Exhibition
DOTCOM SEANCE
An immense public exhibition by Simon Denny, installed within the new entertainment district Outernet London, will explore the influence of technology on global culture and political development. Dotcom Séance will take 21 dotcom-era companies that were declared ‘dead’ after the crash of the early 2000s and resurrect them, and the resulting exhibition will be presented on the floor-to-ceiling, 360-degree 16K screens on the outside of The Now Building every Sunday. In bringing these companies back to life decades after they went bust, Denny wants to reevaluate their relevance in this hyper-modern era of Web3 and highlight the cyclical nature of businesses in the technology industry.
LUCIAN FREUD | NEW PERSPECTIVES
The first major exhibition of Lucian Freud’s work in ten years at The National Gallery spans a lifetime of work from one of Britain’s most well-known figurative painters. Paintings from seven decades will be on display, showing how Freud’s style developed, moving from intimate works to large-canvases to huge naked portraits, with the exhibition looking beyond Freud’s own personal fame to understand his role in painting in the 20th century.
STRANGE CLAY | CERAMICS IN CONTEMPORARY ART
The Hayward Gallery is hosting Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, the UK’s first large-scale group exhibition exploring artists’ inventive use of clay. The gallery will be filled with entirely ceramic works (that’s right, that squid is made out of clay) from 23 artists, a mix of legends, like Betty Woodman, Beate Kuhn, Ron Nagle and Ken Price, and up-and-coming talent. From smaller-scale uncanny takes on everyday objects to immense immersive installations, Strange Clay will explore social justice, the body, the domestic, the political and the lengths artists can reach with clay alone.
CEZANNE
A master of individual style, Paul Cezanne is being celebrated at the Tate Modern with The EY Exhibition: Cezanne. Bringing together a collection of his still lifes, landscapes and paintings of bathers (some never before presented in the UK), the show will journey through Cezanne’s life, from his youth as an artist eager for official recognition in Paris, to his relentless pursuit of a unique approach during his later years. And you can pair your visit to the exhibition with two-course lunch from the Tate’s Kitchen and Bar for £46.80 (including the price of entry).
OBJECTS OF DESIRE | SURREALISM & DESIGN, 1924 - TODAY
From the dawn of Surrealism in 1924 to the present day, the Design Museum’s Objects of Desire is exploring how the art movement has impacted design. Throughout the 20th century, Surrealist pioneers have questioned the conventional, from early adopters such as Salvador Dalí, Dora Maar, Man Ray, Leonora Carrington and Lee Miller, to contemporary artists including Schiaparelli, Dior and Björk. With Objects of Desire, the Design Museum brings together the best in Surrealist furniture, interior design, fashion, photography and world-renowned artworks to unravel the fascinating history behind them.
The Science Museum’s most ambitious exhibition to date, Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination puts you at the heart of an interactive science fiction story. Starting off in the Bio Lab, explore various iconic objects that examine the human desire to journey beyond our world – including a hypersleep chamber from Prometheus, a replica of the Apollo 17 Space Suit worn by Gene Cernan and a scale model of a radio telescope – with the help of an AI Guide. Then, travel through a wormhole Jumpgate to another world full of bioluminescent creatures who interact through a hive mind. Back on the Visualisation Deck, you’ll learn about how science fiction reflects real, contemporary concerns and challenges through artworks and artefacts. And, to close, on the Observation Deck you’ll be able to view Earth from space through a huge window. Ever wanted to jet off into space? This is the next best thing.
HUMAN STORIES | THE SATIRISTS
This autumn, NOW Gallery in Greenwich Peninsula is presenting an exhibition of photography by emerging talent that explores the concept of satire. Human Stories: The Satirists collates work from six rising stars of the scene, Bubi Canal, Leonard Suryajaya, Nyugen Smith, Thandiwe Muriu, Thy Tran and Stephen Tayo, that utilises the irreverence and flair of satire to challenge biases and develop new dialogues. Through the featured work, this exhibition invites us to glimpse into the varied cultural perspectives and see how satire interweaves diverse identities, gender, race and class.
Seeing Auschwitz, an exhibition created by Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, is going on show in London, with over 100 images taken by perpetrators, victims and liberators on display. The exhibition is designed to highlight the horrors of what happened at Auschwitz as well as the humanity of the people who did there, and it explores both the photographic evidence of the camp and the construction of the collective memory of it, with audio guides including testimonies from survivors. Part of the revenue from the tickets will be donated to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland to help their efforts in preserving the site.
Daniel Sachon’s never-before-seen photography series BITCHES is landing in Soho during Frieze week. The star-studded and irreverent photographs depict fabulous women paired with matching dogs, with the title being a playful double entendre. Featuring the likes of Georgia May Jagger, Nadia Lee Cohen, Ivy Getty, Cora Corre, Jourdan Dunn, Mimi Wade, Beauty Spock, Ivana Vladislava, Zizi Donohoe, BITCHES embraces our obsession with commerce, culture, glamour and celebrity and celebrates some key women in popular culture.
