Frieze today has revealed details of the collaborations, funds and prizes that will shape Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2025.
Working with leading arts organisations, private foundations, British brands and public institutions, the fairs will spotlight initiatives that strengthen the UK’s cultural landscape. From enabling acquisitions and nurturing curatorial talent to celebrating artists through major awards, these projects highlight Frieze’s ongoing role in fostering long-term support for the arts.
‘Frieze plays a vital role in expanding access and visibility for contemporary artists across the UK. We’re delighted to work with our partners on a wonderful slate of programming, prizes and acquisition funds, ensuring the fair has a lasting impact beyond its five days in London.’
Eva Langret, Director, Frieze EMEA
‘Frieze Masters offers an opportunity for meaningful dialogue with art of the past through to the 20th century. We are privileged to open our doors to UK and international curators with our Curators Programme in collaboration with Art Fund and The National Gallery, bringing emerging voices into dialogue with peers and with the fair’s exhibitors. The exchange of ideas and opportunities these programmes generate is central to our mission.’
Emanuela Tarizzo, Director, Frieze Masters
Curator Programmes
Frieze Masters Art Fund Curator Programme
In 2025, Frieze Masters, with the support from Art Fund, will again offer fully funded places to seven international and eleven UK-based museum curators. Together with The National Gallery and the Subject Specialist Network: European paintings pre-1900, the programme is designed for early-career curators from diverse backgrounds and will explore transhistorical exhibition making––connecting historic and contemporary art across time periods.
Over the course of two days, participants will attend sessions presented in partnership with Frieze, Art Fund, and The National Gallery. They will also have the opportunity to engage directly with curatorial fellows and trainees at The National Gallery, working closely alongside the Curator Programme team.
The 2025 edition will be welcomed by Dr Susanna Avery-Quash (Senior Research Lead: Partnerships, Networks, Initiatives, The National Gallery) and Robert Dingle (Senior Programme Manager, Projects, Art Fund) and led by Dr Jennifer Sliwka (Keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum and Professorial Fellow of Balliol College, University of Oxford).
Highlights include: A curatorial conversation with keynote speaker Dr. Aimee Ng (John Updike Curator, The Frick Collection), A private tour of Frieze Masters with a key member of the Frieze Masters Vetting Committee, An Unexpected View at the National Gallery afterhours with Priyesh Mistry (Associate Curator of Modern & Contemporary Projects, The National Gallery).
Frieze x Deutsche Bank Emerging Curators Fellowship
Now entering its fifth edition, the Frieze x Deutsche Bank Emerging Curators Fellowship continues its mission to support early-career Black and global majority heritage curators across the UK. The 12-month, paid placement for 2025-2026 will be hosted by MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. MIMA will receive a £45,000 grant covering salary, travel, and research. The selected fellow will be announced during Frieze London 2025, with the placement beginning in November.
This year, two former fellows will present their activations at offsite locations:
Amrit Sanghera will hold a psychogeography walk and talk project at Frieze Sculpture 2025. Pairing an exhibiting artist and researcher, Sanghera meditates a live conversation inspired by their overlapping practices and the surrounding grounds of the English Gardens in The Regent’s Park.
Sophia Harari presents an evening of conversation with London-based artists and curators to explore intersections of creative practice and cultural legacy at No.9 Cork St. Accompanied by an essay on frieze.com, Harari delves deeper into themes of belonging, cultural production and community through their research of the ABC Wax Archive at the Whitworth Art Gallery.
Breeze Curator Travel Grant 2025
In partnership with the Instituto Guimarães Rosa and the Embassy of Brazil in London, Frieze will support five Brazil-based curators to join this year’s Frieze London and Frieze Masters. Selected through an open call, their travel and accommodation will be funded by the Embassy. The grant is a special edition of the embassy’s annual Breeze programme, dedicated to promoting Brazilian contemporary art worldwide, and forms part of the UK/Brazil Season of Culture 2025–26. This landmark initiative, celebrating 200 years of diplomatic relations between Brazil and the United Kingdom in collaboration with the British Council, runs from August 2025 to June 2026. Through events, exhibitions, performances and public engagements in both countries, it will explore themes such as the climate emergency, joy, diversity and representation.
The selection panel comprises Eva Langret (Director, Frieze EMEA), Leonie Mir (Head of VIP, Frieze EMEA), Ana Paula Moreno (Head of Brazil-UK Cultural Season – Instituto Guimarães Rosa, Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and Márcio Junji Sono (Programme Curator & Project Manager, Cultural Section at Embassy of Brazil in London).
CVAN and London Gallery Weekend Curators Opportunity
In a partnership with CVAN and London Gallery Weekend, Frieze London and Frieze Masters will host 30 contemporary art curators across England to attend the fair, with 20 spaces specifically allocated to regional curators. CVAN will also provide travel funds for these curators. This initiative aims to forge stronger connections between regional curators, London galleries and the artists they support with networking opportunities facilitated by the organisers.
Prizes
Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation Prize
A new £10,000 prize will support artists working with non-traditional media and unconventional forms of presentation. Shared between the winning artist and their representing gallery, the prize also includes a commission for the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation’s Library, a recently launched section of its London space dedicated to experimental practices. The jury — Nicoletta Fiorucci, founder of the Foundation; curator Vittoria de Franchis; and leading figures Hans Ulrich Obrist and Lydia Ourahmane — will visit the fair on Wednesday 15th October to select the winner.
Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Award at Frieze London
Established in 2018, this prize recognises an artist in the Focus section, offering them a solo exhibition at Camden Art Centre (CAC). The 2025 winner will be announced during the fair, and their exhibition will open at Camden in January 2026. The 2025 panel includes Martin Clark (Director, Camden Art Centre), Gina Buenfeld-Murley (Curator, Camden Art Centre), and guest regional curator Kim McAleese (Director, Edinburgh Art Festival). The prize is made possible by international patrons and collectors.
The 2024 recipient, Nat Faulkner, will present a solo exhibition at CAC opening 16th January 2026 and continuing until 22 March 2026. At the core of Faulkner’s work is a concern with the structures and mechanics of photography, its apparatuses and materials, and its relationship to space and studio. This new commission will explore processes of distillation, purification and the material provenance of material, including metallic frottage reliefs of fragments of his studio walls and reclaimed byproducts of X-ray procedures in NHS labs.
Past winners include Nat Faulkner (2024); Jack O’Brien (2023); Marina Xenofontos (2022); Tenant of Culture (2020); Julien Creuzet (2019); and Wong Ping (2018).
Fluxus – CPGA Prize
For its third edition, the Comité Professionnel des Galeries d’Art (CPGA), Fluxus Art Projects, and Frieze London partner together to award a prize recognizing a French or France-based living artist exhibiting at Frieze London. The Fluxus-CPGA Prize aims to support and promote French artists on the international scene, encouraging participating galleries to highlight the work of French or France-based artists. The £15,000 award is shared equally between artist and gallery. The 2025 jury will convene on Thursday 16th October. Past winners include Josefa Njtam (2023) and Stéphanie Saadé (2024).
Acquistion Funds
Contemporary Art Society’s Collections Fund
Now in its ninth year, the CAS Collections Fund supports museum acquisitions of artworks by British and international artists working in any medium including film, performance, photography, sculpture and installation for CAS Museum Members. CAS is pleased to announce that The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool will be the recipient of the Collections Fund at Frieze 2025.
Past acquisitions have included works by Grada Kilomba, Goshka Macuga and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum for Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Ibrahim Mahama for Norwich Castle Museum, Sunil Gupta, Hetain Patel and Billie Zangewa for The Harris, Preston, Zanele Muholi for Nottingham Castle Museum, Kehinde Wiley and Zadie Xa for The Box, Plymouth, Dineo Seshee Bopape for Towner Eastbourne and John Akomfrah and Kader Attia for MIMA, Middlesbrough.
Arts Council Collection Fund
Following its 2023 debut, the ACC Acquisition Fund returns for a third year to acquire work by underrecognised or early- to mid-career UK-based artists. Supported by patrons including Tala Cingillioglu, the fund aims to expand representation in the UK’s most circulated national loan collection. Recent acquisitions include Anne Tallentire (Hollybush Gardens), Julianknxx (Edel Assanti), Mark CorfieldMoore (Outset Studio Makers), Nour Jaouda (Union Pacific), Nicole Wermers (Herald St), Shaquélle Whyte (Pippy Houldsworth).
Spirit Now London Acquisition Prize
In 2025, the Spirit Now London Acquisition Prize will support The National Portrait Gallery in acquiring
portraits or self-portraits by women artists, featuring sitters with a connection to British life. Recent donations through the prize include works by Bronwyn Katz, Rene Mati? and Sylvia Snowden to institutions such as The Hepworth Wakefield and The Fitzwilliam Museum. Eligible works will need to be presented at Frieze London or Frieze Masters 2025.
Non Profits
This year, Frieze London has invited two non-profit art organisations, Gasworks and Nottingham
Contemporary, to activate the non-profits at Frieze London. The Reading Room offers a space for visitors to discover new publications and magazines, while fostering engagement with local arts organisations and community members.
Marking their debut at the Frieze London Reading Room, Gasworks will present a curated selection of
Gasworks Editions at their stand, including newly launched artworks by Nolan Oswald Dennis and MarieClaire Messouma Malanbien. A new commission by Messmouma Manlanbien, ‘Mémoires des corps’ will be on view through 2 October – 14 December at Gasworks. While Nolan Oswald Dennis presented their first UKinstitutional solo show, ‘throwers,’ at Gasworks earlier this year. Additional editions by alumni Lucrecia Lionti, Candice Lin, Trevor Yeung and Pio Abad will also be on display.
Returning to Frieze London for a second year, Nottingham Contemporary will use the space at Frieze London to promote their charitable mission and artistic initiatives. Alongside having a preview of their upcoming programme, visitors will also have the opportunity to purchase limited-edition artworks, exhibition catalogues and gallery merchandise. This will include two limited edition artworks produced for the Gallery by previously exhibited artists Allison Katz and Nicole Eisenman & Ryan McNamara.
Allied Editions Continuing their enduring relationship with Frieze, Allied Editions will participate at Frieze London 2025, with new artists’ editions from this years’ participating organisations: Camden Art Centre, Chisenhale Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Serpentine, South London Gallery, Studio Voltaire and Whitechapel Gallery.
Frieze London & Frieze Masters, 15th- 19th October 2025, Regents Park @friezeofficial
Categories
Tags
- allied editions
- Camden Art Centre
- Contemporary Art Society
- CPGA
- CVAN
- Emanuela Tarizzo
- Eva Langret
- Fluxus Art Projects
- Frieze
- Frieze London
- Frieze London 2025
- Frieze Masters
- Frieze Masters 2025
- Jack O'Brien
- Josefa Njtam
- Julien Creuzet
- London Gallery Weekend
- Marina Xenofontos
- Nat Faulkner
- Nicoletta Fiorucci
- Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation
- Stéphanie Saadé
- Tenant of Culture
- Wong Ping
