All The Upcoming London Exhibitions To Know About

Last week the V&A unveiled a free exhibition featuring 16 looks worn by the 14-time Grammy Award winning artist, Taylor Swift. Hot off the success of Taylor’s recent UK tour, the trail celebrates the creativity of her costumes, lyrics and music videos – and explores the global phenomena of the pop icon. The costumes, many of which are on loan from Taylor’s personal collection, sit alongside instruments, music awards, storyboards and previously unseen archival pieces that explore her childhood and recording legacy. Each of the 13 stops on the trail showcases a chapter of Taylor’s career and spotlights a particular era of her music and songwriting, from the Fearless album to the critically acclaimed, The Tortured Poets Department.

Until 8th September

Visit VAM.ac.uk

Painting, Smoking, Eating has been co-curated by artist Andrew Salgado and takes its title from a Philip Guston painting. The exhibition will include pieces by 13 international artists whose work includes paintings about painting – and self-reflection. Featuring everything from satirical self-portraits to oil paintings of artist’s tools, it includes works made with numerous mediums. Don’t miss the vibrant paintings by American artist Helena Wurzel.

2nd August to 20th September

Visit SaatchiGallery.com

Over 300,000 people in the UK are homeless, with numbers only continuing to rise due to the ongoing cost of living crisis. This free exhibition has been curated in collaboration with Prince William’s Homewards programme and not for profit organisation Eleven-Eleven Foundation, to explore the breadth and complexities of homelessness across the country. It will give people an opportunity to engage with, and better understand, the stories of those who experience homelessness. You can expect to see artwork by the likes of Dave Martin, Marc Davenant, Simone Brewster and Sam D’Cruze, as well as pieces created by children and young people at a series of creative workshops held across six Homewards locations.

7th August to 20th September

Visit SaatchiGallery.com

Next week, two masterpieces by David Hockney that feature reproductions of Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (about 1437–45) will go on display at the National Gallery alongside the original Renaissance painting. The exhibition will encourage visitors to draw comparisons between the 15th-century painting by Piero and the two paintings by Hockney, and to promote ‘slow looking’, an activity that, in Hockney’s opinion, is vital in letting people rediscover just how beautiful the world around them is.

 8th August to 27th October

Visit NationalGallery.org

To mark its 200th anniversary, the National Gallery will soon open a major exhibition on Vincent Van Gogh. The exhibition will be the first to focus on Van Gogh’s imaginative transformations, featuring over 50 works and loans from museums and private collections around the world, including pictures from the Kröller Müller Museum, Van Gogh Museum, and the Musée d’Orsay. Focusing on Van Gogh’s time in Arles and Saint-Rémy in the South of France the exhibition investigates the artist’s fascinating practice of turning the places he encountered into idealised spaces in his art.

14th September to 19th January

Visit NationalGallery.org

This exhibition will be the first in nearly 20 years to focus on Francis Bacon’s portraits. Widely considered to be one of the most outstanding painters of the 20th century, Bacon’s early works feature disconcerting figures, screaming or pained, as the artist explored how to depict humanity in a post-war world. Featuring more than 50 works from private and public collections around the world, as well as photographs of the artist, the exhibition starts with works made in the late 1940s and closes with portraits painted at the end of his life, one of which remained unfinished on an easel in his studio. 

10th October to 19th January

Visit NPG.org.uk

Making a rukus! will explore the playful, radical and disruptive world of the rukus! federation, an art project and living archive exploring contemporary Black LGBTQ+ cultural and political history. Curated by artist, filmmaker and rukus! federation co-founder Topher Campbell, the exhibition explores Black LGBTQ+ creativity, activism, community and pride through archive materials, contemporary artworks and new commissions, celebrating the work of queer Black LGBTQ+ pioneers and artists since the 1970s.

11th October to 19th January

Visit SomersetHouse.org.uk

Tim Burton is the master of the comically grotesque. This exhibition will invite visitors into his world, showing his skills as an illustrator, painter, photographer and author, as well as exploring some of the key collaborations which helped shape his career. Taken from Burton’s personal archive and representing the artist’s creative output from childhood to the present day, the exhibition includes drawings, paintings, photographs, sketchbooks, props, sculptural installations, storyboards and set designs.

25th October to 1st April 

Visit DesignMuseum.org

This exhibition is all about the lives of medieval women in Europe. It will include objects from the British Library’s collection of manuscripts and letters, as well as pieces on loan from international lenders that provide an unprecedented insight into the everyday lives of women during the time. It will explore three key areas of medieval life: the public, the private and the spiritual, taking visitors on a journey through how medieval women saw themselves, their peers and the role religion played in shaping their day-to-day lives.  

25th October to 2nd March 

Visit BL.uk