Top 5 Must-Sees at Frieze London 2024
Ikon London Magazine’s editorial pick of standout moments at this year’s fair
As Frieze London returned to Regent’s Park with its signature mix of spectacle and commerce, the fair’s 2024 edition offered a more measured, reflective mood. Fewer provocations, more introspection; less shock, more substance. Amid the sprawling booths, installations, and curated sections, these five presentations stood out — not necessarily for scale, but for their clarity, intelligence, and relevance.
This selection reflects Ikon London Magazine’s editorial perspective — a distillation of what we consider most compelling in terms of artistic vision, material execution, and thematic resonance.
1. Jenkin van Zyl at Edel Assanti
Always theatrical, never predictable, Jenkin van Zyl transformed his booth into a sauna installation screening Sweat Carousel — a surreal, claustrophobic film populated by latex-clad, go-go dancing monsters. Inside this fever dream, sweat is currency, identity is fluid, and the boundaries between viewer and spectacle collapse. It’s visceral, disorienting, and oddly magnetic.
2. Sun Woo at Gallery Vacancy
A morbid, gothic installation combining paintings, sculpture, and a well filled with human hair, Sun Woo’s presentation invited a fairytale-like unease into the commercial atmosphere of the fair. Her booth felt like a haunted reliquary — a rare moment where emotion and dread interrupted the usual transactionality of Frieze.
3. Lawrence Lek – Frieze Artist Award 2024
Lek’s Guanyin (Confessions of a Former Carebot) is a playable simulation where a robot therapist, designed for autonomous vehicles, explores self-awareness and digital grief. The work captures the melancholy of artificial intelligence and raises questions about emotional labour — both human and mechanical — with sophistication and originality. A standout among this year’s commissions.
4. Benedikte Bjerre at Palace Enterprise
With 125 helium-filled penguins that sway and bounce in response to passing visitors, Bjerre delivered Frieze’s most photographed and quietly politicised work. Simultaneously playful and urgent, the penguins act as unwitting climate indicators: charming on first glance, increasingly uneasy in motion. It’s satire disguised as spectacle.
5. Charlotte Edey at Ginny on Frederick (Focus Section)
Part of Frieze’s Focus section for emerging talent, Charlotte Edey’s work blended tapestry, architecture, and dream logic into something contemplative and visually rich. Her surrealist-leaning forms, both constructed and illustrated, offered an unusually poetic intervention in an otherwise fast-moving, visually saturated environment.
Visiting Information
Frieze London & Frieze Masters
Regent’s Park, London
11–13 October 2024 (Preview days: 9–10 October)
Tickets and visitor info: frieze.com/fairs/frieze-london
Frieze Sculpture continues in Regent’s Park through the end of the month
Elena Leo is the Arts & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
