The Top Art Exhibitions in London Right Now
We've scoured the capital for the very best art exhibitions, installations and events to visit that are on right now
By Charlie Walker | Updated Nov 19 2024
The art scene these days is growing increasingly more difficult to track, even with innovations in communication technology and marketing. Some gallery openings fly completely under the radar, and while these events are exciting, often free, and often offering free drinks, the art world's events scene lacks the centralisation that live music has with DICE, Resident Advisor and, the frankly dreaded Ticketmaster (and no, I don't want to hear about Art Rabbit ever again).
So, here we bring the doings of the art world - both overground and underground - to cater to both casual and eccentric, day-tripper and deep-digger, bringing you a quality mix of entertaining and thought-provoking exhibitions across the capital.
Stay tuned, we update this weekly
‘The Seer, The Seen’, by Sang Woo Kim - at Herald Street
Herald St 14 Nov 2024 to 1 Feb 2025
Sang Woo Kim's cacophony of detailed self-portraits position his eyes as his artistic motif, putting cultural identity, both self-assessed and externally enforced, at the centre of his work.
Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
The National Gallery 14 Sep 2024 to 19 Jan 2025
Van Gogh’s most spectacular paintings in a once-in-a-century exhibition.
‘Inner Heat’, by Laila Majid and Louis Blue Newby - Goldsmiths CCA
Goldsmiths CCA 8 Nov 2024 to 12 Jan 2025
A collaborative work at the Goldsmiths CCA that reinvents and reinterprets commonplace cultural materials, twisting our conceptualisation of the known and the unknown.
Nicole Eisenman - at Sadie Coles HQ
Sadie Coles HQ 13 Nov 2024 to 20 Dec 2024
The world is depressing, and it shows up in my work, but there’s a lightness and a levity, because that is my survival mechanis.- Nicole Eisenman
Following their acclaimed major survey, What Happened, at Whitechapel Gallery last year, Nicole Eisenman debuts new works at Sadie Coles HQ, London from 13 November – 20 December 2024.
Markus Lüpertz - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - at Michael Werner Gallery
Michael Werner Gallery 14 Nov 2024 to 1 Feb 2025
The German ‘painting prince’ takes on works from ‘the painter of France’ through exercises of homage, figuration, and abstraction.
WHISTLING AS THE NIGHT CALLS
VSSL Studio 1 Nov 2024 to 1 Dec 2024
Whistling as the Night Calls is an exhibition of collaborative photographic works by Martin O'Brien and zack mennell. Shot on 35mm Cinestill 800T film, these new images document a series of performance actions from O'Brien's considerable body of work, situating them within former sites of worship and pilgrimage including the skeletal remains of St Peter’s Seminary, a derelict brutalist college for priests in Cardross, Scotland and the wind-swept shingle beaches of Dungeness on the Kent Coast.
‘A Trebuchet and a V’, by Benjamin Anderson and Marina Moro - at Worse, New Cross
Worse 9 Nov 2014 to 14 Dec 2024
The secretive, Utah-born, London based artist presents an anticipated showing at Worse, New Cross, in collaboration with Marina Moro, set to be talk of the London art world for the next few months.
'Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolves?', by Anna Weyant
Davies Street Gallery 8 Oct 2024 to 20 Dec 2024
Weyant’s precisely rendered figure paintings and portraits undercut their subjects’ attempts at composure with gestures of tragicomic awkwardness, while her crystalline still-life compositions lend everyday objects a similarly unsettling and oneiric tinge, their muted palette contributing a reflective ambience.
The six new paintings that comprise Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolves? retain this mood in atmospheric scenarios of distance and isolation.
‘Crumple Zone’, by Conor Ackhurst - at Soft Commodity
Soft Commodity 12 Nov 2024 to 6 Dec 2024
Conor Ackhurst invites us to mull on the immediate moments prior to disaster via sculpture and installation at Soft Commodity in Warren Street.
Jonas Wood
Grosvenor Hill Gallery 7 Oct 2024 to 23 Nov 2024
These new works from Jonas Wood extend the unmistakable visual language that he has developed over two decades, exploring the dynamics of colour, pattern, and space through the treatment of recurring subjects, including plants, family, and interiors.
At once exuberant and obsessive, intimate and imaginative, the paintings on view—like much of Wood’s work—are marked by the interplay of apparent opposites.
