With over 200 museums and countless commercial and independent galleries to choose from, making the most of the Big Smoke's cultural offering requires equal amounts of discerning, open-mindedness, and dedication. That's understandable: even as a Culture Editor, I am the first to feel overwhelmed by the ever-expanding density of London's year-round artistic program, and often find myself missing out on the best London exhibitions as a result. To prevent the number of initiatives organized in the city from pushing you away, rather than bringing you closer, from the workshop of innovation that is its artistic community, every month I am narrowing down all local creative happenings to the 10 best exhibitions to visit in London.
How do I pick them? My criteria are simple: in a historical moment where multiple global challenges seem to converge, from climate change and migration to the resurgence of conflicts, I want the best London exhibitions to hold a mirror up to the complexity of our times — engaging viewers through, yes, skillfully crafted and aesthetically pleasing artworks between paintings, sculptures, audiovisual pieces, performance, and installations. But also — and most importantly — with difficult discussions that can favor new ways of being together, conceiving our time on Earth, and preserving the planet for generations to come.
Whether you're looking to experience the city's creative pulse right on its streets or are keen to indulge in an afternoon at one of its leading artistic institutions, this interdisciplinary roundup of showcases will help you put the right names on the map. From burgeoning young galleries' latest artistic outings to public art installations transforming the urban fabric, and anticipated solo presentations by some of the world's leading creative talents, these are the only London events you should look out for right now — besides Frieze itself, that is.
1. Martino Gamper: Before, After & Beyond — 11 Mansfield Street
Some of the best London exhibitions are those that take you by surprise, and Before, After & Beyond, the first London retrospective of world-acclaimed Italian artist and designer Martino Gamper, is definitely one of them. Staged within a palatial private home in the heart of London's Marylebone, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the city on a street punctuated by plush Georgian houses — stepping inside the showcase feels like visiting an old friend or an older relative. Following the success of his debut London solo in 2007, 100 Chairs in 100 Days, this new presentation sheds light on the unique intimacy that distinguishes Gamper's understanding of craftsmanship and design, welcoming visitors in a setting that's as comforting as awe-inspiring.
From a 1970s-inspired music and games room, complete with chess and backgammon boards, playing cards, and a sleek grand piano, to a vintage study filled with terrazzo-style Murano glass chandeliers and geometrically cut color-block bookshelves, mirrors, and tables, and a plush, warmly atmospheric post-modern bedroom — the 11 Mansfield Street location oozes with the emotional character of a place well lived.
Seamlessly incorporating stunning contributions by NILUFAR's founder and design legend Nina Yashar and mesmeric bespoke carpets by cc-tapis, the house becomes theater of Gamper's disruptive experimentation. The artist's early days attempts find their place in this beautifully curated and pastel-shaded exhibition, delicately complementing the many museum projects, industrial products, private commissions, and the never-seen-before new creations and rethought designs that mold the dwell into shape. Vibrant and playful without ever falling into the obvious, Before, After & Beyond fittingly captures how contemporary designs are looking back to move forward, inviting us to join Gamper on his journey.
Through October 26. Free admission. Find more info at culturecalling.com and find your favorite Martino Gamper designs at martinosshop.com
2. Haegue Yang: Leap Year — Hayward Gallery
Creature-like, whimsical standing sculptures, striking light effects, mesmerizing wall puzzles, and fuzzy, hypnotic totems: all of this, and much more, is on view in Seoul-born Haegue Yang's just-opened solo presentation at Hayward Gallery. Titled Haegue Yang: Leap Year, the show — marking her first major survey in the UK — reflects the broad exploration of mediums that provide the foundation for the artist's production, as well as celebrating the phantasmagoric essence of her oeuvre. Yang, who borrows from the rich symbolism of East Asian traditions and folklore, is as tapped into the legacy of her home country as she is inspired by modernism, contemporary art history, and the natural elements.
In this show, she transforms the wide rooms of Hayward Gallery into an immersive maze of textures, colors, and light, repurposing homeware as well as industrial objects to spark reflection on their social, spiritual, political, and environmental connotations. Developed between the 2000s and today, these fantastical artworks, incorporating anything from laundry racks and light bulbs to bells, Korean paper, and fabric, are at once strange and familiar, haunting and reassuring, conjuring viewers to reassess their relationship with the items that shape their lives, the people inhabiting it, and the world around them.
Through January 5. Book your tickets at southbankcentre.co.uk
3. Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray for Love — Victoria Miro
You don't need to be a huge Yayoi Kusama fan to stumble across photographs of her Instagram and TikTok viral Infinity Mirror Room, but if you are, you'll be pleased to hear the Japanese artist has just unveiled a brand new iteration of her acclaimed work at London's Victoria Miro. Inviting the audience to step into the latest of her magical light spectacles, where reality is fractured into dozens of kaleidoscopic facets, along with a series of recent paintings and sculptural works — EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE has a mystical energy to it. Through the use of her trademark polka dots, garish colors, and whimsical forms, Kusama charges the gallery with the ecstatic feel of a mind-bending journey. Abstracting us from our surroundings via her eye-catching masterpieces, she encourages us to ponder universal themes of love, life, and the cosmos, in an experience that — despite the appearances — brings us closer together.
