Frieze Art Fair: artistic or autistic?

Entering the huge Frieze Art Fair pavilion in Regent's Park, you hear the sound of trickling water, an installation by Pavel Bucher. This is the first clue that nature and the environment are going to feature as a noticeable theme this year. But what is surprising is the particular way in which the environment is perceived and portrayed.

There are numerous examples of actual environments that have been re-assembled into art installations. The most striking is the Icelandic exhibit of an art bar, Sirkus, taken lock, stock and barrel from Reykjavik by the gallery Kling and Bang and reassembled next to the Caprice food concession.

Sirkus is a bar run by artists that opened in 1987 and recently closed. The structure and its contents, including barman and performance artists, have been faithfully re-created and there is a long queue