Frieze London and Frieze Masters, two of the world’s most significant fairs for modern and contemporary art, return to Regent’s Park this year from 14 to 18 October. This year’s programme around the fair puts the focus directly on artists rather than sales alone, spanning commissions, talks, and a film programme.
Frieze London a Frieze Masters v číslach
Together, the two fairs will present nearly 300 galleries from 48 countries across six continents this year. Frieze London will welcome 172 galleries from 42 countries, including names like Maureen Paley, Thomas Dane Gallery, and Alison Jacques, alongside major players such as Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner. Frieze Masters, meanwhile, will offer nearly 140 galleries from 30 countries, spanning ancient civilisations through to 20th-century art.
This year’s programme also includes two new curated sections. The Code Universe at Frieze London, led by Carol Yinghua Lu of Beijing’s Inside-Out Art Museum, examines the forces shaping popular culture since the late 1970s. At Frieze Masters, Queering Modernism debuts, a curatorial project by Anke Kempkes that expands the canon of modernist art to include queer perspectives.
Running alongside the fairs is the free Frieze Sculpture in London’s English Gardens, from 16 September to 1 November. Frieze is also partnering with the British Council for the second time this year to support the British Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, where artist Lubaina Himid is exhibiting.
Frieze Masters Talks: Breaking the Mould
The talks series at Frieze Masters, produced in collaboration with British luxury house dunhill, is curated for the second consecutive year by Arturo Galansino, director of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. This year’s series, “Breaking the Mould,” explores how historical art forms are reinterpreted for the present.
The programme brings five conversations across three days, featuring names such as Grayson Perry, Es Devlin, the stage designer known for her monumental productions for Beyoncé and Kanye West, and Danh Vō, the Vietnamese-Danish conceptual artist working with themes of history and migration. The conversations will also be released as a podcast on frieze.com, dunhill.com, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Gray Wielebinski: public toilets as artwork
For Frieze London, American artist Gray Wielebinski (b. 1991, Dallas) is creating a new site-specific work titled Production. It focuses on public toilets as a site of both refuge and exposure, where privacy, intimacy, and the possibility of exclusion coexist.
The work was created in collaboration with Dean’s Bottom, a collective exploring scent as an artistic medium. It takes the form of scented urinal cakes and toilet blocks, enclosed in sculptural cages. Wielebinski thus returns to research first presented in the installation Exhibition at Selfridges in 2023.
Objavovanie: Focus a Spotlight
Frieze London’s Focus section, long dedicated to the young gallery scene, welcomes new participants this year including 243 Luz and Theta. At Frieze Masters, meanwhile, you’ll find Spotlight, in its largest edition to date, led by curators from London’s Courtauld Institute of Art and centred on pioneering mid-20th-century work from outside the traditional Western canon.
Frieze x ICA: film programme
Frieze is once again partnering with the Institute of Contemporary Arts on a programme of artists’ film, screening throughout Frieze Week and online at ica.art. The selection focuses on early-career artists, with works made in the last five years. The panel is chaired by Steven Cairns of the ICA, alongside curators Nicole Yip (Spike Island, Bristol), May Adadol Ingawanij (University of Westminster), and Claire Jackson (Tramway, Glasgow).
Non-profits in the Reading Room
Alongside commercial galleries, Frieze London offers its Reading Room space to non-profit organisations: Nottingham Contemporary, Gasworks, Black Curatorial, and Hospital Rooms.
A particularly powerful story lies behind Hospital Rooms, a British charity dedicated to transforming mental health hospitals through contemporary art. Since 2016, the charity has worked with leading artists to create more than 200 works across British psychiatric facilities.
Where and when
Frieze London and Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park, London, 14–18 October 2026. Wednesday invitation-only, Thursday member preview, Friday through Sunday general admission.
