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Coming into London for Frieze week?
A railcard takes a third off most UK rail fares for a year, and my railcard page has the current TrainPal discount and the steps to claim it.
Frieze London and Frieze Masters run in The Regent's Park from Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 October 2026. Many London galleries and museums open their big autumn shows the same week, so there is plenty to see away from the fair. These nine Frieze week exhibitions run from a Soho first-floor room to the Barbican, and seven of them are free.
The two names most people will know are Cindy Sherman and Robert Ryman. Sherman has a new series made partly in Chanel fabric at Hauser & Wirth. Meanwhile, Ryman's white paintings fill the Barbican in his first big UK show for more than 30 years. Around them sit Cady Noland, Cecilia Vicuña, Issy Wood and Mary Ramsden, plus three shows by artists you are less likely to have heard of.
I checked every date, price and opening time here on the galleries' own pages on 13 October 2026. All nine shows are open during Frieze week, and most run well into the winter.
At a glanceFrieze week exhibitions: the nine shows
Section 01 / Mayfair, Marylebone and Soho
Five free gallery shows in the West End
All five sit within a 25-minute walk of each other, between Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road.
Frieze runs West End Day on Saturday 17 October, from 11am to 6pm, when the Mayfair and West End galleries open for fair visitors. Hauser & Wirth, Pilar Corrias and Gagosian are all in Mayfair, so you can see three of these in an hour. Arcadia Missa is just north of Oxford Street, near Bond Street station, and TINA is in Soho, so leave those two for the end of the walk.
Installation view, Cindy Sherman, Hauser & Wirth London, 2026. © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Alex Delfanne. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Cindy Sherman at Hauser & Wirth
For anyone who knows the Untitled Film Stills and wants to see what she makes now.
Sherman has photographed herself in character for more than five decades. This show debuts a new series, Fabric Matrons. The idea came from a free magazine from a high-end Hamptons store, full of airbrushed pictures of a well-known model of Sherman's generation. Chanel invited her to use its fabric and jewellery, so some of the women wear tweeds woven with leather strips, gold thread and sequins.
It's her first London show since she joined Hauser & Wirth in 2021. Meanwhile, Untitled #710 shows a reclining woman with a glossy magazine and a book on physiognomy. "It's gone beyond beauty," Sherman says in the gallery's press release. She describes the characters' neuroses as "probably my own, and similar to many women my age."
The show opens today, so the newspaper reviews are not in yet. Hannah Silver at Wallpaper* reads the series as a study of ageing, and points to the clash between the rich Chanel tweeds and the deliberately slapdash styling. In addition, Galerie Magazine put it first in its nine London gallery shows for Frieze week.
Free · 13 October to 23 December · 23 Savile Row, W1S 2ET
Hauser & Wirth stays open late in Frieze week: until 8pm on Wednesday 14, from 11.30am to 8pm on Thursday 15, and until 7pm on Friday and Saturday. After that it's Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm.
Mary Ramsden: The Feeling of What Happens, Pilar Corrias, Conduit Street, 2026. Photo: Ben Westoby / Fine Art Documentation. Courtesy the artist and Pilar Corrias, London
Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias
For anyone who likes their abstract painting big, bright and slow to give itself up.
The Feeling of What Happens is nine large oil paintings, all made in 2026, in Ramsden's seventh solo show with the gallery. The title comes from the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio's book on consciousness. Over the past year she has also swapped emails with the cosmologist Brian Swimme, and the gallery has published some of those notes. The biggest canvases, Sounds from the Space Station and More Sounds from the Space Station, are 210 x 260cm each, roughly 83 x 102 inches.
Ramsden was born in North Yorkshire in 1984 and works between London and the Dales. Tate Britain gave her an Art Now show in 2015. Eddy Frankel gave it five stars in the Guardian, praising its "total, obsessive, overwhelming dedication to colour". Similarly, Peter Davies at the Contemporary Art Society calls the paintings "as resonant as they are striking".
Free · until 7 November · 51 Conduit Street, W1S 2YT
It's open Tuesday to Friday from 10am to 6pm and Saturday from 11am. The gallery is step-free with a lift. It closes on 7 November, so put it near the top of the list.
Installation view, Cady Noland, Gagosian, Davies Street, London, 2026. Artwork © Cady Noland. Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Courtesy Gagosian
Cady Noland at Gagosian Davies Street
For anyone who wants the darker side of American culture, cut up and printed on aluminium.
Noland was in the 1990 Venice Biennale, the 1991 Whitney Biennial and Documenta 9 in 1992. Then, in 2024, Glenstone in Maryland gave her the first major survey of her career at a US museum, which the Brooklyn Rail reviewed at length.
