Forget blue-chip sales and VIP previews. The first details of Frieze London & Frieze Masters 2026 have landed, and the headline commission involves cakes, rims and Dean’s Bottom.
Marcel Duchamp Fountain, 1964 (after 1917 lost original) Porcelain, glaze, and black paint 14 1/4 × 24 5/8 × 19 inches (36.2 × 62.5 × 48.3 cm) Edition 4/8 + 2 AP + 2 HC © Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2026 Photo: Owen Conway Courtesy Gagosian
Artist Gray Wielebinski has teamed up with Dean’s Bottom to create Production (2026), a new site-specific commission that transforms the fair’s toilets with a series of scented sculptures. It’s one of several highlights announced today, alongside a Frieze Masters talks programme featuring Grayson Perry, Es Devlin and Danh V?, a new ICA artists’ film programme and expanded collaborations with some of the UK’s leading non-profit arts organisations.
Running from 14th–18th October in The Regent’s Park, this year’s programme expands beyond the fair booths with artist commissions, talks, film screenings and collaborations with leading UK arts organisations.
One of the standout commissions is Production (2026), a new site-specific work by Gray Wielebinski produced with Dean’s Bottom. Installed throughout the fair’s lavatories, the project takes the form of scented urinal cakes and toilet rim blocks infused with a bespoke fragrance. Encased in sculptural cages referencing Wielebinski’s ongoing exploration of security, exclusion and public space, the commission transforms one of the fair’s most overlooked spaces into an unexpected sensory experience exploring intimacy, desire and risk.
The commission also has a sense of Frieze history. In 2016, artist Julie Verhoeven transformed the fair’s lavatories with The Toilet Attendant… Now Wash Your Hands, a live intervention that turned the toilets into a playful yet political artwork examining labour, gender and visibility. A decade on, Wielebinski returns visitors to the loos—this time through scent rather than performance.
Julie Verhoeven’s The Toilet Attendant… Now Wash Your Hands, 2016
Elsewhere, Frieze Masters once again partners with dunhill for its annual talks programme, curated for the second consecutive year by Arturo Galansino, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi.
Titled Breaking the Mould, the series brings together leading artists, architects, curators and museum directors to explore how historical art continues to shape contemporary practice. Speakers include Grayson Perry, Es Devlin, Tim Marlow, Danh V?, Paul Pfeiffer, Kulapat Yantrasast, Lina Ghotmeh and Luke Syson. The conversations will be recorded as a podcast and made available on frieze.com and dunhill.com, as well as platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Frieze also continues its partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), presenting a new Artists’ Film Programme spotlighting early-career and under-recognised artists. The selected moving-image works will screen throughout Frieze Week at the ICA before becoming available online.
The fair’s Reading Room once again champions London’s wider cultural ecology, welcoming Nottingham Contemporary, Gasworks, Black Curatorial and Hospital Rooms, while Allied Editions returns with specially commissioned artists’ editions supporting seven of London’s leading not-for-profit galleries.
Beyond Regent’s Park, London Gallery Moments also returns with dedicated events across Bloomsbury, the East End and the West End, encouraging visitors to explore exhibitions throughout the capital during Frieze Week.
Eva Langret, Director, Frieze EMEA, said the programme reflects “the depth of London’s art ecosystem”, highlighting Frieze’s continuing collaborations with artists, public institutions and non-profit organisations.
Whether visitors arrive for conversations with some of the biggest names in contemporary art, discover new moving-image works at the ICA, support London’s non-profit sector—or simply find themselves unexpectedly lingering in the loos—Frieze London 2026 is already shaping up to be one of the fair’s most wide-ranging editions.
Frieze London & Frieze Masters 2026
14th to 18th October, The Regent’s Park
@friezeofficial
CategoriesTagsAuthor 
Mark Westall is the Founder and Editor of FAD magazine –