Tate Britain Commission: Alvaro Barrington Grace at Tate Britain 2024. Photo © Tate (Seraphina Neville)
London is a uniquely dynamic, cosmopolitan, and vibrant cauldron of creativity. The city blends old and new in ways that continually inspire artists who, in turn, bring about a vital energy from the underground to the exhibition and beyond.
August presents a great opportunity to discover these exciting talents in countless shows all around the city. Now, perhaps more than ever, we’re seeing a new exuberance, new galleries, and a new generation of young collectors — all inspired by a new generation of emerging talents.
Here, we share six of our sparkling favorites that might not already be on your list, giving special attention to emerging and under-recognized talents you may be less familiar with — and a few bigger names who are just undeniably amazing.
TATE BRITAIN COMMISSION: Alvarro Barrington: Grace
Through 26 January 2025
Tate Britain
Millbank, London SW1P 4RG
Hours: Monday to Sunday 10am–6pm
Alvaro Barrington’s sprawling installation of paintings and sculptures in Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries and rotund is a powerful meditation on Black culture and identity that confirms his stature as a star of the London scene. Layered with memories of growing up in Grenada and New York City, this deeply personal tribute to his mother, his grandmother, and his sister honors the “Amazing Grace” of Black women.
One highlight is the monumental statue of Samantha in the rotunda, dancing amidst steel drums in ‘Pretty Mas’ — a Caribbean carnival tradition. Another is the commanding sculptural installation Even a Trip to the Corner Store Could Lead to Violence, which features the ominous steel grating of a Brooklyn bodega imprisoned in a cage. On the other end of the spectrum is Barrington’s transcendent stained glass window Makes You Want to Ditch the Critical Distance, which — like the show’s title — points to the importance of the church in the Black Community.
On 3–4 August, Tate Britain is running The Big Weekender event inspired by Alvaro Barrington’s commission. It’s a free, intergenerational festival in partnership with Notting Hill Carnival celebrating the carnival arts and Caribbean culture, heritage, food, and dancing and featuring workshops, Mas performances, sound systems, food trucks, interactive games and much more.
Sin Centre
Through 14 September 2024
Hannah Barry Gallery
4 Holly Grove
Peckham, London
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 11 – 6pm
Sin Centre installation view of Stevie Dix’s Paranoid (1970), 2024, digitally woven cotton tapestry, dimensions variable. Courtesy of Hannah Barry Gallery. © Damian Griffiths
Hannah Barry Gallery stages an ambitious presentation of artists, writers, designers, and friends all working together to engage, surprise, and delight visitors on multiple levels in an entirely refitted space.
The glaring scarlet red walls of Sin Centre set the tone of this deliciously wicked enclave of pure pleasure. What viewers encounter is more of an all-encompassing experience than a conventional exhibition — with works woven through the overall fabric of the space amidst various “unprogrammed” stations of amusement, and Room of Curtains, Marble Bathroom (which is Scott Young’s piece, Public Toilet, 2024), and Instant Cinema. Downstairs, a bar has been installed that invites visitors to indulge. It is open Saturdays until quite late. Books in the Love Library upstairs have all been recommended by luminaries of the contemporary art scene, each identified by a sticker inside.
Featured talents include George Rouy, Jesse Pollock, Mellony Harvey, Nikolaj Schultz, Stevie Dix, Joe Sweeney, Kingsley Ifill, Danny Fox, Tali Lennox, Lisa Ivory, Marie Jacotey, Paloma Proudfoot, Ebun Sodipo, Scott Young, Simon Whybray, Miranda Keyes, Jermaine Gallacher, Harley Weir, and Inez Valentine.
Sin Centre is the fourth project of its kind organized by the gallery since its founding in 2007, following Palazzo Peckham, Venice (2013), Peckham Hotel, London (2013) and Peckham Pavilion, Venice (2009). It finds its name and inspiration in the drawings, writing, and thinking behind an unrealized project by English architect and founder of Archigram Group Michael Webb for a place of transcendence and release from material things.
On Feeling, curated by Peter Davies
Through 3 August 2024
The Approach
1st Floor, 47 Approach Road
Bethnal Green, London E2 9LY
Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12–6pm or by appointment
Installation view of On Feeling at The Approach. Documentation by Michal Brzezinski. Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London.
The Approach invited one of its longtime artists, Peter Davies to curate a show. The marvelous result is On Feeling, which is open until just 3 August, and features 11 young emerging artists — most born in the 1990s — who have studied in or live in London: Okiki Akinfe, Nour Jaouda, Anderson Borba, Lara Shahnavaz, Mohammed Z. Rahman, Alex Margo Arden, Gal Schindler, Kentaro Okumura, Areena Ang, Ruoru Mou, and Lowena Hearn.
Davies bills On Feeling as an exhibition about emotion and subjectivity. When he was a student at Goldsmith’s in the 1990s, subjectivity was a dirty word that needed to be hidden behind fancy rhetoric. Now, he teaches at Slade School and he see that among Gen Z artists, it’s natural and ingenuous. “This is a special time for contemporary art in London,” he writes, “The vision and ambition of the community involved in the emerging gallery scene is creating a powerful sense of possibility.” He compares it to the excitement of the YBA era. “Now however the community of artists is more friendly, supportive, inclusive, diverse, and international.”
There are many new discoveries to be had in this delightful assortment. Gal Schindler is among the many excellent painters. The simplicity of her No Explanations, 2024 — featuring a female nude nonchalantly incised into a field of mint green — resonates with elegant insouciance. Especially amusing among the sculptors are Alex Margo Arden’s Perfume said to have belonged to Amy Winehouse, 2024, which spritzes gallery goers at timed intervals and Anderson Borba’s sculpture Selfie, 2024, which consists of a log reflecting back on itself through a wooden ‘screen’ at the end of a long snaking stick — all worried over with dabs and nicks of paint.