This show is new work. It includes two Untitled panels from 2026, UV-printed on honeycomb aluminium at 48 x 36 inches (121.9 x 91.4cm), and a refrigerator covered in printed magnets. An older piece, Untitled Xerox Cut-Out (Martha Mitchell), from 1989 to 1994, hangs in the artist's own frame. Gagosian is also relaunching The Clip-On Method, the 600-page, two-volume book Noland edited and designed, which the gallery calls "an artwork in its own right".
It opened on 12 October, so there are no reviews yet. One thing to know before you go is that this is the small Gagosian on Davies Street, not the Grosvenor Hill space, where the Magritte show from my This Is Still Not a Pipe review runs until 12 December. They're about five minutes apart.
Free · until 19 December · 17–19 Davies Street, W1K 3DE
Installation view, Haymakers, Arcadia Missa, London, 2026. Photo: Tom Carter
Vijay Masharani at Arcadia Missa
For anyone who reads an exhibition text as closely as the work.
Masharani was born in the Bay Area in 1995 and makes drawings, videos and criticism. His solo show Big Casino ran at Kunsthalle Zürich in 2025, and he has shown at MoMA PS1. Haymakers is a room of small framed drawings from 2026, in graphite, coloured pencil, marker and collage, with titles like Scammer, Falcon and Hospital scene 2.
The gallery's text is his own essay,. "Artworks are not alibis, nor are they documents of innocence or utopia," he writes. I couldn't find a review yet. However, this is the first of the nine to close, on 29 October.
Free · until 29 October · 35 Duke Street, W1U 1LH
It's open Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm to 6pm. During building works the first floor has no step-free access, so check with the gallery if you need it.
Installation view, To be, or not to be, Philip Ewe, TINA, London, 2026. Photo: Corey Bartle-Sanderson
Philip Ewe at TINA
For anyone who likes theatre in a gallery, or Hamlet read sideways.
Ewe is a London artist, born in 1983, and To be, or not to be is his first show at TINA, a first-floor gallery on Wardour Street. It mixes a 30-minute live performance with found theatre props, new photographs and light fittings from his father's lighting business of the 1980s and 1990s. The question it starts from is whether Hamlet's famous speech is private thought or a speech he doesn't know is being overheard.
The photographs include Portrait Man, twelve prints hung as one 195 x 195cm square (about 77 inches each way), and a Speakers Corner series shot in Hyde Park. I couldn't find any reviews yet. If you like it, Ewe also has a second solo show, Inheritance at Palmer Gallery in St John's Wood, until 24 October. It centres on a scale replica of his grandparents' fish and chip shop in Barking.
Free · until 21 November · First floor, 191 Wardour Street, W1F 8ZE
TINA opens Wednesday to Saturday, 12pm to 6pm. The performance doesn't run every day, so email the gallery at [email protected] for the next date.
Section 02 / Trafalgar Square
A free museum display, five minutes from the West End
The National Portrait Gallery's new contemporary series starts with an artist who paints herself.
Issy Wood, Self portrait 71, 2025. © Issy Wood. Courtesy the artist, Carlos/Ishikawa, London, and VeneKlasen, New York and London. Photo: Damian Griffiths
Issy Wood at the National Portrait Gallery
For anyone with half an hour between Mayfair and the City.
Artist Focus – Issy Wood: Self-Portraits is the first display given over to Wood's self-portraits. It's also the first in the gallery's Artist Focus series, which plans three free contemporary shows a year. Wood started the series in 2020. The paintings are tightly cropped and often hide her face, and for her they often stand in for photographs of herself.
The gallery has 11 of them from the artist's own collection, and seven have never been shown in public. The gallery's lead image is Self portrait 71 from 2025, about seven feet tall, in which she drinks from a can through a peel-off face mask. Wood is represented by Carlos/Ishikawa in London. Annie Downes picked it for Wallpaper*'s Frieze week list. Likewise, Casey Lesser at Artsy named it one of the shows she was "most curious about this week".
Free · until 28 February 2027 · Room 32, Floor 1, St Martin's Place, WC2H 0HE
The gallery opens daily from 10.30am to 6pm, and until 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays. It's a single room, so it suits a short visit.
"You cannot understand painting by explaining something. You can only understand painting by experience."Robert Ryman, quoted by the Barbican
Section 03 / The City and East London
Two ticketed shows worth paying for
The Barbican and the Whitechapel are three stops apart on the Hammersmith & City line, and both have a cheaper or pay-what-you-can slot.
Robert Ryman: The Real Thing, installation view, Barbican Art Gallery. © Thomas Adank / Barbican Centre / DACS, London
Robert Ryman at the Barbican
For anyone who has ever said "it's just a white painting".
