The Best Exhibitions in London | Guides | London on the Inside (2024)

AFRICA FASHION

The V&A is hosting a major exhibition on African fashion, the first in the museum’s history, spanning from the 1950s to contemporary designers and including garments, textiles, photography, sketches, film and music. Africa Fashion celebrates the diversity of fashion from across the continent by exploring the roleit played during the years of African independence and liberation; the importance of indigenous cloths in many African countries; the work of designers like Shade Thomas-Fahm, Chris Seydou, and Alphadi; photography from the likes of Sanlé Sory, Michel Papami Kameni and Rachidi Bissiriou; and cutting-edge African fashion, with pieces from Moshions,IAMISIGO, NKWO and Thebe Magugu on display.

CHIMPS ARE FAMILY

Make time for monkey business this summer and check out the 28 bronze chimpanzees that has landed in London Bridge. The Chimps Are Family art trail has been created by artists Gillie and Marc to showcase how similar chimps are to humans (we share 98% of our DNA) and raise awareness and funds for their conservation. Each of the sculptures demonstrates 18 different moods and behaviours shown by chimps, like friendship, grief, conflict, love and tool use, with QR codes on each one for you to scan to learn more about that individual chimpanzee.

SCULPTURE IN THE CITY

Each year City of London works with artists and partners to curate a new trail of artworks that forms the annual sculpture park, Sculpture in the City. This summer marks the 11th edition of the sculpture park and features the work of 20 world-class artists and spans the Square Mile. Walking the trail you’ll spot some works easily, for example Jesse Pollock’s The Granary is a large and very striking life-sized model of a traditional grain store, which speaks to the crises currently affecting British rural life. Others are more subtle and will take a closer look to find, like Oliver Bragg’s In Loving Memory, a bench plaque that reads “In loving memory of a loving memory”. The nature of the sculpture park means that it’s 100% free and open 24/7, so you can stroll up and view the art any time you like.

THE CONNOR BROTHERS | MYTHOMANIA

The Connor Borthers are showing drawings and canvases from their latest collection The Regression Series with Mythomania at Maddox Gallery Westbourne Grove. The body of work started from art therapy sessions that the pair did during lockdown where they were asked to draw sixty second sketches of whatever came to mind. These childlike drawings were then then developed into paintings featuring fantastical creatures like dragons, unicorns and dinosaurs, which nod to the creative freedom of childhood, juxtaposed with text that reference modern anxieties and obsessions.

GAIA

Luke Jerram, the artist who hung that model of the moon in the Natural History Museum in 2019 and has done the Earth at the Old Royal Naval College, is back with showing Gaia as part of the Kensington & Chelsea Festival. The illuminated 3D installation features detailed NASA imagery of the planet’s surface accompanied by surround sound from composer Dan Jones and will be hung outdoors in Jubilee Square by Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall.

KRISTOF SANTY | LA GRANDE BOUFFE

Unit London is hosting La Grande Bouffe, the first solo UK exhibition of new work by Belgian artist Kristof Santy. Translating to ‘the big feast’, the exhibition explores the simple pleasure of food and cooking through paintings of kitchenware, market stalls, produce and fishing boats. Santy’s style draws inspo from pop art, folk art, retro cookbooks and arthouse film, and through his use of bright colours and flattened planes, he forgoes any sense of narrative, instead focusing on the fundamentals of daily life.

KLIMT | THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

Van Gogh and Frida and Diegohave been done and now Gustav Klimt is getting the immersive treatment. A 360-degree digital art exhibition featuring the works of the Austrian artist, best known for his gold-adorned paintings, is here after wowing art lovers in the States.Klimt: The Immersive Experienceuses cutting-edge tech to create two-storey projections of the artist’s most famous pieces, including The Kiss, Judith and the Head of Holofernes, and The Tree of Life, so you can get properly up close and personal with these modernist masterpieces. The exhibition also includes galleries that focus on Klimt’s life, his technique and his influences, and a VR experience that takes you through a day in the life of the artist and the inspiration behind some of his most iconic paintings.

CHRISTIAN THOMPSON | BEING HUMAN HUMAN BEING

Soho Photography Quarter, launched by The Photographers Gallery, is a spot for admirers to enjoy the best of contemporary photography for free. Located in the heart of town, the open-air gallery is home to a rotating programme of interactive artworks that change twice a year, including large-scale overhead banners, moving image projections and soundscapes. The first presentation isBeing Human Human Being by Indigenous Australian contemporary artist Dr. Christian Thompson AO. Selected works from his King Billy, Polari, Equinox and Flower Walls series are on show, which explore indigenous culture, identity and representation.

MAIDEN VOYAGE

South Korean artist JeeYoung Lee is turning the NOW Gallery space in Greenwich into a forest of hanging ginkgo leaves for her exhibition Maiden Voyage. As well as over 400 handmade individual ginkgo leaves, she has also created a large paper boat and paper aeroplanes floating in the air for the commission, which she uses to explore themes of nature, adventure, and the passage of time.

