Art · London
A Climbable Giant Spider Will Guard the Door at Frieze London
Theo Triantafyllidis wins the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award with 'Feral Metaverse (Spider)' — a physical sculpture that doubles as a multiplayer game, Regent's Park, 14–18 October.
The first thing visitors to Frieze London will meet this October is a monstrous spider they are allowed to climb. Athens-based artist Theo Triantafyllidis has won the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award, and his commission — 'Feral Metaverse (Spider)' — greets attendees at the fair in Regent's Park, 14–18 October.
The sculpture is only half the work. The climbable physical structure acts as an entry point into a shared digital environment — a multiplayer game in which players must cooperate to move, connect and form temporary group bodies: towers, wheels, group hugs, spiders. Triantafyllidis trained as an architect, and his practice sits exactly on this seam, combining performance and installation with gaming and VR.
Players cooperate to form temporary group bodies — towers, wheels, group hugs, spiders — inside a game you enter by climbing the sculpture.
The award itself has shifted shape this year: supported for the first time by Google Arts & Culture, it now explicitly invites the winning artist to experiment with advanced technologies — AI included — as collaborative tools. The commission is co-produced with Forma, the London-based art production agency.
Frieze week is the week this city's creative industries run hottest — every gallery, every studio, every production space booked out around five days in a park. This year the front door is an eight-legged video game. Regent's Park, 14–18 October.