Rong Bao Is Me

Exhibitions

Hattie Lloyd 04/03/24


The 23 Best London Exhibitions Right Now

The Best Exhibitions In London  | March 2024

London is full of exhibitionists.

In fact, we have some of the finest in the world.

And right now, they’re doing what they do best: showcasing some utterly fascinating topics at the amazing array of museums and art galleries in London. Currently, you can see everything from work by the legendary Yoko Ono to painted Edwardians with exceptional style; the latest generation of artists from the African diaspora; neon rollercoasters; cosmic photography and dozens of spy gadgets from the 1940s


Heads up: Tickets to the V&A’s upcoming Naomi Campbell show are on sale now. The last fashion-centric exhibition they did (on Coco Chanel) sold out almost instantly, so don’t hang around.


(23 Amazing Exhibitions Listed Below JUST OPENED and LAST CHANCE TO SEE)

JUST OPENED:

Sargent and Fashion | Tate Britain

Pulling in both 1* and 5* reviews from the broadsheets, this could be the most divisive exhibition in London right now. Yes, there are issues with the staging of this show – the lighting, the quotes, even the carefully sourced historical clothing paired with the paintings frequently get in the way of the main event: Sargent’s arresting, dynamically rendered portraits. But if you’re in the mood to meet some charismatic painted characters (whether you agree that their clothing is the focus or not), this is a rare opportunity to soak up Sargent’s figurative work, with several high-profile pieces loaned from galleries abroad.

Details: Sargent and Fashion runs at Tate Britain until 7th July. Tickets cost £22 (or £5 for 16-25 year olds signed up to Tate Collective) – you can book here.

The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe The Black Figure | National Portrait Gallery

the time is always now exhibition

The Marchioness – Toyin Ojih Odutola, 2016

Following his 2022 blockbuster at the Hayward, In The Black Fantastic, Ekow Eshun has curated another stellar survey of contemporary Black art, this time honing in on the way Black lives are depicted in figurative sculpture and portraiture. There are artists who make the everyday monumental, like Thomas J Price’s bronze, athleisure-clad statue of a woman paused in thought. There are artists who redress historic imbalances by cleverly referencing and inverting Western art traditions, like the graphite portraits of Barbara Walker in which Black figures now take centre stage, the white figures fading out of view as embossed outlines. And there are those who take experimental approaches, like the dynamic, morphing portraits of Nathaniel Mary Quinn. Each featured artist has something different, and deeply personal, to say – it’s a captivating show from start to finish.

Details: The Time Is Always Now is on at the National Portrait Gallery until 19th May. Tickets cost £16-18 and can be booked here.

Women Of The RNLI | National Maritime Museum

© Jack Lowe / National Maritime Museum

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich is putting on a free exhibition showcasing the vital roles women play in the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The show will feature not just striking portrait photography (using an old fashioned ‘ambrotype’ camera from the 1850s), but also film and personal testimony too. Just remember, no buoys allowed…

Details: Women Of The RNLI is showing at the National Maritime Museum until 1st December 2024. It’s completely free, and you can find out more here.


LAST CHANCE TO SEE:

Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. | Serpentine Gallery

Barbara Kruger

“I Shop, Therefore I Am”. That’s one of the many Barbara Kruger pieces that you’ve probably seen in some form or another, simply because of its simple, accessible, cynical wit (which Banksy would go on to co-opt). But her work is a lot more than just a proto-meme, and here you’ll get to see her highly verbose, articulate, culturally impactful back catalogue displayed in huge, vivid form across the walls of the Serpentine Gallery.

Details: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. Runs at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park until March 17th, and it completely free (though you can book pre-timed entry tickets). You can find out more here.

 


22 AMAZING LONDON EXHIBITIONS, ON NOW (MARCH 2024):

1) When Forms Come Alive | Hayward Gallery

The latest show at the Hayward Gallery is a teeming, bubbling collection of sculptures where artists have wrangled cold and rigid materials into breathing, organic forms. There are sheets of scaffolding ejecting plumes of foam, neon rollercoasters, and Tara Donovan’s enormous spheres that seem to be self-replicating and about to froth over. It’s fun, and doesn’t feel like it’s trying to impose any kind of complex artistic narrative – like the artwork, it just goes with the flow.

Details: When Forms Come Alive runs at the Hayward Gallery until 6th May. Tickets cost £18; you can book here.

