Matthew Slotover - Life and Career

Life and Career

Slotover attended St Paul's School, London and then went on to Oxford University. He first became interested in contemporary art after visiting the YBA art exhibition Modern Medicine, in 1990.

Slotover's father, Robert Slotover manages classical musicians including the composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle; his mother Jill Slotover is a children's book editor. Matthew's maternal grandfather, Richard Kravitz was an American magazine publisher who introduced Esquire and DC comics to the UK.

Slotover launched Frieze (magazine) in June 1991 with Tom Gidley as co-editor. The pilot issue featured the first ever magazine interview with Damien Hirst, with a detail of a Hirst butterfly painting on the cover. Amanda Sharp joined Frieze in July 1991. In 1999, he founded Counter Editions, a low-cost, high-volume edition company, with Carl Freedman and Neville Wakefield.

Slotover is chair of the South London Gallery board of trustees. In 2000, he was a judge on the Turner Prize. And in 1993, he curated a section of the Aperto at the Venice Biennale, which included Damien Hirst, Mat Collishaw and Rirkrit Tiravanija. He has spoken at several international conferences and symposia in venues such as the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Neue Museum, Graz, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Modern, London.

Through frieze, Slotover has also pursued other publishing projects, including the books: What the Butler Saw - The Selected Writings of Stuart Morgan; All Tomorrow's Parties - Photographs of Andy Warhol’s Factory, by Billy Name; and Designed by Peter Saville, a retrospective book of Saville's graphic design.

In 2009, Slotover received an honorary degree from University of the Arts London.

In 2010, Slotover debated whether "art fairs are about money" with Louisa Buck, Matthew Collings, and Jasper Joffe for the motion and against the motion Norman Rosenthal, Richard Wentworth, Matthew Slotover. Joffe claims that his criticisms of Frieze Art Fair led to his work being banned from the fair in 2010. Frieze replied that Resonance FM had hung a number of works, including Joffe's, against their agreement with the fair, and that to ensure a high quality level, artworks in the fair are included only via the galleries in the fair who are selected by the selection committee.

In May 2011, Slotover and Sharp announced the launch of two new art fairs - Frieze New York, and Frieze Masters.

In 2010, Slotover and Sharp were placed jointly at number 41 in the ArtReview "Power 100", a list of influential people in fine arts.

Slotover and Sharp were both appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to the visual arts.