Robert Ryman: The Real Thing has more than 60 works from the mid-1950s to the early 2010s. The Barbican calls it the first significant UK exhibition of Ryman's work in over 30 years, since his Tate show in 1993. Ryman trained as a jazz saxophonist and spent seven years as a security guard at MoMA. Then he spent the rest of his career on what white paint does on different surfaces, from linen and steel to coffee filter paper.
Look for Surface Veil II, about 3.65m (12 feet) square, painted unstretched on his studio floor around 1970 and back in London for the first time since 1993. In addition, Standard, twelve panels of rolled steel from 1967, gets a room of its own. Sarah Kent gave it five stars at The Arts Desk and called the hang the Barbican's "most pristine and beautiful". Annabel Downes at Time Out gave four stars and admits it may leave sceptics cold. Even so, she argues it works best "close up, with your nose inches away".
£20.50 · until 28 February 2027 · Barbican Art Gallery, Level 3, EC2Y 8DS
Young Barbican members aged 16 to 29 pay £6, and Art Fund members pay £11. Entry is Pay What You Can on Thursdays from 5pm to 8pm and Fridays from 10am to 12pm. The Barbican Shop sells the 400-page catalogue, which my Robert Ryman catalogue page prices and describes.
Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu Menstrual 1 (unknotted), 2006/2024, installed at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2024. Photo: Isabella Matheus, via Whitechapel Gallery
Cecilia Vicuña at the Whitechapel
For anyone who saw Brain Forest Quipu in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall in 2022 and wants the whole story.
Cecilia Vicuña: Living Threads is the Chilean artist and poet's first major UK exhibition. She studied at the Slade from 1972 and stayed in London in self-exile after the 1973 coup in Chile. In 1974 she co-founded Artists for Democracy here, and a display of its papers is in the show. Vicuña won the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
The show opens with Quipu Menstrual, a forest of unspun red and brown wool. It also has her surviving London precarios, small sculptures from 1973 to 1974, and 1970s paintings, some lost and later painted again. "I decided I will work with this imposed colonial material, but I will subvert it," she told AnOther Magazine, about oil paint. Abby Moore at The Conversation finds the repainted canvases "align beautifully" with Vicuña's idea of time. For the long version, Ben Luke's A brush with podcast covers her whole career.
£16.50, concessions £9.50 · until 14 February 2027 · 77–82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX
A National Art Pass brings the ticket down to £8.25, and my National Art Pass page has the current price of the pass. Entry is Pay What You Can on Thursday evenings from 6pm to 9pm. Her participatory piece Foraging Quipu is free, in Gallery 4. My Veronica Ryan review covers the building itself.
Section 04 / South-east London
One free show worth the trip to New Cross
Goldsmiths CCA is three minutes from New Cross Gate station, on the Overground.
Installation view, Evelyn Taocheng Wang: Being Poetic Ruins Life, Goldsmiths CCA, London, 2026. Photo: Rob Harris
Evelyn Taocheng Wang at Goldsmiths CCA
For anyone who likes Agnes Martin, Jane Austen and a joke in the same room.
Wang was born in Chengdu in 1981, trained in classical Chinese literature, calligraphy and landscape painting, and moved to Europe in 2008. She was in the 2024 Venice Biennale and won Museum Ludwig's 2025 Wolfgang Hahn Prize, according to ArtReview. Being Poetic Ruins Life is her first institutional exhibition in the UK, and it fills the whole Goldsmiths CCA building. She is represented in London by Carlos/Ishikawa.
The new work leans on British references, from Virginia Woolf and Pride and Prejudice to Count Duckula, James Bond and Merchant Ivory. Many of the paintings borrow Agnes Martin's pale grids. One is called The Wrong Chinaman in The Remains of the Day (1989) on the Wrongly Imitated Agnes Martin's Garden. Orit Gat covers it in her Frieze week London roundup for e-flux, where she describes the Martin-derived paintings as "far-from-reclusive".
Free · until 13 December · St James', New Cross, SE14 6AD
It's open Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 6pm. My Flare-Up review from the spring covers the CCA building, a converted Victorian bathhouse.
