Gerhard Richter, Aladin (Aladdin), 2010
© Gerhard Richter 2024
Dare we say spring has sprung? And as usual, London is absolutely packed with things to do – whether that’s exhibitions, events, theatre or music.
But of course, it can all get a bit pricey. So if you want to have a great weekend seeing some of London’s best culture, but also want to save a few quid, look no further than this guide to the best art shows to see in the city, which are all absolutely free.
In this moving commission, Turner Prize-winning British artist Chris Ofili has created a giant art work across Tate Britain’s Northern Staircase to pay tribute to the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. The dream-like, brightly-coloured mural gives a special nod to fellow artist Khadija Saye who was killed in the 2017 tragedy.
Eleven rooms of the Tate are dedicated to this visual exploration of the varied materials that artists have used over the decades. Expect to see works such as Doris Salcedos famous metal structures, Marcel Duchamp’s toilet seat and Sarah Sze’s installations.
Doron Langberg: Basement
© Doron Langberg Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro
Through a series of large-scale tableaux, Israeli-American painter Doron Langberg explores the feelings and spaces that stir after hours: he depicts nightclubs and midnight beach scenes, and in doing so asks questions about the physical and psychological freedom provided by these liminal late night spaces.
Gerhard Richter, Aladin (Aladdin), 2010
© Gerhard Richter 2024
Gerhard Richter’s works are always a treat: here, new and recent paintings as well as drawings from the German visual artist are on display, which continue his career-long exploration of perception and abstraction.
Rong Bao, The Enigma, 2023
Courtesy of the artist and Saatchi Gallery
Multi-award-winning Chinese-born artist Rong Bao both builds sculptures out of everyday objects and creates otherworldly, inflated works. Together they become a sort of sensory playground; according to the gallery, visitors should expect to connect with their “mischievous sides”.
Kaye Donachie: I kept the memory for myself
Mirrors face, 2024
© Kaye Donachie, courtesy Maureen Paley, London. Photo: Stephen James
In this series of gorgeous and ghostly portraits, Glasgow-born Kaye Donachie asks questions about perception and reality, drawing on both Virginia Woolf’s short story The Lady in the Looking Glass: A Reflection, and the work of German expressionist painter Gabriele Münter, of the Der Blaue Reiter group.
Duane Hanson and Damien Hirst
Duane Hanson | Damien Hirst, 2024, installation view
© 2024 Estate of Duane Hanson/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2024. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd, Courtesy Gagosian
South Florida-based American artist Duane Hanson (1925-1996) and British YBA Hirst might not instantly jump to mind for a joint show. But Hanson’s hyperreal sculptures, which have been described as “tailor-made for the age of the selfie” have many of the same provocative, brash qualities found in Hirst’s world-famous works.
Here Gagosian makes big pharma the question: Hanson’s Medical Doctor sculpture and Hirst’s iconic Medicine Cabinets series are the answer.
Installation view, Patricia Treib
Courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London. Photo: Angus Mill
Patricia Treib’s colourful and elegant abstract paintings are a feast for the eyes. In Enfold, the Michigan-born, Brooklyn-based artist continues her exploration of memory and movement.
Omar El Lahib, Adventure Garden, 2020-2023
Courtesy of the artist and Saatchi Yates
This lovely exhibition opening this week showcases the work of Lebanese artist Omar El Lahib, whose 18 large-scale figurative and abstract works depict strange, otherworldly and sometimes romantic night scenes.
Rachid Koraïchi: Celestial Blue
Rachid Koraichi Les ailes bleues des Anges 2022 acrylic on canvas 150 x 150 cm Copyright Rachid Koraichi and Factum Arte Photo Oak Taylor Smith Courtesy O.jpg
In this solo exhibition, Algerian artist, sculptor and ceramicist Rachid Koraïchi explores symbolism, tradition, form and poetry on square canvases of exquisite indigo blue.
Ulla von Brandenburg: Thoughts Are Things
Ulla von Brandenburg, Untitled, 2024
Courtesy the artist and Pilar Corrias
Paris-based German artist Ulla von Brandenburg – a 2016 Marcel Duchamp Prize finalist – presents ceramic sculptures, brightly-coloured quilts, paintings and films to create a “dreamlike, playful maze”, a vibrant vision of how “form, colour and sound intermingle”.
Barry McGlashan: The Distant Ideal
Satellites, 2023, Barry McGlashan
Courtesy of the artist and Frestonian Gallery
Scottish artist Barry McGlashan’s exquisite otherworldly paintings usually feature a single figure – who might be painting, looking out at the sea, leaning on a tree, or walking through hills. They are quiet, intimate and speak to the passage of time. The Distant Ideal continues this exploration.
