The month of November could be seen as a pitstop to gather oneself after an October full of Halloween festivities, and a welcomed pause before Christmas mayhem. Whether it be a quiet afternoon alone or a collective outing with friends, London offers an array of exhibitions to be immersed in from group shows, major career retrospectives, intimate viewings and avant-garde performances. We have put together a handy guide to the city's best goings on this month.
Heading across the pond? Here are the best New York art exhibitions to see this month.
London art exhibitions: what to see in November 2024
Francis Bacon: Human Presence
The National Portrait Gallery
Until 19 January 2025
Francis Bacon’s distorted forms, caught in hellish moments, are etched into the brain of those with only a passing interest in the art canon, an eerie familiarity that still doesn’t prepare you for the sheer emotionality of his major retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery.
Taking you from Bacon’s early portraits in the 1940s, through self-portraits and portraits of friends in the 1950s, to the personal relationships that defined his work in the 1960s, the exhibition documents Bacon’s relationship with representation in his dismantling of both traditional power structures and tortured memorialisations of departed lovers.
Read our full review of Bacon at the National Portrait Gallery.
Writer: Hannah Silver
'In the Right Conditions We Are Indistinguishable’
Pace, London
Until 9 November 2024
Genesis Belanger makes surreal magic of everyday items. Her ceramic and mixed-media installations, created at her Brooklyn studio, reimagine household or natural objects, underpinned by an unsettling play between attraction and disgust. ‘Husband Material’ is a sculptural shopping bag of groceries that appears frozen mid-collapse. An open packet of biscuits teeters out the right-hand side, as the bag flaps at the front. If this movement were to continue, the bag and its contents would tumble clumsily to the floor. ‘Cause and Effect’ features a hoover expressively consuming a length of rug. In ‘Family Portrait’, a domestic cupboard is filled with various bottles, topped by a fresh sandwich.
Writer: Emily Steer
Jameel Prize: Moving Images
V&A
From 30 November 2024 to 16 March 2025
Preview the Jameel Prize exhibition which is soon arriving at London's V&A, this year with a focus on moving image and digital media. The winner of the V&A and Art Jameel’s seventh international award for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition will be showcased alongside shortlisted artists. The exhibition highlights the rich artistic heritage of the Islamic Middle East and South Asia, showcasing the vibrant connection between contemporary creativity and the region's historical legacy.
Writer: Smilian Cibic
George Rouy. The Bleed, Part I
Hauser & Wirth
Until 21 December 2024
Painter George Rouy marks his debut solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in London, which dives into his inquiry within collective mass, multiplicities and movement, and human modes of existence. Rouy’s dynamic use of the human figure explores identity in a modern, technology driven world. The second chapter ‘The Bleed, Part II,’ will be on display in Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles in February next year.
Oscar Murillo: A balancing act between collapse and spirit
David Zwirner
Until 16 November 2024
Colombian artist Oscar Murillo has a distinct style notable through his inventive practice which involves paintings, sculptures, installations and live events. The underlying principles throughout, highlight a cultural exchange and the variety of ways in which ideas, languages, and even everyday items are displaced, circulated, and increasingly intertwined. Murillo’s latest exhibition is a series of mixed media pieces which explore communication, hope and the human spirit.
Jonas Wood
Gagosian Grosvenor Hill
Until 23 November
Jonas Wood brings his natural scenescapes with pictorial plasticity to Gagosian. Through dynamic colour, pattern and space, Wood explores environmental surroundings, from plants and fields, to interior and family. Much like his previous work, his 2024 collection threads in apparent opposites and intriguing compositions through blocks of colour, patterns and textures, which draws the viewer in.
‘Markus Lüpertz – Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’
Michael Werner Gallery
From 14 November 2024 – 1 February 2025
The Michael Werner Gallery has brought together the works of two iconic painters in one exhibition. Works from one of the most influential German painters of the post-war period, Markus Lüpertz, have been coupled with paintings and drawings of 19th-century French master Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Lüpertz’ work is inspired by cultural resonance and personal experience. His paintings will be complemented by an array of drawings and paintings by Puvis de Chavannes, including landscapes, preparatory drawings for commissions, scenes and portraiture.
María Berrío: The End of Ritual
Victoria Miro
21 November 2024–18 January 2025
Brooklyn-based María Berrío presents ‘The End of Ritual’ at Victoria Miro. Her works are often influenced by aspects of mythology and folklore which reflect contemporary issues women and children face, from identity to survival. The series of new works are somewhat satirical, with crowded interiors with characters’ faces covered in detailed masks and quizzical expressions, whereby others go about regular business unfazed.
