Lisson Grove's galleries collaborate to promote London's unsung art district

Lisson Gallery, The Showroom, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, and Palmer Gallery have formed the Lisson Grove Galleries initiative to promote the artistic activity of London's Lisson Grove district. The collaboration will launch during London Gallery Weekend (5-7 June 2025) with talks, tours, performances, and events, including discussions on collectivism, artist talks, and private views, with ongoing programming throughout the year.

London's Royal Society of Arts launches new annual summer exhibition

The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and AOAP Projects (formerly Art on a Postcard) are launching a new annual summer exhibition in London titled "Illuminated." Running from 10-24 June at the RSA's headquarters on John Adam Street, the show features over 100 artists including Caroline Coon, Susie Hamilton, and Helen Beard, with all works limited to seven inches by seven inches. Artists receive 50% of sales proceeds, with the remainder funding the RSA's social impact programs. The exhibition marks AOAP Projects' strategic shift from its long-running postcard auction format toward curated exhibitions and broader fundraising initiatives.

How Janette Beckman Captured Music History in Real Time

A new exhibition at Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) titled 'Rebels + Icons: The Photography of Janette Beckman' showcases over 500 images by British photographer Janette Beckman, spanning four decades. The show features her early, pre-fame portraits of music and cultural icons including Public Enemy, Joe Strummer, Keith Haring, Salt-N-Pepa, and John Lydon, captured at the dawn of punk and hip-hop movements. Beckman, who began her career photographing unknown punk bands for Melody Maker, also documented the first hip-hop show in London in 1982, capturing figures like Fab 5 Freddy and Afrika Bambaataa before they became legends. The retrospective includes her fashion work and street photography, highlighting her ability to gain trust quickly with subjects.

Emma and Chloe Fineman Talk Prosthetic Boobs, Bible Sluts, and Late-Life Lesbianism

Emma Fineman, a visual artist based in London, is presenting her first solo show at Alexander Berggruen gallery in New York, on view through June 24. The exhibition features 18 paintings that explore her queer identity and self-acceptance, drawing from Christian mythology and the Book of Genesis to celebrate female desire. In a conversation with her sister Chloe Fineman, a cast member on SNL, the two discuss their creative processes, the overlap between comedy and painting, and how they support each other through artistic blocks.

Near death experiences, ‘crip memes’ and the tyranny of the DWP: the new exhibition powered by illness and disability

Flare Up, a group exhibition co-curated by Mariana Lemos and Natasha Hoare at CCA Goldsmiths in London, showcases art centered on illness, chronic conditions, disability, neurodivergence, and deafness. The show features works by artists including Benoît Piéron, Avril Corroon, Derek Jarman, Christine Sun Kim, Jesse Darling, and the collective Freestylers, exploring themes such as near-death experiences, crip memes, government bureaucracy, and the fluctuating nature of symptoms. Highlights include Piéron's bunting made from hospital sheets, Corroon's installation on poverty and health, and Jarman's 1992 painting Act Up.

India's Kiran Nadar Museum to take over Christie's London headquarters this summer

The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in New Delhi will take over Christie’s London headquarters this summer for a month-long non-selling exhibition titled "The Meeting Ground: Scenes from the KNMA Collection" (16 July-21 August). The show will feature 180 works by 60 Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi artists from the 1950s to the present, drawn from billionaire collector Kiran Nadar’s vast collection of South Asian Modern art. The exhibition anticipates the delayed relocation of KNMA to a new 100,000 sq. m building near Delhi airport, designed by David Adjaye and now about 60% complete, with former Louvre Abu Dhabi director Manuel Rabaté appointed to run the museum.

Christo: Air review – surprisingly profound manifestation of the wrapper’s impossible dream

Christo's posthumous exhibition "Air" at Gagosian in London finally realizes a 1960s concept to contain air within a room, using a massive polyethylene sack suspended from the ceiling that forces visitors to physically engage with the space. The show also includes early wrapped bubble works and a preserved wrapped Volvo, tracing the artist's lifelong fascination with making the invisible tangible.

