DACS members amongst over 280 gallery presentations at Frieze this year
October is one of the busiest months in London’s art calendar, marked by the return of Frieze London and Frieze Masters to Regent’s Park.
The fairs provide an opportunity DACS to engage with galleries, celebrate the work of the artists and estates with whom we work and to highlight the contribution of UK artists to one of the most prominent events in the international art world.
This year the DACS team were delighted to work with Frieze to lead tours of the fairs for several parliamentarians, including Dame Caroline Dinenage MP, Chair of the Culture, Media & Sport Committee where we discussed the vital role that UK artists and galleries have on the global cultural stage and as part of the UK’s cultural economy.
Frieze London
Michael Landy at Thomas Dane Gallery
Michael Landy’s kinetic sculpture Multi Saint, 2013 took centre stage at Thomas Dane’s booth. The work, which has been acquired through the Contemporary Art Society’s Collections Fund at Frieze 2025 for the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, is assembled from found materials.
Multi Saint extends Landy’s long-standing exploration of transformation and value, themes that were central to his National Gallery residency and Saints Alive exhibition. Landy is a DACS Artist’s Resale Right and Licensing member, with over 280 images of his work available to license through DACS Images.
Caroline Walker, Andrew Cranston and Charles Avery at Ingleby Gallery
Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, showcased works by Caroline Walker, Andrew Cranston, and Charles Avery – who are all members for all DACS services.
Walker is celebrated for her intimate paintings of women’s lived environments, often highlighting unseen domestic and professional spaces. Cranston’s dreamlike compositions merge narrative and memory, while Avery presented a new body of work, brightly coloured abstract paintings, described with an economy of means and informed by their own internal geometry. Together, these artists exemplify the gallery’s commitment to storytelling, craftsmanship, and a distinctly human approach to contemporary art.
Chantal Joffe at Paragon Press
Print and editions specialists Paragon Press presented a striking wall of framed works on paper by Chantal Joffe, another DACS Artist’s Resale Right member. Known for her expressive and intimate portrayals of women and everyday life, Joffe’s portraits often capture moments of tenderness and resilience. Her works balance gestural immediacy with emotional depth and have been widely exhibited at major institutions including the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Himali Singh Soin at Vadehra Art Gallery
At Vadehra Art Gallery, writer, artist and Licensing member Himali Singh Soin presented Body of Light, a pair of glazed porcelain sculptures reflecting her ongoing exploration of myth, ecology, and the poetics of the unseen. Based between London and New Delhi, Soin often merges text, performance, and sculpture to weave narratives that connect the cosmic with the earthly - inviting viewers to consider the interconnections between bodies, materials, and light itself.
Gillian Wearing at Maureen Paley
At Maureen Paley, DACS Board member Oliver Evans and his team presented Pink Lady by Gillian Wearing, a DACS Artist’s Resale Right and Licensing member. Known for her acclaimed video works and her 1997 Turner Prize win, Wearing has expanded her practice to include painting and watercolour, continuing her exploration of identity, introspection, and the everyday.
Yinka Shonibare at Goodman Gallery
Goodman Gallery presented new work by Yinka Shonibare, including Nature Works, Gas Flare, Nigeria, 2025 for which the artist transforms scenes of environmental destruction into a striking textile composition, reflecting on the legacy of colonisation and the ongoing exploitation of natural resources across Africa. Through vivid colour and intricate needlework, Shonibare reveals both the beauty and the devastation of industrialised landscapes - a theme also explored in his major solo exhibition at Foundation H in Madagascar. Yinka Shonibare is a member for all DACS services.
Marguerite Humeau at White Cube
London-based Marguerite Humeau, a DACS Artist’s Resale Right member, was featured at White Cube with a dynamic bronze sculpture and painting inspired by ancient beliefs in the healing properties of plants. Humeau’s multidisciplinary practice bridges sculpture, installation, and drawing, blending scientific research with mythological references to probe ideas of consciousness, evolution, and the natural world. Her works invite viewers to consider how knowledge and imagination intersect in shaping human understanding.
Louise Giovanelli and Francesca Mollett at Grimm Gallery
At the Grimm Gallery stand, DACS members Louise Giovanelli and Francesca Mollett were among those featured. Based in London, Amsterdam and New York, Grimm Gallery represents a diverse roster of international artists with a focus on innovative approaches to painting and materiality. Giovanelli’s luminous works draw on art historical references to explore repetition and gesture whilst Mollett’s richly layered abstractions evoke shifting perceptions of light and landscape.
Frieze Masters
Across Regent’s Park, Frieze Masters offered a complementary counterpart to Frieze London - focusing on historical, modern, and post-war art, creating dialogues between past and present artistic practices.
Howard Hodgkin at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert
At Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, a striking work by Howard Hodgkin was presented. The late artist’s estate is represented by DACS for all services and remains a steadfast supporter of artists’ rights. Conversation, 1993–1996, a large-scale painting alive with flaming yellows and reds, reflects a high point in Hodgkin’s career. By the mid-1990s, buoyed by critical acclaim and major institutional shows, Hodgkin’s mark-making had grown more assured and expressive.
Frank Bowling with Hauser & Wirth
Hauser & Wirth presented Frank Bowling’s Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? (Dawn), 1999, a luminous example of the artist’s late-20th-century experimentation with colour and material. Created through poured and brushed layers of acrylic, the work combines Bowling’s signature fluid technique with collage-like construction - sections of canvas cut, reattached, and overlaid with fluorescent pigment and textured reliefs. The result is a vibrant meditation on abstraction, memory, and process, capturing Bowling’s enduring exploration of colour as both form and emotion. Frank Bowling is a member of DACS for all services.
Leonora Carrington at Gallery Wendi Norris
Also featured was Leonora Carrington, exhibited by Gallery Wendi Norris (USA) and represented via DACS’ American sister society, ARS. Carrington’s surrealist visions continue to captivate audiences, bridging history and myth while underscoring the importance of international collaboration in supporting artists’ estates and protecting creative legacies.
Together, these presentations underscored the enduring relevance of artists working predominantly or entirely during the last century, and the need to maintain rights and representation across generations.
Frieze Sculpture
Beyond the tents in Regent’s Park, Frieze Sculpture offers a free outdoor exhibition curated by Fatoş Üstek, founder of FRANK Fair Artist Pay, a non-profit organisation of which DACS is a member. Launched in 2019, Frieze Sculpture transforms the public space of Regent’s Park into an open-air gallery, This year, Üstek introduced an overarching theme, ‘In the Shadows’, encouraging artists to explore the concept of shadow both as a physical phenomenon and as a metaphor for presence, absence, and perception.
Erwin Wurm
Among the highlights was a striking work by Erwin Wurm, represented through DACS’ Austrian sister society Bildrecht for Copyright Licensing and Artist’s Resale Right.
Ghost (Substitutes), 2022, is a large-scale, vividly blue sculpture. With a hollow, headless figure draped in garments, it combines humour and absurdity with poignancy, prompting reflections on identity and the everyday body in flux.
Frieze Sculpture continues The Regent’s Park, London, and runs until 2 November 2025.
The importance of artist representation
As ever, Frieze provided not only a space to experience extraordinary art, but also to connect with the people and organisations who sustain creative practice in the UK and beyond.
The fairs demonstrate the strength and diversity of artists represented by DACS - from established names to emerging voices. These encounters across Frieze London, Masters, and Sculpture reaffirm DACS’ mission: to work towards a society which recognises, respects and values all artists.
