The Best Things to See at Frieze London 2022

Frieze Week is upon us – and with it the international art world, who for the next five days will pitch their tents in London’s Regents Park for what remains one of the most important weeks in the industry’s calendar. This year’s fair comprises over 160 of the most influential established and emerging galleries, a chance to assess the best that contemporary art can offer from across the globe. Navigating London’s plethora of visual art offerings can be overwhelming at the best of times, but none more so than during Frieze, where a labyrinth of booths and multiple satellite events can easily induce sensory overload. Here, we’ve plotted a path through the week’s events with a preview of what not to miss. 

PPOW

New York-based gallery PPOW are offering a rich variety of work made over the last 70 years spanning painting, clay sculpture and tapestry. Their dynamic young roster of mainly American artists includes Kyle Dunn, whose autobiographical acrylic paintings combine a vibrant blend of cinema and eroticism, and Erinn M Riley, a Brooklyn-based weaver whose superbly crafted and deeply personal tapestries need to be seen to be believed. Equally recommended is the work of US artist Carolee Schneeman, an elemental force within radical feminist art over the past 60 years, who passed away in 2019. If you like what you see here (and you will), be sure to see her first UK survey exhibition at London’s Barbican, on show until January 2023.  

Timothy Taylor 

British painter Sahara Longe only graduated from Florence’s prestigious Charles H Cecil Studios within the last five years, but her burgeoning talent is already making waves across London. Evidence of that classical training abounds in her signature large-scale portraits, which borrow elements from the Baroque, Renaissance and German Expressionists, and insert Black figures into the classical settings from which they were historically omitted. For her first solo presentation with the Mayfair gallery during Frieze, Longe has delved into the time-honoured pastime of people-watching, specifically at parties, where the hidden social dynamics that interest Longe are at their most visible. In combination with her tendency to flatten out facial features into unreadable expressions, the new work resonates with a similar intrigue as the unknown life of a total stranger you lock eyes with across the dancefloor.

Sadie Coles HQ 

This year, London gallery Sadie Coles will present a solo presentation of multidisciplinary Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone. Born to Italian parents on the edge of Lake Lucerne, Rondinone has developed a reputation for the versatility of his craft and his mastery of multiple materials. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in his totemic Seven Magic Mountains (2016-2021), fluorescent boulders balanced precariously on top of one another to reach heights of almost ten metres. On display at Frieze are his equally vibrant water colours: studies in horizons and setting suns that represent the artist’s long-running fascination with dualities: day and night, artifice and reality, organic and artificial. He also favours long, unpronounceable titles in German, dreizehntermärzzweitausendundzweiundzwanzig, being just one example from this latest body of work. 

Company Gallery

Since founding Women’s History Museum in 2014, co-designers Mattie Barringer and Amanda McGowan have set out their stall as a radical mainstream alternative that morphs seamlessly between fashion, performance, choreography and art. We’re particularly excited to see some of their wonderfully bizarre footwear creations up close – be it the cloven-hoofed stilettos or the heels encrusted with opioid pills. Who says fashion wasn’t a dangerous drug? Shown alongside are the equally haptic objects and canvases of US artist Hayden Dunham. In her most recent solo show at Company Gallery, Dunham presented a series of living sculptures that showed water in four states – liquid, solid, vapour and so-called ‘semi-liquid’ – a new material called H+ created by Dunham which rendered each work mutable throughout the course of the show. Part artist, part alchemist, Dunham’s undefinable practice is something to behold. 

Maureen Paley

Maureen Paley boasts a typically stellar line-up at this year’s fair, including works by Gillian Wearing, Laurence Abu Hamdan and Wolfgang Tilmans, the latter having recently opened his landmark exhibition at MoMA earlier this year. Also included are works by photographer Hannah Starkey, who will be opening her first major survey show at Hepworth Wakefield later this month. The Belfast-born photographer is best known for her staging of female protagonists within quiet, dreamlike moments of quiet contemplation. Elsewhere, make sure to familiarise yourself with work by Olivia Pender, an artist who draws extensively from feminist history over the past 200 years and who's currently showing her second solo show, Our Bodies are Not the Problem, at the London gallery. 

Gagosian

Earlier this summer, Gagosian welcomed US photographer Tyler Mitchell to London for his first show in the capital, Chrysalis. The 27-year-old golden boy received rave reviews for his vision of everyday Black beauty, so it's no surprise to hear that this year the Brooklyn-based artist was approached by Frieze for a special commission to be shown at Frieze Masters – a first in the fair’s near 20-year history. Showing alongside Mitchell’s photographs are new works by British painter Jadé Fadojutimi. At 29, the Slade School and RCA graduate is another precocious talent whose paintings have been bought by Tate and fetched over £1 million at auction. Somewhere between figuration and abstraction, Fadojutimi’s paintings manifest feelings of displacement and her own internal identity struggle through evocative and gestural brushstrokes. For more, visit her solo exhibition at Hepworth Wakefield before it closes on 19 March 2023.

Arcadia Missa 

Having only established itself as a commercial gallery in late 2014, south London-based Arcadia Missa has already developed a strong reputation for emerging talent with strong political messages. On show are the ceramic works of British artist Phoebe Collings-James, first shown at Camden Art Centre last year as part of her exhibition, The subtle rules the dense. These hybrid forms oscillate ambiguously between mask, torso and armour plates, reminiscent of military breastplates and Makonde body masks, carved venerations of the pregnant female form from Tanzania and Mozambique. These works form part of Collings-James’ wide-ranging oeuvre, which includes illustration, sculpture, poetry and painting, investigating notions of Blackness and femininity as well as their West-Indian heritage. While you're there, be sure to check out the incredible tapestries by Kurdish German artist Melike Kara, part of her recent exhibition, as above so below. For this second exhibition with the gallery, the Düsseldorf Art Academy graduate borrowed traditional weaving techniques from various Kurdish tribes and their wider diaspora to create vibrant canvases that bridge the gap between fine art and craft.

Matches Fashion

Hosting their own programme at 5 Carlos Place is Matches Fashion, whose week-long series of events celebrates contributions from leading figures in art, fashion and culture. Guests will be privy to a preview of Raf Simons’ new collection for Danish textile firm Kvadrat, while LA-based photographer Matt Lambert and English performance artist David Hoyle will be unveiled as special guests at a series of breakfasts hosted by none other than Michèle Lamy (with whom Lambert often collaborates) and catered by renowned chef Isis Neal. Anyone still hungry can gorge themselves on a new partnership between the online luxury retailer and Tony’s Chocolate, whose exquisite confectionery will be the prize in a special arcade hosted at the fair.