 

2) Spies, Lies and Deception | Imperial War Museum

© IWM EPH 178


The latest intelligence suggests that the Imperial War Museum have put together a free exhibition all about spies and their clandestine methods. You’ll get to see hidden communications, as well as stories exposing the real people behind these undercover operations, the cool toys they used (like these matches that could be used to write secret messages), secret messages and info about the history of espionage itself.

Details: Spies, Lies and Deception runs at the Imperial War Museum until 14th April 2024. It’s free to visit, just drop in.

 

3) Rong Bao Is Me | Saatchi Gallery

Art can make you smile, frown, cry… but it rarely makes you laugh. Rong Bao’s free exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, however, is a hoot. Her sculptural installations are completely bizarre – packets of air taken from her bedroom; badly designed conveyor belts; enormous, inflatable, jiggling sculptures that look like a cross between an alien jellyfish and a blancmange. It’s art with a sense of humour that pokes fun at society’s self-important side, and we can all do with a bit of that.

Details: Rong Bao is Me runs at the Saatchi Gallery until 31st March. Entry is free; just turn up.

4) Women in Revolt! | Tate Britain

Jill Posener

Women have been revolting for centuries; that’s nothing new. But in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, art became an increasingly important vessel for amplifying voices and fuelling movements for equal pay, reproductive rights and more. Tate Britain’s new exhibition brings together the work of over 100 feminist artists, including a re-staging of Bobby Baker’s famous installation comprising an entire family made out of biscuits and cake. And yes, you’re encouraged to eat the art.

Details: Women in Revolt! runs at Tate Britain until 7th April 2024. Tickets cost £17, and can be booked here.

5) Fashion City | Museum of London Docklands

fashion city exhibition

© Rowland, Nigel, and Michael Gee

This beautifully staged exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands traces the history of Jewish fashion design in the 20th century, from the tailor’s shops of the East End to the boutiques of Carnaby Street in the swinging 60s. There’s glamour in the coat designed for Princess Diana by David Sassoon and the psychedelic styles of Mr Fish (who dressed the likes of Bowie and Hendrix), but you’ll also hear about the thousands of seamstresses and makers who put together styles for high street shops like M&S and Moss Bros.

Details: Fashion City is showing at the Museum of London Docklands until 14th April 2024. Tickets cost £12+, and you can get them here.

6) Holbein at the Tudor Court | The Queen’s Gallery

holbein exhibition

You might have clocked Holbein’s stately royal portraits before in the National Gallery, but this exhibition offers a rare glimpse of the artist’s spellbinding sketches. The artist started out in Basel painting religious scenes, but his arrival in England, armed only with a letter of recommendation from the philosopher Erasmus, sparked a career in portraiture which was to establish him as one of the most talented artists in Western history. And these timeless sketches cement that reputation – give the subjects a hair cut and a change of hat, and most of them feel like you could be sitting across from them on the tube…

Details: Holbein at the Tudor Court runs at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 14th April. Tickets cost £19 and can be booked here.

7) Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers Turns 30 | The Cartoon Museum

If you’ve never seen The Wrong Trousers, it’s a classic tale of a man happily living on a diet of cheese with his highly intelligent dog, who is forced to unknowingly commit a diamond heist in a pair of robotic trousers by an evil penguin. It won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film – and despite being only 30 minutes long, it took 13 months to make. That’s because the entire film is painstakingly shot through stop-motion animation, the process for which you can learn all about in this comprehensive exhibition, combining storyboard artwork, props and models, and behind the scenes photographs showing how the whole thing was made.

Details: Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers Turns 30 is on at The Cartoon Museum until 16th April 2024. Tickets cost £9.50 – you can just turn up, or book ahead here.

8) Ainu Stories: Contemporary Lives By The Saru River | Japan House

ainu exhibition japan house

The Ainu people are an indigenous group in northern Japan, who have a distinct culture and (nearly extinct) language from the rest of the country. With a population of only about 30,000, it’s one of the world’s most endangered cultures – but in recent years there’s been a resurgence among younger members of the community in reviving the language and Ainu crafts. Lots of this is on show in Japan House’s latest exhibition, where you can see contemporary artwork, traditional crafts and unique items like a pair of shoes crafted from salmon skins – plus there’s a whole programme of live performances, talks, cookery demos and more.

Details: Ainu Stories runs at Japan House until 21st April 2024, and it’s free to visit.

