This week, the city is alive with art not just in every gallery, but every church, every warehouse, every armpit seemingly, and a good chunk of Regent’s Park. Because yes, Frieze is taking place, which also means Frieze Masters and Frieze Focus (for artists old and new), and Frieze Sculpture.
Our pick of the fair is below, but also our choice of the wider shows and events taking place elsewhere. Even more so than other years, art fever has taken a grip, and amid all the buying, posing, gossiping and champagne-breath, there’s plenty of incredible art to discover.
Also read:
The best exhibitions to see in Frieze 2026
Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo
Balanie Contemporary, booth AA5
Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo
Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo
The Artist-to-Artist series at Frieze features solo presentations by emerging talents who are nominated by an established artist. Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo is an Afro-Dominican American artist nominated by Firelei Báez, and will be presenting a dazzling set of new paintings, works on paper and clay based on the stories from West Africa’s Yoruba people.
Selma Selman
acb Gallery, Budapest, S7
Selman’s works on scrap metal are disturbing, abstracted self-portraits that act as a diary of everyday life in Bosnia and late-capitalism. This is part of a section at the fair called The Code Universe, which shows how artists have addressed the post-digital era.
Dalton Paula
Lisson London, D1
Brazilian artist Dalton Paula presents a new set of paintings, aiming to restore visibility to black historical figures from the 16th to the 19th centuries. It’s a one-man battle with erasure.
Theo Triantafyllidis
The Breeder, P1
Theo Triantafyllidis
Theo Triantafyllidis
This is a fun one, a huge Cronenberg-esque gaming sculpture that visitors have to climb aboard and play together on. Triantafyllidis is the first Greek artist to win the Frieze Artist Award and probably the only one your kids will remember.
Ana Mendieta
Alison Jacques, A25
Mendieta’s excellent retrospective at the Tate Modern is complemented at Frieze with a series called Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants).
In these images from 1972 the late Cuban-American artist glues her friend’s beard to her face in a typically striking and fearless questioning of gender norms.
Kara Walker
Spruth Magers, D32
This American artist deals with issues of race, power, violence and oppression, and will be presenting a new series of large ink and watercolour cut-paper works called The Second Thanksgiving. A must-see.
Thomas J Price
Hauser & Wirth, D20
Thomas J Price
Press handout
Thomas J Price is a British sculptor who has made a name creating public works in London that act as critiques of art history, cultural erasure and the usual public statues from the Empire. At Frieze, he’ll be presenting Through a Steady Gaze, marble works depicting real-life people to posit questions of who we venerate.
Kira FrEIje
The Approach, B7
Nominated for this year’s Turner Prize, Freije’s Gestures series at Frieze features casts of her own arms isolated from a wider suggested scene. One of the hottest names to seek out.
Ella Fleck
Ehrlich Steinburg, F30
One of our new artist cover stars, Fleck’s work is one of the highlights of the Focus section. Fleck posed as a man and underwent training to be an OnlyFans “chatter”, where men pretend to be female performers and chat to other men. Her installation here conjures up the mechanics and feeling of this world.
Exhibitions beyond Frieze
There are many other exhibitions timed to coincide with Frieze week, well worth checking out.
Maria Kreyn — Dream Logic
The Swiss Church, Covent Garden
A striking series of works by the American artist is rather like a melding of Turner and Dalí. Eggs and mathematical geometries emerge from inner and outer storms.
Mira Schor
Mimosa House
Historic and new works by this New York artist, tracing her career from the early years as part of a pioneering feminist art movement to her current standing as a revered educator. New work here includes a site-specific painting for Mimosa House’s fireplace wall.
Fernando Botero
Opera Gallery
Fernando Botero at Opera Gallery
Fernando Botero at Opera Gallery
This first showing of Botero’s work in London for a decade is a triumphant selection of his distinctive work where the abundance of his form — in still lives as well as people — works as both social critique and fleshly celebration. The anti-Ozempic exhibition, you might say.
Art is Freedom
Various locations
This exhibition will be presented at Marble Arch, London Bridge station, St Pancras International, Piccadilly Lights, Trafalgar Square and Aldwych and features artworks by survivors of modern slavery to amplify their voices and raise awareness of rights abuses.
DRIFT
Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Ladbroke Hall
Amsterdam duo DRIFT’s interactive installation called Aeoulus takes the form of hundreds of glass rods that respond to the movement of the audience and shifts in the air.
Lucy Dodd
Sprüth Magers
Traces the artist’s move from New York to the Moray Coast in Scotland, with works that incorporate materials from her new surroundings. Think peat, herbs and even meteorites in a mythical, cosmic work.
Niovi Kafantari
Opera Gallery
This London-based Greek sculptor and painter presents her first solo exhibition. Called The Necessary Other, it is painting with a sculptor’s eye, where form transforms intimate scenes.