Two Tents and Eight Other Fairs

Frieze week in London has a simple geometry in 2026. Two tents stand at opposite ends of The Regent’s Park from October 14 to 18, holding almost 300 galleries between them. Around the park, in a Fitzrovia hotel, a former embassy, a university hall, a gallery in Chelsea and a square in Mayfair, eight smaller fairs open between Tuesday and Thursday. Ten fairs in six days, by this page’s count, nine of them confirmed by the organizer or by two outlets.

The prices describe the arrangement better than any floor plan. A Thursday ticket to one Frieze tent costs £150, and the cheapest adult weekend ticket costs £48, according to Frieze’s ticket page. Minor Attractions, with more than 75 galleries in 16 hotel rooms, is free. Fair Play, a new fair where the artists pay nothing for their stands, asks £24. The center of the week is priced like the opera. The edge is priced like the cinema, or like nothing.

The edge is also where the turnover is. Two fairs are new: Paraíso, for Latin American art, and Fair Play. London Invitational arrives in a hotel on Grosvenor Square. Minor Attractions has changed address. Several familiar names are not here. The Other Art Fair ran a week early, and for Sunday, StART, Moniker and Echo Soho no 2026 edition had been announced as of October 5. Inside the main tent, Artnet News counted six notable galleries absent.

The page runs in order of size: Frieze London, Frieze Masters, the eight satellites, what is new, what is missing, and the auctions. Tickets and transport are in the guide. Biennale is free to read.

Frieze London occupies the south side of The Regent’s Park, with its entrance off Park Square West. Wednesday, October 14, is by invitation only. The public gets in from 1 pm on Thursday and the fair closes at 6 pm on Sunday. A free shuttle links the entrance to Frieze Masters about every 15 minutes. How a royal park comes to hold a trade fair is on Host City.

The organizer’s own pages disagree by one on the size, 171 galleries or 172, so the safe figure is more than 170, from 42 countries and regions. Artnet News put last year’s total at 166. The My Biennale directory held 177 named entries for Frieze London on October 6, against the 172 galleries the organizer announced in June. The two are different measures: a directory count can include co-presentations and later additions. Every entry is on The Exhibitors, A to Z. The fair is led by Eva Langret, whom Frieze styles Director, EMEA, under Kristell Chadé, executive director of fairs. Both are on the People page.

Galleries

The main section is the trade at full strength. Frieze’s June release lists Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, White Cube, David Zwirner, Pace, Lisson, Sadie Coles HQ and Victoria Miro, beside the London galleries that give the fair its local accent: The Approach, Arcadia Missa, Carlos/Ishikawa, Emalin, Herald St, Maureen Paley and Thomas Dane. Two solo stands flank the entrance, by Márcia Falcão with Fortes d’Aloia & Gabriel and Agata Ingarden with Berthold Pott, a pairing of painting and sculptural construction that the directory files among its spotlights. The release counts 16 first-time participants, among them Ames Yavuz, Fort Gansevoort, Sargent’s Daughters and Voloshyn Gallery.

Focus

Focus is reserved for galleries founded within the last twelve years. There are 35 presentations and no single curator. The advisers are Cédric Fauq of CAPC Bordeaux, Joumana Asseily of Marfa’ and Freddie Powell of Ginny on Frederick, and Stone Island supports the section, as Frieze set out on September 24. Newcomers include Chemould CoLab of Mumbai and Ehrlich Steinberg of Los Angeles. Among those returning is Heidi, whose move from Berlin to London The Art Newspaper reported in September.

Artist-to-Artist

In its fourth edition, this section hands the selection to seven established artists, each of whom proposes one younger artist for a solo stand: Firelei Báez, Jeffrey Gibson, Louise Giovanelli, Ayoung Kim, Otobong Nkanga, Gala Porras-Kim and Yinka Shonibare. Shonibare chose Unathi Mkonto, shown by Goodman Gallery. Giovanelli chose Paul Robas, with the London gallery Alice Amati. Tiffany & Co. supports the section. All seven pairings are in the section lists.

The Code Universe

The new curated section belongs to Carol Yinghua Lu, director of the Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing and a co-curator of the 2027 Istanbul Biennial. Its subject, in Frieze’s description, is how artists have answered social change through mass culture since the late 1970s. Eight solo presentations make the argument, among them Nikita Kadan, Carolyn Lazard, Shinro Ohtake and Selma Selman.

Editions

The print and multiples section is in its fifth year, with Borch Editions, Knust Kunz Gallery Editions, Paragon, Cristea Roberts Gallery and STPI.

Reading Room and film

The Reading Room is programmed with four partners: Nottingham Contemporary, Gasworks, Black Curatorial and Hospital Rooms, as Frieze’s program announcement records. The same announcement carries the Frieze × ICA Artists’ Film Programme, shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and online during the week. Both are in the program list, with the dated events of the two fairs.