Richard Hudson, Knot Marble
Courtesy of the artist and Claridge’s ArtSpace
Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst curates this multidisciplinary exhibition of work by three artists from the same family: sculptor Richard Hudson, and his sons Henry and Richard WM. The Hudsons use a range of materials – including clay, plasticine, scagliola, and wood – to explore nature and natural forms.
Bloomberg New Contemporaries
Every year, Camden Art Centre celebrates exciting up-and-coming talent in its New Contemporaries show. This year’s show features 55 emerging artists whose wide-ranging works tackle issues including climate change, identity politics and kinship.
Turner and Bonington: Watercolours from the Wallace Collection
J.M.W. Turner, Hackfall, near Ripon, c. 1816
The Trustees of the Wallace Collection
Travel around Europe in this one-room “small gem of an exhibition”: a display of watercolours by Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-1828) and JMW Turner (1775-1851) which are on show for the first time in 17 years.
Joshua Leon: The Missing O and E
Installation view, The Missing O and E
Courtesy of the artist and Chisenhale Gallery
In The Missing O and E, writer, poet and artist Joshua Leon uses sculpture and sound to explore memories, heritage and Jewish life by detailing the history of his grandfather’s name. It altered over time – sometimes through choice, sometimes through fear.
Ainu Stories: Contemporary Lives by the Saru River
Ainu Stories Contemporary Lives by the Saru River
The Cipsanke boat festival in Nibutani. Image: Ogawa Masaki
The Ainu people are an ethnic group native to the north of Japan and its surrounding islands. In this special collaborative exhibition with the people of Biratori, Japan House presents a glimpse into their contemporary lives through a series of intimate video interviews.
Michèle Lamy & Loree Rodkin x Rick Owens
Portrait of Michele Lamy
Photography by Tim Verhallen, courtesy of the artist
French designer Michèle Lamy is a fixture of Paris’s fashion and art crowd. Not only is she the life partner of fashion designer Rick Owens, but over her six-decade career she has worked as a cabaret dancer, lawyer, producer, entrepreneur, artist and model. She also makes jewellery with celebrated designer Loree Rodkin, whose earrings, ring and bracelets were worn by Michelle Obama to Barack’s inaugural ball. At Carpenter’s Workshop their rings are on show alongside some of Owen’s own design pieces.
Shuvinai Ashoona: When I Draw
Installation view, photo by Stephen James
Courtesy of the artist and The Perimeter
Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona started drawing in the Nineties to earn money for food and cigarettes – “smoke money,” as she calls it. Now, her works have been exhibited internationally and were recently celebrated at the 2022 Venice Biennale. Combining everyday scenes of life, land and community in the Canadian Arctic with imagery associated with Inuit animism and shamanism, the pieces are illuminating, sometimes funny, and often dreamlike.
Alison Jacques, London, and Alexander Gray Associates, New York © The Betty Parsons Foundation; photo: Michael Brzezinski
By day, Betty Parsons was a visionary New York gallerist. By night, she was an abstract painter and sculptor. Here is a selection of her playful and colourful works: “I would give up my gallery in a second if the world would accept me as an artist,” she once said.
Wendell Castle: Suspended Disbelief
Suspended Disbelief, exhibition view, photography by Benjamin Baccarani
Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery
The works of sculptor Wendell Castle (1932-2018), one of the founding fathers of the American Art Furniture Movement, could be best described as ink splashes rendered in 3D. Here a range of the astonishing sculptural design pieces, created over his celebrated career, are on display.
Zheng Bo: Bamboo as Method
Hong Kong based artist Zheng Bo uses film, dance and installation in their work to explore the connections between nature, biology and queer sexuality. In this large-scale commission, they have transformed Somerset House’s courtyard into a bamboo garden, creating an elegant sanctuary for contemplation and restoration.
Atta Kwami, Dzidzɔ kple amenuveve (Joy and Grace) 2021-22: Maria Lassnig Prize Mural
The Serpentine’s public art mural is a bright delight. One of Ghanaian painter, printmaker, historian and curator Atta Kwami’s (1956 – 2021) last ever works, the prize-winning painted construction, which is titled Joy and Grace in the West African language Ewe, is just that.
Tim Stoner, Marbella Club, 2021/2023
© The artists, courtesy of Lisson Gallery
This group exhibition, presented across both of Lisson Gallery’s London spaces, showcases the work of eight artists who have all cultivated their practices in London over the past three decades, as the city has gone through a number of radical socio-political shifts.
Raqs Media Collective: Come Undone
Raqs Media Collective, Twisted Time, 2024
Courtesy of the artists and Frith Street Gallery
New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective, which is made up of artist-curator-researchers Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, presents a series of work centred around the shape of the knot. Expect glass knots, carpets, videos, a curated soundtrack, sculptures and engravings.