The Romance of the Rose
Pilar Corrias
Until 9 November 2024
Artist Ella Walker presents her first exhibition, which showcases her female figures variously exposed, playful, dangerous and joyous. With layered techniques including traditional painting, accompanied with drawing and collage, her central figures depict emotionally complex expressions, inviting the viewer to untangle the rich scenes in front of them. Walker has taken inspiration from the 13th-century French poem ‘The Romance of the Rose’, exploring both its use of language and its form as a mediaeval manuscript, featuring tiny egg tempera paintings.
Writer: Emily Steer
The Turner Prize 2024
Tate Britain
Until 16 February 2025
The Turner Prize 2024 shortlisted artists are now able to view. The work of Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur, and Delaine Le Bas will be exhibited, with the winner of the 40th edition of the prize set to be unveiled on 3 December 2024. Turner Prize chair and director of Tate Britain Alex Farquharson leads a jury composed of Rosie Cooper, director of Wysing Arts Centre; Ekow Eshun, writer, broadcaster, curator and a Wallpaper* contributing editor; Sam Thorne, director general and CEO at Japan House London; and Lydia Yee, curator and art historian.
Writer: Hannah Silver
Auerbach: Portraits of London
Offer Waterman and Francis Outred
Until 7 December
British-German painter Frank Auerbach is best known for his portraits, parks and skylines of London, which are compact with dark and earthy tones with recurring characters adding personality and charm to his work. Offer Waterman and Francis Outred will present an archive of his work, which have been loaned from museums across the country of Auerbach’s London work. Charting familiar locations again and again throughout the years with varying colour and form, the exhibition captures the ever changing city from wartime to present day.
Leap Year
The Hayward Gallery
Until 5 January 2025
Artist Haegue Yang presents her diverse practice starting from the early 2000s to today, which explores an array of sculpture, collage, text and video to name a few, arranged into five thematic zones. Known for her work which transforms everyday domestic items into contemporary reinterpretations which touch on modernism and political history, Yang’s latest showcase will be immersive with varying visual and sensory experiences.
Danh Vo
White Cube Mason's Yard
Until 16 November 2024
Contemporary artist Danh Vo will unveil a site-specific installation developed at Güldenhof, his home and studio in rural Germany, alongside a series of late 19th- and early 20th-century floral still life paintings. Coinciding with Frieze London, the installation will explore themes of colonialism and capitalism with an array of objects and artefacts including an array of marble sculptures to Rimowa suitcases.
Enchanted Alchemies
Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Empress Club
Until December 21, 2024
Delving into the themes of magic, alchemy and occultism, Lévy Gorvy Dayan presents ‘Enchanted Alchemies: Magic, Mysticism, and the Occult in Art’. Through an array of artists' works from the 20th century to present day, Surrealism is at the core with the exhibition opening a century after the publication of French writer and poet, André Breton’s, first Manifesto of Surrealism. The exhibition invites viewers to reimagine the understanding of beauty, and mystery and dive deep into the sociological shifts that have reshaped spiritual beliefs.
Rayvenn D'Clark
TM Gallery
Until 22 November 2024
Young sculptor Rayvenn D’Clark is definitely one to watch. Recently announced as a Forbes 30 Under 30, D’Clark’s work has been showcased at Royal College of Arts, the V&A Museum, Saatchi Gallery. Now she presents a new exhibition premiering at Freize London. Reflecting upon her previous work, including her three-large scale public artworks readdressing depictions of slavery which are installed at the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Alabama, D’Clark is fascinated with experimenting with different mediums that can portray different iterations of the human form, and advocates for the recognition of women of colour, promoting intersectional perspectives on identity and representation.
tmlighting.com
‘Daffodils baptized in butter’
The Arts Club
Until 19 January 2025
The Arts Club is in full bloom as it uncovers the symbolic, mystical and historical meaning of flowers in its latest exhibition Daffodils Baptized In Butter. Through a contemporary lens, 25 artists present their unique perspective on flowers, which goes against the surface level idea that they are merely pretty, but actually represent the complexities of human life through growth and decay. Participating artists include Alvaro Barrington, Judy Chicago, Don Brown and more.
‘Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers’
National Gallery
Until 19 January 2025
The highly anticipated Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers is open at the National Gallery this month. A curation of Van Gogh’s most recognised paintings from across the world are united in this exhibition including his ‘Starry Night over the Rhône’ (1888, Musée d’Orsay) and ‘The Yellow House’ (1888, Van Gogh Museum), as well as ‘Sunflowers’ (1888) and ‘Van Gogh's Chair’ (1889), among many other works which are rarely seen in public. The exhibition is romantic and mesmerising, offering much loved insight into his poetic work.
