Frieze London: Helen Chadwick & Cathy de Monchaux

At a major moment of institutional recognition, Helen Chadwick (1953–1996) and Cathy de Monchaux (b. 1960) are reunited in a dual presentation at Frieze London. 

First exhibited together in Something The Matter (1994) at the 22nd Bienal de São Paulo, Chadwick, described as a "mentor to the YBAs", and de Monchaux, a leading Goldsmiths alumna, forged a close friendship through a shared fascination with the attractive, the repulsive, and the erotic tension that binds them. As magnetising forces of desire and discomfort, their works demand a reconsideration of identity, power, and the dynamism of difference.

Recently exhibited together in YBA & BEYOND: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection in Kyoto / Tokyo, both artists are also the subject of landmark retrospectives: Chadwick’s touring exhibition Life Pleasures at The Hepworth Wakefield (2025), Museo Novecento (2025–2026) 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).

Spanning sculpture, assemblage, and photography from the 1980s onwards, the presentation brings together two pioneering practices whose highly tactile works blur the boundaries between beauty and revulsion. Both provocative and innovative, Chadwick and de Monchaux continue to reshape the language of contemporary sculpture through material experimentation and psychological intensity.