Interview with Curator and Critic, Francesca Gavin

We had the pleasure of framing the work for Champignons, a new exhibition curated by FRAME London’s long-time friend, Francesca Gavin. Here, we talk to Fran about the process of curating and bringing different artists together, plus her recommendations for this year’s Frieze Art Fair.

Tell us a bit about the Champignons and the process of bringing these artists together?
The starting point was two things. I was fascinated a selection of books and ephemera on mushrooms that Conor Donlon of Donlon Books put together for the window of his shop on Broadway market a few years ago. It was also a running them in the psychadelic collage works my sister Seana Gavin created, in particular playing with the idea of the mushroom as an architectural structure. Those two things fused with my own interest in how mushrooms are being increasingly positioned as a form of organic intelligence or an organic form of the internet. It was a natural area to explore.  Many of my exhibitions have touched on ideas around the legacy of the counter culture and our relationship to technology. I kept seeing different artists using the mushroom in such varies and exciting ways. Others I just new would make create commissions around the subject. Researching poems, books and imagery around the mushroom was endlessly fascinating.

What is your connection to galeriepcp?
I met the founder Peter Cybulski through a mutual friend, the artist Ben Sansbury, when he was living in London. He moved to New York with his wife, then to Paris. When he set up the gallery, he approached me as a sounding board among a few others about his programme. He later asked me to curate an exhibition and it all just moved very naturally from there.

What are you most looking forward to for Frieze week?
Obviously Frieze and Frieze Masters. There are some great projects at Frieze this year in particular by Georgina Starr and film works from Alex Bag and Gabriela Fridriksdottir. The focus section is always a favourite – especially Carlos Ishikawa, Max Mayer and Seventeen. Jeremy Shaw (who is in Champignons) and Lisson gallery have shows at 180 The Strand that should be unmissable, as well as DRAF’s 10th anniversary performance night at KOKO. But i’m probably most excited about Seth Price at the ICA. Because he’s incredible, and his novel Fuck Seth Price made me laugh out loud.

Champignons runs until 11 November 2017 at galeriepcp.
Follow Francesca Gavin on Twitter @roughversion.