‘It Will End in Tears’
The Barbican
Until 5 Jan 2025
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum presents her first solo exhibition at The Barbican. Sunstrum draws upon her experience of living across Africa, Southeast Asia, and North America with It Will End in Tears . The showcase includes a series of paintings and drawings which tells a story of a ‘femme fatale’ film noir character living in an imagined colonial outpost. The narrative takes the viewer through her life, and what happens when she deviates from societal rules.
‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’
Until 27 April 2025
Wellcome Collection’s Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights is a thought-provoking exhibition which delves into the complexities of unregulated work practices and how this impacts mental and physical health. The exhibition will consist of historical objects in parallel with contemporary artworks focusing on three places of work: The Plantation, The Street and The Home, each chosen due to the difficult, physical labour, where conditions may be unsafe, and with little to no access to healthcare, a stable income and even basic rights. From sex work, street vending, domestic labour, and prison labor to name a few, Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights highlights the inequalities people face and how their health, work and rights remain hidden.
Portrait of America
The Observatory Photography Gallery
Until 25 January 2025
Emerging photographer Katie Edwards captures the vast nation of America through a unique viewpoint- moving trains. Travelling nearly 10,000 miles and enduring 180 hours of train journeys, Edwards has captured glimpses of the country, from Southern deserts and urban dwellings to snow-capped peaks of the Cascade volcanoes. Due to the darkness in the carriage, the windows are lit up in contrast, and the lens captures the moving scenes wrapped in a beautiful frame, she said ‘I was able to see for hundreds of miles on either side of the train, and this created bizarre effects with the light as it hit specific strips of land in the expanse.’
theobservatory.org
Archive of Dissent
The Whitechapel Gallery
Until 19 January 2025
The power of the image has long held a particular resonance for Peter Kennard, artist and Emeritus Professor of Political Art at the Royal College of Art, whose current exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery is both a tribute to and a warning of the influence of information.
Archive of Dissent unites photomontages, installations and the newspapers where his images first appeared, paying tribute to the space’s original purpose, once known as the ‘People’s University of the East End’ and used as both a refuge from poverty and a place to nurture radical philosophies around art and politics.
Writer Hannah Silver
‘Grace’
Tate Britain
Until January 2025
Alvaro Barrington’s latest exhibition Grace is a curation of Black culture and identity drawn from his own experiences and memories growing up in ex-British colony Grenada and New York City. Installed in Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries, the exhibition is built around three key figures in his life; his grandmother Frederica, his close-friend or sister Samantha and his mother Emelda. Grace is also inspired by the hymn Amazing Grace, a piece of music that sits at the heart of Western Black culture.
Writer: Amah-Rose Abrams
'Somnyama Ngonyama'
Tate Modern
Until 26 January 2025
Zanele Muholi, artist and visual activist, celebrates the lives of South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in a series of arresting portraits that aim to offset the stigma around queer identity in African society. On showcase at Tate Modern, and also The Southern Guild in Los Angeles, Muholi considers their own form in portraits taken all around the world, each with intriguing aspects, from wearing crowns of clothesline pins, bed sheet cloaks or lipstick made from toothpaste and vaseline.
tate.org.uk
Writer: Hannah Silver
'Solid Light'
Tate Modern
Until 27 April 2025
Anthony McCall, a trailblazer within experimental cinema and installation art, presents Solid Light at Tate Modern, an exhibition dedicated to the artists' immersive works. Using beams of light projected through thin mist, resulting in solid light forms, allows visitors to playfully interact. The exhibition will also feature film, photography and archive material.
'The World To Me Was A Secret'
The Cosmic House
Until 20 December 2024
The Cosmic House was always intended as more than a home. A postmodern masterpiece, it was created by Charles and Maggie Jencks between 1978 and 1983 in London’s wealthy Holland Park. It functioned as a living space for the radical couple’s family and a hotbed for creative and architectural thought. Little within the house follows the rules of conventional design: the traditional staircase was replaced with a single spiral that is stamped with zodiac signs; everything from doorknobs to toilet flushes are present as unsettling doubles; and a lintel fireplace is painted to emulate polychromatic marble.
Writer: Emily Steer
'Fragile Beauty'
V&A
Until 5 January 2025
Avid photography fans Elton John and David Furnish have amassed a vast array of images over the years. Now, more than 300 rare prints from their collection are set to go on show at a new V&A retrospective divided into eight themes, from reportage and the male body to American photography and celebrity. Works from artists such as Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing and Diane Arbus are exhibited alongside fashion photography by the likes of Irving Penn, Horst P Horst and Herb Ritts. Highlights include intimate portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and Nan Goldin’s Thanksgiving series.
Writer: Hannah Silver
