At any rock festival, the surest way to a good time is to embrace the random. With 151 galleries, more than 1,000 artists and an array of Frieze fringe events and commissions, prepare to be blown away by the equivalent of a band you’ve never heard of – probably from Athens, Guangzhou or Mexico City.

1 The Prince of thieves Richard Prince’s hand-built muscle car, a conceptual cousin to the Dukes of Hazzard’s General Lee, takes pride of place among this year’s commissions. Making his name by “stealing” Woody Allenish jokes and Marlboro advertising imagery, Prince critiques machis-mo, its neuroses and notions of authenticity. His installation is meant to ask what puts the vroom-vroom into the current art boom.

2 Oscar, Oscar Film buffs will be intrigued that Allen (aka Alan) Smithee is lecturing on his prolific filmography and public persona at 4pm on Thursday. The legendary director (for once, the epithet is accurate) has been “invited” to Frieze by Mario Garcia Torres, Mexican recipient of this year’s Cartier Award for emerging artists. Smithee’s entry in the Internet Movie Database notes he was “born in 1967, the same year he directed his first picture”. That says a lot about the life of the man.

3 Open-air theatricals Nine works of sculpture are located in the English Gardens, which are free to enter. Three life-size bronzes of Barcelona street performers, by the German Christian Jankowski, might amuse, while the broken concrete and twisted metal that Kader Attia, a French-Algerian, uses to describe the dislocation of the Paris banlieues will be more challenging. Among the other pieces, Gary Webb’s is called UK Sandwiches: fitting, as this is a nice spot to eat yours.

4 Bringing up baby “My six-year-old could do that,” is the Disgusted-of-Tunbridge-Wells response to much modern art. Well, how about your 11-month-old? The Fair Gallery hosts Teaching to Walk, wherein a real mum encourages a toddler to walk. Times vary, but they will try every day. The piece was devised by Slovakia’s Roman Ondak, whose skit on queuing perplexed passers-by at Frieze 2004.

5 Vitamin C Art from China remains a hot ticket. Yang Fudong’s films, sold through Marian Goodman, depict existential limbo in old-fashioned clothes. But only one Chinese gallery, Guangzhou’s Vitamin Creative Space, is here this year. The temptation is to seek Sino-political allegories in, say, Chu Yun’s used bars of soap or images of trees outside a Siemens factory; yet Constellation, a tangle of household appliances, is a fairly universal dilemma.

6 UK gold Julian Opie’s Kate Moss portraits will pull crowds to the Lisson Gallery pitch, but try Store, too. This Hoxton gallery’s roster includes Ryan Gander, Rosalind Nashashibi and Dan Holdsworth, whose photographs of a retreating glacier sell for up to £6,000. Tom Morton, contributing editor to Frieze magazine, adds that Hotel, from Bethnal Green, “punches above its weight”, and calls Maureen Paley “the undisputed empress of the East End”. The strength of Scotland’s art scene shinesthrough at the Modern Institute and Doggerfisher stands.

7 USA today Head to Gavin Brown’s Enterprise for the nearest Frieze gets to bargain prices. The New York gallery sets out its stall with Rob Pruitt’s Flea Market, a reprise of a 2000 show where he invited 40 friends to sell found objects and small works. Another Manhattan gallerist, Tanya Bonakdar, will rehang her stand daily. Morton says LA is now just as vibrant, and tips Marc Foxx, who “mixes sun-dappled West Coast melancholia [Vincent Fecteau, Brian Calvin] with some classy Europeans [David Mus-grave, Maaike Schoorel]”.

8 We are the world Indian artists are heralded as the next big thing. At Khoj, a not-for-profit gallery from New Delhi, Ravi Agarwal, Atul Bhalla and Sheba Chhachhi all deal with social and ecological issues. Mexico City is another hot spot, with Abraham Cruzvillegas and Gabriel Kuri at the Kurimanzutto gallery. In Europe, Athens is firmly on the art map, thanks to its recent biennale; the Breeder gallery presents Mark Bijl, Jannis Varelas and Mindy Shapero.

9 Grand designs For a new slant on the hoary question of “Is it art?”, try “Is design art?” High-end furniture, quasi-architectural schemes and graphic design now regularly crop up in galleries. What does it mean? Alice Rawsthorn chairs a discussion on Thursday at midday; her panel includes the revered record-sleeve artist Peter Saville, and Marc Newson, the surfer-dude industrial designer.

10 The sound of breaking glass Stewards at the Roundhouse may cover their ears on Friday. This year’s Frieze gig is noisenik Glenn Branca’s Symphony No 13: Hallucination City, a 62-minute epic for 100 squalling electric guitars.

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