Eight Photo Discoveries to See at Frieze London and Frieze Masters

October 16, 2014 4:00 AM EDT

Just like every year at Frieze London, the majority of fairgoers were dressed in the obligatory art-fair black. And just like every year, the bigwigs of contemporary photography Wolfgang Tillmans, Ellad Lassry, Ryan McGinley, Andreas Gursky, Jeff Wall, and Thomas Struth were strutting their stuff on the gallery walls. But, among the best-selling greats, were also some unexpected gems – some well-known, others less so. Frieze Masters, showcasing art from ancient to modern and only in its third year, was perhaps the biggest tour de force, with four dedicated photography galleries enticing audiences with works by Lionel Wendt, Keiji Uematsu and Charles Sheeler among others.

“With Frieze Masters we decided from the outset that we would give photography the same platform as painting, drawing and sculpture,” says Victoria Siddall, director of both London-based Frieze fairs. “We felt it was very important not to put the photography dealers into some kind of ghetto as they sometimes are at fairs.”

In this slideshow, I present my favorite picks from across both fairs.

Anne-Celine Jaeger is a contributor to TIME LightBox and the author of Image Makers, Image Takers, published by Thames & Hudson. She previously wrote for LightBox about Jean-François Leroy.

**Stone/Rope/Man II, 1974** - Fortuitously, the Japanese sculptor, who is known for his installations that appear to distort gravity or depict magnetic forces, was at the gallery booth as I approached it. Keiji Uematsu said of his photographic work: “I’m interested in changing the relationship of an installation using my body. I want to create work where a lack of a single element will cause the entire structure, the invisible existence of things and their relationships to collapse like a cosmos.” I do hope, that when the relationship between stone, string and motion collapsed, the stone didn’t fall on his head.Keiji Uematsu, courtesy of Yumiko Chiba Associates

**Plaster Your Head and One Arm into a Wall, 1973 / 2009** - Walking into the Mark Wallinger curated Hauser & Wirth booth *A Study in Red and Green* is like walking into a house party. All that is missing are the cocktails. You have the dude who has fallen asleep (Christoph Büchel’s sleeping museum guard), you have throngs of people chit-chatting, you have Martin Creed cacti in one corner of the room and a stretched Louise Bourgeois bronze arched over a day bed as if a sensual calamity of the party. But at the entrance you are greeted by two Paul McCarthy photographs: *Plaster Your Head* and *One Arm into a Wall*. These images, by an artist interested in themes of dislocation, disorientation and alienation, would of course be funny anywhere, but they worked particularly well as the opener to this innovatively-curated space that had you asking: “Where am I?”Paul McCarthy, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth, photo by Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich

**Northern Spruce, Fir Forest, 2012** - The diorama has been a favorite of Sugimoto’s for four decades, but the artist recently returned to the American Museum of Natural History to shoot a new series. I still love the fact that something that is fake can look so real despite, or precisely because, it is seen through the medium of photography.Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy of Pace Gallery

**Hanami, 2014** - Walking into Esther Schipper’s booth is like stepping into a cherry blossom display at Hanami, the yearly Japanese custom, which celebrates the transient beauty of flowers. Ironically, or brilliantly, Thomas Demand’s blossoms will last. Unlike the real thing, they are made from paper and cardboard, then photographed, allowing us to enjoy an otherwise fleeting event that bit longer.Thomas Demand, courtesy of Esther Schipper

**How to Address You My, 2014** - At the 303 Gallery stall, I was struck by Nick Mauss’s *How to Address You My* series: Tonal abstractions with elegant, pencil-thin lines, yet full of tension and drama, created by holding sheets of glass over a candle, then drawing in the soot and placing that drawing onto photographic paper, a modern "cliché verre" so to speak. A visitor was overheard saying, “Looking at a Mauss is like listening to Debussy.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.Nick Mauss, courtesy of 303 Gallery

**Side of White Barn (Bucks County), 1915** - To a photography lover, Bruce Silverstein’s booth at Frieze Masters is like the gateway to Never-Never Land. He’s got an André Kertész’s 1965 *MacDougal Alley* gelatin silver print, he’s got a 1926 Alfred Stieglitz *Equivalent*... But what impressed me most was seeing a print of one of the most important American modernist masterpieces: Charles Sheeler’s *Side of White Barn*, 1915. Yours for $1 million. Charles Sheeler, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein

**Guided in Silence (11th Page of the “Sleeping Beauty”), 1982** - I almost walked right past this black-and-white swan by Romanian artist Ion Grigorescu. It was so innocent, so vernacular; like a found photograph, and yet because of its suggested innocence, I had to walk back and look again. Talking with the gallery’s Maria Betegon, I discovered Grigorescu not only created art during Ceauşescu’s regime, but also became one of Romania’s most significant post-war artists. Suddenly the swan became poetic; a comment on making art during a dictatorship.Ion Grigorescu, courtesy of Galerija Gregor Podnar

**Untitled (Seated Male Nude), 1934-1936** - It is hugely refreshing to stumble across work at a fair that one has never laid eyes upon. Lionel Wendt’s photographs, taken in Sri Lanka in the late 1930s are one such gift. Considered one of Asia’s earliest modernist photographers, and a contemporary of Man Ray, Wendt experimented with techniques such as photomontage and solarization and used the human figure as form. The outcome: a singular body of work that deserves worldwide recognition.Lionel Wendt, courtesy of Jhaveri Contemporary

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