Top image: Mark Cawson, ‘Sean’s Basement’ (School House Squat), 1978. Image courtesy the artist and the ICA

Frieze London, the world-leading art fair officially kicks off today, exhibiting some of the most heavy-hitting stuff contemporary art has to offer. Over 160 galleries are taking part allowing visitors to experience live talks, installations, and even buy some of the art on offer from leading artists. And that’s only the official schedule – with corresponding exhibitions (don’t miss the Tate’s floating Hyundai Commission), events and even guerrilla stagings (like yesterday’s TAKE! EAT! showcase of female artists at Marylebone Church), whether you’re in Regent’s Park or out on the town you’re sure to get the Frieze treatment.

An annual highlight is ‘Frieze Projects’ and this year is no different. Mobile architecture and alternative realities are this round’s themes, proposed by curator, Nicola Lees. Thea Djordjadze, ÅYR, Jeremy Herbert, Lutz Bacher, castillo/corrales, Asad Raza and Rachel Rose have been invited to explore said notions.

Rose is of particular interest, having won this year’s Frieze Artist Award. Mélanie Matranga was the first winner of the award, which only began last year, and is supported by the LUMA Foundation. Entries are focused on a site-specific project: Rose’s idea was a scale-model of the fair itself, with light and sound acting as representations of Regent’s Park’s wildlife.

We’ve rounded up the gems from this year’s offering. Take note.

The world-famous store is celebrating Frieze in real sharp style.

Comme Des Garçons and Gucci will both present installations: the former occupying a window and the latter with an installation – alongside the arrival of Gucci jewellery – on the store’s Third Floor.

Simone Rocha has created a limited-edition magazine and installation on DSM’s Third Floor too, based on objects and ideas that inspire the designer.

Gosha Rubchinskiy will be signing a limited-edition book and vinyl by IDEA Books from his AW15 show on Thursday, 5pm.

On the same day and time as Gosha, Michèle Lamy will be presenting a video installation trifecta – this one’s unmissable. Check out our interview with the enigma herself, more information on the full program right here.

Dover Street Market, 17-18 Dover Street, London, W1s 4LT 

Eduardo & Emma Paolozzi: A Celebration of Art & Life will be exhibiting at Paul Smith’s store (9 Albemarle Street) from 12th to the 24th October. Unseen artwork and insightful imagery will give visitors never-seen-before access to the singularly talented Paolozzi’s working lives.

Emma has also created jewellery to accompany the exhibition and of it she says she is heavily inspired by her father’s work. “When he died in 2005, I stopped working in jewellery for years,” Emma recently told The Telegraph, “But I am back now, doing what I love.”

Fashion, art and double-barrelled heritage – four for the price of one.

Smiler‘s body of work was shot between West London and King’s Cross during the 70s, 80s and 90s. All subjects focus on squats in London; youths at the time came together – to find and explore identities and to be part of a like-minded community – due to the hard-hitting effects of incohesion and political instabilities of said eras.

Concepts explored in Smiler’s striking, photographic documentation is also apt of modern times. More specifically: current political instability, social upheaval and the damning of a generation due to the housing crisis.

Smiler runs until 29th November at the Fox Reading Room, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, SW1Y 5AH

If you end up at one buzzy Frieze happening make sure it’s the Sunday Art Fair. The popular satellite event brings together a strong selection of emerging artists from 25 art galleries from London, to Berlin and New York. If your thing is having your finger on the pulse of what’s up and coming in this scene, get down and have a scope – and thank us later.

Until 18th October, Ambika3, 35 Marylebone Rd, London. More info at Sunday Art Fair

One of Frieze’s consistent highlights is its performance art. Sometimes mobile, often roaming the fair, it’s consistently dramatic and extravagant, displaying powerful and often humorous acts from talents around the world. Don’t miss – and keep close watch for – two girls roaming the fair this year, connected by one long braided mass of hair, Siamese twin style. It’s the performance Xifopagas Capilares, (translating as ‘Capillary Siamese Twins’) by the Brazilian artist TUNGA. Beware, this one’ll pack a creepy punch.

Williams’ style was described by Nancy Spero as “violent, cartoonish, explicit and voracious” when she entered the art world nearly three decades ago. Strong, bright and hard-hitting, her abstractions focus on political anxieties and affiliations – interpretation is encouraged.

Reminiscent of Gerhard Richter’s oil-on-canvas linearity, Hoff’s Skywiper series is a killer. It’s existence, however, isn’t hand-painted, but charged with digital-based concepts from government-created malware and malicious code. The NSA’s ‘Stuxnet’ malware, for example, (code designed to destroy Iranian centrifuges at uranium-processing facilities) is used to corrupt data in image files to create the series’ defining, ‘swiping’ strokes.

Subconscious actions drives Pleitner’s technique of engrossing abstractionism. Short bursts of inspiration fuel quick, violent strokes that you see in ‘Untitled’. Linear markings vertically existing on the canvas are cut, interrupted and bent by other linear entities at diagonal and horizontal placements. Some say it’s aggressive; others, harmonious.

Bruce Haines, 33 Saint George Street W1S 2FL

Between the earlier period of the 1950s Beck created nearly 50 percent of the body of work he created in his lifetime. Paintings were produced via notions of being, physical reality and mindfulness of one’s inner energy. Make sure you get by this one and delve deeper into multiple realities, via the canvas.

Horror films, comics, medieval crusades and social discontent are all apparent influencers in Meese’s narratives. Divas and demons are a common occurrence, a representational method to explore the concept of power and its inextricable attachment to incohesion and war.

Energetic in nature – or violent, depending on your perspective – Weyer’s compositions are satisfyingly expressionistic and abstract. Strokes allude to rapid, knee-jerk emotions, yet, oxymoronically, incite a slow, pensive emotion in order to digest the multiple layers and proposed subtexts.

Lard Drawings was an acclaimed series that created a concrete foundation for Polanszky’s career to develop significantly. Actionist and Post-Actionist movements are where his concepts belong, focusing on behaviour is guided through one’s unconscious thought.

French photographer was influenced by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Andy Warhol from French New Wave and experimental cinema. His Pain or Pleasure series is particularly epic.

Frieze Art Fair runs from 14th to 17th October at Regent’s Park, London