Outside the tents: Frieze Sculpture Park

Frieze Sculpture Park 2014: Michael Craig Martin. Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind / Frieze

As art becomes London’s primary focus this week, whether in large white tents, crowded auction rooms or packed galleries, one source of respite from the surrounding frenzy is the Frieze Sculpture Park. Set in Regent’s Park and curated for the third year by Clare Lilley, Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Director of Programme, Frieze’s park has become an intrinsic part not just of Frieze but also of Frieze Masters. Who could forget last year’s gargoyles courtesy of Sam Fogg? Or Yinka Shonibare’s Wind Sculpture? Or Peter Peri’s Blind Boy Listening, straining for sound out of the bushes?

This year, you may be beguiled by Franz West’s lurid Pink Sitzwuste – a large pink plastic sausage you can sit upon – or amused by Michael Craig-Martin’s Scissors or Yayoi Kusama’s spotty pumpkins. As dusk descends you might be spooked by Thomas Schütte’s haunting figures or awed by the disorientatingly upscaled wooden forms of Ursula von Rydingsvard. During most of Frieze you are thrust up close to art without, curiously, much possibility of intimacy; here in the sculpture park there is an opportunity to experience these large works more privately, amid the red and gold trees of Regent’s Park and the uncertain October weather.

Beyond Frieze: ‘Beyond Limits’ and the allure of the sculpture park…