October

Fair season proper. London mid-month, Paris the week after, and photography's bicentenary running underneath both.

Frieze and Frieze Masters fill Regent's Park with almost 300 galleries, then Paris answers with Art Basel's fifth edition, 211 exhibitors at the Grand Palais under a new director. The photography bicentenary shapes the museums: the Bourse de Commerce gives its whole building to the medium, and Tate Modern opens Light and Magic a day later.

Show of the month

Overhead view of visitors and long shadows on the pink fair floor of the Grand Palais during Art Basel Paris.

Art Basel Paris 2026

21 OCT Grand Palais Paris

The fifth Paris edition and the first under Karim Crippa. 211 galleries from 41 countries across three sectors, a record twelve shared booths, and close to thirty first-timers. The fair quotes France's 4.5 billion dollar market when asked how it is feeling. The Grand Palais still does half the work.

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Also this month

14 OCT · LONDON · THE REGENT'S PARK

Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2026

Almost 300 galleries across the two tents, 172 in the contemporary one. Masters adds Queering Modernism, a section conceived by Anke Kempkes. The park does the rest.

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7 OCT · PARIS · BOURSE DE COMMERCE, PINAULT COLLECTION

Remember Me

The building's first show given entirely to photography, timed to the medium's second century. Around 700 works by some seventy artists, hung without chronology, under a title borrowed from Barbara Kruger.

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Richard Avedon's black and white portrait of Marilyn Monroe in a sequined dress, eyes lowered.

13 OCT · LONDON · TURBINE HALL, TATE MODERN

Hyundai Commission 2026: Tarek Atoui

Tarek Atoui

The eleventh commission goes to the Beirut-born composer, who builds his own instruments. Title still unannounced at press time. Free, as the hall always is.

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Tarek Atoui performing at a table of electronic and acoustic instruments.

9 OCT · PARIS · FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON

Gustave Fayet: Collector, Designer

The Icons of Modern Art series turns to the Béziers collector: 78 Gauguins, 88 Redons, ten Van Goghs, and a top floor of Fayet's own ceramics and rugs. Robert Carsen builds the rooms.

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15 OCT · LONDON · SOMERSET HOUSE

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair

The fourteenth London edition adds a spotlight on earlier African and diasporic modernists, with a commissioned installation in the fountain court.

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20 OCT · PARIS · L'HÔTEL DE MAISONS

Design Miami.Paris

Twenty-some design galleries back in Karl Lagerfeld's former hôtel particulier, timed to the Art Basel week across the river.

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17 OCT · EINDHOVEN · AROUND 100 VENUES

Dutch Design Week

Around 2,500 designers across the city in nine days. A week at city scale rather than a fair.

Gallery site ↗

Footnote

— The Albertina turns 250. Its anniversary show closes on 11 October with Dürer's Young Hare on the wall, the Sunday before everyone flies to London. The collection was founded in 1776.