Part Three was left with the edge (and those edges) of Squeak Carnwath for we are still clinging to the edges and like we already said, If you missed Part One or Two or Three may we politely suggest you go back and start on that buffed floor of the tube train under out feet as we made our way to the Fair, you got to get in to get out, mind those carpet crawlers. those Squeak Carnwath paintings did lift things and on several levels.
We are trying to focus on the actual art most commentators do seem to be focused on the business of it all for really that is what it is all about.
And to repeat by way of introduction to this page; more than five hours carefully following those numbers up above the endless booths; meticulous, relentless, thorough, determined, looking for the cherries. We did say back in Part One that we could easily just write a couple of thousand scathing (attention seeking?) words about all the bad art, about the unassuming uninspiring disconnecting artlessness of so so much of it, or that we could just assume you know there was going to be a lot of not really worth a mention art and let’s just get on with the cherry picking…
On we go, past more chains that seem a little tame after those Isaiah Davis chains back in Part One and actually after all the annoyance of last week at Soft Opening – what has East London to offer? Not much at Soft Opening, rather a lot at Terrace Gallery, on with it all – must admit the East London Gallery do actually have some strong pieces, that Shannon Cartier Lucy painting is delicious (Cincature 2026), Shannon Cartier Lucy painting usual are, slightly unsettling new and again, alwaya delicious and there were some Sam Lipp pieces that I seem to have failed to take (even a bad) photo of (yeah, I know, most of the photos here are bad, feel free to club together to buy a better cameraphonething…)
And that piece by artist duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, a piece called Night, a rather big (in more than just one way) fresco (230x170cm big, a 2026 piece) is rather delicious as well, things are (briefly) getting tasty – “Working collaboratively, Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings (b. 1991; Newcastle/London, UK; live and work in London) construct imagined social worlds that interrogate the relationship between architecture, public space, state infrastructure, gender, and queer identity. Using Fresco, a technique traditionally associated with Renaissance religious and historical painting, the artists’ explore the radical potential of dissonance, tension, and disjuncture. Their compositions emerge through collage, bringing archival images from disparate contexts together in unexpected configurations” – really love that big fresco, kind of like the Melike Kara piece next to it as well – Ode To All – oil stick, acrylic, coffee and ink on canvas, 162x122cm (2026), both pieces are presented by London’s Arcadia Missa.
We’re almost at those pens, by the way, the 24th edition of Frieze London featured 176 galleries from 43 countries, are we half way around yet? Told you press release boasting about it all would be in in a moment –
“Frieze London and Frieze Masters brought collectors, galleries and institutions from around the world to The Regent’s Park from 14 to 18 October 2026. Highlights included Michaël Borremans‘s new painting, placed by David Zwirner for $1.5 million, and Jan Brueghel the Elder‘s Still Life of Flowers in a Stoneware Vase, sold by Hauser & Wirth in the region of £5 million.
The fairs welcomed 95,000 visitors from 108 countries and regions, including a record number of representatives from 426 institutions across 51 countries and regions. Attendance from India and China more than doubled compared with 2025, with increases also recorded from Hong Kong, Korea, the UAE and Brazil. Attendance from the US and Canada rose significantly alongside growth from major European markets including Germany and France.
Galleries reported sales at every level across both fairs, from Focus presentations that sold out within the first few hours of opening day to seven-figure placements, alongside acquisitions by museums and foundations in Europe, Asia and the US. The 24th edition of Frieze London featured 176 galleries from 43 countries and regions, while the 14th edition of Frieze Masters welcomed 142 galleries from 33 countries and regions….”
Yeah right, where were we? What am I doing in here? Those pens, not everything we mention here is cherry picking, although, now I think about it…
It is actually the Monday morning after the weekend before now, the circus had closed and about to leave town, the is box is already filling up with Art Basel Paris e.mails, Amanda can’t say hello in person but she does like an e.mail. Shall we go on with this piece? We are only just getting to those pens, another language? A code? New York atist Carolyn Lazard and in the artist’s own words: “Carolyn Lazard is a whatever artist who works in blah blah media on such n such ideas/thingamajigs. Their work lalalalas the whozits…” – Okay, I kind of like those walls of pens, like probably isn’t the word, really not that bothered about using the right words, I liked those regimentent pens for a moment or two, here’s a photo or two, you don’t need anything else.. The pen piece(s) are presented by Trautwein Herleth (Berlin)
Tomoya Matsuzaki‘s Bascule (Solstice) – oil on acrylic resin, aluminium, found objects 149x208x8cm (2026), a piece presented by Adams and Ollman (Portland) takes an eye and once again probably deserved more time (but there is 176 galleries from 43 countries in here, this is rather ridiculous).
And just because I took a photograph, it doesn’t mean I liked it, the photos at the foot are there to add some flavour. I mean, you go back and look at the hundreds of photos you took and think what the actual flip is that substandard railway model style whatever the hell it is doing there? To be brutally frank, there’s a whole emperors wardrobe of crap in here, even more so than last year I suspect. I did like the brutality of that Tomoya Matsuzaki piece
Now who comes all the way from Italy to just leave a load of used Scullys and some smily toilet blocks on the floor of their booth? Are we supposed to think that’s radical? Dangerous? A scully by the way is what we call those kitchen cleaner sponge things, as in a Sean Scully, as in can you pick up some Scullys from the supermarket (a stacked pack stripy cleaner sponge things), and you might just as well ask who then crouches down to take photographs of said Scullys on the floor of the booth? I don’t know? Why would you come all the way from Turin (pay the vast amount of money a booth costs) and then just leave…. answers on a postcard to Galleria Franco Noero while we move on.
We are in the Code Universe section of this year’s Frieze London now, a new curated section organised by Carol Yinghua Lu that examines popular culture and post-digital legacies, there a piece by Japanese artist Shinro Ohtake, actually there’s a whole booth of the artist’s work presented by Take Ninagawa (Tokyo) and Greengrassi (London). Not sure how a pop art-ish collage (we’ve all made them) becomes a post digital legacy? There’s no time for the debate, not right now, there is a rather engrossing hand made book in a glass case that requires another #43SecondFilm be made by way of illustration…
There’s a Nicholas Galanin piece – Ascension (2022) – presented by Peter Blum and there’s this year’s Ozgur Kar piece from London’s Emalin Gallery (who seem to get a little more toned down each year, there’s a Stanislava Kovalcikova piece – Timeshifters from the same East London Gallery – long since gave up trying to figure out Emalin Gallery, not that they’re that bothered about that. That Alvaro Barrington piece certainly demands attention, now that is something, there can never be too much yarn at Frieze…
I think that rather large Claude Monet moment over there, a big Bin Woo Hyuk painting that looks more like a Jimmy C piece than a Hockney, is a rather good point to end Part Four… (sw)
Frieze London ended Yesterday, 18th October 2026 it all happened in The Regent’s Park, London
Previously
And as always, do please click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show…
Shannon Cartier Lucy – Cincature (2026)
