Theo Triantafyllidis
Frieze London Artist Award 2026

London, UK (July 7, 2026) – Frieze today named Athens-based artist Theo Triantafyllidis as the recipient of the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award, co-commissioned and co-produced with Forma and, for the first time, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture. The artwork will be on display at Frieze London, taking place at The Regent’s Park from 14–18 October 2026.

Triantafyllidis will introduce Feral Metaverse (Spider), 2026, a participatory sculptural installation and extension of his ongoing multiplayer game, rooted in a thought experiment built on shared digital spaces. The installation seeks to explore what these spaces could look like if they were built around co-operation, vulnerability, awkwardness and care, sitting between artwork, social experiment and interaction.

The climbable sculpture acts as the entry point into a shared digital environment in which players cooperate to move, connect and form temporary group bodies – towers, wheels, group hugs, spiders – emerging through the collaborations and actions between players, expanding from the screen into the physical space and from the virtual into the real.

For Triantafyllidis, the spider is a useful figure: strange, scary, intelligent, crafty and unexpectedly tender. From afar, his sculpture might be perceived as threatening. Upon closer inspection, its soft, climbable form invites physical contact. The artwork’s tactility disrupts the traditional balance between viewer and artwork, transforming the booth, situated in the heart of the fair’s Focus section, from a place of observation into one of active participation. The work asks visitors to climb, hold, balance, coordinate and help one another in order to play.

Eva Langret, Director of EMEA, Frieze said: ‘The Frieze London Artist Award has always supported artists at a pivotal moment in their career to realise work at a scale and ambition that might otherwise be out of reach. With Feral Metaverse (Spider), Triantafyllidis has created something that demands physical presence. You have to be there, in the room, climbing it, playing it, figuring it out with strangers.’

Theo Triantafyllidis said: ‘It’s a great honour to be given this kind of opportunity, visibility and audience at such a key moment in my practice. I get to assemble my team in Athens and push both the game and the sculptural form further than ever before, with a group of people who really believe in the project and the vision, but who can also challenge it and support it. It feels like a supported leap of faith, and a real next step for the work.’

Chris Rawcliffe, Artistic Director, Forma said: ‘It is an honour for Forma to continue its partnership with Frieze on the Frieze London Artist Award and to collaborate with Google Labs in supporting Theo Triantafyllidis, the 2026 recipient of this prestigious award. Since 2019, we have co-commissioned ambitious new works with artists at pivotal moments in their careers, many of whom have gone on to be presented at major institutions, museums and biennials internationally.’

Freya Salway, Head of Lab, Google Arts & Culture, said: ‘We are delighted to collaborate with Frieze and Forma on the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award, continuing our support of artists experimentation with advanced technologies. Theo’s work sits at an intersection we care deeply about: technology in service of human connection, play and shared experience. We look forward to seeing how he shapes the tools and brings that to life at Frieze London this October.’

Established in 2014, the Frieze London Artist Award supports an artist to realise an ambitious new work and present it during the fair. The award supports an artist at a pivotal moment in their career, and has become a significant platform, with many recipients going on to institutional recognition and international commissions. Previous winners include Sophia Al-Maria (2025), Lawrence Lek (2024), Adham Faramawy (2023), Abbas Zahedi (2022), Sung Tieu (2021), Alberta Whittle (2020) and Himali Singh Soin (2019).

For 2026, the award invited an artist to explore advanced technologies, including AI, as a tool and collaborator in the development of the artwork.