I am still recovering from Frieze London and Frieze Masters, and all the main character energy they unleashed on the city. Taking place over five days from October 15-19 in Regent’s Park, Frieze showed yet again why it is the ultimate art fair. And I’m not saying this just because I am a passionate Londoner. OK, maybe a little.
I mean, with Art Basel Paris 2025 hot on our heels at the Grand Palais on October 23 to 25, we have been feeling a little vulnerable and Brexity, with all our rich people moving to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
But the figures at this year’s Frieze paint a more positive story. Frieze London and Frieze Masters together attracted 90,000 visitors from 108 countries and 280 galleries from 45 countries for its 2025 edition, resulting in many notable sales in what has been a difficult year for the global art market.
The opening day saw Gagosian sell out its solo booth of Lauren Halsey’s work. Meanwhile, Hauser & Wirth sold a René Magritte for $1.6m and a Marcel Duchamp for $1,35m at the fair. White Cube sold an Antony Gormley for about $1m and two pieces by one of my favourite artists, Cai Guo-Qiang, for $280,000 and $190,000. Pace Gallery sold eight William Monks for a pretty penny from its beautifully curated booth “House of Nowhere” — a solo show of Monk’s work.
Tapestries were also hot at Frieze 2025. Lisson Gallery sold Otobong Nkanga’s tapestry work for $600,000, and Kerlin Gallery also reported to have sold Ailbhe Ní Bhriain’s stunning tapestry Interval IV.
What was interesting this year is that Frieze London also changed its layout to foreground emerging galleries at the entrance, with the blue-chip galleries a bit further along. This has obviously not tempered a strong result for the larger galleries, but I have heard that it was also a better year than recent ones for emergent galleries, including those from Africa. Cape Town’s Southern Guild’s sales were particularly remarkable and included a work by Zizipho Poswa for $90,000, and three Zanele Muholi works for prices ranging from $22,000 to $80,000 each.
In addition, SA’s Goodman Gallery and Egypt’s Gypsum Gallery galvanise their presence with each edition of Frieze London. There is also increased South-South collaboration with African artists such as Jareh Das’ curation of Echoes in the Present displayed in a new themed section that Frieze says explored “the deep connections between artists from Brazil, Africa and their diasporas and exploring the shared histories in forced movement across the Atlantic, and sustained through ongoing cultural exchange.”
Frieze London was undoubtedly mind-blowing and absolutely extra, but in my opinion, Frieze Masters was better than ever.
What sets Frieze Masters apart from Frieze London are the gobsmacking antiquities up for grabs and artworks straight out of your art history set books. Booths and booths of Dutch Masters; a rare clutch of Bridget Rileys at Omer Tiroche; illuminated manuscripts from 800AD at Dr Jörn Günther Rare Books; and a 38-million year old triceratops skull (sold for nearly a million dollars).
All of this is at an incomprehensibly premium end of this niche market. You have to wonder who buys these objects and how they would display them. But if somebody out there fancies buying me something truly special for Christmas, please find out who bought the talismanic Sorcerer’s Stones and get them for me instead? I last saw them at Vagabond Antiques’ homage to John Soane in the “Reflections” section at Frieze Masters curated by Joe Chaffer.
Another notable curatorial intervention at Frieze Masters was by Valerie Cassel Oliver — the “Spotlight: 20th-Century Luminaries” section of overlooked and lesser-known artists from the 1950s to the 1970s, including Eleonore Koch, Sonja Sekula and Bertina Lopes.
The buzz at this year’s fairs was incredible, and I learnt so much, but I must tuck in this headline takeaway: Frieze 2025 showed that London is still incredibly relevant, and the strength in sales and attendance reflects its staying power.
The institutions, artists and curators in London make the city’s art market very resilient. The Middle East might have lots of money, but the feeling on the ground at Frieze was that the region does not yet have the sway of London and Paris, and needs to forge a more assertive, localised path from onboarding satellite institutions and fairs such as Frieze Abu Dhabi and Louvre Abu Dhabi.
It would seem, then, that the real market rival for rich art collectors to Frieze London is currently Art Basel Paris (which, incidentally, everyone seems to prefer to Art Basel Basel because there is more to do in Paris, and it is much easier to tag on another quick art-hop from London).
What could therefore begin to happen is that the momentum of Frieze and Art Basel in such proximity may elicit more of a complement than a competition. These together have already been driving stronger sales for 2025. These green shoots should see the recovery from the market downturn translate into sustained growth — and an even stronger edition of Frieze in 2026.
