12 art exhibitions to see in London in 2023
London will deliver several hotly anticipated exhibitions in 2023. This includes a major exhibition at Tate Britain that will explore women’s liberation from 1970 to 1900, the most comprehensive street art and graffiti exhibition to open in the UK that will take over the entire Saatchi Gallery and an exhibition by Ai Weiwei at the Design Museum. Discover twelve art exhibitions we can’t wait to see in London in 2023.
Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons
When: 22 February - 7 May 2023
Where: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
Price: from £15. Concessions available.
Image: Mike Nelson, Gang of Seven, 2013. Installation view, The Powerplant, Toronto, 2014. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy the artist and 303 Gallery, New York; Galleria Franco Noero, Turin; Matt’s Gallery, London; and neugerriemschneider, Berlin.
#FLODown: The Hayward Gallery will present Extinction Beckons, the first major survey exhibition of large-scale immersive installations and sculptural works by the internationally acclaimed British artist Mike Nelson. Nelson’s psychologically charged and atmospheric installations take viewers on enthralling journeys into fictional worlds that eerily echo our own. Designed to dramatically transform the spaces of the Hayward Gallery, his exhibition will include towering sculptural works and new versions of his key epic installations, many of which will be shown at the Hayward Gallery for the first time since their original presentations. Location: Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX.
Spain and the Hispanic World: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library
When: 21 January – 10 April 2023
Where: Royal Academy of Arts
Price: from £22. Concessions available.
Image: Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, The Provinces of Spain: Castile (sketch), 1912-13, Gouache on kraft paper, 107 x 771 cm, On loan from The Hispanic Society of America, New York, NY.
#FLODown: In January 2023 the Royal Academy of Arts will present Spain and the Hispanic World, celebrating the unrivalled collection of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York. This landmark exhibition will present a visual narrative of the history of Spanish culture, bringing together outstanding works from Spain and colonial Latin America, from antiquity to the early 20th century. Spain and the Hispanic World will reflect the great diversity of cultural and religious influences, from Celtic, Islamic, Christian and Jewish to American, African and Asian, that have shaped and enriched Spanish culture across four millennia. Presented chronologically, the selection of over 150 works will include paintings, sculptures, silk textiles, ceramics, lustreware, silverwork, precious jewellery, maps, drawings and illuminated manuscripts. Location: Main Galleries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD.
Ai Weiwei: Making Sense
When: 7 April – 30 July 2023
Where: Design Museum
Price: from £15. Concessions available
Image: Ai Weiwei at the Design Museum, September 2022. © Rick Pushinsky for the Design Museum.
#FLODown: Ai Weiwei's first exhibition focusing on design will mix recent works with commissioned pieces inviting visitors into a meditation on value and humanity, art and activism. This major exhibition will be the first to present his work as a commentary on design and what it reveals about our changing values. Through his engagement with material culture, Ai explores the tension between past and present, hand and machine, precious and worthless, construction and destruction. The exhibition will draw on his fascination with historical Chinese artefacts, placing their traditional craftsmanship in dialogue with the more recent history of demolition and urban development in China. Location: 224-238 Kensington High Street, Kensington, W8 6AG.
Beyond the Streets London
When: 17 Feburary – 9 May 2023
Where: Saatchi Gallery
Price: from £15. Concessions available
Image: Kenny Scharf. Closet #42 Bestest Ever. Photo by Charles White of JW Pictures, 2022.
#FLODown: Saatchi Gallery will present Beyond the Streets London, the most comprehensive street art exhibition to open in the UK, supported by adidas Originals . The exhibition will pay homage to the monumental moments from the worlds of graffiti, street art, hip-hop and punk rock as well as the artists who immortalised them. From painting trains to social activism, to the clothes we wear and the soundtracks of our lives, Beyond the Streets London will examine how these cultural narratives shifted the public's perception of underground art and culture — leading to a global creative revolution. It is a celebration of graffiti’s core ethos of an innate desire for mark-making and challenging authority. Location: Duke of York's HQ, King's Rd, London SW3 4RY.
DIVA
When: 24 June 2023 – 7 April 2024
Where: Victoria & Albert Museum
Price: TBC
Image: Whitney Houston performing at Wembley Arena, London, UK 5 May 1988. Photo © David Corio.
#FLODown: From the Opera goddesses of the Victorian era to today’s global megastars, DIVA will celebrate the power and creativity of iconic performers, exploring and redefining what it means to be a diva and how this has been subverted or embraced over time across opera, stage, popular music, and film. Featuring fashion, photography, design, costumes, music and live performance drawn from the V&A collection and loans from across the world, the exhibition looks at how the performer has intersected with society and driven change through their voice and art. It will consider how the diva has been reclaimed and redefined and will examine the external and internal forces that contribute to shaping and worshipping the diva. Location: Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL.
The Offbeat Sari
When: 19 May – September 2023
Where: Design Museum
Price: TBC
Image: Model Rachi Chitkara. Photograph by Pankaj Dahalia.
#FLODown: A major exhibition celebrating the contemporary sari. Today, the sari in urban India manifests as a site for design innovation, an expression of identity, and a crafted object carrying layers of cultural meanings. The exhibition will unravel the sari as a metaphor for the complex definitions of India today. It will bring together dozens of the finest saris of our time from designers, wearers and craftspeople in India. Click here for more. Location: 224-238 Kensington High Street, Kensington, W8 6AG.