How the British Museum is preparing for the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry

Comment le British Museum prépare l’arrivée de la tapisserie de Bayeux

The British Museum will display the Bayeux Tapestry from September 10, 2025, to July 11, 2027, in its Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, coinciding with the closure of the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux for renovation. The 68.38-meter embroidery will be shown flat for the first time in over two centuries, in a custom-designed case with low lighting and continuous visitor flow. Tickets go on sale July 1, 2026, priced between £25 and £33, with free entry for under-16s. The exhibition includes loans such as the Junius II manuscript from the Bodleian Library and coins from the Chew Valley hoard, plus an outdoor installation by Andy Sturgeon. The UK government has provided an £800 million indemnity guarantee.

Exhibition | Kenjiro Okazaki, 'Never could be any other way — anagnorisis' at Pace Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Pace Gallery in London is presenting an exhibition by Japanese artist Kenjiro Okazaki titled 'Never could be any other way — anagnorisis'. The show features Okazaki's latest works, which explore themes of recognition and revelation through his distinctive blend of painting, drawing, and conceptual practice.

Roni Horn Returns to London with Seizure of Hope at Hauser & Wirth

Roni Horn returns to London for her first solo exhibition in a decade, titled *Seizure of Hope*, at Hauser & Wirth. The show features over 45 works on paper centered on the repeated phrase "I am paralyzed with hope," drawn from a performance by comedian Maria Bamford, alongside a cast-glass sculpture *Untitled ("What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?")* (2022). The drawings explore language, repetition, and the instability of meaning, with words shifting between clarity and abstraction through wax crayon layering. A limited-edition artist book of the same title will be released by Hauser & Wirth Publishers.

Photographer Catherine Opie is everywhere all at once this spring

Photographer Catherine Opie is experiencing an extraordinary year in 2026, with multiple major exhibitions opening simultaneously across Europe and Los Angeles. A career-spanning survey at London’s National Portrait Gallery will travel to Edinburgh’s Royal Scottish Academy, while other shows appear in Kassel, Germany, and Trondheim, Norway. In Los Angeles, her new exhibition “Holding Blue” opens May 28 at Regen Projects, featuring 44 images of Norwegian mountain landscapes shot over 20 days in early 2024, accompanied by nine ceramic sculptures. Her work also appears in group shows at the Autry Museum of the American West, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner. Opie, who retired from UCLA after serving as chair of the art department and teaching photography for more than 20 years, describes this period as the “Catherine Opie World Tour 2026.”

Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska: Zanzibar

Lisson Gallery in London presents "Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska: Zanzibar," an immersive installation running from June 4 to August 22, 2026. The exhibition features nine diptychs painted by Himid in 1999, paired with a 38-minute multi-layered sound composition by Stawarska created in 2023. The works explore themes of memory, displacement, and belonging, drawing on Himid's birthplace in Zanzibar and her family's migration to London. The installation includes Taraab music, opera, archival BBC clips, and Himid's own voice, creating a multi-dimensional experience that reflects both artists' sense of loss and connection to their native countries.

White Stripes Frontman Jack White Is Showing Art at Damien Hirst’s Gallery

Jack White, frontman of the White Stripes, is opening a sculpture exhibition at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery in London. Titled “Jack White: THESE THOUGHTS MAY DISAPPEAR,” the show runs from May 29 to September 13 and features found-object sculptures, furniture designs, notebooks, and photography. White and Hirst first met in 2021 when White was opening a Third Man Records store near Hirst’s studio, and Hirst encouraged White to mount a show after seeing his artwork.

In London, Churchill's astonishing talent as a painter celebrated by an unprecedented retrospective

À Londres, l’étonnant talent de peintre de Churchill célébré par une rétrospective inédite

The Wallace Collection in London is hosting the first major posthumous retrospective of Winston Churchill's paintings, titled "Winston Churchill: The Painter." Running until November 29, 2026, the exhibition features nearly 60 still lifes and landscapes, many from private collections rarely shown publicly. Churchill took up painting in 1915 after the Dardanelles disaster and used art as a therapeutic escape from the pressures of politics and war, producing luminous, impressionistic works inspired by Monet, Cézanne, and Renoir.

