‘You don’t have to produce a certain kind of “art” and you don’t need validation from certain kinds of institutions.’ – Ajamu  

In the January/February issue of frieze, Kevin Brazil profiles Brixton-based photographer Ajamu, whose solo exhibition at Cubitt, London, opens in early 2021; Jane Ure-Smith interviews the painter Michael Armitage on the occasion of a major show at Haus der Kunst, Munich; and Vincent Fecteau answers our questionnaire.

Profile: Kevin Brazil on Ajamu 

‘The darkroom teaches you that maybe waiting, and nothing happening, can be enough’. In his darkroom in Brixton, south London, the photographer Ajamu celebrates the

pleasures of community and the Black male body

Conversation: Jane Ure-Smith and Michael Armitage

‘I only have a sense of belonging in Kenya’. With a solo show at Munich’s Haus der Kunst, the Kenyan-British artist Michael Armitage speaks with Jane Ure-Smith about the canvas as conflict, his painterly East African influences and founding an experimental arts space in Nairobi.

Also featuring:

Susan Bernofsky contributes ‘1500 words’ on her experience translating the words of German novelist Thomas Mann. Carson Chan’s essay explores artists’ elemental turn towards water and alchemy. Plus, a dossier on the history of domestic exhibition spaces in Los Angeles with contributions from 10 artists, curators and dealers, including Taylor Renee Aldridge, Liz Craft, Diana Thater and a commissioned photography by Janna Ireland.

Columns: Mirror Image

Artist Barbara Bloom speaks to Evan Moffitt about the use of mirrors in her works and the nature of perception; Priya Khanchandani looks at the phenomenon of the ‘cyborgian face’ in an age of Zoom, and contributing editor Barbara Casavecchia remembers designer and artist Enzo Mari. Also, in anticipation of its final series, Alissa Bennett watches every episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (2007-2021) and Christy Lange examines the rise of ‘deepfakes’.

A powerful way to think about the present is to see it as the culmination of all that has come before it.’ – Skye Arundhati Thomas

In the November issue of frieze, Skye Arundhati Thomas profiles the artist Otobong Nkanga; John Kelsey examines the late style of the film director Jean-Luc Godard; and Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme answer our questionnaire. 

Profile: Skye Arundhati Thomas on Otobong Nkanga

‘Material is archive, memory and also monument.’ Otobong Nkanga’s excavation of material histories has taken her from Nigeria to Namibia and back. Her work – currently on view in solo exhibitions at Gropius Bau, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art – pulls tragedy from landscape. 

Essay: Jean-Luc Godard at 90

‘In Jean-Luc Godard’s late films, we witness a mutation of the medium from within its own processes, as a living history tries to reveal itself amongst the fresh ruins of cinema.’ John Kelseyrewatches the filmmaker’s most recent works – Film Socialisme (2010), Goodbye to Language (2014) and The Image Book (2018) – which define the iconic auteur’s cranky late style.

Also featuring:

A conversation between Simone White and photographer Dawoud Bey; 1,500 words by Shiv Kotecha on thinking through Bollywood’s class consciousness from the vantage of the Indian diaspora; nine artists – including Korakrit Arunanondchai, Lubaina Himid and Christodoulos Panayiotou – nominate a colleague whose work has been on their mind; and Philipp Ekardtresponds to Isa Genzken’s Schauspieler III, 3 (2015)

Columns: Camouflage

Maryse Condé recalls her first encounter with Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952); Denise Ferreira da Silva on vulnerability, precarity and the necessity of opacity; Stephanie Syjuco on Ruth Asawa’s time in the Rohwer War Relocation Centre; Heba Y. Amin and Anthony Downey examine how pilotless aerial drones have reshaped the psychogeography of the Middle East; and a specially commissioned comic by Julien Ceccaldi, who has also designed our cover.