10 Must-See Exhibitions in London During Frieze Art Week

With Frieze London and Frieze Masters opening this week, London’s vibrant art scene is bursting with exciting exhibitions of both contemporary and modern art. From a survey of Gilbert & George’s digitally manipulated images from the past 25 years at the Hayward Gallery, and a retrospective of Lee Miller’s work as a fashion model, surrealist muse, and photojournalist during World War II at the Royal Academy of Art, to Ryan Gander’s whimsical sculptures, animatronics, and installations at Camden Arts Projects, and Brazilian master textile artist Sonia Gomes’ first solo exhibition in the UK at Pace, these are among our curated list of the city’s must-see shows during Frieze Art Week.

1. Gilbert & George | Hayward Gallery

Working collaboratively for over 50 years, Gilbert & George have consistently been at the forefront of British contemporary art. Starting out as “living sculpture,” they evolved into fearless picture-makers who are willing to tackle a broad range of social subjects. The Hayward Gallery’s “21ST CENTURY PICTURES” exhibition focuses on the duo’s digitally manipulated pictures from the past 25 years. Presenting over 60 striking images inspired by elements of everyday life in the modern world—such as newspaper headlines, road signs, postcards, and overheard conversations—Gilbert & George act as visual archaeologists, uncovering important aspects of our changing society. Exploring how technology has made their reflections on today’s society bigger and bolder than ever before, the not-to-be-missed show features two new works from their 2025 SCREW PICTURES series that confront the pair’s own mortality while highlighting their characteristic wit.

Through January 11

2. Tom Sachs | Thaddaeus Ropac

A master of bricolage—a style of art made from whatever is on hand—Tom Sachs has been crafting do-it-yourself versions of modern icons using everyday materials since his junior high school days. He constructs his mixed-media sculptures from plywood, resin, steel, and ceramic, preferring handmade imperfections over sleek, industrial design. His colorful exhibition and interactive installation, drolly called “A Good Shelf,” combine his signature bricolage sculpture techniques with the daily ceramic practice he began after his 2012 Space Program: Mars mission project. A selection of 30 hand-formed traditional East Asian tea bowls by Sachs, displayed on unique shelves made from found materials, is accompanied by Mezcaleria, a working coffee and mezcal bar, as the New York-based artist continues to explore themes of ritual and process.

Through December 20

3. Kerry James Marshall | Royal Academy of Arts

An artist born in Alabama, who grew up in Los Angeles during the racial turmoil of the 1960s and then settled in Chicago in the late ’80s, Kerry James Marshall is celebrated for creating a space for black people within the canon of Western painting. The subject of the largest survey of celebrated American artist and Honorary Royal Academician to be shown in Europe, “The Histories” exhibition features over 70 works, bringing together primarily paintings, as well as examples of the artist’s prints, drawings, and sculpture, from museums and private collections across North America and Europe. Centering Black figures in paintings rooted in principles established by Western art traditions, which he learned about through books and museums during his childhood. Marshall’s work draws from art history, contemporary culture, Afrofuturism, and science fiction. In this stellar show, the artist explores challenging questions about the past, celebrates everyday life, and envisions a more hopeful future. Marshall works in series and cycles, as demonstrated in the exhibition’s thematic layout, which features 11 groups of works created from 1980 to the present.

Through January 18

4. Lee Miller | Tate Britain

A model turned war photographer, Lee Miller led an extraordinary life, evolving from a famous fashion model and Surrealist artist to a pioneering photojournalist during World War II. Discovered by Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue, in 1926, she was a highly sought-after fashion model before moving to Paris, where she became an apprentice, collaborator, and lover of the Surrealist artist Man Ray. Trading her life in front of the camera for one behind it, she became a photojournalist and army correspondent during the war. The largest retrospective of her work ever mounted, this exhibition covers her diverse practice—from her involvement in French surrealism to her war reportage—and shows how her innovative and fearless approach expanded the limits of photography and created some of the most iconic images of the modern era. About 230 vintage and modern prints, including many works shown for the first time, are displayed alongside archival material and ephemera, underscoring the richness of her photographic legacy.

Through February 15

5. Hugh Hayden | Lisson Gallery

Examining the idea of the American Dream and the challenge of living within it, Hugh Hayden reimagines everyday objects by highlighting craftsmanship and handiwork. Initially trained as an architect at Cornell University in the early 2000s, the Dallas-born sculptor returned to school nearly 10 years later to earn a master’s degree in fine arts from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Best known for his use of natural, familiar materials, Hayden aims to shift people’s perspective on wood while changing how we view the objects he transforms with it. Returning to London for his first solo show since his 2020 debut with the gallery was suddenly shut down just days after opening due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Brooklyn-based artist presents sculptures of a dining table engulfed in flames, a lifeboat lined with thorns, and a child’s dress made from tree bark in his captivating “Hughmanity” exhibition. Meticulously crafted from trees through techniques such as felling, milling, carving, and laminating, these new works extend Hayden’s sculptural language, while the introduction of painted surfaces signals a significant new element within his practice.