IN THE BLACK FANTASTIC

As part of the In The Black Fantastic season at the Southbank Centre, the Hayward Gallery is hosting an exhibition of the same name, showcasing the work of 11 contemporary artists from the African diaspora whose work explores myth, science fiction, spiritual traditions and Afrofuturism. Curated by Ekow Eshun, the exhibition features painting, video, sculpture, photography and installations from artists including Nick Cave, Sedrick Chisom, Ellen Gallagher, Wangechi Mutu, and Tabita Rezaire, that address cultural liberation and social injustice.

VISION & VIRTUOISTY BY TIFFANY & CO.

There aren’t many jewellers more iconic than Tiffany & Co. and you can dive into the almost 200-year history of the house at the Vision & Virtuosity exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery. There are seven chapters to the exhibition, including sections on founder Charles Lewis Tiffany’s legacy, the Blue Book jewellery collection, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and diamonds, with everything from archival high jewellery designs, window displays, original film scripts and the legendary 128.54-carat Tiffany Diamond on show.

GRIME STORIES | FROM THE CORNER TO THE MAINSTREAM

The Museum of London is diving into the history of grime with the free exhibition Grime Stories: from the corner to the mainstream, co-curated by Roony ‘RiskyRoadz’ Keefe. The display, which spotlights the people and places across East London that shaped the genre from its inception in the early 2000s to today, features a panoramic illustration by Wiilkay; personal artefacts relating to grime MCs; films and footage featuring Skepta, DJ Slimzee, Rapid and Slix, andTroy ‘A+’ Miller; and an installation focusing in Jammer’s basem*nt where Lord of the Mics was born.

SUMMER EXHIBITION AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY

After switching to the autumn for the past two editions, the RA Summer Exhibition is back at its rightful place in the calendar. Alison Wilding is coordinating this year’s show, which has the theme ‘climate’, and includes works by Grayson Perry, the Singh Twins and Cristina Igleisas

OUR TIME ON EARTH

The Curve at the Barbican is exploring the natural world and our ecosystem with group exhibition Our Time On Earth. A range of works created in response to the climate emergency from art, science and activism perspectives will be on show, including an immersive piece on soil, a video installation that lets you experience tree time, crockery designed for 14 different species, and an audio-visual piece on plankton and noise pollution.

FUTURE SHOCK

180 Strand is blurring the lines between the physical and the virtual with Future Shock, an exhibition that features the work of 14 artists, including Ryoichi Kurokawa, Caterina Barbieri, Lawrence Lek, Actual Objects, Gener8ion, Weirdcore, Gaika, who are working with cutting-edge sound and vision technology. Immerse yourself in installations and experiences that make use of interactive algorithms, electronic music, AI and 3D digital mapping, lasers and holograms.

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL | MINIATURE ART EXHIBITION

Small is Beautiful: Miniature Art Exhibition is an exhibition that grew from the #MiniatureArt movement on social media to become a global phenomenon. Now the movement has landed in London with over 130 mini art and 80 photographic pieces, showcasing all things weird, wonderful and minuscule. Work from 32 artists has been curated for this exhibition, bringing together talent from across the world, including France, UK, USA, Belgium, Sweden, Bosnia, Germany, The Netherlands, Ukraine, Italia, Peru, Iran and India.Among the pieces shown will be Jasenko Dordevic’s extremely delicate sculpture of a mother and daughter carved into the tip of a pencil and Ana Sofia Casaverde’s tiny works of origami.

WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD | THE WORLD OF ASMR

ASMR (aka Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response or that tingly sensation that makes you feel good) is jumping from online to IRL with this exhibition at the Design Museum. 40 audio, visual and tactile works will be on show, including episodes of The Joy of Painting by Bob Ross, a prototype of artificial skin for a mobile device, installations that recreate the sounds of snow crunching underfoot and coins dropping into a well, ASMR videos of Japanese barbershops and Korean dog-grooming salons, and a continuous pillow structure were you can watch and listen to a range of audio-visual works.

MEXICAN GENIUSES | A FRIDA & DIEGO IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

Iconic Latin American artist couple FridaKahlo andDiegoRivera’s work will be on display at theMexican Geniusesexhibition. You can step into the world of Frida and Diego through a 360-degree digital immersive experience, and it’s going to be a full-on attack on the senses with a state-of-the-art sound system and well over 300 art projections on display. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more immersive, there’s also a virtual reality segment that will whisk you from the cold streets of London to the tropical climate of Mexico. Not only will the exhibition be a chance to experience the works that changed the landscape of art in Mexico, you’ll also be taken on a historical tour of the two artists’ life and the influence they had on each other.

WHEN FLOWERS DREAM

Pip & Pop, aka Aussie artist Tanya Schultz, is immersing people in her candy-coloured world with When Flowers Dream at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens. The exhibition explores themes of abundance, consumption and a food utopia though sculptural pieces, a technicolour installation inspired by imaginary worlds and featuring foods identified as underutilised species, and botanical paintings from Kew’s archive.