The tent, the bank and the spider

A Studio Between is the fair’s architectural partner. Its redesign dates from 2024: a staircase entrance, windows, and stands on a grid around a central loop, as The Spaces described it then. No change to the floor plan has been announced for 2026. Deutsche Bank is global lead partner for the 23rd consecutive year.

The Frieze London Artist Award went to Theo Triantafyllidis, a Greek artist based in Athens. His commission, Feral Metaverse (Spider), is a sculpture built to be climbed and tied to an online game in which players cooperate. It is the first award supported by Google Arts & Culture, and it was co-commissioned with Forma, according to Frieze. A second commission is easier to overlook: Gray Wielebinski’s Production puts scent-diffusing sculptures in the fair’s lavatories.

Arrivals and absences

Artnet News, the single source for this list, named six galleries missing from Frieze London in 2026: Almine Rech, James Cohan, Sean Kelly, Gathering, Kurimanzutto and Tina Kim. It counted Amanda Wilkinson, VeneKlasen and Night Gallery among the arrivals and Pilar Corrias among the returns. One absence is beyond dispute. Stephen Friedman Gallery went into administration in February, as Artsy reported.

Frieze Masters stands at Gloucester Green, in the northeast corner of the park near London Zoo, about 15 minutes on foot from its sibling. A free shuttle runs between the two entrances roughly every 15 minutes.

On Thursday it is the longer day: general admission runs until 7 pm, two hours after Frieze London has closed. Frieze gives the size as nearly 140 galleries, and its pages disagree on whether they come from 30 countries or 33. Artnet News put the 2025 figure at 120. The My Biennale directory held 142 named entries on October 6, a running count kept apart from the June announcement, and prints them all. Emanuela Tarizzo has directed the fair since April 2025. The environment is by the architect Annabelle Selldorf. Who runs the park, and who pays to put the grass back, is on Host City.

Galleries

The range is the point. Frieze’s own list runs from antiquities (David Aaron, Galerie Chenel, Charles Ede) through Old Masters (Colnaghi, Johnny Van Haeften, Salomon Lilian) and rare books (Daniel Crouch, Shapero) to Modern British dealers such as Piano Nobile and Offer Waterman. Seven dealers are new, including Hales and Galerie Haas. Artnet News reports that Pace, Frith Street and Mazzoleni are not at Masters this year.

Spotlight

Frieze calls this the largest Spotlight to date: 22 solo presentations of work from the 1950s to the late 1970s, from South Asia, South America, Europe, Africa and East Asia. It has new curators, Devika Singh and Sofia Gotti of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The names include Pacita Abad with Alison Jacques, Ernest Mancoba with Galerie Mikael Andersen and Anwar Jalal Shemza with Jhaveri Contemporary. The directory’s spotlight routes add Fong Chung-Ray, Anna Esposito, Luce Turnier and Anna Zemánková.

Reflections

The invitation-only section returns for a second edition under Abby Bangser, founder of Object & Thing. Its two points of reference are houses: Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico City and The Cosmic House in London, once the home of Charles and Maggie Jencks. Five galleries take part.

Queering Modernism

Queering Modernism: Visual Languages of the 20th Century is new, and Frieze calls it a curatorial thread through the fair, not a walled section. It was conceived by the German curator Anke Kempkes. The works include Claude Cahun and Judy Chicago at Alberta Pane Gallery, Lotte Laserstein and Glyn Philpot at Agnews, and Alice Neel with Victoria Miro and David Zwirner. The sections of both fairs, as the directory describes them, are listed together.

Talks

Frieze Masters Talks takes the title Breaking the Mould and is curated by Arturo Galansino of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, in partnership with dunhill. The speakers, announced in August, include Grayson Perry, Es Devlin, Danh Vō and Tim Marlow. The directory records six talks from Frieze’s talks schedule, the first, Other Worlds, at 5 pm on the invitation-only Wednesday and the last at noon on Saturday, all subject to valid fair access. Dates and times are in the program list. Confirm on the program page.

Frieze Sculpture

The third Frieze event in the park costs nothing and needs no ticket. Frieze Sculpture has been in the English Gardens since September 16 and stays until November 1, two weeks after the tents come down. Fatoş Üstek curates for the fourth consecutive year, on a theme of hybridity, with a free audio guide on Bloomberg Connects.

There are 11 participants, one of them a duo, according to Frieze’s announcement: Carolina Aguirre, Ivana Bašić, Matyáš Chochola, Özlem Günyol and Mustafa Kunt, Elena Nemkova, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Angel Otero, Catriona Robertson, Tarini Sethi, Conrad Shawcross and Douglas White. The 11 presentations, with titles, years and galleries, are in the sculpture list. More free art is on What to See.

Eight fairs share the week with Frieze. Seven are confirmed by their organizers or by two outlets. The eighth rests on one listing and is flagged. Where no price or hours could be found, the card says so. Four of the eight have rosters in the My Biennale directory, printed in full on Satellite Fair Galleries. Its counts were taken on October 6 and are not the organizers’ announced totals.

