Associate Editor

frieze magazine

January 2014 – October 2017

During just under four years as associate editor at frieze magazine, Paul commissioned features, articles and reviews that responded to debates in global contemporary art and culture. He was notable for leading the first ever special issue on art and social class, looking at how economic and cultural exclusion intersects with issues of precarity, race, gender and sexuality. This issue included an interview between Paul and queer theorist Didier Eribon on his book Return to Reims (Semiotext(e)) and contributions from artists including Adrian Piper. The popularity of the issue led to symposia organised in response at Royal College of Art and PEER gallery, London, and Central Books, New York. He also commissioned the first major feature on disability and the politics of identity in a contemporary art magazine. This piece, written by award-winning author Dodie Bellamy, was just one example of the calibre of writers and artists he attracted to the magazine. Other contributors he introduced to frieze included novelists Dennis Cooper, Eileen Myles, John Keene, Valeria Luiselli and Jeanette Winterson, as well as younger writers such as Andrew Durbin. As editor of the books column, he covered topics from the feminist philosophies of Donna Haraway and Shulamith Firestone, to accelerationism and the history of novels written by artists.

Paul was responsible for features on artists such as Pablo Bronstein, Andrea Crespo, David Goldblatt, Park McArthur, Gustav Metzger, Carlos Motta, Heather Phillipson, Prem Sahib, Patrick Staff, Christine Sun Kim, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Tori Wrånes and many others. His interview with Cosey Fanni Tutti and his quick response article on identity politics in the 2017 Turner Prize shortlist were amongst the most widely read and shared on the magazine website. He also introduced a number of innovative and popular new formats both in print and online, including themed sections of the magazine, with descriptive timelines of key works on a subject, artist video playlists and weekly reading lists on topical themes. Heavily involved in the Frieze Video strand he produced shorts with Bronstein, a report from the Sharjah Biennial and another on curating fashion. He built partnerships for events with Verso books, with ICA London, and initiated and curated a show of Frieze Video at Kunsthal Charlottenborg. For Frieze Academy, he organised two sold out seasons of events titled ‘Introductions’ with contributors including curators Catherine Wood (Tate) and Helena Reckitt (Goldsmiths).