TOP 24 LONDON EXHIBITIONS THIS SEPTEMBER
The Capital's Unmissable Art Shows this September 2024
The weather might be cooling, but things are hotting up in the art world this September, with the 40th Turner Prize show, the grand return of Yayoi Kusama and a brand new view of London from Monet's eye.
We've also got shows from the two poster girls for women's empowerment - Barbie and Taylor Swift - plus a garden made entirely from DENIM; and some major photography shows via Sir Elton John and Princess Diana.
Take a trippy journey through spiritual worlds, celebrate art and sound, visit cartoonish hospitals and explore Japanese art and design, among our top 24 London exhibitions this September, below:
__________________________
Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray for Love
Following her Instagram-conquering Infinity Rooms exhibition, the Queen of light, polka dots and pumpkins returns this September for her 14th solo exhibition at Victoria Miro.
She will premiere a shiny, new Infinity Mirror Room and introduce works from a new series of paintings.
Victoria Miro, London. 25 September - 2 November. FREE, but booking is essential
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. 27 September - 19 January. £16pp
Ian Berry: The Secret Garden
This magical garden never needs watering and its garden paths, roses, cacti, wisteria, dangling vines and fish pond are all various shades of blue, because the entire oasis is made entirely from DENIM jeans. Kids and adults will love exploring Ian Berry’s impossibly clever, FREE exhibition, which explores themes of sustainability in the textile industries and the importance of access to green spaces in the city for young minds.
Ian Berry: The Secret Garden at Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Rd, London SE1 7LB. until 8 September. FREE
HSF Portrait Award 2024 at National Portrait Gallery
Formerly the BP Portrait Award, this much-loved, annual exhibition has returned to National Portrait Gallery, celebrating the best in contemporary portraiture, with an exciting and diverse mix of painting styles and subjects.
Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2024 at National Portrait Gallery. until 27 October, free.
FREE Taylor Swift Exhibition Launches at V&A
If there hasn’t been enough Swift mania engulfing your feeds, news and world, The V&A has launched a FREE Taylor Swift exhibition.
Fourteen looks from the 14-time Grammy winner’s personal collection are showcased, in the theatrical, Taylor Swift - Songbook Trail.
The pop juggernaut’s career is traced through iconic costumes, accessories, instruments, awards, storyboards and previously unseen items, on loan from Swift’s personal archive.
Taylor Swift - Songbook Trail, V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL. Until 8 September 2024. FREE
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
Francis Alÿs: Ricochets
A new immersive exhibition celebrating the universality and ingenuity of play: Ricochets is the largest institutional show in the UK by internationally renowned artist Francis Alÿs in almost 15 years.
For the past two decades, Alÿs has travelled the world to film the critically acclaimed series Children’s Games: from ‘musical chairs’ in Mexico, to ‘leapfrog’ in Iraq, ‘jump rope’ in Hong Kong, and ‘wolf and lamb’ in Afghanistan.
Ricochets transforms The Barbican into a cinematic playground: throughout the exhibition, with multi-screen film installations focussing on children’s games.
The Barbican, Silk St, Barbican, London EC2Y 8DS. Until 1 September
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.
Suspended States at Serpentine Galleries
For more than 30 years, Yinka Shonibare CBE has used Western culture to explore national identities. Suspended States is his first London solo exhibition in more than 20 years. It showcases new works, exploring how power affects sites of refuge, debates on public statues, the ecological impact of colonialisation and the legacy of imperialism on conflict.
It includes two new major installations, like Sanctuary City, comprised of miniature buildings representing places of refuge, and The War Library, which is constructed from 5,000 books bound in Dutch wax print, representing conflicts and peace treaties.
Suspended States. Serpentine South Gallery, London W2 3XA. Until 1 September. FREE.
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 30 November
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
Princess Diana: Accredited Access Exhibition
The nation’s fascination with Princess Diana isn’t going away any time soon. And a new exhibition promises to give a behind-the-scenes journey through her life, via art installations and 75 life-sized photographs by her official photographers.
They include the famous image of her sitting alone outside the Taj Mahal and the 'revenge dress' she wore the night King Charles admitted adultery. Her story is told through the lenses of Anwar Hussein and his two sons, Samir and Zak, her longest standing photographers, who share what they heard and witnessed during these iconic moments, in the accompanying audio guide.
Princess Diana: Accredited Access Exhibition. Dockside Vaults, Ivory House, London E1W 1AT. Until 2 September. Tickets: £17/adult, £15/child.
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.
