This morning, visitors arriving at Frieze London were met with an arresting sight: five vast blocks of ice, each weighing 40 stone, placed before the fair’s main entrance. Trapped inside the frozen sculptures were miniature effigies of some of the art world’s most recognisable figures — Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, and KAWS — suspended mid-thaw at the height of London’s biggest art week.
Production: London, 2025
Titled ANTI-FRIEZE, the installation plays with the uneasy relationship between value, hype and decay. Each effigy, locked in ice, becomes a portrait of artistic immortality in crisis — a comment on the art market’s obsession with preservation and permanence.
Before arriving in London, KONN ARTISS had staged headline-grabbing interventions in Venice and Washington, using public spaces to question power, wealth and the global spectacle of art itself. These anonymous appearances — sudden, theatrical, and often politically charged — have built a mythology around the elusive figure, whose work surfaces unannounced but always at the centre of the cultural conversation.
Production: London, 2025
As the blocks outside Frieze begin to melt, what’s left behind are puddles, bananas, and an audience caught between curiosity and discomfort — a quiet reminder of how quickly value can evaporate.
About KONN ARTISS
KONN ARTISS remains one of contemporary art’s most enigmatic presences. Known for provocative installations that blur satire and social critique, the artist embraces a kind of modern Robin Hood ethos: stealing moments of ego and spectacle from the powerful to redirect attention toward marginalised voices and humanitarian causes.
Past works, such as The Washington Ghost, have taken aim at systems of power and legacy through public interventions. Combining anonymity, irreverence and precision, KONN ARTISS continues to use visibility itself as a medium — holding up a mirror to the global art world at its most self-absorbed.
©2025 KONN ARTISS