Courtesy of the artist and Annely Juda Fine Art
French painter and sculptor François Morellet (1926-2016), a pioneer of geometrical abstract art, explored perception, hierarchies and pre-established systems in his celebrated works. Here, a number of his signature light installations are on display.
Aria Dean: Abattoir
Courtesy of the artist and ICA
In her first UK exhibition, American artist and writer Aria Dean explores modernity and death through the instantly recognisable and provocative architecture of an abattoir. The large animated film installation is accompanied by an immersive score (so described because it incorporates algorithmically generated sounds, field recordings and instrumentals) by Evan Zierk.
Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and The Art of Protest
Sheida Soleimani, Delara, 2015
© Sheida Soleimani. Courtesy of Edel Assanti
Anti-rape demonstrations in Bangladesh, Iranian unrest after Mahsa Amini’s death, reactions to the US Supreme Court overturning of Roe vs Wade – these are just a few of the global events depicted in Acts of Resistance. The group photography exhibition, which has been organised in collaboration with the V&A, explores documentation as a tool of protest.
Judith Bernstein: Truth And Chaos
Courtesy the artist , Emalin, London and Karma International, Zurich. Photo by Stephen James
An outspoken feminist and anti-war activist, New Jersey-born Judith Bernstein has spent her career making provocative large-scale drawings of genitalia. Her first exhibition in London in over a decade is a retrospective of 30 years of her startling, confrontational works.
Zeinab Saleh, Early morning, 2024
Courtesy of the artist and Tate Britain
Art Now is Tate Britain’s long-running exhibition series spotlighting rising stars in the art scene; this time, it’s Kenyan-born and London-based artist Zeinab Saleh’s turn to shine. Drawing on everyday experiences and memories, Saleh uses patterns and silhouettes in soft colours to create a feeling of otherworldliness and intimacy.
Leo Robinson: DREAM-BRIDGE-OMNIGLYPH
Leo Robinson: DREAM–BRIDGE–OMNIGLYPH, installation view, 2023
Photo: Marcus Leith
Bloomberg’s City of London basement is full of surprises. It not only consists of an art gallery, but it is home to parts of an ancient Roman temple and showcases a number of Roman artefacts too. Its next art commission is DREAM-BRIDGE-OMNIGLYPH, a collection of multimedia works from British artist Leo Robinson that explores ancient myths, personal identity, history, tradition and colonialism.
Soufiane Ababri: Their mouths were full of bumblebees but it was me who was pollinated
Soufiane Ababri. Photo: Rebecca Fanuele
Moroccan artist Soufiane Ababri’s first major solo UK exhibition is a tender investigation of queerness, desire and diasporic life through drawings and set design: “This atmospheric installation won’t give up all its secrets to everyone, but it’s evocative nonetheless,” said the Standard.
The Conservatory x Ranjani Shettar
Installation view of Ranjani Shettar: Cloud songs on the horizon
Courtesy Barbican Centre, KNMA, Ranjani Shettar © Max Colson, Barbican Art Gallery
Not that anyone really needs an excuse to visit the Barbican’s gorgeous conservatory, but the space now features five large-scale works from Indian sculptor Ranjani Shettar. The delightful sculptures, which have been inspired by nature, have been crafted by hand using materials – including wood, stainless steel, muslin – and techniques that are used in traditional Indian craftwork.
Beyond The Matrix: A Sculptural Exhibition by Jodie Carey
Beyond The Matrix: A Sculptural Exhibition by Jodie Carey
AWITA x Brookfield Properties, Beyond the Matrix
British artist Jodie Carey’s large-scale installations extend across the giant glass foyer of this east London office, inviting viewers to contemplate the anthropocene, material memory, and the relationship between objects and their environment.
Art Without Heroes: Mingei
From the collections of the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts
Mingei, meaning ‘the art of the people’, is an early 20th century Japanese folk-craft style which encompassed ceramics, woodwork, paper, toys, textiles, photography and film. In this wide-ranging, illuminating show, unseen pieces, museum loans and archival footage tell the story of the influential movement.
Frederic, Lord Leighton PRA, Flaming June, c. 1895.
Museo de Arte de Ponce. Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
Frederic Leighton’s most famous painting, the exquisite Flaming June, was originally part of the British artist’s submission to the RA’s Summer Exhibition in 1895. Now, 128 years later, it’s on show at the institution again (on loan from the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico), being shown alongside work from both Leighton and his contemporaries. For mega fans, there’s a curator’s talk about the iconic painting on March 15.
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