TOP 18 LONDON EXHIBITIONS THIS JANUARY
The Capital's Unmissable Art Shows this January 2025
The January gloom has been illuminated with brilliant art this month, from Luke Jerram's new (much-needed) Sun to Battersea and Canary Wharf's light artists and Anthony McCall's Lost in Light.
There are also pierced nethers and wonderful characters from Alice Neel, a colourful exploration of the birth of Modernism in Brazil and a gaggle of shows to brighten up this otherwise grey month, among our guide to this month's top 18 exhibitions in London.
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At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World
One of our favourite, and most radical American painters of the 20th Century, Alice Neel’s legacy is further explored in Victoria Miro’s ninth exhibition of the late artist’s work.
This show focuses on her role within the LGBTQ community and highlights the her career-long commitment to depicting the human condition and painting people from many walks of life, with subjects in the show including friends, politicians, writers, artists and performers.
Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW. 30 January - 8 March
London Premiere of Luke Jerram’s NEW Helios Installation
Move over Mars, there’s a new star in town, in the extraordinary shape of Luke Jerram’s brand new Helios installation, which will make its London premiere at Old Royal Naval College.
The artist’s equally jaw-dropping Mars artwork will be replaced by the seven-meter celestial artwork of our largest star, to bring its vibrancy within touching distance in this cold winter.
Co-commissioned by the Old Royal Naval College, Helios promises a ‘winter sun’ escape in a stunning setting, complemented by a programme of events celebrating wellbeing and culture.
It offers a rare opportunity to closely examine the star’s surface in astonishing detail. At a scale of 1:200 million, every centimetre of the illuminated masterpiece represents 200km of the Sun’s fiery expanse.
Painted Hall, Old Royal Naval College, London SE10 9NN, 25 January - 25 March. £16.50
FREE Battersea Power Station Light Festival
The Power Station’s FREE annual light show returns, bigger, better and more interactive than ever, to shine some light into the January gloom.
Many of the eight spectacular installations include soundscapes and interactive elements which respond to people’s movements, like the LightPiano, which invites people to play with music and light; or Lightbattle III, for a cycling competition inside arches of light, with the ultimate winner awarded with a flood of colourful light.
Battersea Power Station, Circus Rd W, Nine Elms, London SW11 8DD. 23 January - 23 February. FREE
FREE Winter Lights, Canary Wharf
This gorgeous, free light trail returns for its ninth year, with 12 installations, including a towering stack of bath tubs, pulsating with light and music, portals, mirages, a 20m wide black hole. There are also sweet treats and hot drinks to fuel you on the adventure.
Winter Lights. Throughout Canary Wharf. 21 January - 1 February 2025. FREE
Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism
In the early 20th century a new modern art was emerging in Brazil, informed by the vibrant cultures, identities and landscapes of Brazil.
This major exhibition features more than 130 works by ten important Brazilian artists from the twentieth century - with many on show for the first time - capturing the diversity of Brazilian art its birth and colourful evolution.
Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. 28 Jan - 28 April.Tickets from £23.50 pp
Lost in Light
Immersive light and sound installation giants - and the brains behind Four Tet’s immersive gig settings - Squidsoup have filled three floors of a 26,000 sq ft former Shoreditch rave venue with their best suspended light and soundscape installations.
118 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3PJ. Until 5 January 2025. Tickets from £23 per adult or £12 per child
The World of Tim Burton
We whispered Beetlejuice three times, and the UK premiere of The World of Tim Burton has been announced at London's Design Museum.
Fittingly, the alchemist of whimsical goth horror’s exhibition launches just before Halloween, on 25 October, riding the crest of the hype-tsunami around the freshly released Beetlejuice 2 movie.
The show will showcase his work beyond the silver-screen, as an illustrator, painter, photographer and author, as well as key collaborations with designers.
Drawing from Burton’s personal archive and representing his creative output from childhood to the present day, this collection of drawings, paintings, photographs, sketchbooks, moving-image works, sculptural installations, set and costume design focuses on the recurrent visual themes and motifs found in Burton’s art and film worlds.
This will be the final stop in a decade-long world tour for this exhibition and will be its only ever showing in the UK.
The World of Tim Burton, Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High St, W8 6AG. 25 October 25 2024 - 21 April 2025. Tickets from £19.69 pp, Kid’s £9.85
Serial Killer: The Exhibition
Go behind the police tape, inside the dark minds of monsters like Dahmer, Manson and Bundy at Serial Killer: The Exhibition. Now open at The Vaults beneath Waterloo Station, this exhibition features crime scene recreations in seven immersive rooms, audio stories, VR headsets and more than 1000 original artefacts which belonged to some of the most notorious serial killers from history, from John Wayne Gacy’s paintings to Dahmer’s glasses. As well as exploring their methodology, typologies and psychological profiles, you’ll discover how investigative techniques have evolved over the years and, crucially, take time to honour the victims, who are poignantly named and pictured in the exhibition.
Serial Killer: The Exhibition - London. The Vaults, Leake St, London, SE1 7NN. Tickets from £21pp. Until 5 January
Marilyn: The Exhibition
This UK premiere offers a rare and unprecedented glimpse into the private world of the silverscreen icon.
From love letters, satin robes and timeless outfits to vintage shoes, make-up and accessories, this meticulously curated collection features 250 extraordinary objects from the exclusive private collection of Ted Stampfer, the world's largest collector of Marilyn's historical objects.
The eternally fascinating, Hollywood superstar's most personal belongings were locked in storage for almost 40 years before being dispersed across the globe, after being released to the world’s biggest auction houses.
