicago. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked what he was doing in London and he answered that he was in a show but didn’t say where. When he (predictably) didn’t enquire as to the reason for my presence, I told him anyway. The highlight of the evening was meeting (Sir) Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate, whom I’ve long admired. On Tuesday, the Frieze Masters show opens with a curator’s tour of the Outdoor Sculpture show which includes one of my early rearrangeable pieces (from a time in my life when I was willing to ‘rearrange’ my life to suit the needs of my male partners). How exciting it is to be here.