Indian Art In London: Sakshi Gallery Marks 40 Years With Landmark Show By Contemporary Indian Artists This June

Sakshi Gallery, a Mumbai-based gallery founded in 1986 by Geetha Mehra, is presenting a contemporary art show titled 'Unfolding Narratives: Perspectives in Contemporary Indian Art' at London's Mall Galleries from June 30 to July 8, 2026, marking its 40th anniversary. The exhibition features works by six artists—Amit Ambalal, Manjunath Kamath, Ravinder Reddy, Rekha Rodwittiya, Shine Shivan, and Surendran Nair—with several pieces created specifically for the show. It serves as a prelude to a larger institutional exhibition planned for 2027 in London.

Unfolding narratives (...)

Sakshi Gallery is marking its 40th anniversary with an exhibition titled "Unfolding narratives: perspectives in contemporary Indian art" at the Mall Galleries in London, opening June 30, 2026. The show features works by six artists—Amit Ambalal, Manjunath Kamath, Ravinder Reddy, Rekha Rodwittiya, Shine Shivan, and Surendran Nair—who have significantly shaped Indian contemporary art. Many works were created specifically for the exhibition, offering insight into the artists' current directions. The presentation serves as a prelude to a larger institutional exhibition planned for 2027 in London.

An Art-Lover’s Guide to Tunis’ Ground-Up Contemporary Scene

The article profiles Selma Feriani, a Tunisian gallerist who opened a new purpose-built gallery in the industrial El Kram district of Tunis in January 2024. Designed with architect Chacha Atallah, the three-story space features a concrete exterior referencing traditional Tunisian hand-application techniques and a garden of olive, palm, and orange trees. Feriani, who previously ran a gallery in London's Mayfair, returned to Tunisia after the Revolution to contribute to the country's cultural renaissance. The gallery currently hosts simultaneous exhibitions: Nadia Ayari's paintings of menacing plants and Nidhal Chamekh's "Frictions," part of his broader historical project "Et si Carthage…" exploring Mediterranean power dynamics.

Fashion and art of Africa conquer Paris: 3 exhibitions in a single museum

Moda e arte dell’Africa conquistano Parigi: 3 mostre in un unico museo

The Musée Quai Branly in Paris is hosting "Africa Fashion," an exhibition originally produced by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2023. Adapted for the Parisian venue, the show draws on the museum's rich historical and photographic collections to explore African fashion from decolonization to the present, featuring clothing, textiles, music videos, and archival photography from across the continent.

A Como sta per arrivare una grande mostra su William Turner e il Romanticismo inglese

A major exhibition on William Turner and English Romanticism is set to open on May 29 at Palazzo del Broletto and the Pinacoteca Civica in Como, Italy. Titled "Turner. L’incanto del lago di Como e del paesaggio italiano," the show features seven precious watercolors inspired by Turner's travels to the Lake Como region, alongside an immersive film produced by Tate Digital. The exhibition traces Turner's stylistic evolution from his 1819 sketches to later chromatic studies from 1842-1843, and is organized by the City of Como in collaboration with the Tate in London.

150 photos depict 185 years of the US mining industry in world-first historical exhibition

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will present "Beneath the Surface," a world-first photographic exhibition dedicated to 185 years of the U.S. mining and natural resource extraction industries. Featuring 150 images from 100 photographers, the show spans from California Gold Rush daguerreotypes to 20th-century industrial documentation, including works by Dorothea Lange and Lewis Wickes Hine. The exhibition will be on view at the National Gallery from May 23 to August 23, 2026, before traveling to the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

London exhibition explores untold history of how homelessness was criminalised

A new exhibition titled "Criminal: The Untold History of Homelessness" opens at the Museum of Homelessness in London, exploring the origins of homelessness in the UK and how it has been criminalized. The exhibition challenges the typical focus on the 19th-century Vagrancy Act, instead tracing the "Homelessness Big Bang" to the early 1600s, when land enclosures, economic shifts, and colonial expansion began penalizing unhoused people. Staged in a meadow at Finsbury Park, the show features artists and activists including the anonymous graffiti artist 10 Foot, designer Matt Bonner, and poet Gemma Lees, with works such as 10 Foot's first sculpture "Fairie Newbuild"—a skip-shaped object made from palisade fencing containing a hawthorn tree.

Ain Bailey “The Jamaica Project” at Camden Art Centre, London

Camden Art Centre in London announces a major new exhibition by London-based composer, artist, and DJ Ain Bailey, featuring a new commission in Gallery 3. The commission is the latest installment of a film trilogy begun in 2021, rooted in Bailey's biography and centered on her personal history.

Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific opens at the V&A

The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London has opened 'Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific', a landmark exhibition drawn from the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Featuring over 70 works by more than 40 artists from 25 countries, the show is organized in three thematic sections—Re-Visioning History, Enduring Knowledge, and Evolving Faith—and includes sculpture, photography, painting, ceramics, weaving, and body adornment. Many works are on view outside their home region for the first time. The exhibition runs until 10 January 2027.

MONET TO MATISSE: DEFYING TRADITION to Launch at Art Gallery of South Australia

The Art Gallery of South Australia is set to launch a new exhibition titled 'MONET TO MATISSE: DEFYING TRADITION,' which will feature works by iconic modern artists such as Claude Monet and Henri Matisse. The show aims to highlight how these artists broke away from conventional artistic norms to pioneer new movements in art history.

Zanzibar: Mapping Memory Through Sound and Colour

Lisson Gallery in London presents 'Zanzibar' (1999–2023), a collaborative installation by artists Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska. The exhibition reunites Himid's abstract diptychs from 1999 with Stawarska's eight-channel soundscape composed in 2023, creating an immersive meditation on loss, migration, and belonging. Himid's geometric canvases depart from her signature figurative style, evoking fragments of Zanzibar, the East African archipelago where she was born, and memories of her migration to London after her father's death. Stawarska's sonic composition weaves archival recordings, Taraab music, opera, and spoken text through the gallery space, guiding viewers through overlapping histories and imagined geographies.

François Bonnel Explores the Emotional Side of Geometry

François Bonnel, a former advertising executive of 25 years, pivoted to art in 2018 and now presents his latest solo exhibition, “François Bonnel: The Geometry of Joy,” at Maddox Gallery in Mayfair, London, from June 4 to July 2, 2026. The show features abstract paintings that blend geometric and hard-edge abstraction with playful, intuitive compositions, using color, line, and light to evoke emotions like joy and harmony. Works such as *Caught* (2026) and *I Really Like You* (2026) demonstrate his exploration of three-dimensional space and the suggestive power of abstraction.

Moyra Davey at greengrassi

Moyra Davey presents an exhibition at greengrassi gallery in London, featuring a series of new works that continue her exploration of photography, text, and everyday objects. The show includes 14 documented images, blending personal narrative with conceptual art practices.

Whistler Didn't Mean to Make His Mourning Mother an Art World Star. Today, She's a Highlight at a Major Exhibition in London

James McNeill Whistler's iconic 1871 painting 'Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1,' better known as 'Whistler's Mother,' is currently on display at Tate Britain in London as part of 'James McNeill Whistler,' Europe's largest-ever retrospective of the artist's work. The painting, on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, was created in Whistler's London studio when his mother Anna McNeill Whistler agreed to pose after a model canceled. The exhibition runs through late September 2026.

'Fade' review: Studio Museum Harlem's 'F' series returns

The Studio Museum in Harlem has opened 'Fade,' the sixth installment of its influential 'F' series, featuring 17 emerging Black and Afro-Latinx artists. The exhibition includes works such as London Pierre Williams's large-scale oil painting 'The Stage: He that leaves me blue, a dream (2026)' and Antonio Darden's 'Untitled (Reclining Figure) (2025),' among others. Curated to feel like an unfolding conversation rather than a traditional group show, 'Fade' explores themes of ancestry, spirituality, grief, and transformation, with sculptures, paintings, and installations that hover between memory and dream.

The Top 5 Art Exhibitions to see in London right now

Tabish Khan, the @LondonArtCritic, selects five current exhibitions in London. These include Aleksandra Karpowicz's 'Remember What You Forgot' at Felstead Art, which transforms her cancer treatment into a powerful installation; Gabriel Abrantes' 'Bardo Loops' at Gasworks, featuring emotionally charged video works; Racheal Crowther's 'Liquid Trust' at Chisenhale Gallery, examining psychological manipulation through a militaristic structure; Eleanor May Watson's 'There is No Time Like Spring' at Soho Revue, capturing nostalgic domestic moments; and the group show 'South Open 4' at OHSH Projects, showcasing diverse works from an open call.