Art

Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2025

The Regent’s Park, London

5/5

Autumnal cornucopia

This year was my first time visiting the Frieze Art Fair thanks to a friend who kindly provided me with VIP access. I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew it would be huge and highly commercial, but had no idea how it would really feel being a visitor. Unexpectedly, I found it very interesting and stimulating. It is fairly well organised with plenty of space to accommodate crowds, the audience is surprisingly varied which makes it much more pleasant than visiting the snooty Bond Street art galleries, the art is copious and truly spectacular in places, and to my surprise a certain standard of quality of art on show is preserved. As a bonus you get to see some beautifully dressed people among ordinary folk and the crass pretend nouveau riches. The Regent’s Park is beautiful at this time of year. Leaves are just starting to turn and on the appropriately named Broad Walk which takes you from London to Masters tent you can dawdle as much as you want taking in lungfuls of crisp autumnal air.

There is so much to see that one has to be very selective. There is just no way you can take it all in in a day, so worth preparing and pacing yourself. What strikes me is that visiting this kind of art fair is a very different experience to visiting an art museum. You don’t really know exactly what you will find even if you research beforehand. Some of the more valuable pieces won’t be announced, so you may or may not be lucky to come across them. Additionally there will be many works that are not listed anywhere. Each gallery does its own thing and the fragmentary nature of the display without an overarching narrative can be tiring but also rewarding when you follow your nose. There is a pervasive feeling of a treasure hunt about the fair even if you are not a buyer – and most visitors seem not to be in that bracket. The tacit understanding is that the true buyers are behind the scenes and even though the entire fair is really for their benefit, the rest of us can just pretend that the public nature of the event temporarily connects the owners and onlookers, and puts us all on an even keel.

London tent is more trend-orientated and populist, particularly in the initial sections, the true gems seem to be in the latter reaches. But it is the Masters tent that is truly spectacular. Here you can discover masterpieces or lesser-known works by famous artists which you may never see in a public gallery. It is like a large museum where individual rooms are not connected in any way and you serendipitously discover unique pieces as you meander through the enclosures. The concentration of valuable and impressive works in the Masters tent is staggering, but I feel it is the contemporary works in the London tent that give it some context, making you better predisposed to notice the roots of certain current developments and fashions having just encountered them in the flesh.

I thought it would be suitable on this occasion to present my top ten. It will be very different from anybody else’s top ten due to the sheer amount of art on show and the complete freedom to weave my own rationale which would be difficult to defend in a public museum. In this particular case, in view of the commercial nature of the fair, I think the appropriate criteria should be not the aesthetic appreciation, but simply which works would I, if money were no object of course (or the amount of available space), most want to put on the walls of my home. So, without further ado, and in order of preference:

1 / Ida Barbarigo, Vive le Zattere – Passeggiata,1963

It was exciting seeing the whole of Axel Vervoordt’s space at the beginning of Frieze Masters devoted to Ida Barbarigo’s work. Although completely different from her husband’s, Zoran Mušič’s oeuvre, and fully credible and powerful in its own right, it was interesting to imagine the creative conversation between the two artists as well as considering and absorbing Barbarigo’s canvases on their own.

Many works in this enclosure did vie for my attention, but the one that seems to me to convey Barbarigo’s spirit the best was Vive le Zattere – Passeggiata (Long live the Zattere – Strolling). Barbarigo was Venetian to the bones and this lyrical abstraction, featuring the organic chair motif whose rawness and colour at moments reminded me of a Lascaux cave painting, suggests quite strikingly the joyful and random human energy on the streets of Venice.

2 / Do Ho Suh, My Home/s, 2025

Leham Maupin gallery (Frieze London) showed new interesting work by Do Ho Suh in particular his ScaledBehaviour series where using thread and resin the artist further explored his usual themes of home and dwelling in the shape of installations large and small. The humblest little work on display, My Home/s, caught my attention and kept it.

3 / Minjung Kim, Blue mountain, 2022

Almine Rech gallery (Frieze London) featured this exquisite watercolour on mulberry Hanji paper by Minjung Kim which I would have very happily taken home with me.

4 / Helene Schjerfbeck, Self-portrait, 1944

Åmells Konsthandel (Frieze Masters) presented this small drawing in the recognisable Schjerfbeck late style. It was exciting to notice and enjoy this commanding depiction of mortality watching over us with heaviness and lightness combined.

5 / Lee Bae, Brushstroke-au1, 2025

Johyun Gallery (Frieze London) presented a whole series of Lee Bae’s monumental gestural charcoal ink works. It was difficult to choose a favourite, but perhaps this first one is the most organic and rewarding.

6 / Pierre Soulages, Lithographie n. 27, 1969

I was grateful to Archeus/Post-modern (Frieze Masters) for bringing this perfect work to London. I have missed several Soulages retrospectives, but at least I got to see these beautifully balanced prints.

7 / Edmund de Waal, Three secret poems, 2025

Nobody does ceramic installations like de Waal. They seem too tidy and ordered at first until you notice the enchanting textures which let your mind take off. Gallery Max Hertzler (Frieze London) presented this tall white shelf with vases and blocks in porcelain, alabaster, marble, gold, wood, aluminium and glass.

8 / Ha Chong-Hyun, Conjunction 22-66, 2022

Yet another impressive Korean artist on my list, whose large intricate abstract canvas brought by Tina Kim Gallery (Frieze London) captivated and delighted.

9 / Howard Hodgkin, Conversation, 1993-96

Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert displayed this masterpiece prominently at the entrance to their viewing rooms at Frieze Masters. The yellows dominate, joyfully overwhelming the frame and declaring Hogdkin’s decisive coloristic intentions without a single doubt.

10 / Susanne S. D. Themlitz, Le Loir est randormi, 2015

Themlitz is a new discovery for me. This work in particular is one I have lingered in the presence of, my eye wandering in circles over the involved horizontal shapes framed by the diagonals at the bottom. There is something very meditative about this abstract landscape brought to Frieze London by Galeria Vera Cortês.