Section 05 / Planning
Which Frieze week exhibitions to see first
The closing dates decide the order, because four of these end long before the others.
| Show | Venue | Closes | Price | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vijay Masharani, Haymakers | Arcadia Missa | 29 Oct | Free | Tue to Sat, 12pm to 6pm |
| Mary Ramsden, The Feeling of What Happens | Pilar Corrias | 7 Nov | Free | Tue to Fri 10am to 6pm, Sat from 11am |
| Philip Ewe, To be, or not to be | TINA | 21 Nov | Free | Wed to Sat, 12pm to 6pm |
| Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Being Poetic Ruins Life | Goldsmiths CCA | 13 Dec | Free | Wed to Sun, 12pm to 6pm |
| Cady Noland | Gagosian Davies Street | 19 Dec | Free | Tue to Sat, 10am to 6pm |
| Cindy Sherman | Hauser & Wirth | 23 Dec | Free | Tue to Sat, 10am to 6pm |
| Cecilia Vicuña: Living Threads | Whitechapel Gallery | 14 Feb 2027 | £16.50 | Tue to Sun 11am to 6pm, Thu to 9pm |
| Issy Wood: Self-Portraits | National Portrait Gallery | 28 Feb 2027 | Free | Daily 10.30am to 6pm, Fri and Sat to 9pm |
| Robert Ryman: The Real Thing | Barbican | 28 Feb 2027 | £20.50 | Tue to Sun, Thu and Fri to 8pm |
One afternoon, or the whole week
If you only have one free afternoon this week, start in Mayfair with Sherman, Ramsden and Noland, then walk to Arcadia Missa and on to TINA before 6pm. On Saturday, Frieze's West End Day keeps the area busy from 11am, so go early. The Barbican and the Whitechapel both stay open late on Thursdays, which makes Thursday evening the cheapest time to see both. The National Portrait Gallery, the Barbican and the Whitechapel all run into 2027, so they can wait until after Frieze if the week fills up.
For the fair itself, my Frieze London 2026 guide has ticket prices for each day, ten stands to find and the free sculpture walk in Regent's Park. If you are near the Barbican anyway, my Freelands Painting Prize review covers a free show of twelve new painters on Errol Street, a short walk from the Barbican, until 31 October.
FAQs about Frieze week exhibitions
When is Frieze week 2026?
Frieze London and Frieze Masters run in The Regent's Park from Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 October 2026. Wednesday is invitation only, so the public days are Thursday to Sunday. Frieze's West End Day, when the Mayfair and West End galleries open for fair visitors, is on Saturday 17 October from 11am to 6pm.
Which London exhibitions are free during Frieze week?
Seven of the nine shows here are free with no booking: Cindy Sherman at Hauser & Wirth, Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias, Cady Noland at Gagosian, Vijay Masharani at Arcadia Missa, Philip Ewe at TINA, Issy Wood at the National Portrait Gallery and Evelyn Taocheng Wang at Goldsmiths CCA.
How much is the Robert Ryman exhibition at the Barbican?
A standard ticket was £20.50, including a £1.50 booking fee, when I checked on 13 October 2026. Young Barbican members aged 16 to 29 pay £6, students £15.50, Art Fund members £11, and under-16s go free. Entry is Pay What You Can on Thursdays from 5pm to 8pm and Fridays from 10am to 12pm.
Is the Cindy Sherman show in London free?
Yes. Hauser & Wirth's exhibitions are free and need no booking. The show is at 23 Savile Row until 23 December 2026, and it stays open until 8pm on some evenings during Frieze week.
Which of these shows closes first?
Vijay Masharani's Haymakers at Arcadia Missa closes on 29 October, then Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias on 7 November. Everything else runs until at least 21 November.
How do I get to Goldsmiths CCA?
Take the Overground to New Cross Gate, which is a three-minute walk, or Southeastern to New Cross, about eight minutes away. There is no Tube station nearby. The gallery is at St James', New Cross, SE14 6AD, and it's free.
More things like this:
- Anish Kapoor at the Hayward review - the Vantablack works and the red balloon, in a show that closes on 18 October.
- Louis Fratino at David Zwirner review - saunas, subway cars and art-history borrowings in another Mayfair show.
- Anish Kapoor's Glow print - a £100 poster for Hospital Rooms, on sale for ten days from 14 October.
- Gifts for artists - presents for anyone who spent Frieze week in galleries.
- National Theatre at Home - the prices and free trial, if the Hamlet angle at TINA leaves you wanting the play.
Disclaimer. Opening times, prices and closing dates can change, especially during Frieze week, so check the gallery's page before you travel. Each image belongs to the artist and gallery named in its caption. Cover images: installation views of Quipu Menstrual 1 (unknotted) by Cecilia Vicuña (photo: Isabella Matheus, via Whitechapel Gallery), Cindy Sherman at Hauser & Wirth London (photo: Alex Delfanne, © 2026 Cindy Sherman / ARS, NY) and Mary Ramsden: The Feeling of What Happens at Pilar Corrias (photo: Ben Westoby / Fine Art Documentation), cropped and blurred with text added.
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