Through November 1

6. Nicolas Party | Hauser & Wirth

A Swiss-born artist based in New York, Nicolas Party is renowned for his color-saturated figurative paintings, sculptures, and site-specific murals—captivating viewers with wistful portraits of androgynous figures, dreamlike landscapes, and still lifes of everyday objects, all pared down of unnecessary details. A master at painting with soft pastels on linen and walls, the artist has continued to experiment by adding the lost art of portrait painting on copper, favored by Flemish Old Masters, and placing them on hand-painted faux-marble plinths. For his first solo show in London with the gallery since joining in 2019, Party presents a series of vibrant treescapes alongside portraits inspired by two sculptural works by Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin, French sculptors whose turbulent romance led to her institutionalization in a mental asylum and her death in obscurity. Set in a sublime environment, with pastel-colored walls and arched doorways connecting the rooms, the exhibition “Clotho,” named after one of Claudel’s sculptures depicting the youngest of the mythological three fates turned old, tells a story of aging and death (one of the artist’s favorite themes) in a mystical, forested realm.

Through December 20

7. Dana Schutz | Thomas Dane Gallery

A highly sought-after artist since 2002, when she graduated from Columbia University’s esteemed MFA program, Dana Schutz is a perceptive observer of society, depicting what she observes with a bittersweet perspective. She creates allegorical paintings of imaginary scenes with bold brushstrokes and striking colors, as well as expressive bronze sculptures from twisted clay that portray grotesque creatures in absurd situations. Her semi-abstract, figurative works can make viewers cringe, even as they are captivated by the eerie stories she conveys. Her “One Big Animal” exhibition, held at the gallery’s two locations in London, features a selection of large-scale paintings and sculptures in which people and objects seem to merge with their surroundings and with one another. Although rooted in art history, her works shift the focus from specific times and places to highlight intense psychological states, sensations, and deeply personal experiences.

Through December 20

8. Ryan Gander | Camden Arts Projects

A visual prankster who calls himself “a sort of neo-conceptualist, Proper-‘Gander’-ist, amateur philosopher,” Ryan Gander is internationally celebrated for his conceptual artworks, including sculptural installations of animatronic mice that emerge from tiny holes bored into gallery walls to deliver philosophical monologues and lifelike sculptures of dropped ice cream cones on the floors of his galleries’ art fair booths. The Suffolk and London-based artist’s latest exhibition, “I’ve Fallen Foul of My Desire,” centers on the themes of time and value. It reflects on humanity’s persistent obsession with accumulating things, featuring new and recent sculptures, animatronics, and installations. The exhibition examines how we perceive, distort, and live within time, demonstrating how imagination can reshape our connection to it. From a mouse speaking in his daughter’s voice and a twitching animatronic mosquito on a cake stand to a graphite-cast actor leaning against a gallery wall and stray cats sleeping on the floor, Gander’s thought-provoking presentation transforms the art center into a theatrical stage set, ironically recalling the building’s former life as a drama school.

Through January 18

9. Ed Ruscha | Gagosian

One of America’s most prominent artists, 87-year-old Ed Ruscha has been a trailblazer since the early 1960s, and he’s still creating innovative artworks that continue to attract attention. A master of many media and styles, the Omaha-born, Los Angeles-based Pop Art artist has famously made word paintings like Radio, Honk, and Oof; photographed gas stations, parking lots, and swimming pools; and created drawings with gunpowder, fruit juices, and grass stains. With over a hundred solo exhibitions at museums and galleries worldwide, Ruscha returns to London for his twenty-second solo show with the gallery since joining in 1993, and his first dedicated to paintings on unprimed linen, a medium he began exploring in the early 1990s. The ten new pieces in this series create visual and textural contrasts between the painted words, images, and their supports, emphasizing their definitions and potential.

Through December 3

10. Sonia Gomes | Pace

Celebrated for her freestanding and hanging sculptures made from found and gifted fabric, thread, and wire, Sonia Gomes was born in 1948 into a Brazilian textile family. After careers in education and law, where her only creative outlets were drawing and customizing her clothes with bright colors, she started taking art classes. At age 45, Gomes had a solo show of abstract paintings, but it was another decade before she exhibited her more intuitive sculptural works at a local antique shop and gallery. When Okwui Enwezor selected her for his 2015 Venice Biennale exhibition, more established members of the Brazilian art scene asked, Who? Since then, her reputation has grown both internationally and in Brazil, where she has held numerous solo museum exhibitions. For her first solo exhibition in the UK—titled “É preciso não ter medo de criar,” which translates to You must not be afraid to create—Gomes presents all-new works, including her signature suspended pieces, along with paintings and new sculptural works in bronze.

Through November 15