Alex Baczynski-Jenkins: Frieze Artist Award 2018

Warsaw and London-based artist Alex Baczynski-Jenkins is the 2018 winner of the Frieze Artist Award, a major opportunity for an emerging artist to present a new artwork at Frieze London. Curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt, the 2018 Artist Award will focus for the first time on performance and is produced in partnership with Delfina Foundation, London. Baczynski-Jenkins’ new choreographic commission will debut at Frieze London in Regent’s Park, 3–7 October 2018.

For this new commission, Baczynski-Jenkins continues his choreographic practice engaging with queer relationality and the politics of desire, intimacy and friendship.

The performance will take place intermittently throughout the fair’s opening hours, inside an enclosed sonic environment, designed to evoke a liminal space between white cube and black box. A neon sign created by the Warsaw-based feminist and queer collective Kem—of which the artist is co-founder and member—will be installed above the room’s entrance and switched on when the performance is happening.

In this new work, Baczynski-Jenkins draws on the box step, a basic movement used in several social dances, to create a choreography that explores collectivity, subjectivity, queer embodiment and desire. Synchronized movements co-exist with moments of slippage and letting go, each body playing host to individual and shared affections. In this altered state, the box step becomes a container for the relational force that resides in moving with others.

For part of the production and presentation of this work, Baczynski-Jenkins will benefit from a residency at Delfina Foundation, London.

Baczynski-Jenkins’ new work for Frieze has been developed as part of Kem’s residency at Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art, and in collaboration with performers Agata Grabowska, Rafal Pierzynski, Billy Morgan and Tiran Willemse.

The 2018 Frieze Artist Award winner was chosen by a panel of curators including Diana Campbell Betancourt, Aaron Cezar (Delfna Foundation), Christodoulos Panayiotou (artist) and Kathryn Weir (Pompidou, Paris).

The nominators of the shortlist of artists considered for the Award included: Pablo León de la Barra, Mélanie Bouteloup, Sebastian Cichocki, Cosmin Costinas, Martijntje Hallmann, Susan Hapgood, Venus Lau Sau Yee, Chus Martínez, Yvette Mutumba, and Philippe Pirotte.

The Frieze Artist Award follows in a rich tradition of artist award commissions at Frieze since 2006, providing early support to artists including Jordan Wolfson, Simon Fujiwara, Rachel Rose and Kiluanji Kia Henda.

Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (born 1987, London) lives and works in Warsaw and London. Previous solo exhibitions include: Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw (2018) and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2017). He has also presented work at: Serralves Foundation, Porto; Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zurich (both 2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (both 2017); Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York; Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź (both 2016); and Basel Liste (2014). He is co-founder of feminist and queer project space Kem in Warsaw. Kem have recently realised projects at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (Kem Care, 2017) and are currently on a one-year residency at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (Three Springs, 2018-2019). He was a fellow at the Home Workspace Program, Beirut (2012-2013). He is recipient of the Arts Foundation Award (2018).

For further information and tickets please see frieze.com.