9) Entangled Pasts, 1768 – Now | The Royal Academy

Entangled Pasts

The idea behind this exhibition is simple – typing the past of colonialism to the present. Thus you’ll see Empire-era works from the likes of J.M.W. Turner and Joshua Reynolds juxtaposed with those of modern artists who hail from the African, Caribbean and South Asian diasporas, including Lubaina Himid and Issac Julien. There are over 100 works on show in total, from classical paintings to immersive video installations, photography, and floating armadas of sculpted boats.

Details: Entangled Pasts, 1768 – Now is showing at The Royal Academy until 28th April. Tickets cost £22 and are available right here.

10) Pasquarosa: From Muse To Painter | Estorick Collection

Islington’s stylish Italian gallery is currently showcasing the influential work of Pasquarosa Marcelli, who was christened a “phenomenon” when she became one of the first Italian artists to exhibit solo in London, despite never having had any formal training. And if you feel like creating some phenomenal art yourself, they’re running monthly life drawing nights in the gallery itself.

Details: Pasquarosa: From Muse to Painter runs at the Estorick Collection until 28th April. Entry costs £7.50.

11) Japan: Myths to Manga | The Young V&A

japan myths to manga exhibition

© David Parry. Courtesy Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Japan: Myths to Manga has set itself the fairly ambitious brief of exploring the influence of Japanese spiritual beliefs, traditions and folk stories on contemporary culture. And to do it, the team have brought together over 150 objects from the 15th century right up to the modern day. Being the Young V&A, the show’s mainly targeted at families – but with cult references like Studio Ghibli films, Tamagotchi, and the globally renowned artwork of Hokusai, there’s going to be more than enough for adults to pore over too…

Details: Japan: Myths to Manga runs at the the Young V&A until 8th September 2024. Tickets cost £10, and can be booked here.

12) Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art | Barbican Art Gallery

barbican exhibition unravel

Credit: Jo Underhill

The Barbican’s new group show shows how politics and social issues can be woven into art – quite literally. The pieces from the 50 or so artists exhibiting here are all bound together by their chosen material: fabric. In both large scale sculptures and modest, hand-crafted pieces, it’s used as a tool to explore repression, resilience and reformation – and it’s rightly been a hit with the critics.

Details: Unravel is on at the Barbican Art Gallery until 26th May. Tickets cost £18, but Thursday evenings (5-8pm) are Pay What You Can. You can find out more, and book, here.
 

13) BURTYNSKY: Extraction/Abstraction | Saatchi Gallery

saatchi gallery burtynsky exhibition

Credit: Matt Chung Photography

Edward Burtynsky’s work documenting the impact of human industry on nature was already ‘urgent’ when he started doing it over four decades ago. Now, it’s pretty much essential viewing. His large-scale, birds-eye photographs are seriously powerful: you’ll see the goldmines pouring cyanide into groundwater in South Africa; oil spills, quarries and farms rendered into abstract forms; and occasionally the workers they threaten with pollution, while providing them with a livelihood. For all the unease it brings, Burtynsky’s work is artistically awe-inspiring; all the more important for the messages it sends.

Details: BURTYNSKY: Extraction/Abstraction runs at the Saatchi Gallery until 6th May. Tickets start at £10 – you can book here.

14) Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles | Whitechapel Gallery

Credit: Thierry Bal

French-Algerian artist Zineb Sedira has recreated film sets as immersive installations, and it’s really quite magical. You’ll walk through the ballroom from 1983’s Le Bal, as well as the artist’s own living room in Brixton. And upstairs, she’s converted galleries into a full-scale cinema, where you can watch her video piece that features the sets as backdrops to her own performance.

Details: Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles runs at the Whitechapel Gallery until 12th May. Tickets cost £12.50, and can be booked here.

15) Frank Auerbach: ‘The Charcoal Heads’ | The Courtauld Gallery

The charcoal heads

Frank Auerbach escaped to England from Germany during WW2 after his parents were sent to a concentration camp, so it’s understandable that his work isn’t particularly bubbly and bright. Over the years, however, has has managed to channel that despair into something truly beautiful – assembled together as a group for the first time, his Charcoal Heads are works of survival & courage, and some of the sitters have their own artworks displayed next to their portraits here, too.

Details: Frank Auerbach: ‘The Charcoal Heads’ is showing at The Courtauld Gallery until the 27th of May. Tickets are £14 and you can book them right here.

