Our Top Booths from Frieze 2024

What is Frieze?

Founded in 2003 by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, Frieze London is one of the world’s leading contemporary art fairs, showcasing work by living artists. Directed by Eva Langret, the fair takes place each October in The Regent’s Park, London. The 2024 edition will feature a new floorplan by A Studio Between, enhancing the visibility of curated sections like Artist-to-Artist and the new themed section, Smoke. Exhibiting galleries highlight both emerging and iconic artists, with independent curators overseeing ambitious presentations and performance-based works. The fair emphasizes innovative, contemporary art.

1. Billy Childish - Lehmann Maupin

Billy Childish’s new landscape paintings debut at the booth, showcasing scenes inspired by time spent in California. Known for his vivid, emotionally charged works, Childish uses a quick, intuitive process, sketching in charcoal and layering rich oil paint to capture light and form. His subjects range from the River Medway to Margate's cliffs and family portraits, blending real and imagined worlds. This series highlights serene landscapes—mountains, sunrises, swimmers, and snow-covered riverbanks—exploring the connection between nature’s beauty and the transcendent. Childish will be at the booth on October 9 and 10 at 12 PM to paint live and engage with viewers.

2. Benedikte Bjerre - Palace Enterprise

Benedikte Bjerre’s installation The Birds (2017) transforms Palace Enterprise’s space into a whimsical yet thought-provoking scene. A huddle of identical, foil-coated, helium-filled baby penguins bounces aimlessly across the floor, captivating viewers with their playful, almost absurd movement. The installation draws attention to our craving for mindless entertainment while simultaneously offering a sharp commentary on mass consumerism and the looming threat of climate change.

By referencing Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic 1963 film The Birds, Bjerre contrasts the ominous, vengeful birds in the movie with her own penguins, who seem blissfully unaware of their limitations and impending fate. While Hitchcock’s birds act with a menacing agency, Bjerre’s penguins reflect a passive acceptance, representing a broader critique of humanity’s complacency in the face of environmental catastrophe. The lightheartedness of the installation, paired with its deeper themes, challenges viewers to reconsider their own relationship with consumption, entertainment, and the planet's future.

3. Tracey Emin - Galleria Lorcan O'Neill

Tracey Emin's works and sculptures are deeply personal, often exploring themes of identity, love, loss, and trauma. Known for her raw, confessional style, she uses a variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, neon lights, and textiles. Emin's most iconic pieces, like My Bed (1998) and Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1995), reveal intimate details of her life, blurring the line between art and autobiography. Her sculptures often take the form of fragmented or vulnerable human figures, capturing emotional intensity and physical fragility. Emin's work frequently addresses themes of womanhood, sexuality, and vulnerability, with a focus on personal expression and emotional depth.

Galleria Lorcan O'Neill present a series of sculptural works, neons and works on paper in this show stopping booth.

4. Jean Michel - Basquiat - Omer Tiroche Gallery (Frieze Masters)

Omer Tiroche Gallery highlights the connection between Jean Dubuffet and Jean-Michel Basquiat, focusing on their shared exploration of the human figure. Dubuffet’s Art Brut significantly influenced Basquiat, who, after encountering Dubuffet’s work in the 1970s, began incorporating graffiti under the pseudonym SAMO. Both artists rejected traditional realism, using bold, dynamic figures and vibrant colours to capture the raw essence of human experience.

Their works often feature solitary, ungrounded figures, reflecting themes of alienation. Basquiat, like Dubuffet, embraced collage techniques, layering Xeroxed drawings with acrylics and spray paint. In Red Joy (1984), Basquiat’s central figure highlights his struggle as a Black artist in a predominantly white art world. Both artists, pioneers of Outsider Art, redefined figuration by breaking away from academic traditions and embracing urban life’s chaotic energy.