Budding artists and curators have a chance to shine at this year’s Frieze Art Fair as Paul Smith hosts art:i:curate

The Frieze Art Fair isn’t all about big-name curators selling big-ticket pieces to collectors with big wallets. It’s also a chance for lesser-known names to infiltrate the art world and for art enthusiasts to scoop the “next big thing”. The support for emerging talent extends to curators too, thanks to art:i:curate, the “crowd-curating movement”.

Launched last year as the result of a Kickstarter fund, art:i:curate is a global network of budding art collectors and curators who can browse a digital catalogue of artworks by new talents, build up a personal collection online and share their edit with others. Art:i:curate then uses its members’ choices to create real life art exhibitions in various locations around the world.

This October, that location is the Albemarle Street shop of British design icon Paul Smith. Since its grand re-opening last year, the Mayfair flagship-cum-gallery has hosted artwork from the likes of Water Hugo and Carl Auböck, whose modernist brass work dotted the shop’s ground floor in May this year.

Continuing the artistic bent the shop will host a five-day exhibition during this year’s Frieze Art Fair, featuring work from a number of new London-based artists and curated by Sir Paul Smith himself along with art:i:curate members. The idea is that members create a virtual collection online by selecting at least 6 out of 200 or so pieces. These selections will form the basis of the final four days of the exhibition, with the opening day showcasing Smith’s favourite pieces. The curators whose selections are used will have the chance to attend the opening and exhibition, while the artworks will also be available to buy from the store.

According to art:i:curate, the partnership offers up-and-coming artists “the platform to display their creations in the heart of Mayfair during the most significant occasion on the art world’s calendar”, while giving international art enthusiasts “the opportunity to express their creativity in front of an audience of both art fans and the industry’s elite”.
Paul Smith and art:i:curate runs from October 14 – 18. To get involved, register at articurate.net

BY SARAH ROYCE-GREENSILL
SEPTEMBER 25, 2014