Read as a column of prices, the table makes the case from the top of this page. Three of the eight satellites publish an adult ticket at £32 or less and a fourth is free. For the other four no price could be confirmed. The day-by-day calendar shows which open when.

Most of what is new this year is at the edges of the week, and some of it is in the ownership.

New fairs

Paraíso and Fair Play are both first editions, and both open on Thursday, October 15. Paraíso brings galleries from Mexico City, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Medellín beside two from London, Artlyst reports. Fair Play reverses the usual economics by charging the artist nothing up front. London Invitational is described in a FAD Magazine headline as making its Frieze week debut. Its own site calls it annual and gives no edition number.

A new address

Minor Attractions has left The Mandrake, its home for two editions, for The Newman. Ocula reports that exhibitor fees were frozen and that a satellite program runs at three other venues.

New sections and prizes

Inside the tents: The Code Universe at Frieze London, Queering Modernism and two new Spotlight curators at Frieze Masters, and an Artist Award with Google Arts & Culture behind it for the first time. Frieze has also announced two new acquisition funds. The WAC x FAMM Fund buys a work by a woman artist not yet in a British public collection. The Dasha Shenkman Focus Fund buys from Focus, for Abbot Hall in Kendal in its first year.

A full year under MARI

This is the first London edition prepared entirely under the new owner. Ari Emanuel agreed in 2025 to buy Frieze from Endeavor in a deal reported at about $200 million, and his holding company, MARI, closed the purchase on October 8, 2025, a week before last year’s fair, according to Fox Business. Simon Fox remains chief executive, and in April he named Frank Lasry chief operating officer. The owner’s landlord is a charity: the arrangement with The Royal Parks is set out on Host City, and the company’s cast on People.

Abu Dhabi next

The company’s next launch opens a month after London closes. Frieze Abu Dhabi, which takes the place of Abu Dhabi Art, holds its first edition from November 19 to 22 on Saadiyat Island with 84 galleries, under the director Dyala Nusseibeh, as The Art Newspaper reported. See art in the UAE.

In Mayfair

No.9 Cork Street, Frieze’s gallery for visiting dealers, marks its fifth anniversary with two shows from October 9 to 24. Gallery shows across the city are on What to See.

A visitor who remembers earlier Octobers will look for fairs that are not here. Some moved. For others the careful statement is that no 2026 edition had been announced as of October 5. None of the three seasonal guides consulted, from Artlyst, MoMAA and Artsy, lists StART, the Women in Art Fair, Echo Soho, Moniker or Sunday.

• The Other Art Fair. Held a week early, October 8–11, at The Truman Brewery on Brick Lane, with more than 135 artists, per Artlyst.
• British Art Fair. Already held, September 24–27, at Saatchi Gallery, according to the organizer.
• Sunday. No 2026 edition found. The last listing to surface was for October 2019, at Ambika P3. No source states a formal closure.
• StART Art Fair. No 2026 edition found. The most recent listing is for 2024.
• Echo Soho. Launched in October 2025, as Ocula reported at the time. No 2026 edition found.
• Moniker Art Fair. No 2026 London edition found.
• Women in Art Fair. No October fair found. A Women in Art Biennale was held in Chelsea from August 20 to 23, per ArtRabbit. Whether it shares an organizer was not verified.

Three more fairs follow the week. LAPADA takes Berkeley Square from October 27 to November 1 and Imprint, a new print fair, runs October 29 to November 1 in Westminster, both per Artlyst. Asian Art in London is listed for October 29 to November 10 by one source.

The auction houses schedule their fall London sales against the fairs, when the buyers are already in town. In 2026 that means Christie’s on Wednesday, Sotheby’s from Wednesday to Friday and Phillips on Thursday and Saturday.

Christie’s has the single largest lot. Piet Mondrian’s Composition III, painted in 1920, leads its evening sale with an estimate of £20–30 million. It has never been at auction. It is one of eight paintings Mondrian finished that year, five of which are in museums, according to Artlyst, and it has been on view in London since October 8.

Sotheby’s, at 34–35 New Bond Street, runs five sales as The London Sales. The 37-lot contemporary evening auction leans on German art of the last century, with Georg Baselitz and Gerhard Richter beside Warhol, Rothko and Hockney. Friday morning belongs to David Hockney alone: 20 iPad paintings of flowers made in Normandy in 2021, offered together for the first time.

Phillips, at 30 Berkeley Square, leads with Richter as well: Mathis, from 1983 and the collection of Marcel Brient. Banksy’s Keep Ou T makes its auction debut. No Frieze week sale at Bonhams in London was found.

2025, for comparison

The figures below are last year’s results, given only for scale. They say nothing about this year’s sales.

The 2025 numbers come from The Art Newspaper’s report of October 17, 2025 and a summary by Guy Hepner. For the wider market, see Art in the United Kingdom and the sales pages on My Biennale.