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The first of the crisp leaves falling to the ground in Regent's Park signal that it is once again time for a congregation of skew-whiff and oddly alluring shapes to shuffle out onto the lawns, and be scrutinised. This is Frieze Sculpture.
For its 12th edition, the outdoor festival calls on 22 leading international artists to sprinkle their mostly avant garde creations on the grass, and see what the joggers/dog walkers/scurrying kids make of them.
In recent years, the outdoor exhibition has presented us with Tudor-beamed spheres and perturbingly realistic middle-aged somnambulists in their Y-fronts. While 2024's offering doesn't offer anything quite so headline-troubling, there is more than enough to make you squint, cock your neck to one side, giggle, scratch your head and/or stroke your chin like a bona fide art critic.
One piece that will surely pull park dwellers into its orbit is Theresa Chromati's 'steadfast...' a nightmarishly comical scrotum flower with chicken feet. Just imagine that thing doing a few circuits of the park in its jogging pants. İnci Eviner's Material of Mind Theatre — a feast of 25 stoneware sculptures resembling costumes — is a jumbled feast for the eyes, while Libby Heaney's Ent-(non-earthly delights) Hieronymus Bosch-inspired lumpy torso of a thing makes about as much sense as its title, but will nonetheless capture your undivided attention — both beautiful and grotesque as it is.
The most 'London' of the artworks here (and hence one we're naturally drawn to) is Crude Hints, Nika Neelova's mosaic on the grass, which takes its cue from the Roman mosaic uncovered near London Bridge in 2022. It's a simple idea, beautifully executed.
While powerful statements are made in accessible ways — see Frances Goodman's colourful pill pillars, signifying 'the power of pills as vessels of enhancement or relief' — you can't help feeling some artists are being mischievous. There is a general air of confusion around Albano Hernández The Shadow, which claims to replicate the shadow of a sweetgum tree in the park, but leaves you wondering what is the painted artwork and what's actual shadow. Then again, any art that literally has people scouring their surroundings, and striking up conversations with strangers, must be doing something right.
Frieze Sculpture, English Gardens, Regent's Park, until 27 October, free
All images: Londonist