FEMININE POWER | THE DIVINE TO THE DEMONIC

With Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic, the British Museum is taking a cross-cultural look at the impact of femininity and the role that feminine spiritual beings like goddesses, witches, demons and saints have played in global religion, in our understanding of the world and in the way we perceive gender identity today. The exhibition features sculptures, artworks and sacred objects from ancient times up to the present, from six continents, ranging from a terracotta gorgon from 500 BC Italy to a specially commissioned icon of the Hindu goddess Kali.

CORNELIA PARKER

Tate Britain is showcasing the work of Cornelia Parker, one of Britain’s best-loved contemporary artists, with this major exhibition. Several of her large-scale installations, including ‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’and ‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’, will be on display alongside immersive pieces like ‘War Room’ and ‘Magna Carta’, collective embroidery, drawings, films, prints and photographs, though which she engages with the important issues of the moment.

INSPIRING WALT DISNEY | THE ANIMATION OF FRENCH DECORATIVE ARTS

Recently on show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, this exhibition explores the magic of Disney in a whole new way by highlighting the links between French 18th century art and American 20th century animation, with pieces from the Wallace Collection sitting alongside drawings done by Disney artists who were inspired by them.

RAPHAEL

His career may have only lasted two decades but Raphael still managed to have a profound effect on Western culture in such a short space of time. This exhibition at the National Gallery is exploring that full career by bringing together paintings and drawings alongside his works in architecture, poetry and design all in one place.

WALTER SICKERT

Tate Britain is hosting the gallery’s first major retrospective on Walter Sickert, one of the artists who shaped modern British art, in over 60 years. This exhibition explores Sickert’s wide body of work, his distinctive approach to subject matter and setting, his fascination with the theatrical world and his time as a former actor, and the influence he drew from current events, news photography and the rise of celebrity culture.

RANA BEGUM | DAPPLED LIGHT

Rana Begum is hosting her first solo London gallery show at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, where her work interplays with the architecture of Sir John Soane. Dappled Light explores light and colour through a range of sculptures, paintings and installations, including a cloud of coloured veils suspended from the ceiling, a neon installation across the stairwell, large canvases of colourful dots, and a time-lapse video of light cascading through woodland as the seasons change.

DAMIEN HIRST | NATURAL HISTORY

More than 20 of Damien Hirst’s famed formaldehyde sculptures will be brought together for the first time at the new Natural History exhibition from the Gagosian Gallery. Over the last 30 years, Hirst has created various pieces that see whole animals, or their parts – dissected, bisected or even flayed – suspended and preserved in formaldehyde. Natural History collates the most affecting and iconic sculptures in the series, from The Impossible Lovers, a cabinet of glass jars containing cow’s organs, to The Beheading of John the Baptist, which features a cow’s head on a table surrounded by knives and its decapitated body on a clinical tiled floor.

FASHIONING MASCULINITIES | THE ART OF MENSWEAR

The V&A always hosts mega fashion exhibitions and this year they’re taking on menswear with the Fashioning Masculinities show. The exhibition will highlight the diversity and artistry of men’s fashion, from European courts during the Renaissance to contemporary designers. Around 100 outfits, including pieces designed by Harris Reed, Grace Wales Bonner and Gucci and looks worn by Harry Styles, David Bowie and Billy Porter, will be on display alongside photographs, film, sculptures and paintings.

BEATRIX POTTER | DRAWN TO NATURE

The V&A is teaming up with the National Trust for an exhibition on Beatrix Potter that promises fun for all the fam. Original manuscripts, watercolours, drawings, letters, and photographs will be on display and you’ll explore her life as a natural scientist and conservationist in the Lake District, and see where she got the inspo for the likes of Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck.

SURREALISM BEYOND BORDERS

Tate Modern is showcasing surrealism in a new way with this major exhibition that covers 50 years and spans the whole globe. Traditionally exhibitions on surrealism have been Euro-centric, with a particular focus on Paris in the 1920s, whereas this show will explore how surrealism, its subversion of reality and challenge of authority, reached around the world, with works from the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, North Africa and Eastern Europe on display.

VAN GOGH | THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

THE ART OF BANKSY

OUR FUTURE PLANET

The Science Museum is hosting a major exhibition on carbon capture and storage, which will be open in the run up to COP26. Our Future Planet will showcase some of the cutting-edge tech and nature-based solutions being developed to hep remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce the impact of climate change, and explore how carbon can be held in storage or used to create everyday items like toothpaste or vodka. Objects on display include the ClimeworksDirect Air Capture machine, the first prototype mechanical tree that absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, and apparatus from the UK’s BIFoR FACE experiment, which models the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems.

YAYOI KUSAMA | INFINITY MIRROR ROOMS

After her pumpkin-filled Infinity Room caused lengthy queues at the Victoria Miro gallery in 2016, Yayoi Kusama returns with another major exhibition, this time at the Tate Modern. Two of her installations – the largeInfinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of LifeandChandelier of Grief, which gives the illusion of endless rotating chandeliers – this year. The rooms will be presented alongside a small collection of photographs, some of which will be going on display for the very first time.