Through November 2. Currently sold out, new tickets will be released every Monday at 12PM for entry from Tuesday to Saturday of the same week at victoriamiro.artsvp.com
4. The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975–1998 — Barbican Centre
Garnering more than 30 Indian artists credited with reshaping the country's artistic landscape in a moment of critical political and social unrest, The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975–1998 turns on the creative output that punctuated the era from Indira Ganghi's 1975 Emergency through to the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests to examine the reality and legacy of that historical period. Weaving together considerations on India's postcolonial identity and exploring democracy, resistance, and the evolving cultural consciousness as they manifest in the nation's aesthetic fabric, the group show offers a valuable opportunity to learn about the complexity of Indian society through the artworks of its leading talents. Known for his intricate, tapestry-like depictions of Indian mythology, the late legendary artist M.F. Husain introduces the audience to the vibrancy of the country through evocative scenes of life, battle, and faith. Elsewhere, the surreal canvases of India's first Pop artist, Bhupen Khakhar, stand out for their activism in bearing witness to the experiences of the local homosexual and urban middle-class communities, with pioneering Indian video artist Nalini Malani leveraging the multisensory power of visual storytelling to spark debate on the state of feminism and anti-colonial themes.
Through January 5. Book your tickets at Barbican.org.uk
5. Un Oeuf Is Un Oeuf — TJ Boulting
October is an especially busy moment for art insiders either based in or visiting the British capital, but what if I told you that some of the best London exhibitions shy away from the overly serious tone of the industry to promote important conversations through fun, and totally unexpected, social interactions? Presenting contributions by 26 contemporary artists, Un Oeuf Is Un Oeuf is an evocative, captivating group show that, "taking the egg as its starting point, explores ideas that have inspired a myriad of artists from its mythology and symbolism to its aesthetics and form". Reinterpreting it through their chosen medium, be it painting, sculpture, photography, or performance, the personalities spotlighted in the event address subjects as wide as feminism, daily rituals, censorship and political prevarication, beauty, life, migration, personal history, and surrealism.
Here, American artist Christopher Chiappa's plaster and resin eggs-made colossal installations appear imbued with a life of their own; Anna Maria Maiolino uses the egg as a metaphor for the armless and endangered condition characterizing the life of female civilians under the Brazilian Dictatorship; photography pioneer Man Ray's images of ostrich eggs rely on the allure of abstraction to transport us to the moon; while British image-maker Maisie Cousins bridges past and present in her AI-powered, retro-futuristic reflection on childhood and the home. Lending the centerpiece to Un Oeuf Is Un Oeuf is Young British Artists' icon Sarah Lucas — whose spectacular collective performance 1000 Eggs: For Women — a call to action rebelling against the control of women bodies, saw dozens of women, women-identifying individuals, and men dressed as women throw a thousand eggs against the gallery wall to create a ginormous abstract painting on October 8.
Through November 16. Book your appointment at tjboulting.com
6. Bobbi Essers: The World at Our Command — Unit London
There is something weirdly real and haunting about Bobbi Essers' UK solo debut The World at Our Command, a surreal collection of paintings currently on view at Unit London. Zooming in on the sense of connection and intimacy that animates platonic relationships, the burgeoning talent confronts visitors with a series of fractured canvases modeled off unstaged photographs of her closest friends. Standing out for their bold, dense palette and for the life-like rendition of human details, Essers' compositions turn everyday moments, objects, and social interactions into mysterious situations warrant of closer scrutiny. Despite the quite literal, apparent closeness of her subjects, who share a sit at the same table, lie in bed next to one another, hold each other's hands, or are portrayed embracing, the painter's artworks hint at the loneliness that insinuates itself in contemporary life as we log off our devices. In doing so, Essers not only seeks to exorcise that feeling from her own experiences, but also invites others to do the same — inspiring more meaningful connections than social media can grant us.
Through September 28. Free admission. Find more information at unitlondon.com
7. Nicola L.: I Am The Last Woman Object — Camden Art Centre
French visual artist Nicola L. (1932-2018) is the focus of a new, thought-provoking retrospective at Camden Art Centre, where her shape-shifting understanding of art is brought to the fore along with the deeply political nature of her work. I Am The Last Woman Object is exactly about what you would expect it to be, but the large-scale, curious functional objects, soft sculptures, and audiovisual installations gathered on this occasion will amuse you nonetheless. A leading figure within the Pop Art, Nouveau Realism, Feminism, and design scenes, Nicola L. was a pioneering voice in the fight for women's rights, and her critique of female objectification appears center and front in her stylized but equally powerful artistic investigations.
