Beyond Frieze / London

Our must-see exhibitions in London this October 2026.

As Frieze takes over London, we look beyond the fair to the exhibitions and ideas shaping the city’s cultural landscape. From art and fashion to rock heritage and underground scenes, London has a long history of turning the unconventional into cultural influence. With October’s darker atmosphere as our backdrop, we explore the city’s fascination with the strange, the subversive and the beautifully unsettling. . Through ten selected exhibitions and artistic projects, we follow the NASTY instinct for the unexpected work that sparks curiosity, unsettles the familiar and stays with you long after you leave.

1. Ryoji Ikeda / Data-Cosm n°1

An overdose of light, sound and information. Blinding screens, hypnotic frequencies and the feeling of being swallowed by a machine. Cold, precise, almost inhuman.
180 Studios / 14 October – 20 December 2026

Michèle Lamy performing on stage with Ryoji Ikeda at 180.Studios.

2. The 90s / Art and Fashion

Grunge, sweat, sex and beautiful imperfections. A decade of dirty glamour, club kids and fashion that looked better when it felt a little dangerous.
Tate Britain / October 2026 – February 2027.

The 90s (Tate Britain) Juergen Teller, Young Pink Kate, London 1998 © Juergen Teller

3 Tim Walker / Fairyland: Love and Legends

Extravagant characters, surreal portraits and fairytale fantasies. Beauty gets theatrical, reality gets strange, and every image feels like a scene from another world.
National Portrait Gallery / October 2026 – February 2027.

Harry Keita as Delphinium Fairy, London, 2022 © Tim Walker

4. Tarek Atoui / Hyundai Commission

Strange instruments, vibrating objects and sounds you feel in your chest. Sculpture, sound and the raw acoustics of a vast industrial space collide in an installation built for full-body listening.
Tate Modern, Turbine Hall / 13 October 2026 – 11 April 2027.

Tarek Atoui, The Rain, 2023–4. Installation view third floor Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2024. Photo Markus Tretter

5. Cindy Sherman / Previous & Ongoing

Artificial faces, elaborate fabrics and characters that seem to dissolve into their surroundings. A dark game of disguise, vanity and the performance of femininity.
Hauser & Wirth, Savile Row / From 13 October 2026.

Cindy Sherman Untitled #710 2026

6. Es Devlin / Other Worlds

Monumental sets, sculptural forms and dreamlike environments somewhere between theatre, cinema and a fever dream. Dark, theatrical and made to get lost in.
Design Museum / October 2026 – April 2027.

Model of Mirror Maze by Es Devlin. Photo: Richard Round-Turner for the Design Museum

7. Yuko Mohri / In Concert

Salvaged materials, erratic mechanisms and objects that clang, whirr and respond to their surroundings. A handmade machine-world where imperfection becomes its own kind of beauty.
Barbican, The Curve / On view during Frieze Week.

Yuko Mohri during her Barbican residency, May 2026. Photo Toby Coulson. © Toby Coulson Barbican Centre

8. Robert Ryman /The Real Thing

White surfaces, raw materials and almost nothing else. A cold, stripped-back kind of beauty, where texture, light and the physical act of painting do all the talking.
Barbican Art Gallery / 8 October 2026 – 28 February 2027.

Robert Ryman The Real Thing, Installation view, Barbican Art Gallery. (c) Thomas Adank and Barbican Centre

9. Rebecca Warren / There Will Be Another You

Distorted bodies, rough surfaces and sculptural forms caught between the classical and the grotesque. Tactile, strange and deliberately imperfect.
Maureen Paley, East London / On view during Frieze Week.

There Will Be Another You hand-painted bronze, pompom and mixed media on painted MDF plinth bronze- 53 × 179 × 53 cm – 20 7/8 × 70 1/2 × 20 7/8 in plinth- 73 × 206 × 127 cm – 28 3/4 × 81 1/8 × 50 in 2026

10. Yuyan Wang / Pilgrims

A hypnotic moving-image installation exploring how images travel through culture and technology, and how the promise of progress keeps pulling us towards an uncertain future. Strange, cinematic and quietly unsettling.
Emalin, The Clerk’s House, 118½ Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6JN / 9 October – 14 November 2026.

Yuyan Wang Boring Billion 2026 HD video, colour, sound duration: 14:50 min

The Nasty Selection / Around Frieze

Credits:
Editor: Maria Abramenko / @mariabramenko
Junior Editor : Annalisa Fabbrucci / @annalisa_fabbrucci

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