Tate Modern is hosting the first major UK exhibition on visual activist Zanele Muholi. The non-binary photographer has been documenting the lives of the Black LGBTQ+ communities in South Africa for twenty years, capturing their love, empowerment and strength alongside the trauma they have often endured. The exhibition includes over 260 of Muholi’s photographs from across their career, including the self-portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama that explores themes of labour, sexual politics and racism.
TRACEY EMIN / EDVARD MUNCH | THE LONELINESS OF THE SOUL
7th December 2020 — 28th February 2021
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD, UK
Tracey Emin has been a fan of Edvard Munch (you know him for The Scream) since she was 18 and she’s exploring her love for the Expressionist painter with this exhibition at the Royal Academy. She’s selected oils and watercolours by Munch to sit alongside over 25 of her own works, including paintings, neons and sculptures that explore the loneliness of the soul, so you can see how he has been an inspiration for her.
LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE | FLY IN LEAGUE WITH THE NIGHT
Tate Britain is hosting the first major exhibition on British artist and writer Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, with around 80 works spanning 2003 to the present day on display. Yiadom-Boakye is known for her portraits of fictitious people, which she creates from found images and her imagination, and she gives her pieces poetic titles as writing is also central to her artistic practices.
BAGS | INSIDE OUT
12th December 2020 - 12th September 2021
£12
Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London, UK
The V&A is celebrating the ultimate fashion accessory; the bag. Over 300 pieces, from the 16th century to today, will be on display including Winston Churchill’s dispatch box, Margaret Thatcher’s Asprey handbag, a Fendi baguette featured in Sex and the City, a Hermes Kelly, and a Lady Dior. The exhibition not only explores how bags are made but what they come to represent.
FANTASTIC BEASTS | THE WONDER OF NATURE
You’ve read the books, seen the films and now you can step inside the world of Fantastic Beasts with this exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Inspired by the wizarding world, this display explores the wonders of the natural world have inspired myths and legends for centuries.
WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR
The 56th Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is being hosted at the Natural History Museum. The display features awarded images selected from almost 50,000 entries and it showcases the beauty and diversity of the natural world, with everything from Atlantic puffins to Alaskan bears to Kenyan hippopotamuses depicted in the photographs.
DUB LONDON | BASSLINE OF A CITY
The Museum of London is celebrating the history and the influence that dub music has had on London over the last 50 years with the Dub London: Bassline of a City exhibition. The display charts the way dub has impacted other genres like drum & bass, garage, hip hop and punk, as well as its links to fashion, spirituality and community. The exhibition features a range of objects and stories from some of the most iconic people involved in dub, including a Channel One Sound System speaker stack, a bespoke record shop created with Papa Face of Dub Vendor Reggae Specialist, and a record selection curated in collaboration with some of the best indie record shops in town.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS | THE FIGHT FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS
We’ve come a long way in terms of women’s rights but we’ve still got a long way to and the British Library is shining a light on that with this major exhibition. It explores the roots of feminist activism in the UK; the way contemporary activists work online and offline to fight causes like period poverty, abortion rights and support for refugee women; and how inequality manifests itself differently depending on race, class, gender identity and sexuality. Women like Cornelia Sorabji, the first woman to study law at Oxford University, and Hope Powell, the first British woman to gain the highest European football coaching license, are profiled in the exhibition alongside by works by Khadija Saye, Jo Spence,Sisters Uncut and Southall Black Sisters.
ARTEMISIA
3rd October 2020 - 24th January 2021
National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, UK
The National Gallery is hosting the first major exhibition of Artemisia Gentileschi’s work in the UK. Working in the 17th century when female artists were not widely accepted, Artemisia broke boundaries, becoming a successful painter and the first woman to gain membership to the artists’ academy in Florence. The exhibition features her best-known works, including two versions of her iconic ‘Judith beheading Holofernes’, self portraits, and recently discovered personal letters.
END OF A CENTURY
Newport Street Gallery is hosting a solo exhibition on Damien Hirst, featuring over 50 pieces from early in his career, covering his time as a student in the 80s and his rise to leading contemporary artist in the 90s, including many rarely shown together. As well as works from series like Natural History, Spot Paintings, Spin Paintings and Medicine Cabinets, End of a Century will also feature some pieces that have never been exhibited before, like ‘Up, Up and Away’, three ducks suspended in formaldehyde; ‘Waster’, a vitrine filled with medical waste; and large-scale pill cabinet ‘Prototype for Infinity’.
TURNER'S MODERN WORLD
This exhibition at Tate Britain explores how J.M.W Turner captured the advances and inventions of the Industrial Revolution, like steam boats and railway engines, in his work, as well as the big political events of his day. Major Turner pieces from around the world have been brought together for the show, including The Fighting Temeraire and Rain, Steam and Speed, so it’s a must for any Turner fans.
BRUCE NAUMAN
Tate Modern is hosting the first major London exhibition on contemporary American artist Bruce Nauman in over 20 years. Nauman is best known for his neon light pieces but throughout his career he’s worked across film, sound, sculpture and printmaking, and this display features a number of his immersive installations.
THE COVID LETTERS
Jonny Banger, founder of streetwear label Sports Banger, started a poster project during lockdown, asking young people to customise the letter that Boris Johnson sent out to every household as restrictions were imposed, to articulate their feelings about the government, the pandemic and the NHS and transform the letter into a protest poster. Now Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller has invited Banger to show the letters, which are being exhibited at The Foundling Museum. The Covid Letters features over 200 works from the project, all created by young people under the age of 16.
ARCTIC | CULTURE AND CLIMATE
22nd October 2020 – 21st February 2021
British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, UK
See how the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic have carved a way of life in the region through their resourcefulness and through harnessing the weather at this exhibition at the British Museum. With a range of objects, from ancient mammoth ivory sculptures to modern refitted snow mobiles, on display, the show explores the culture of Arctic Peoples and how their way of life is under threat from climate change.
TANTRA | ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION
24th September 2020 – 24th January 2021
British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, UK
The British Museum is hosting a major exhibition on Tantra, the philosophy centred on the power of the divine feminine energy that has had a huge impact on religion, culture and politics in India and on contemporary feminist thought. Tantra is often misrepresented in the West – it’s not just about sex – so this exhibition, which features object from India, Nepal, Tibet, Japan and the UK from the seventh century AD to the present, explores it in proper detail.
ELECTRONIC | FROM KRAFTWERK TO THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS
31st July 2020 - 14th February 2021
Design Museum, Kensington High Street, London, UK
The Design Museum is celebrating the world of electronic music with this major new exhibition. Evoking the feeling of being in a club, the display will feature a range of multimedia pieces that span early rave to Detroit techno to the Berlin scene and beyond. Explore 3D shows from Kraftwerk and The Chemical Brothers, large scale images from Andreas Gursky, a soundtrack by Laurent Garnier, rave fashion, graphics for labels and club nights, and more.
TITIAN | LOVE, DESIRE, DEATH
8th July 2020 - 17th January 2021
Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, London WC2N 5DN, UK
The six Titian paintings that make up his series based on classical myths are being shown together for the first time in over 400 years at the National Gallery. The exhibition, which features ‘Diana and Actaeon’ and ‘Diana and Callisto’, as well works on loan from Boston and Madrid, showcase his talents as an artist and as a storyteller – we can see his expert use of paint and colour as well as the way he manages to convey emotion and drama.