Finally, this vast and extraordinary collection has been reunited for this show, revealing the woman behind the world’s most famous smile.
Marilyn: The Exhibition. Arches, London Bridge, 8 Bermondsey St, London SE1 2ER. Until 23 February 2025
Looks Delicious!
Shokuhin sanpuru – the Japanese concept of placing unexpectedly realistic food replicas in restaurant windows - has been celebrated, in this feast for the eyes.
Audiences can admire 47 of these skilfully-created models up close, with dishes ranging from Okinawan goya chanpuru (bitter melon stir fry) to the indigenous Ainu ohaw (soup with salmon) from the northern island of Hokkaido.
The free show explores the history, materials, processes and future potential of the craft.
Japan House, 101-111 Kensington High St, London W8 5SA. Until 16 February. FREE
Turner Prize 2024
Work by the four shortlisted Turner Prize artists will go on display from 25 September, ahead of the 40th year of the awards ceremony, which has made stars of everybody from Damien Hirst to Grayson Perry.
Delaine le Bas and Jasleen Kaur explore their Glaswegian Sikh and Roma heritages via immersive installations; Claudette Johnson examines the marginalisation of Black people in Western art, through striking figurative portraits, and Pio Abad reflects on colonialism, with drawings and sculptures of artefacts from Oxford museums.
Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG. 25 September - 16 February 2025
Monet and London - Views of the Thames
A world away from his water lilies and sunny gardens, Monet and London will realise the Impressionist’s unfulfilled ambition of showing this extraordinary group of paintings of London - just 300 metres from the Savoy Hotel where many of them were painted.
They demonstrate that some of his most remarkable Impressionist paintings were made not in France but in London, depicting views of the Thames with his trademark light, atmosphere and radiant colour.
The Courtauld Gallery, The Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries. Until 19 January. £16pp
Barbie: The Exhibition
The wonder doll (and society’s) evolution is charted in this luminous exhibition, which opened this month, to coincide with Barbie’s 65th birthday.
Exploring her story through a design lens including fashion, architecture, furniture and vehicle design, her plastic-fantastic universe has engulfed the Design Museum, showing changing attitudes to women’s careers - Barbie has had more than 250 jobs - race, sexuality, fashion and body image.
Highlights include a rare first edition of the very first doll released by Mattel in 1959, the first Black, Hispanic and Asian dolls to bear the Barbie name, as well as dolls that reflect today’s diverse, multicultural society, including the first Barbie with Down Syndrome, the first to use a wheelchair, and the first to be designed with a curvy body shape.
Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High St, London W8 6AG. Until 23 February 2025. Adult from £14.38. Children from £7.19
Anthony McCall - Solid Light at Tate Modern
The Godfather of immersive exhibitions, Anthony McCall brings his extraordinary, Solid Light show to Tate Modern on 27 June, inviting visitors to bring artworks to life through movements and interactions.
Beams of light projected through a thin mist create large, three-dimensional forms in space, which slowly shift and change. As you move through these translucent light sculptures, you’ll create new, airy sculptures.
Occupying a space between sculpture, cinema, drawing, and performance, McCall is known for his innovative installations of light. In 1973, his seminal work Line Describing a Cone redefined the possibilities of sculpture and this show is set to be the Tate’s next big blockbuster.
Anthony McCall: Solid Light. Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Until 27 April 2025. Tickets £10 pp.
Entheon at Illusionaries
Illusionaries, Canary Wharf's new multi-sensory art space, invites us on a journey through three immersive rooms and installations, designed to engage the senses through soundscapes, animation, projection and colour.
The UK premiere of the Entheon show sees international artists Alex and Allyson Grey explore the human condition, with kaleidoscopic pieces, showing the interconnectedness of the physical and spiritual worlds.
Alex and Allyson are also the co-founders of Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), a non-profit organisation dedicated to fostering creativity, spirituality and contemplation through art.
Entheon. Illusionaries, Crossrail Pl, London E14 5AR. Until 21 February
NAOMI in Fashion at V&A
The V&A will transform into the ultimate catwalk for a celebration of supermodel Naomi Campbell’s 40 year career, from 22 June. The show features more than 100 stunning outfits as well as iconic shots by some of the world’s biggest photographers, telling her extraordinary story and celebrating her creative collaborations, activism and far-reaching cultural impact.
Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RL. Until 6 April 2025
Fragile Beauty
Sir Elton John and David Furnish are sharing their extraordinary private collection of more than 300 rare prints from over 140 photographers, for V&A’s new, summer blockbuster. The show features photographers including Cindy Sherman, Ai Weiwei and Robert Mapplethorpe and includes portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Miles Davis.
It spans from the Fifties to the present day, covering the civil rights movement and AIDS activism to 9/11 and has eight themes, from the male body to fashion and celebrity. The show will be the gallery’s largest temporary exhibition of photography to date.
Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection in partnership with Gucci. Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RL. Until 5 January 2025. Tickets £20 pp.
Jason and the Adventure of 254
Artist Jason Wilsher-Mills presents his major (and FREE) solo exhibition, which transforms the gallery into a cartoonish hospital ward, full of surreal humour and kaleidoscopic colour, exploring his experience of becoming disabled as a child. The joyful show is perfect for all ages - you are invited to touch everything. Highlights include a giant installation of a figure in a hospital bed, Seb Coe with a TV for a head, huge calliper boots and penny arcade inspired dioramas.
Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Rd, London NW1 2BE. FREE. Until 12 January 2025
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