The Vinyl Factory: REVERB
The Vinyl Factory explores the intersection of art and sound with a major new multimedia exhibition at 180 Studios. Bringing together more than 100 artists and musicians working across visual arts, music, film and live performance, the show features 18 installations, including audio visual pieces and sonic experiences. There will also be a chill out space to listen to vinyl, plus live performances, talks and UK premieres of many ambitious new artworks.
The Vinyl Factory, 180 Studios, 180 Strand, Temple, London WC2R 1EA.Until 28 September.
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
Polly Braden: Leaving Ukraine
Polly Braden has used her camera to document the lives of women, children and babies scattered across Europe since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. And this deeply moving exhibition uses photography and film to share their extraordinary journeys, from job interviews, first days at school, trips to buy wedding dresses and poignant family reunions. Following four central stories, we see teenagers grow into young adults and babies into toddlers.
Foundling Museum, Brunswick Square, London. £12.75. 21 and under go free. Until 1 September
Japan: Myths to Manga at Young V&A
Take a trip through Japan and explore how landscape and folklore have influenced Japanese art, technology and design, featuring a seal shaped robotic comforter, Hello Kitty paraphrenalia, draw your own Manga characters and learn nifty facts about Sylvanian Families toys being born out of hundreds-of-years old netsuke animal sculptures.
Young V&A Museum, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PA. General Museum access, free. Until 8 September
Yoko Ono: Music for the Mind
Spanning more than seven decades and featuring over 200 artworks, this is the UK’s largest exhibition celebrating Ono’s groundbreaking, multidisciplinary career, from the mid-1950s to now – including her years in London where she met her future husband and longtime collaborator John Lennon.
It includes her Instruction Pieces, which you can interact with - shaking hands with a stranger through a hole; making a peace wish and tying it to a tree; drawing on a boat installation; completing tasks inside a black bag and playing chess with all-white pieces as well as her most famous pieces, like the banned Bottoms film and Cut Piece, where people were invited to cut off her clothing.
Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Until 1 September. £20 per adult. Free for under 12s.
Immersive Lego Exhibition
Aptly opening on Brick Lane, The Art of Brick brings its Lego masterpieces to London, following tours of more than 100 cities in 24 countries.
The exhibition features artist Nathan Sawaya's Lego recreations of some of the world’s most famous artworks, from Michelangelo’s David to Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Among the wonders, visitors will also find a 6-metre-long reproduction of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton
Kids (and big kids) can also make their own masterpieces at the play and build area.
The Boiler House, 152 Brick Lane, London, E1 6RU. Until 8 September
The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks
Lightroom leapt inside David Hockney’s brain for his juggernaut retrospective and now turns its immersive technology to space, with added Tom Hanks.
The Apollo 13 star narrates the audio-visual experience, which offers a unique new perspective on humankind’s past and future voyages to the moon.
Telling the stories of the Apollo missions in intimate detail, The Moonwalkers also provides an insight into the impending return of crewed surface missions by going behind-the-scenes of the Artemis programme, including interviews between Hanks and Artemis astronauts.
If your own trip to the moon is looking unlikely, the immersive gallery promises the next best thing, with its tech-wizardry taking visitors on a voyage to our closest celestial neighbour.
Lightroom, 12, Lewis Cubitt Square, London N1C 4DY. Until 13 October 2024. Tickets from £25
Direct from Graceland: Elvis
Elvis is in the building - not Graceland, but Arches London Bridge. This retrospective of the King of Rock is bulging with 400 artefacts from his Memphis home, charting his humble beginnings and meteoric rise to fame.
It includes his prized Ferrari Dino, gold-plated telephone, jazzy, Vegas era jumpsuits, Aviators and iconic gold lamé suit.
Super-fans can even opt for the White Glove Experience, to hold the gold microphone used in his 1969 Vegas shows, and his Gold International Belt.
It’s easier than a trip to Memphis and has been such a hit, they’ve extended it until 14 April.
Arches London Bridge, 8 Bermondsey St, London SE1 2ER. Until 1 September 2024 Tickets from £19.90 pp
Frameless
Immersive art experiences are beckoning us to leap into paintings all over the world, but Frameless is art immersion on steroids. Situated in Marble Arch, it is the largest, permanent multi-sensory experience in the UK. Boasting four, themed galleries - Beyond Reality, Colour In Motion, The World Around Us and The Art Of Abstraction - with some of the world’s greatest works of art exploding across the walls, floors and ceilings of a 30,000 sq ft space. You can step inside more than 43 masterpieces by 28 artists, including Kandinsky, Monet, Van Gogh, Klimt, Munch, Monet, Rembrandt, Dali and Cezanne with musical scores accompanying each brushstroke.
Frameless, Marble Arch, London W1H 7FD, UK
Comments