Zoo Art Fair

Zoo art fair opened it’s doors for the third year running in the great setting of London Zoo yesterday to a huge surge of people eager to snap up new emerging artists’ work. The fair is a showcase for the younger generation of both artists and curators- spaces exhibiting are all under 5 years old and include galleries, artists collectives, publications and project spaces, most of whom are based in London.

Within an hour of opening lots of works had been sold as people fought their way around, all hoping to invest in the Next Big Thing. Due to this many galleries had set their prices incredibly high- one BA graduate piece was being sold for £5000 (not even unique- in an edition of 10), and the pressure to buy quickly was intense.

The hype was justifiable however as there were several very exciting new artists on display, showcasing a range of artistic mediums.  PSFK’s pick of the ones to watch for in the future are-

TITUS KAPHAR-

The pieces entitled ‘White Underneath’ are a collection of vintage portrait photographs from the late 1800s which the artist has painted over to replace the white face of the original sitter with a black one of a member of his family. He explains it as "experimenting with transgressive interventions on paintings as a means of undermining hierarchical roles of the past and imposing them on contemporary narratives".

Titus has just graduated from Yale and been awarded the prestigious artist-in-residency programme from the Studio Museum, Harlem which he will start in a week’s time. (view more)

ROBERT MCNALLY

A recent graduate of Camberwell College of Art, ‘So How was It?’ is one of Robert’s delicate pencil works combining soft atmosphere with quirky humour. All four of his pieces have already sold, but look out for more offerings in his first solo show next year

RAFFAEL WALDNER

‘Fiat Coupe 2.0 Turbo’ is just one of Raffael’s amazing photographs of crashed luxury cars. His pictures are observations of everyday objects and locations that have lost their original function- in this case taken live at the crash scene (the police call to notify him whenever a sports car crashes), and the resulting images seem hyper-real. Due to have his first solo gallery show in Berlin in November

RENATO GARZA

‘Mental Passages’ is an installation of 54 typographical images, each one representative of the artist’s emotion at the time of conception. The artist is a recent graduate from his native Mexico and has already been picked up by the MOMA Mexico, plus there are plans to produce the images as a book.

Others we like-
Tom Gallant delicate and intricate cut-paper pieces made from pornographic images
Edgar Cobian contoured white paper sculptures
Polly Morgan taxidermied animals in unusual situations