What To Expect At Frieze London & Masters 2025

Since 2003, London’s Frieze art fair has made October the most exciting month in the art market, with more shows, auction viewings, exhibitions and installations than anyone, even the most dedicated art lover, could possibly do in a week. Frieze, now open until Sunday, will host a staggering 60,000 people. It seems that October has become the art equivalent of a magazine’s September issue: it’s the month when artists want to be shown and galleries put their best feet forward to take advantage of collectors visiting London from all over the world.

The C&TH Guide To Frieze 2025

Neon Light Works

Frieze itself started life as a print magazine, it’s subsequent expansion and success riding the wave of the Young British Artists movement and the huge new interest in British contemporary art. But today, like those now stellar artists, it’s grown up – the beer bottles in bins of East London private views have become a vintage period to look back on with nostalgia and blurry memories. Today the whole scene is shinier, with collaborations including the likes of Loewe, DeBeers and Tiffany & Co, and an atmosphere fuelled by Ruinart champagne (both at the bar, and wheeled around the fair…). But for all of the couture and diamonds on display, anybody serious about art is in flat shoes or trainers, covering literally miles over the course of the day. The atmosphere has always been somewhere between a circus and a carnival. The sheer quantity of art that can be seen this week, as well as the people watching, makes it a natural high even before the addition of champagne…

What To See A Frieze London

In five minutes or less you can be moving between the booths of galleries from Naples, Athens, Berlin and Los Angeles. If there was a theme to my favourite pieces this week it was the renewed celebration of analogue life and objects that might be disappearing from the landscape. At PAD, in Berkeley Square, the family of the late Italian photographer, designer and collector Willy Rizzo played records on a player he himself designed. I spoke with the artist’s daughter under the watch of Rizzo’s vast portrait of Marlene Dietrich with her own record collection. Nearby, Dutch gallery Rademaker presented the first edition of a cabinet of wonders by artist Diederik Schneemann, working with the humble vintage match box to make furniture on sale for £44,000. Back at Frieze in the Josh Lilley booth, ‘New Directions, 2017’ by New York artist Sam Messer celebrates the artist’s enduring friendship with Paul Auster. His painting quotes a line from Auster’s early life as a penniless young poet in his 20s, with the humble typewriter forming a towering part of the cityscape and an object to cherish in and of itself.

And Frieze Masters…

Frieze Masters, founded in 2012, showcases art mainly from before the year 2000, giving visitors the chance to see incredible art history alongside major contemporary names at the start of their career. This fair could easily be a day out in and of itself with serious art lovers finding it hard to tear themselves away from so many museum-quality encounters. As Artsy CEO and collector Jeffrey Yin told me on his way back to see more, for many people Frieze Masters has found a position that’s ‘special and unique’ in the calendar, with art that’s nothing short of ‘spectacular’. For sustenance, the Hamyard Hotel have an opulent pop-up Kit Kemp restaurant installation, and their cakes on a cocktail trolley. It’s hungry work.

‘I want it all’ quipped another memorable text piece on a mirror by Monica Bonvicini at Galerie Gisela Capitain. However, cynics that dismiss the fairs as rich people buying art miss the point. The best free experience without a doubt is the Frieze sculptures installed against the scene-stealing beauty of Regent’s Park in autumn (with a picnic it’s also the best family friendly part of the fair). If you want to take home a piece of Frieze without breaking the bank there are options too. The Allied Editions booth showcases editions produced by museums and galleries, making it an accessible way to add a piece of Frieze to your walls. At 90s show, Don’t Look Back (details below) Quench founded by Margate-based artist Lindsey Mendick has a booth of merchandise that you might find at a music festival but instead stocked with affordable art. An edition I found here by photographer Elaine Constantine is a real bargain, with the ideal message, ‘Fuck art, let’s dance…’ In the main fair, showing at Carl Freedman’s booth, ceramicist Mendick’s more ornate pieces include jewel boxes, treasure and sushi. They’re visually tantalising yet on closer look crawling with hatching sea life, mice, spiders and cigarette butts.

The Future Of Frieze

For Frieze regulars, this year feels different in terms of the prominence given to new designs, less familiar galleries and curated spaces. With the ink virtually still wet on WME super-agent-turned-mogul Ari Emanuel’s takeover of the fair’s ownership, it’s a truly exciting moment. On the one hand, Emanuel has taken art collecting to the next level with the acquisition of Frieze itself. On the other, he has spoken powerfully with this move about the hankering so many people feel for real, offline, life. As he’s said, ‘Live events and experiences have never been more powerful. As people increasingly value experiences over things.’ It’s a hopeful narrative, and one that put even more of a spring in the step of all of those thousands of trainers streaming through the park, whether they’re shopping for beautiful ‘things’ or just there to soak it all up.

Beyond Frieze London, Don’t Miss: 

• Jesse Schlesinger’s Pacific at Fumi is the first UK show for this Californian artist, who works with salvaged redwood materials to bring sustaianable design to the world of fine art. He is also showing at PAD London in Berkeley Square.
• Second Wind by Danielle Mckinney is at Galerie Max Hetzler. Since a solo presentation at Frieze in 2023, Mckinney has become one of the most searched female artists on Artsy, a break-out name keeping company with Dame Tracey Emin and Yayoi Kusama.
• At Unit, Don’t Look Back curated by Beth Greenacre and Sigrid Kirk plunges you into the gritty, passionate atmosphere of the 90s and noughties Young British Artists days, when even Frieze was just a bright idea. The exhibit is running until 25 October.
• End art month in style on 28 October at Koko, listening to Harland Miller in conversation with Nolan Browne as they record the ‘A Life Curated’ podcast. You could add a signed Harland Miller editon to your collection too.
• Opening today, Rob and Nick Carter’s show Neon Light Works explores the bright and shiny material, even turning an image of Andy Warhol dancing into neon.

Find out more at frieze.com

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