Frieze review – you’ll see more avant garde wonders in the Bake Off tent
Regents Park, London This year’s art fair is a jumble sale of mediocre paintings for the super-rich, while its Masters sibling hawks dinosaur skulls and sleazy 19th-century nudes. Welcome to the art market as its most grotesque Naked people climb out of the earth and run around waving their arms and screaming, while someone with a bird’s head and wings plays the bagpipes. It’s my favourite artwork at this year’s…
Key points
- A Guardian review criticizes Frieze London 2026 as a jumble sale of mediocre contemporary art serving wealthy buyers, while its Frieze Masters sibling offers more visually exciting but ethically troubling works.
- The reviewer says the contemporary fair's success rate is about one in 10 and that its best piece, a Wolfgang Tillmans print, dates from 1994.
- Frieze Masters features a fossilized Triceratops skull and sleazy 19th-century nudes, with palaeontologists worried that ultra-rich collectors are inflating dinosaur specimen prices and locking out museums.
A Guardian Culture review of Frieze London 2026 at Regent's Park describes the contemporary art fair as a jumble sale of mediocre paintings aimed at extremely wealthy buyers. The reviewer says visitors hoping to see genuinely new, avant garde work will be disappointed, adding that more imaginative wonders can be seen in the Bake Off tent.
The review contrasts Frieze London with Frieze Masters, the posher tent across Regent's Park, which the writer calls more visually exciting but also more disgusting.
What the reviewer found
At Frieze London, the reviewer describes endless paintings of little merit interspersed with slightly better photographs. The first work to hold the writer's attention was a two-metre-tall inkjet print by Wolfgang Tillmans titled Paul, nude, golf ball, but it dates from 1994.
The review singles out Wanda Koop's Radiance-Together at Los Angeles' Night Gallery booth as cute and unserious, and calls Andy Woll's lazily brushed mountain views vacuous. It praises works by Helen Chadwick, Lonnie Holley, Tracey Emin, Waqas Khan, Do Ho Suh, Catherine Opie and Zanele Muholi, but says the overall success rate at Frieze London is about one in 10.
This is a festival of capitalism run amok.
— the Guardian reviewer
Frieze Masters and the market
Frieze Masters offers works by established modern masters, including Cy Twombly and Leon Kossoff, alongside armour, silverware, Arabian carpets and 19th-century nudes. The reviewer notes that an Anselm Kiefer work was priced at just shy of a million pounds, and that an elderly couple were genuinely interested in buying it.
The fair also displays a fossilised triple-horned Triceratops skull. The review cites a recent Guardian report that palaeontologists worry the fashion for dinosaur specimens among the ultra-rich is inflating prices and locking out museums. The writer calls the event a festival of capitalism run amok.