THROUGH THE LENS AT THE MUSEUM OF THE HOME
Marking Hackney Foodbank’s 10th anniversary, Through the Lens is a new exhibition featuring photographs taken by visitors of the food bank. Over the summer, Hackney Foodbank worked with photographer and Hackney local Jenny Matthews to run a photography project, bringing together a group of visitors to the food bank each week to learn the craft of photography with cameras provided. The visitors would then go out and shoot pictures as they went about their daily lives, the result being this exhibition which features two of the food bank’s regulars, Angela and Daniel. Pat Fitzsimons, Chief Executive Officer of Hackney Foodbank, says she believes the exhibition will “fuel conversations around what action can be taken by everyday people to support those in our communities who are struggling during extremely challenging times.”
MEXICO AT KEW
For this year’s autumn festival, Kew Gardens is transforming Temperate House into a little slice of Mexico, celebrating the country’s culture and biodiversity (it’s home to 26,000 species of flowers and 12% of the world’s biodiversity). Mexican artist Betsabeé Romero is creating two installations: Flower of Light and Song, which draws on the traditions of Dia de los Muertos, with a giant chandelier that references the Mexican marigold; and The Alter, inspired by the Mayan Day of the Dead celebration, which will be a space for thoughtful reflection and commemoration. Mexican designer Fernando Laposse is also installing golden sloths made fromplant fibres throughout the canopy, and garden designer Jon Wheatley will showcase an array of Mexican plants in a display inspired by the subtropical rainforest in the Sierra Gorda mountains.
KOESTLER ARTS | FREEDOM
The Southbank Centre is hosting Freedom, an exhibition of artworks by incarcerated people curated by Ai Weiwei. Organised by the Koestler Arts charity, which encourages ex-offenders, detainees and secure patients to express themselves creatively, the show will mark 60 years of the Koestler Awards, a prize initiative by the charity to recognise the achievements of people across the UK’s criminal justice system. A hugely prominent Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei was himself detained in 2011 when, after investigating government corruption, he was sentenced to 81 days in prison with no charge. Now, he says this exhibition will explore the role creativity plays in life under constraints. Freedom will collate artworks by people in prisons, mental health facilities, immigration detainment centres, and young offender institutions, while the space itself will be transformed to preserve the environment in which the pieces were made.
We’re no strangers to immersive art experiences in London but Frameless is taking things to a whole new level. It’s the capital’s first permanent digital art experience, featuring some of the world’s most iconic artworks spread across the walls, floors and ceilings of a 30,000 sq ft space. You can get up close and personal with over 40 works from 28 artists, including the likes of Klimt, Munch, Kandinsky, Monet, Rembrandt, Dali, Cezanne and van Gogh. The Frameless experience is spread across four different themed galleries – Beyond Reality, Colour In Motion, The World Around Us and The Art Of Abstraction – with bespoke musical scores accompanying the displays.
GAVIN BOND | BEING THERE
To coincide with London Fashion Week, Claridge’s is hosting Gavin Bond: Being There, a selection of unseen archive imagery from the photographer taken during the early 90s, at Claridge’s ArtSpace, the free gallery within the hotel. The exhibition will include photographs featuring designers like Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier, Valentino and Versace, and the supermodels including Kate, Naomi, Claudia and Carla, some rendered in large scale vinyls, alongside scrapbooks, fashion show invitations and video footage from the time.
YINKA ILORI | PARABLES FOR HAPPINESS
The Design Museum is hosting the first museum display exploring the work of Yinka Ilori. The exhibition will showcase elements of his signature colourful aesthetic and the inspirations behind it, including the cultural diversity of the North London diaspora community where he grew up. Over 100 objects, from artworks and photographs to textiles and furniture will be on display, including his LEGO Launderette of Dreams and his multi-coloured pedestrian crossings.
Frieze Sculpture is back in Regent’s Park this autumn to coincide with the return of Frieze London. The free display has been curated by Clare Lilley for the tenth consecutive year and features 19 pieces that address themes like the importance of community, mythology and the sensibility of women from the likes of Péju Alatise, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Matthew Darbyshire, Ida Ekblad, Tim Etchells, John Giorno, N.S. Harsha, Emma Hart, Robert Indiana, Jordy Kerwick, Alicja Kwade. This year, Frieze Sculpture is also working with Sculpture in the City and the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Programme, and together the trio will form Sculpture Week London, a city-wide celebration of public art.
THE HORROR SHOW! | A TWISTED TALE OF MODERN BRITAIN
Punks, witches, subversive icons and ghostly figures will be haunting Somerset House, and just in time for Halloween, as The Horror Show! looks back over 50 years of British counter-culture. The landmark exhibition will explore the UK’s alternative history in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch – using horror archetypes to examine defining eras and make sense of the uncanny. The collection will bring together over 200 artworks by key players and culturally significant objects from the past five decades. Featured artists are set to include Jamie Reid, Pam Hogg, Leigh Bowery, Noel Fielding, Derek Jarman, Harminder Judge, Zadie Xa and Tai Shani, among many others.
TYLER MITCHELL | CHRYSALIS
Best known for shooting Beyonce in an epic flower crown for the September issue of Vogue in 2018, Tyler Mitchell is having his first solo exhibition in London at Gagosian. Chrysalis features photographs and videos shot in upstate New York, NYC and London, and through their theatrical and surrealist style, they present an idyllic vision of Black beauty and belonging whilst referencing the history of photographs of Black people from the South.