Booth C23
At a pivotal moment of renewed institutional recognition, Helen Chadwick (1953–1996) and Cathy de Monchaux (b. 1960) are brought together once again by Richard Saltoun for Frieze London in the dual presentation, Something The Matter. Revisiting the title and spirit of their first display together at the 22nd Bienal de São Paulo (1994), this presentation extends the artistic dialogue between two of the most distinctive voices to emerge from British art in the late twentieth century.
This presentation forms part of a broader institutional recognition reflected in a series of landmark exhibitions. Both Chadwick and de Monchaux will be included in the forthcoming group show The 90s: Art and Fashion at Tate Britain, opening in early October, and were recently presented together in YBA & BEYOND: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection in Tokyo and Kyoto. This renewed critical engagement is further underscored by Chadwick’s touring exhibition Life Pleasures at The Hepworth Wakefield (2025), Museo Novecento (2025–26), and Kunsthaus Graz (2026); and de Monchaux’s major retrospective Studio, Wounds, and Battles, Desire is the Reiteration of Hope at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2026).
Meeting for the first time at the Bienal de São Paulo, Chadwick and de Monchaux discovered a shared affinity that would develop into a close friendship and enduring artistic dialogue. Chadwick, described as a ‘mentor to the YBAs’, and de Monchaux, a leading Goldsmiths alumna, connected through their fascination with the attractive, the repulsive, and the erotic tension that binds them. Across their distinct practices, both artists have continually explored the unstable territories between the body, materiality, and desire, creating works that resist easy categorisation.
Their sustained engagement with the grotesque, alongside a radical approach to form, is exemplified through two major works: Chadwick’s Glossolalia (1993) and de Monchaux’s Sovereign (1999), presented together for the first time. Both monumental in scale and unsettling in their use of material, the works transform fur, animal matter and sculptural forms into strange, hybrid bodies that hover between the seductive and the repulsive.
In Glossolalia, fur radiates from a central, organic form, its softness set against a dark, protruding structure to create an unsettling tension between the luxurious and the visceral. In Sovereign, de Monchaux combines repeated, armour-like forms with fleshy, anatomical elements, creating a surface that is simultaneously ornamental, protective and threatening. Brought together, the works reveal how both artists transform familiar materials into unfamiliar forms, disrupting distinctions between the beautiful and the grotesque, the decorative and the disturbing. These two monumental works will be presented alongside sculpture, assemblage and photography from the 1980s onwards.
Richard Saltoun’s presentation at Frieze London places Helen Chadwick and Cathy de Monchaux’s pioneering practices in focus at a moment of renewed institutional recognition. Bringing together works that have never before been shown as a group, the presentation continues the long-standing dialogue between the two artists, highlighting their shared interest in the tactile, the visceral, and the uncanny. In bringing these works together, Richard Saltoun continues a dialogue first established in São Paulo in 1994, while introducing their work to a new generation of audiences and critical attention.