16) Soulscapes | Dulwich Picture Gallery

Soulscapes

The word ‘landscapes’ typically evokes visions of endless rolling hills, stoic castles, and scenes so dry it’s no surprise the paint is cracking. Not here. In Soulscapes, the Dulwich Picture Gallery is showcasing 30 inspiring works by artists from the African diaspora, across several media (painting, photography, textile, etc) from the likes of Issac Julien and Michael Armitage.

Details: Soulscapes is showing at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until 2nd June. Tickets are £17.50, and you can book them right here.

17) Skateboard | The Design Museum

skateboard exhibition at the design museum

© Felix Speller

Since its first boom period in the 1950s, skateboarding has really kicked off. And to acknowledge this, The Design Museum’s major exhibition, simply titled ‘Skateboard’, pays homage to how the boards – as objects of design – have grown out of their homemade-in-the-garage early days to high-tech performance models you get today, to keep the pace with what’s become a multibillion dollar industry and now a legitimate, properly-recognised sport.

Details: Skateboard runs until 2nd June at the Design Museum. Tickets cost £16 and can be booked here.

 

18) Diva | V&A

Diva at the V&A

Naomi Campbell. Marilyn Monroe. Elton John. There have been a lot of first-class divas throughout history, and the V&A are here to explore just what it means to be one, and how the role has evolved throughout the ages. They’re using costumes, artefacts, sketches, stories, and video to show off how a confident, larger-than-life attitude can be so utterly transformative both in real life, and in the cultural ether. You’ll see everything from Josephine Baker’s Jazz Age crystal bikini, to Tina Turner’s 1977 Flame Dress, to a cinematic screening of Beyoncé’s Formation video, and a lot more. And you’ll love it, darling.

Details: Diva at the V&A is showing until 7th April 2024. Tickets cost £20 and you can get them here.

 

19) The Cult of Beauty | Wellcome Collection

cult of beauty exhibition

Juno Calypso – courtesy the artist, Cult of Beauty

They’ve tackled Milk, Sight, Air, and Joy, and now it’s time for the Wellcome to tackle another big hitter: Beauty. This vast exhibition corrals over 200 objects to explore how ideals of beauty have evolved over the centuries, and the lengths people will go to to attain them. There are 4,000 year old cosmetics palettes from Ancient Egypt and grim footage of modern-day facelifts, and the exhibits are absolutely fascinating – though there’s a definite subjectivity to the exhibition’s narrative, and not a lot of digging into why we buy into these bizarre notions. But the show’s proclaimed ambition is to provoke a dialogue, so bring a friend, discuss it afterwards… and hope it doesn’t turn ugly.

Details: The Cult of Beauty runs at the Wellcome Collection until 28th April. It’s free to visit; find out more here.

20) Wildlife Photographer of the Year | Natural History Museum

These guys shoot a lot of wild animals.

And the best of those shots are put onto the shortlist for The Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Natural History Museum. Now in its 59th year (!), the judges have trawled through tens of thousands of entries from 100+ countries before landing on the winning images, which will be displayed on special lightboxes (alongside dozens of runner-up shots) throughout the Natural History Museum’s gallery when the show opens this October.

Details: Wildlife Photographer of the Year runs until 30th June 2024 at the Natural History Museum. Tickets cost £15 and can be booked here.

21) Yoko Ono: Music Of The Mind | Tate Modern

Yoko Ono

For some people, putting the words ‘Yoko Ono’ and ‘music’ in the same sentence is not a pleasant notion. But the fact is that she’s responsible for some hugely impactful works over the decades (seven now), and the Tate have assembled more of them than we’ve ever seen in this country before. You’ll get to see over 200 of her most influential and celebrated pieces, spanning years from 1950 right through to the present, including pieces from the show where she met her future husband…

Details: Yoko Ono: Music Of The Mind is playing at the Tate Modern until September 1st. Tickets cost £22 and you can get them right here.

 

22) The Moonwalkers | Lightroom

moonwalkers exhibition

The Moonwalkers exhibition is out of this world. Really. It’s essentially like walking into a documentary, with vintage footage from the first moon landings and panoramic snaps of the lunar surface drenching the four storey-high, state-of-the-art gallery space where every surface is a screen. And then there’s the fact that it’s narrated – quite appropriately – by a star named Tom Hanks…

Details: The Moonwalkers runs until 21st April 2024 at Lightroom, King’s Cross. Tickets cost £25 and can be booked here.

 

 


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