Lonnie Holley, All Rendered Truth
Through 15 September 2024
Camden Art Centre
Arkwright Road
London NW3
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 11am–6pm and Thursdays 11am – 9pm
Installation view, All Rendered Truth at Camden Art Centre. Photo: Rob Harris.
Self-taught and active for more than four decades, acclaimed American artist and musician Lonnie Holley (b. 1950, Birmingham, Alabama) is an important figure in the Black Art tradition from the American South, best known for his visionary assemblages and immersive environments made of found materials — compulsively improvised to convey his meaning “by any means necessary” — who has exhibited widely in museums across the U.S. and England. A powerful and comprehensive presentation of paintings and sculptures, All Rendered Truth is Holley’s first institutional solo show in London.
Holley typically explores the symbols, iconography, and cultural refuse of Americana, signifying the failed promise of the American dream, as well as the trauma of the Black experience — all with a big “thumbs up to mother universe.” This exhibition features new paintings and sculptures he made at a residency in Suffolk earlier this year, alongside previously unseen sculptures made at The Mahler and LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy in 2023. A centerpiece is the monumental new work Nine Notes, which repurposes the components of a pipe organ to commemorate the nine people massacred by white supremacist Dylan Roof in 2015 at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Also featured are many smaller works on pedestals that speak to the artist’s endless inventiveness.
The Camden Art Centre identifies itself as one of the last true Kunsthall spaces in the UK. Its director, Martin Clark sees its mission as “prioritizing exhibition making, risk-taking and giving landmark opportunities to artists at every stage of their careers.” Lonnie Holley’s show, he says, “perfectly exemplifies this work: a first institutional show in London for this important but too-little known septuagenarian artist, but as significantly, an exhibition which emphasizes the urgency and relevance of his extraordinary practice to this time, this place and this moment."
Emerging Designers at Hackney Downs Showroom
Max Radford Gallery
Hackney Downs Studios
Amhurst Terrace, Hackney E8 2BT
By appointment only, max@maxradfordgallery.com
Installation view of designers at Max Radford Gallery's Hackney Downs Showroom. Image courtesy of Max Radford Gallery.
Max Radford opened his gallery four years ago to show emerging London talents who operate in the space between art and design. It was during the Pandemic and people were just seeing retouched images on social media. Realizing the importance of getting the works of design in front of people to experience them in person, he showed at various locations throughout London, but finally now has a permanent showroom of his own in Hackney Downs to call home.
Currently on display are designers he first showed at Belgium’s Collectible design fair, as well as others from his past exhibitions. Pictured above from left are LS Gomma’s XR Mesh Chair, Natalia Triantafylli & Andrew Pierce Scott’s Sunflower Cabinet and Sunflower Panel Sconce, Carsten In der Elst’s Aluskin Chair, Katy Brett’s Driftwood, Fred Thompson’s “Untitled" Table, Amelia Stevens’s Table Without Qualities Plinth, Lewis Kemmenoe’s Patchwork Cabinet, and Louie Isaaman-Jones Dew Drop Wall Cabinet & Bouquet Candelabra. Also on view are works by Georgia Merritt, Grace Prince, Nic Sanderson, Inga Tilda, Eddie Olin, EJR Barnes, Ty Locke, and Matthew Verdon.
The new Hackney Downs Showroom has been such a success, Radford plans on launching a second space in the building in a few weeks time to feature works from his recent Now 4 Then exhibition, contextualized in a fleshed-out bedroom setting. Radford is genuinely excited about new developments in the London design community and excited to be a part of it. He notes that in response to “the relative space and gallery vacuum of the recent London design scene, there has been a trend of young designers just getting on with it and curating and putting on shows themselves — with ‘Chairs of Virtue’ being a notable organizer and the design collective ‘Computer Room’ with Andu Masebo, Charlie Humble-Thomas & Jesse Butterfield having a show open this month at the South London Gallery.” He is immensely supportive of all.
Communion: Site Specific Commissions
Through 14 September 2024
Bold Tendencies
Multi-storey Car Park, 7th–10th Floors
95a Rye Lane, Peckham, London
Hours: Thursday – Wednesday, 11am – 11pm
Saelia Aparicio’s Les Fleurs Du Mal, 2024 at Bold Tendencies © Damian Griffiths Studio.
Summer wouldn’t be the same in London without the world-class programming in the iconic rooftop spaces at Peckham’s Multi-Storey Car Park by the not-for-profit Bold Tendencies, founded in 2007. Come for the musical events and readings — or just to see the amazing art projects in this year’s lineup, which is free.
The 2024 theme is Communion, which encompasses meditations on belonging, faith, and renewal. Featured in the rooftop sculpture park are five ambitious site-specific commissions by acclaimed artists Saelia Aparicio, Adam Farah-Saad, Olu Ogunnaike , Yoko Ono, and Martin Parr exploring how people come together — and often fail to do so — in response to a world in crisis.
One highlight is Saelia Aparicio’s Les Fleurs Du Mal, 2024 —colorful and cartoon-like, post-human painted steel cut-out figures wrestling with various invasive species of flora, including Japanese Knotweed and Kudzu, to reflect on contemporary environmentalism, migration, and cultural difference. Another standout — especially for its wry placement in this context — is Martin Parr’s monumental photograph Sorrento, Italy, 2014, which centers on the sweet embrace of a young couple amidst a colorful patchwork mosaic of bathers spread out on the sandy beach, all connected by the commonplace desire for personal paradise.
Even make a day of it with food and drinks at Frank’s Café, serving seasonal food and drinks daily from brunch to lunch and dinner under its iconic red roof.