Carrie Mae Weems
When: 21 June — 3 September 2023
Where: Art Gallery, Barbican Centre
Price: TBC
Image: Carrie Mae Weems , The Louvre, from Museum Series, 2006 Digital c-print, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York / Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin.
#FLODown: The Barbican Art Gallery will present an exhibition that will explore the work and career of Carrie Mae Weems. This will be the first major UK exhibition dedicated Weems, one of the most influential American artists working today. Carrie Mae Weems is celebrated for her exploration of identity, power, desire and social justice through work that challenges representations of race, gender, and class. The exhibition brings together photographs, films, objects and installations spanning over three decades.
Weems came to prominence in the early 1980s through photographic work that questioned how the representation of the Black subject, particularly within America, has historically reproduced systemic racism and inequality. The exhibition will capture the performative and cinematic nature of her practice, from the iconic Kitchen Table Series (1990) to the epic film installation The Shape of Things (2021) focusing on the history of violence in the United States. Her works challenge dominant ideologies and historical narratives created by and disseminated within science, architecture, photography, and mass media. Click here for more. Location: Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS.
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940 – 1970
When: 9 February – 7 May 2023
Where: Galleries 1,8 & 9, Whitechapel Gallery
Price: from £16.50. Concessions available
Image: Elaine de Kooning, The Bull, 1959, Acrylic and collage on Masonite, 76.2 x 88.9 cm, Courtesy The Levett Collection, © EdeK Trust.
#FLODown: Whitechapel Gallery presents Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70. The exhibition reaches beyond the predominantly white, male painters whose names are synonymous with the Abstract Expressionism movement, to discover the practices of numerous international women artists working with gestural abstraction in the aftermath of the Second World War. The exhibition features well-known artists associated with the Abstract Expressionism movement, including American artists Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler, alongside lesser-known figures such as Mozambican-Italian artist Bertina Lopesand and South Korean artist Wook-kyung Choi. Location: Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX.
Julianknxx: Chorus in Rememory of Flight
When: 14 September 2023— 11 February 2024
Where: The Curve, Barbican Centre
Image: Julianknxx, On Freedom Of Movement (wi de muv), Still, 2022. Courtesy of the artist © Studioknxx.
#FLODown: Poet, artist and filmmaker Julianknxx explores themes of inheritance, loss and belonging as he crosses the boundaries between written word, music and visual art. The Sierra Leonian artist will use his personal history as a prism to deconstruct dominant perspectives on African art, history, and culture. Rich with symbolism, his work conveys the Black experience of defining and redefining the self rejecting labels to form new collective narratives. Offering song and music as forms of resistance, the exhibition invokes new understandings of what it means to be caught between, and to be of, multiple places. Choirs and musicians from cities across Europe give voice to a single refrain: ‘We are what’s left of us’, transforming the Curve into a collaborative space of communication. Click here for more. Location: Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS.
Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism
When: 31 March - 10 September 2023
Where: Dulwich Picture Gallery
Price: TBC
Image: Berthe Morisot, Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight, 1885 © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.
#FLODown: In spring 2023, the Dulwich Picture Gallery will present Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism, the first major UK exhibition of the renowned Impressionist since 1950. In partnership with the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, it will bring together around 30 of Morisot’s most important works from international collections to many that have never been seen before in the UK. A founding member of the Impressionist group, Berthe Morisot was known for her swiftly painted glimpses of contemporary life and intimate domestic scenes. She featured prominently in the Impressionist exhibitions and defied social norms to become one of the movement’s most influential figures. The exhibition will draw on new research and previously unpublished archival material from the Musée Marmottan Monet to trace the roots of her inspiration. Location: Gallery Road, London SE21 7AD.
Marina Abramović
When: 23 September — 10 December 2023
Where: Royal Academy of Arts
Price: TBC
Image: ‘Artist Portrait with a Candle (A)’, from the series With Eyes Closed I See Happiness, 2012.Colour, fine art pigment print. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives © Marina Abramović.
#FLODown: Marina Abramović is one of the most important performance artists in the world. In Abramović’s first major exhibition in the UK, the Royal Academy of Arts will bring together works spanning her 50-year career. Over the past 50 years, Marina Abramović has earned worldwide acclaim as a pioneer of performance art. She has consistently tested the limits of her own physical and mental endurance in her work – and invited audiences to encounter it with her. The exhibition will offer visitors the sort of intense, physical encounter for which she has become known. Abramović will also participate in an interesting programme of talks and events surrounding the exhibition. Location: Main Galleries, Burlington House, London W1J 0BD.
Women in Revolt!
When: 8 November 2023 – 7 April 2024
Where: Tate Britain
Price: TBC
Image: Helen Chadwick, In the Kitchen (Stove), 1977 © The Estate of the Artist. Courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery, London and Rome.
#FLODown: Tate Britain presents a major survey of work by over 100 women artists working in the UK from 1970 to 1990. This exhibition will be a first of its kind in the UK and will explore women’s liberation forged against the backdrop of extreme social, economic and political change. Women in Revolt! will focus on a hugely diverse range of artists and a wide variety of mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, film and performance. This exhibition will explore and reflect on issues and events such as the British Women’s Liberation movement, the fight for legal changes impacting women, maternal and domestic experiences, Rock Against Racism and Punk, Greenham Common and the peace movement, the visibility of Black and South Asian Women Artists, Section 28 and the AIDs pandemic. It is not one to be missed. Location: Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG.
