The chief executive of Frieze has dismissed the idea his fair is in a battle with Art Basel Paris, claiming the two events could create a “Barbenheimer moment” for collectors this October – despite the art market being in a severe slump.
Simon Fox told the Guardian that the fair, which opens on Wednesday, can benefit from having strong competition on its doorstep and replicate the mutual success of Barbie and Oppenheimer at the box office in 2023.
He said: “It’s very convenient for collectors who can come to London, spend a weekend here and then go on to Paris. It makes for a Barbenheimer moment.”
Since launching in 2003, Frieze London has become a key destination in the global art fair circuit with Art Basel Paris opening in 2022 and growing each year.
This year the Gerhard Richter show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton opens during Frieze, with one gallerist saying it felt as if Paris was parking its “tanks on the lawn”.
Fox was keen to play down the idea of a rivalry, despite some galleries skipping London and heading directly to the French capital.
Gallery assistants position Romans Parisiens by Vincent van Gogh at the art fair. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images
“London will have the blockbusters,” Fox said. “Some years it might be Paris’s turn, but they’re both extraordinary cities.”
The Frieze chief executive did acknowledge “severe headwinds” hitting the market, such as the insecurity and instability caused by Donald Trump’s tariffs and the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine.
That challenging environment has hit some of the art market’s big names: this week Hauser & Wirth reported a 90% drop in profits. The global art market shrank by 12% in 2024, according to the annual Art Basel and UBS report.
Artnet’s mid-year report said a “storm” was hitting the market, with some galleries at risk of being “swept away” because the downturn was so severe.
Sadie Coles, the gallerist who launched her first London space in 1997 and was part of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement of the 1990s, having represented Sarah Lucas for decades, said despite the drop in sales, it was wrong to think London was in decline.
Earlier in the year, her own finances were scrutinised in the Artnet report, which claimed her gallery’s profit margin had shrunk from 7.2% in 2023 to 0.7% in 2024.
“I know that my figures are going to be pored over,” she said. “I don’t really care because I know how solid we are financially. I know that I’m about to open a new gallery, and I know I have no debt.”
Speaking about the negative coverage, she said: “It’s actually irritating to me because it’s this spiral of doom stuff and actually on the ground here in London, there’s a very positive story, if you look for it.”
She points to the recent openings of two non-profit art spaces – Ibraaz and Yan Du Projects (YDP) – as reminders of London’s pull. Coles is also opening her newest space on Savile Row during Frieze and is showing new work by Arthur Jafa, Helen Marten and Lisa Brice across three London venues.
Coles said that despite the negative headlines, London was “in a moment right now that is equivalent to the 90s in terms of the young galleries” when the YBAs such as Lucas, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin emerged.
She said: “Partly because of Brexit and the slump in property, young galleries can rent an empty shop in Shoreditch on a six-month or year lease and start showing their friends that they went to art school with.”
Anselm Kiefer’s Tempelhof on display. Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sothebys
Freddie Powell, of Ginny on Frederick, a four-year-old gallery that started in a tiny space based in a former sandwich shop in Smithfield Market and represents artists including Alex Margo Arden, said Frieze and Paris were both important for young galleries.
“Any London gallery that’s based here needs to make sure they have some presence in Paris as well,” he said. “But the initial focus is going to be on Frieze.”
Jonny Tanna, fthe ounder of Harlesden High Street gallery, which had a space in Fitzrovia before moving to Harlesden and then opening a second space in Mayfair, said the 22-year-old fair needed to diversify.
He said Frieze might have to become more adaptable in order to bring in new London galleries that exist outside the capital’s traditional moneyed ecosystem.
“They need to look outside the box,” he said. “I guess one of the rules is if a gallery is nomadic, it can’t participate. But it’d be ideal if they changed that rule because a lot of these younger galleries can’t get into Frieze.”
Tanna used the example of Bolanle Contemporary, which is taking part in Tanna’s Minor Attractions fair that runs alongside Frieze, as the kind of gallery that is itinerant and therefore cannot get a spot at the main fair. “She’s a powerhouse, is connected in the institutional world and knows everybody, but sadly she can’t get in,” he said.
Frieze’s entry criteria states that galleries must show an international programme of artists and present a regular programme of exhibitions in their physical gallery space. The fair said that it reviews galleries on a case by case basis.
Frieze has just been bought for a reported $200m (£160m) by the media executive Ari Emanuel via his newly formed company, Mari. Emanuel bought Frieze, which includes several international fairs, from Endeavour – the entertainment company he was chief executive of until earlier this year. According to Bloomberg, Emanuel raised $2bn in equity to back Mari.
Frieze started in 1991 as a magazine before launching as an art fair in 2003, then expanding to New York in 2012 and Los Angeles in 2019.
