London Art Week 2026: Highlights from Minor Attractions, Fair Play Art Fair and Paraíso
Updated: Oct 22
Text by Valeria Zerbo and Amalia Di Lanno
Photography © Amalia Di Lanno
Every October, London becomes an international meeting point for contemporary art. While Frieze remains at the centre of the city's art calendar, a number of independent fairs offer alternative perspectives on how art is presented, discovered and experienced.
Looking beyond Frieze, our Independent art fairs London 2026 highlights focus on three events for their distinctive approaches.
Minor Attractions, now in its fourth edition, transformed luxury hotel rooms into intimate gallery spaces, bringing together international galleries, video art, music and independent creative projects.
Fair Play Art Fair introduced an artist-centred model, giving independent artists the opportunity to exhibit without paying stand fees and encouraging direct encounters with collectors and audiences.
Paraíso, in its inaugural edition, offered a dedicated platform for modern and contemporary Latin American art, bringing new cultural perspectives to London's art scene.
Different in scale, identity and ambition, these three fairs revealed the diversity of London's independent art landscape, where experimentation, artistic exchange and cultural discovery extend beyond the traditional art fair format.
Minor Attractions: Art Beyond the Conventional Gallery
13–17 October 2026 | The Newman, 50 Newman Street, Fitzrovia, London.
Founded in 2023 by Jacob Barnes and Jonny Tanna, Minor Attractions returned for its fourth edition under a team that also includes director and programme curator Sophie Barrett-Pouleau.
Held at The Newman, a luxury hotel in London's Fitzrovia, the 2026 edition brought together more than 75 international galleries and creative projects across 16 hotel rooms.
Rather than conventional exhibition booths, galleries shared intimate spaces, creating unexpected dialogues between artworks and their surroundings. Alongside the exhibitions, a programme of moving images, independent cinema, music, performances and publishing projects extended the fair's identity beyond the commercial presentation of contemporary art.
Among the presentations, at FRENCH PLACE, Marco Siciliano's Myopia series combined photography with textured privacy glass, questioning visibility, intimacy and perception. Meanwhile, Francesco Pacelli, presented by DES BAINS, introduced shell-like sculptural interventions into a marble washbasin, blurring the boundaries between natural forms and everyday architecture.
Left: Marco Siciliano - FRENCH PLACE. Right: Francesco Pacelli - DES BAINS
Zoe Alameda, presented by Season 4 Episode 6, introduced a raw timber installation combining found materials and fragmented text, creating an unexpected contrast with the refined hotel interior. Kit Reynolds, represented by Boxer Gallery, explored the imagery of television sets and studios through painting. Chicago-based Tala, in collaboration with Harlesden High Street, presented ceramics, assemblages and film works by Roland Knowlden Jr. and Lola Ayisha Ogbara.
Singapore-based s t a r c h introduced Moses Tan's theatrical kinetic sculptures, in which disembodied body elements emerge unexpectedly from luggage and furniture, exploring identity, queerness and the experience of being perceived as different.
Top left: Zoe Alameda - Season4 Episode 6. Top right: Late Late - Boxer Gallery. Bottom left: Roland Knowlden Jr. and Lola Ayisha Ogbara - Tala. Bottom right: Moses Tan - s t a r c h
Fair Play Art Fair: A New Model for Independent Artists
15–18 October 2026 | One Marylebone, 1 Marylebone Road, London.
Founded by Ryan Stanier, previously the creator of The Other Art Fair, acquired by Saatchi Art in 2016, Fair Play made its debut during Frieze Week 2026 at One Marylebone, a historic former church built between 1826 and 1828 in central London, designed by Sir John Soane.
The inaugural edition brought together approximately 70 independent artists, selected by an independent committee on the strength of their artistic practice.
Live performances, music and artist-led events complemented the exhibitions, proposing a more accessible and socially engaging experience of contemporary art.
Among the works that caught our attention, Kirsty Bell's oil paintings employed trompe-l'œil to blur the boundaries between reality and illusion, while Ines Fernandez de Cordova explored fragmentation and the human form through photopolymer etching and blind embossing.
Sabrina Brouwers investigated repetition, balance and perception through geometric charcoal and mixed-media compositions, while Edyta combined laser transfer, pigment and oil on canvas to create atmospheric works through softly layered imagery.
Top left: Kirsty Bell. Top right: Ines Fernandez de Cordova. Bottom right: Edyta
Poppy Lennox explored the interconnected structures of nature through suspended sculptural forms and intricate threadwork. Meanwhile, Sachiyo Nishimura used photography and experimental photomontage to reconstruct urban landscapes, transforming fragments of skies, water and railway infrastructure into rhythmic compos
itions.
Left: Poppy Lennox. Right: Sachiyo Nishimura
Paraíso: Latin American Art in London
15–18 October 2026 | Ambika P3, 35 Marylebone Road, London.
Founded by Javier Calderón, also founder and director of London's Somers Gallery, Paraíso launched its first edition at Ambika P3 in Marylebone.
Dedicated to modern and contemporary Latin American art, the fair brought together 22 international galleries and projects alongside 12 independent artist presentations.
Through a combination of historical perspectives and contemporary experimentation, Paraíso introduced a dedicated platform for Latin American artistic voices within London's international art calendar.
Among the works presented, Guatemalan artist Mena Guerrero, represented by The LAACC, explored repetition and cultural memory through ceramic reliefs arranged in grids, drawing inspiration from nature and body elements.
Argentinian artist Laura Kazaroff presented a mixed-media sculptural assemblage incorporating found objects and pharmaceutical imagery, questioning the commercialisation of happiness and mental wellbeing.
Left: Mena Guerrero - The LAACC. Right : Laura Kazaroff
Chilean artist Alejandra Prieto, represented by Piloto Pardo, explored the relationship between minerals, the human body and extraction through sculptural works incorporating coal and pyrite.
Argentine artist Hernán Soriano, presented by Quimera Galería, transformed natural materials and obsolete forms of notation into delicate compositions arranged on musical scores.
At Isabel Croxatto Galería, Chilean painter Nelson Hernández combined references to art history and popular culture in dreamlike compositions. Venezuelan-born Lucía Pizzani, presented by Victoria Law Projects, explored the relationship between ecology and memory through hand-shaped black clay sculptures bearing impressions of seeds and vegetation.
Top left: Alejandra Prieto - Piloto Pardo. Top right: Hernán Soriano - Quimera Galería. Bottom left: Nelson Hernández - Isabel Croxatto Galería. Bottom right: Lucía Pizzani - Victoria Law Projects
From Minor Attractions' unconventional hotel setting to Fair Play's artist-centred model and Paraíso's cultural perspectives, these fairs revealed different ways of experiencing contemporary art, highlighting the importance of independent initiatives in bringing new voices to London's art scene.
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