Victoria Miro participates in the inaugural Frieze Viewing Room with new and significant works by 21 gallery artists and estates

Victoria Miro premieres work ­­­­­­­directly from the studios of Jules de Balincourt, Hernan Bas, María Berrío, Secundino Hernández, Chantal Joffe, Isaac Julien, Chris Ofili, Celia Paul and Sarah Sze. These new pieces are shown alongside notable works by Milton Avery, Elmgreen & Dragset, Alex Hartley, Ilse D’Hollander, Idris Khan, Yayoi Kusama, Howardena Pindell, Tal R, Do Ho Suh, Adriana Varejão and Francesca Woodman.

Works include a new work, The Spike of the Crocus, 2020, by María Berrío. Based in Brooklyn, Berrío grew up in Colombia. Her works, which are meticulously crafted from layers of Japanese paper, reflect on cross-cultural connections and global migration seen through the prism of her own history. Featuring a young woman in three-quarter profile, her head partially covered with a decorative scarf, The Spike of the Crocus inaugurates a new series of portraits created during the Covid-19 outbreak, titled The Flight of Uncarpeted Stairs after the poem Spring by Edna St Vincent Millay. Writing about this work, the artist comments, ‘In New York, the spring turns the city into a massive garden. New blossoms perfume the air and lift the spirits of a population emerging from dormancy. This year, however, faces that would once bask under the lengthening days now cower behind strips of cloth. In this portrait, the motif of plants and fruits on the woman’s scarf beckons outward to the springtime, when flowers bloom and the world is renewed. But the young woman remains confined; the blooming world the scarf depicts continues outside, without her.’

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Image: María Berrío, The Spike of the Crocus, 2020

Collage with Japanese paper and watercolour paint on canvas 50.8 x 40.6 cm 20 x 16 in

© María Berrío

Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro