Another year, another iteration of Frieze London. It’s the UK’s most significant artworld annual event, where galleries, collectors, artists and arts professionals converge around the proverbial watering hole of the Regent’s Park marquee. En masse, the art world zealots flock to observe the hottest creations in contemporary art presented by nearly 170 galleries (including Frieze Masters, it’s a total of 280 galleries).

Running since 2003, this year’s edition of Frieze feels particularly crucial. Against a backdrop of gallery closures, catastrophic world events, and reports of a slump in the global art market, the fair acts as an important temperature check for the industry. Yet despite the sombre news, there’s a surge of energy on the ground, with established names joined by a new wave of “red chip” galleries and fresh newcomers injecting momentum back into the fair.

Led by fair director Eva Langret, Frieze London 2025 builds on last year’s redesigned floorplan by putting greater emphasis on the Focus section, which spotlights galleries less than 12 years old. The result? A clearer window onto the future of contemporary art, where young voices and underrepresented talent stand out more vividly than ever.

To guide you through the labyrinth of contemporary art, here are some of the galleries and artist presentations Dazed is most excited to spotlight. 

THE APPROACH, B6

Co-directed by Jake Miller and Emme Robertson, The Approach is a beloved gallery behind The Approach Tavern in Bethnal Green. Known for working with early-career artists, the gallery also intentionally curates ‘inter-generational’ group shows, working with artists such as John Stezaker, Peter Davies, Lisa Oppenheim, among many others. Keeping in the tradition of its curatorial spirit, this year the gallery brings to its booth a number of artists on its roster: Peter Davies, Kira Freije, John Maclean, Paloma Proudfoot, Magali Reus, Mike Silva, Adelaide Cioni and Helene Appel. We’re loving Oppenheim’s luminous, saturated, floral prints and Davies’s pixellated paintings. 

ARCADIA MISSA, B10

Founded by Rózsa Farkas in 2015, Arcadia Missa previously operated as a project space. Located on Duke Street in Marylebone, the gallery works closely with artists who address themes such as identity politics, queer issues, feminist histories and colonial legacies. This year, their booth spotlights the work of six artists: Janiva Ellis, Penny Goring, Onyeka Igwe, Nnena Kalu, Brad Kronz and Reina Sugihara. A particular highlight is Nnena Kalu, the Glasgow-born, Nigerian artist who has been nominated for this year’s Turner Prize (she is the first learning-disabled artist to be shortlisted in the prize’s history). Another striking work is by artist-poet Penny Goring, who has been producing sharp and charismatic work for the past 30 years, with her first institutional show at the ICA in 2022.

COMPANY, AA2

As part of Frieze’s Artist-to-Artist section in collaboration with Tiffany & Co., the renowned painter Nicole Eisenman has nominated photographer Katherine Hubbard to be shown by the New York-based gallery Company. Deeply personal, Hubbard’s large-format photography series traces the life of her chronically ill mother. Diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease that causes severe memory loss, the artist realised, “if I didn’t evolve my creative practice to include her, I wasn’t going to have time to be both an artist and a daughter”. Hubbard presents a deeply poignant project that has developed over the past five years, created in collaboration with her mother at her home in Philadelphia. 

GATHERING, F20

The ‘artist-centred’, Soho-based gallery Gathering was founded by Alex Flick in 2022, but now has outposts in Ibiza and Cologne. This year, Gathering showcases a solo, immersive presentation of the Martinique and Guadeloupean artist Christelle Oyiri, under the title VENOM VOYAGE. Drawing from the ambience of a travel agency, the curated booth addresses the impact of global travel. The work draws our attention to the poisoning of Oyiri’s native Martinique and Guadeloupe with chlordecone – a chemical used in intensive agriculture since the 1970s. The venomous, acid green colour of the walls creates a dystopian and cartoonish atmosphere, alluding to either a corporate office or a villain’s headquarters. Oyiri’s world-building, theatrical work calls into question the realities of utopian holiday destinations.

GINNY ON FREDERICK, F2

A key harbinger of London’s flourishing emerging art scene, Ginny on Frederick is housed in an unassuming ground-floor space off Smithfield Market in Farringdon. Founded by Freddie Powell in 2021 (the gallery takes the first name of the owner’s mother, Ginny). The booth this year presents a solo presentation by Alex Margo Arden, a Royal Academy graduate from Croydon who works with installation, performance and photography.

Arden debuts two theatrical works at Frieze: a remade-to-scale Accident Reporting Board painting (from an archival image of a Hollywood film studio used to denote lost work time due to accidents), alongside an unsettling sculpture assembled from decommissioned museum mannequins from the National Motor Museum. Interested in museum archives, film sets, and the history of presenting history itself, Arden uses the life-size figurines to explore themes of industrial progress and human labour. 

HARLESDEN HIGH STREET, F24

Founded by Jonny Tanna in 2017, Harlesden High Street’s mission is to champion artists of colour, or artists who fall under the category of experimental/outsider. Bringing the cliques of the artworld to Harlesden in north west London – a residential area known for its loved Caribbean and Brazilian food scene – the gallery has brought a breath of fresh air to London’s establishment, white cube gallery scene. This year, the gallery debuts the work of Toby Cato, aka Cato, the Brighton-born artist and musician who works primarily with collage and will be drawing from his personal Polaroid collection. 

HAUSER & WIRTH, D20 

Alongside work by prominent women artists, Cindy Sherman, Christine Kimeze, and Anj Smith, Hauser & Wirth brings to its booth work by rising art stars George Rouy, Avery Singer and Angel Otero, among others. Born in 1978 in Kent, Anj Smith is a Slade and Goldsmiths graduate who creates tantalisingly surreal and intricate works, such as The Changeling, which will be debuted at Frieze this year. Smith’s work handles representational imagery that defies genre but often centres the female nude, as well as her own ruminations on self.

LLANO GALLERY, F15

Founded in 2020, Llano is a Mexican platform working primarily with artists engaged in long-term research, especially research connected to the disciplines of science, history and technology. For its third presentation at Frieze London, the gallery presents Enrique López Llamas’ work, characterised by an interest in narrative speculation as a tool to address the cultural and power structures. Based in Mexico City, Llama’s work explores the universal experience of repetition and failure, the Sisyphean trial and error that shapes ‘performed adulthood’. 

LISSON GALLERY, BOOTH DI

Lisson Gallery’s presentation at Frieze this year assembles works by significant artists from the gallery’s roster, with an emphasis on artists who probe the themes of nature’s fragility and climate disaster. On display are works by Sarah Cunningham (who tragically died last year), Ryan Gander, Leiko Ikemura, Otobong Nkanga, Laure Prouvost, Tishan Hsu, Allora & Calzadilla, Lucy Raven, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jack Pierson, and Tunga. The Puerto Rico-based duo Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, known as Allora & Calzadilla, present the work Graft (Tabebuia Rosea), which spreads across the floor in thousands of hand-painted blossoms, cast from Caribbean roble trees in states of decomposition. The work is a commentary on biodiversity, the climate crisis and the enduring legacies of colonial exploitation. Elsewhere, Lisson artist Lucy Raven (currently showing at the Barbican’s Curve) interrogates the hidden costs of industry and infrastructure in Deposition, Dam Breach 12 (2024).

ROSE EASTON, F34

Rose Easton opened on Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green, in October 2021, having previously been named Moarain House. Ever since, the gallery has been leading London’s vibrant emerging art scene, collaborating with artists who embrace experimental practices. This year, the gallery will be showcasing the work of the Los Angeles-based artist Jan Gatewood, whose multimedia works apply corrosive elements such as lemon juice, bleach and Palo Santo ash to his drawings, creating a dynamic and live alchemy on his surfaces.

SOFT OPENING, A14

Founded in 2018 by Antonia Marsh, the East London Gallery Soft Opening focuses on UK-based and international emerging contemporary artists, crediting its early program with projects that responded to the gallery’s unique first location in Piccadilly Circus Underground Station, before moving to its Minerva Street space in Bethnal Green in 2019. For Frieze 2025, the gallery is spotlighting the black trans artist Ebun Sodipo, whose practice is rooted in black feminist studies. Rooted in research, excavation and storytelling, Sodipo creates wall-based collages that mine ‘ancestral knowledge and visual culture to depict the Black transfeminine experience’. The artist restores forgotten figures from history, in an attempt to reimagine a trans future. 

THADDAEUS ROPAC, D22

Based in Mayfair, Thaddaeus Ropac is one of the major international blue-chip galleries working with a global roster of artists across multiple locations: London, Salzburg, Paris, and Seoul. This year’s booth assembles some of the gallery’s key artists: Georg Baselitz, Mandy El-Sayegh, Sylvie Fleury, Megan Rooney, Gilbert & George, Tom Sachs, Joan Snyder, Martha Jungwirth, Zadie Xa, among others. Look out for Megan Rooney’s painting Signals and Warnings from this year, as well as Gilbert & George's NAKED BEAUTY (1982), which is presented to coincide with the artist's major survey of work from the past 25 years at The Hayward Gallery, London.

Frieze London runs from 15 - 19 October 2025 in Regent’s Park

Need somewhere to stay? Broadwick Soho is an official hotel partner of Frieze London 2025, and from October 12 to 20, guests booking suites at the hotel will receive a pair of VIP tickets to both Frieze London and Frieze Masters. This will grant entry to VIP preview days, guided tours, and more. In addition, all guests can enjoy 15 per cent off the hotel’s best available rate plus daily breakfast