‘The Longest Time’, by Jack Otway and Zach Zono – at Hurst Contemporary
Hurst Contemporary 7 Nov 2024 to 7 Jan 2025
Hurst Contemporary will open the doors to its new Percy Street location, welcoming the inaugural exhibition titled The Longest Time with new and significant work by two artists Jack Otway and Zach Zono.
Reflecting on the ephemerality of the present, times ceaseless meandering, and the intangibility of its passage, Jack Otway and Zach Zono present explorations of strained relationships between memory and time, between the now and the now-to-be.
Jameel Prize: Moving Images - at the V&A
V&A 30 Nov 2024 to 16 Mar 2025
The V&A and Art Jameel have announced further exhibition details of the shortlisted projects for the 7th edition of the Jameel Prize.
The seventh edition of the Jameel Prize is devoted to moving image and digital media work, inspired by Islamic art, culture, history, society, and ideas. From over 300 submissions, seven finalists were selected by an international jury.
'Life, Love and Death in Sicily', by Letizia Battaglia - at The Photographers’ Gallery
The Photographers’ Gallery 9 Oct 2024 to 23 Feb 2025
Letizia Battaglia (1935-2022) was one of Italy’s most important social documentary photographers. She documented everyday life, alongside the brutal reality of the Mafia and their victims in Sicily.
This showing at the Photographer's Gallery is a powerful overview of Battaglia's extraordinary photographic work, from 1971 to 2021. Renowned for capturing some of the most poignant, poetic and dramatic moments in Sicilian history, Battaglia's work extends beyond her homeland. This exhibition showcases a broader spectrum of her photography by intertwining her career with her personal life to emphasise Battaglia's sensitivity and humanity.
'Songs of the Canaries: A Tribute to Emiel Fabre and Robert Stroud', by Jan Fabre - at the Mucciaccia Gallery
Mucciaccia Gallery 12 Oct 2024 to 23 Nov 2024
The first living artist to hold large-scale solo exhibitions at prestigious institutions such as the Louvre Museum in Paris in 2008 and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg in 2017, his most recent exhibition features a new body of sculptures finely carved from Carrara marble alongside a collection of intimate, small-scale drawings.
Leighton and Landscape: Impressions from Nature
Leighton House 16 Nov 2024 to 27 Apr 2025
The first exhibition devoted to landscape sketches made by Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), the show offers an opportunity to see the celebrated Victorian artist in a totally new light – that of a spontaneous, experimental artist who took the road less well trodden by his contemporaries, documenting the people and places he encountered as he travelled.
Lubaina Himid: Barricades
Hollybush Gardens 1 Nov 2024 to 20 Dec 2024
A solo exhibition of new work by Lubaina Himid featuring overpainted objects and furniture.
Es Devlin - Face to Face: 50 Encounters with Strangers - at Somerset House
Somerset House 23 Nov 2024 to 12 Jan 2025
ES DEVLIN: Face to Face: 50 encounters with strangers is a new exhibition at Somerset House which includes an edition of CONGREGATION, the large-scale installation Devlin created in partnership with The Courtauld, King’s College and UK for UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, curated by Ekow Eshun at St Mary Le Strand in October this year.
FRAMELESS: Imagined Realities
FRAMELESS 25 Oct 2024 to 25 Jan 2025
A captivating three-part audio-visual journey that explores and celebrates the space between dreams and reality.
Coming soon...
Joan Snyder Body & Soul
Thaddaeus Ropac 28 Nov 2024 to 5 Feb 2025
Joan Snyder’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac London.
Citra Sasmita: Into Eternal Land
The Curve, Barbican 30 Jan 2025 to 20 Apr 2025
The Indonesian artist transforms The Curve in her first solo UK exhibition.
The Drawing Year 2024 End of Year Exhibition
The Royal Drawing School 4 Dec 2024 to 19 Dec 2024
A chance to see and buy works from 31 graduates of the Royal Drawing School in December.
London Art Fair 2025
London Art Fair 22 Jan 2025 to 26 Jan 2025
Explore an exceptional line-up of Modern and Contemporary Art galleries from across the globe from 22-26 January 2025.
Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur
The Wallace Collection 28 Mar 2025 to 26 Oct 2025
In 2025, the Wallace Collection will hold a major exhibition featuring over 40 new works by Sir Grayson Perry.