Donald Eastwood

It's Frieze week indeed, and if you are going to the big top at the centre of the art world circus, one thing you could do is listen to this talk, entitled Platitudes about Contemporary Art, in which a panel including Turner prize favourite Roger Hiorns and Guardian blog favourite Adrian Searle discuss art world Truisms. Namely that contemporary art is elitist, confusing and irrelevant; that it is peddled by unskilled charlatans conning the general public; and that poor artists will be more inventive and radical because they are not corrupted by the market. Unfortunately the panel doesn't seem to include someone who might peddle such truisms, but the interesting one-sided fight should be a crowd pleaser. More Frieze talks here.

MONDAY

The other notable fairs happening this week include the third and last annual Free Art Fair, which begins Monday at the Barbican and offers you the chance to get your hands on art for free, by bringing along a registration form between 2-3.30pm on Sunday 18 October in Garden Room Level 3 of the Barbican Centre and staying until 4-5pm for the giveaway. You can find the catalogue online via this link.

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday the excellent All Visual Arts presents The Age of the Marvellous, the result of the support they have given a range of up-and-coming and established star artists. Last year was their first show with Paul Fryer, now the collection is growing - learn about their concept, what they have done in the last year and about this show opening in the former Holy Trinity Church on their website here.

Up the road on the corner of Regents Park Road and Sharpleshall Street (here), and connected to the Frieze by more than just a shuttle bus, The Museum of Everything's Exhibition no.1 is to show just artists and creators living outside of modern society, selected by quite famous names in modern society:

"In tiny crevices and under dusty beds, there lies a secret creativity by the unknowns of society. Unexpected, delicate and profound, this democratic work has inspired the world's greatest artists.

See their website here, taking particular notice of the events and happenings.

THURSDAY

Then back down south again in the former residence of the Sierra Leonian ambassador on Portland Place, 20 Hoxton Square in collaboration with Zoom Art Projects present 'Embassy' subtitled 'How not to run a country'. Works in the dystopian embassy include a palace built by Alistair Mackie, an embroidered blood and tear soaked boxing ring by Michael Lisle-Taylor and three Florida ballot boxes from the 2000 presidential elections. Read more about it here.

Another private view on thursday night - though this time as one of the many shows around Spitalfields to tie in with the Zoo Art fair - is Inhabitants, which shows an installation of paintings, drawings and objects from Marenka Gabela and Sarah Douglas in an 18th century Hugenot house of telly architectural historian Dan Cruikshank.

The press release says: "The installation is organised so that the threshold is dissolved between the internal worlds depicted in the works, and the exterior world of the space itself. When these boundaries are merged and transformed, an alternative psychological space is revealed, where the real and imagined coexist and intertwine. Questions are raised about what is meant by reality; can the past be more real than the present, dreams more tangible than reality?"

Read more about it on the exhibition blog here.

SATURDAY

It is the turn of the exciting up and coming artist Matthew Musgrave this weekend at Supplement Gallery, whose very matter-of-fact annual solo exhibition programme seems to let the Frieze hoo-haa skip by like life past weary eyes. Musgrave featured in our own exhibition in Selfridges this summer and his small and beautiful paintings are well worth seeing. You can get sneak a peak online at the Supplement website here.