Eight exhibitions won’t be missed during London’s Fritz Week

Mark your calendar and pack an umbrella (just in case) as Frieze Week is approaching. While the main action will take place at Regent Park in London from October 15-19, there will be plenty to see throughout the city to see the incredible Fritz, an incredibly excellent art lineup with a taxi or pipe ride. These eight amazing exhibitions span the gallery performances of emerging artists, and will remind you why London remains the heartbeat of the British cultural
Must see London’s performance during frize
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“Nigerian Modernism”
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“Emily Kam Kngwarray”
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“Kerry James Marshall: History”
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“House of Music”
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“Cai Gu-Qiang: Gunpowder and Abstraction”
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“Amirhossein Bayani – A narrative of ethnic minorities”
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“The verticality of the soul rises from the horizon of this question”
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“Stan Douglas: The Birth of a Nation and the Enemy of All Mankind”
“Nigerian Modernism”
- Tate Hyundai
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October 8, 2025 to May 10, 2026
“Nigerian Modernism” first introduced the history of modern art in the mid-century and will surely break the new ground (very convenient, just in time for 1-54 contemporary African art fairs to be held from October 16 to 19). Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s independent background from British rule, the show features over 50 artists’ works in textiles, paintings, sculptures, paper and ceramics, including El Anatsui, Aina Onabolu, Ben Enwonwu and Uzo Egonu, which have just been quoted several times. “Nigerian Modernism” searches for the starting points and legacy of important artist movements, such as the new sacred art movement, the Zaria Arts Society and the Oshogbo Art School. It provides fascinating insights into a part of the global Southern art history, highlighting the influence of traditional patterns and forms on these vibrant Nigerian artists.
Benedict Enwonwu, Black Culture, 1986. With Kavita Chellaram, borrow 2025©ben enwonwu Foundation.
Provided by Tate Hyundai
“ Emily Kam Kngwarray“
- Tate Hyundai
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Until January 11, 2026
Don’t miss the first major solo exhibition of Emily Kam Kngwarray, which was held in Europe for the first time, one of the most outstanding contemporary artists of the 20th century. The show is a late but welcome recognition of the Aboriginal artist from the Anmatyerr community in northern Australia, a trend that reflects the success of her overall institution. She began painting in the late 1970s and produced over 3,000 works in a short period of time. Her land and culture had a profound impact on her art. Through her, Aboriginal art has become a contemporary and international sensation. From early batik printing to large-scale abstract paintings, Kngwarray infused her work with Aboriginal beliefs such as dreams, a “every” concept of time that resonates deeply with the spirit of creation and ancestors. Points and lines are permanently moving; they undulate on her huge canvas, such as the furrows of the agricultural field of Kngwarray.

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Ntang Dreaming1989. NGA, Canberra.
©Emily Kam Kngwarry All rights reserved. Licensed by DACS 2025
“Kerry James Marshall: History”
- Royal Academy of Arts
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Until January 18, 2026
70 pieces are on display, which will be Kerry James Marshall’s largest exhibition outside the United States, which will feature first-time loans Knowledge and wonder (1995). The murals produced for the Chicago Public Library were withdrawn from the 2018 auction block in 2018 after criticism, including artists. The mural represents a black crowd on the back, admiring a tree of knowledge and various books. The ladder shows the possibility of upward mobility through education. The London performance includes many other paintings, including characters napping, daydreaming, dancing, caring, love. Kerry James Marshall, a master of contemporary black portraiture, presents his iconic vignette here, a visual tribute to the tenderness, intimacy and confidence of black culture.

Kerry James Marshall, 2008 vignette. Private collection.
©Kerry James Marshall. Image courtesy of New York Artist and Jack Shainman Gallery
“Music Home”transparent
- Snake South Gallery
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October 10, 2025 to February 8, 2026
“House of Music” staged a multi-purpose speech by Peter Doig’s works, covering canvas, music and movies. The show will include new works as well as his famous atmospheric works such as Falling in New York (Central Park)2002 – 2012, the invisible tunes on the dance of the character of the Roller Skiing blends with the exhibition’s desire to eliminate artistic boundaries. “Songs can be very visual. I’m interested in their ideas, and over the years I’ve tried to make paintings of music, just like the way music is.” Sound activates our memories and generosity. The show will speak to the sounds of paintings produced by artists during their stay in Trinidad between 2002 and 2021, and they will also talk to other musicians and creatives.

