The London Art Fair 2012

The keenly awaited event has a clear emphasis on Modern British art. Apart from an elaborate paintings showcase, it also includes a curated segment of contemporary photography. Here are its highlights:

• The London Art Fair presents over 100 galleries featuring many of the known and not-so-famous names of 20th century British art and exceptional contemporary work from leading figures and emerging talent.
  
  
• UK-based contemporary galleries include CHARLIE SMITH, Danielle Arnaud, Other Criteria, Pertwee Anderson and Gold, Purdy Hicks, Scream, UNION Gallery and VIGO. Modern British specialists such as Agnew’s, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, Offer Waterman, Osborne Samuel, Piano Nobile, Robin Katz Fine Art and The Fine Art Society. International galleries include: Artêria (Canada), FOLEY Gallery (New York), Galerie Olivier Waltman (Paris), JECZA Gallery (Romania), and whatiftheworld gallery (South Africa).
  
  
• Visitors get to see solo shows and curated group displays in their Art Projects section, with galleries drawn from across the world, while Photo50 is a showcase for contemporary photography, this year curated by critic Sue Steward.
  
  
• In 2011 the organizers expanded Art Projects to encompass selected projects by galleries from London, New York, Germany and Ireland, alongside public galleries and foundations such as The Whitechapel, Saatchi Editions and Serpentine Gallery. Art Projects features curated solo and group shows of contemporary work – painting, photography, sculpture, editions – as well as large scale installations, video and film.
  
  
• The Art Projects Film Screening Room is hosting a curated program of experimental film and video that explores the overlaps between humor, satire and beauty in contemporary moving image artworks.
  
  
• The fair exhibit under the title, The New Alchemists, collates a dozen contemporary photographers, who have in common the will to take the so-called ‘fastened-down’ photographic image and infuse it with a whole new dimension through the process of destroying, rebuilding and re-creating.

Meanwhile, fourth edition of the annual London Ice Sculpting Festival just concluded. Eight teams from across the globe carved dazzling designs from 2m ice blocks alongside Canary Wharf in London's Docklands. People were invited to make their own sculptures.