Bringing together sculpture, performance, painting, collage, and film characterized by an irreverent vision, I Am The Last Woman Object confronts the audience with hanging artworks resembling shed human 'skins'. These textile pieces, originally conceived for performative use, would be animated by multiple people who inserted their limbs in them, giving life to a collective organism that nullified the gap between art and the observer. Elsewhere, the artist's preoccupation with the commodification of womanhood translates into sofas and cabinets that, shaped after dismembered female bodies or body parts, exacerbate the physical and psychological exploitation to which women are subjected by society. An ode to female resilience, boldness, and genius, the exhibition touches on complex conversations while retaining the deeply imaginative and uplifting feel of Nicola L.'s work — a visionary whose provocative creations have, for better or worse, never been more relevant.
Through December 29. Book your tickets at camdenartcentre.org
8. Ex-Voto — Palmer Gallery
I find exhibitions with a tangible, strong personal narrative woven into them to be some of the most powerful, as the story behind these shows reaches you before you try to deconstruct them. Or at least, that's what I felt upon staring at the co-authored works of Shaan Bevan and Owen Pratt, on display through November 9 at Palmer Gallery as part of their joint presentation, Ex-Voto. Borrowing its title "from ancient offerings used by various communities throughout human history, primarily intended to ward off illness and danger", the exhibition is a poetic tale of sickness and recovery and the state of limbo interposing the two. After being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in her mid-twenties, Bevan turned to art to process her experiences of treatment and healing, finding in it the ideal platform onto which to project her impressions of the cyclicality of life and the recurring states of "generation and decay" that define its pace.
As she experimented with this new approach to creating, the artist embraced her mixed-media oeuvre — integrating different metals and synthetic materials as well as drawing in bi-dimensional, canvas-like pieces — to manifest the continuum between the human and the natural world. After her condition began to improve, Bevan moved to southern France from the US alongside her partner, Pratt, where she became fascinated with the morphology of the place, particularly with a local rock quarry once used for lithography. Chasing that creative awakening, in Ex-Voto, the artist depicts the human form "as a rock quarry (as well as other natural landscapes), where bodily systems are examined alongside organic processes of deposition, transformation, and extraction". Drawing on a universal understanding of "living entities and material animism", the showcase highlights the regenerative power of nature, sewing the gap between living and nonliving, and celebrating life in its eternal metamorphosis.
Through November 9. Free admission. Find more information at palmergallery.co.uk
9. Olafur Eliasson: Lifeworld — Piccadilly Circus
Projected on the iconic advertising screen of Piccadilly Circus as part of the annual art program of CIRCA, Icelandic-Danish award-winning conceptual artist Olafur Eliasson’s Lifeworld (2024) brings five of his colorful explorations to the heart of London, adding a vibrant touch to autumn in the British capital. Visible at different moments in time in New York's Times Square, Seoul's K-Pop Square, Berlin's Kurfürstendamm, and London itself, as well as being showcased 24/7 on WeTransfer.com, this collection applies a custom blur effect to abstract some of the world's best-known destinations into striking patches of light and shadows. Intriguing and mysterious, Eliasson's creations break into the omnipresent flow of commercials inherent to these locations to delve into themes of agency and vulnerability, collective action and hope, making our experiences of such landmarks more uplifting and inspiring and reminding us of our need for belonging.
Through December 31. Public art installation. Find more information at circa.art
10. Nacho Carbonell: Escaping Forward — Carpenters Workshop Gallery
Spanish-born artist Nacho Carbonell perfectly embodies the way art and design are not mutually exclusive worlds, but two faces of the same coin that, constantly influencing each other, give way to truly unique manifestations. Launched on October 8 at Carpenters Workshop Gallery and continuing through January 11, Escaping Forward sees him rework raw organic materials into sculptural pieces that exude a primordial energy. Tables, shelves, cabinets, and lamps take on a spirited nature when conceived by the Eindhoven-based talent, whose signature textural, mixed-media aesthetic blends the boundaries between functional design and avant-garde artistic investigations.
As you wander through the West London gallery, the fanciful exemplars of his Concrete Base Table Lamp series, inspired by the storied, centenary look of trees and other types of vegetation, seem to lean towards you, as if greeting visitors. His Back to Back Cabinet, meticulously sculpted out of sand, paverpol, wooden sticks, metal mesh, and glass, boasts the same colossal presence of bears, The Roots Mural presents the gradient pink-and-blue palette of decaying matter, while Carbonell's Net Chair and A La Mesa (TC12/2022) — two of the more stripped-back artworks on view — offer a fascinating take on brutalist interiors. Crafted to elicit an emotional response in the people who view them, these spellbinding objects invite us to tune into the environment around us to cultivate joy, wonder, and boundless imagination.
Through January 11. Free admission. Find more information at carpentersworkshopgallery.com
Whether you are based in London or visiting on a holiday, venturing into any of the above galleries and museums will grant you a new perspective on your surroundings, leaving you craving for more inspiration. Keep an eye out for another freshly curated dose of art and design shows not to miss this year.