Peter Doig, 2002 – Fall 2012 (Central Park) (Central Park). Oil on linen, 120.5 x 98 cm.
©Peter Doig. all rights reserved
“Cai Gu-Qiang: Gunpowder and Abstraction”
- White cube Bermondsey
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Until November 9, 202
Some may remember the explosive gunpowder artwork by Cai Gu-Qiang on Tate’s Turbine Hall in 2003, a fire, light and sound performance that attracted the fascinating shape of the memorable dragon. Gu-Qiang returned to London for a highly anticipated new solo performance. In these new works, gunpowder remains the core material for the artist. However, Gu-Qiang did not deepen its corrosive and fiery properties, but explored its more sensitive side. Gunpowder was used as dry pigment in old China, which is the medium of a visual poem. This time he added dimensions by using colored gunpowder, depicting the botanical patterns of flowers, such as the delicate pink poppies. In this impermanent meditation, vulnerability and violence coexist.

Cai Gu-Qiang in 2024.
Photo by Kenryou Gu, provided by CAI Studio.
“Amirhossein Bayani – A narrative of ethnic minorities”
- Kristen HJellegjerde Gallery
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By October 25, 2025
In this solo performance, Iranian artist Amirhossein Bayani explores the depth and family meaning of desire. This is done by a sensitive and textured landscape shaped like the canvas of a house. These scenes are oil-coated, with a home-like toddler feel with pencil strokes. Daytime and nighttime scenes alternate between lush forests and mountains (Damawan Mountain, a symbol of lasting Iranian culture and pride). These Eden landscapes convey sadness and premonition. We find empty ships, cold structures and a lonely boy staring at the vastness before him. Despite penetration in Bayani’s personal history and context, this work goes beyond internal losses.

Amirhossein Bayani, last stop, 2025. Akwete hand-woven fabric with oil and acrylic, 91 x 91 cm. /35 7/8 x 35 7/8 inches.
Courteous artist
“The verticality of the soul rises from the horizon of this question”
- Gallery Rosenfield
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By October 24, 2025
Teodora Axente is a member of the Cluj School in Transylvania, Romania, and young artists gathered together after the fall of the Revolution and communism in 1989. We see this ruptured and turbulent ambition in her work, which includes peculiar scenes and characters, emulate the painting style of the Dutch Golden Age and the early revival of Siesen, with a surreal twist: a variety of distress, affluence, instability and instability that give these splicing uncertainty and frustrating darkness. The gilded religious figures encounter creatures and devices. “From the horizon of this thing, the vertical industry that rises the soul” will present new work ahead of her first institutional solo show at the Santa Maria Della Scala Museum in Siena, an exciting time for the emerging artist.

Teodora Axente, that moment. 2025 ARMORY SHOW installation view.
Courtesy of Rosenfeld Gallery
“Stan Douglas: The Birth of a Nation and the Enemy of All Mankind”
- Victoria Miro
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By November 1, 2025
DW Griffith’s 1915 The birth of a country Still one of the most controversial American films, it is a technical strength that fails to hide the narrative of external anti-black racism (blackface and all), misogyny and white supremacist during and after the Civil War. Canadian artist Stan Douglas set out to remove the legacy of the issue in a five-channel video installation, running for European audiences here. Douglas reinterprets and changes the scenes of the original film to condemn racist bias, novels and fabrications, thus interrogating the role of cinemas in amplifying the myth of bias. The show also includes a photography series that explores race and dramatic performances, interacting with 18th-century comic operas, John Gay Pollyset in the Caribbean during the transatlantic slave trade period. In both works, Douglas dramatizes who can tell these stories and turns offensive entertainment into powerful satire to flip the force structure.

Stan Douglas, Act III, Scene VII: Pirate Morano (aka Captain Macheath) challenged and defeated by the maroon queen pohetohee in the series The All Mankind: John Gay’s Polly (1729) (1729), 2024, 2024. /59 1/4 x 118 1/2 inches.
©Stan Douglas; courtesy of artists Victoria Miro and David Zwirner