London Gallery Weekend returns for its sixth year, bringing together the city's premier galleries for a free, weekend-long celebration of art. With hundreds of exhibitions, talks, performances, and more, the event highlights London's claim as a global art capital despite challenges like high rents and gallery closures. Here are ten must-see shows.
Francis Picabia: Expanding Horizons
At Hauser & Wirth, Mayfair, until 1 August. This exhibition traces the wild career of French modernist Francis Picabia, from early landscapes to later abstracts. Described as a mini-Tate retrospective but free, it includes a literary salon on Friday evening.
Anne Imhof: Citizen
At Sprüth Magers, Mayfair, 5 June to 1 August. The German conceptualist presents gothic explorations of the body through scratchy paintings, a morose film, and an installation of crowd barriers. Themes of control and death pervade this intense show.
Dominic Watson: Vinegar and Piss
At The Sunday Painter, Vauxhall, until 11 July. This English artist fills the gallery with a massive galleon made from reclaimed children's playhouses, featuring papier-mache sculptures of vomiting heads and limbs—a surreal critique of the UK's intolerance.
Savannah Harris: Gloria's
At Harlesden High Street, 5 June to 26 July. The gallery transforms into an upmarket cafe named Gloria's, with expensive lattes and red logos. Harris uses the space to show outsider artists and her own paintings, targeting gentrification and loss of community spaces.
Keith Piper
At Niru Ratnam, Fitzrovia, 5 June to 25 July. A founding member of the Blk Art Group, Piper confronts racism and inequality in works spanning 40 years, exploring the relationship between images and power.
Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia: Grown
At William Hine, Camberwell, 5 June to 25 July. The young Glasgow-based artist presents huge theatrical paintings that envelop viewers, using allegory and myth to explore memory and identity.
Oliver Beer: The Sky in the Cave
At Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, Mayfair, 5 June to 31 July. Beer's work focuses on resonance; his latest piece was created in a French cave with paleolithic paintings. He joins singer Rufus Wainwright for a conversation on Friday.
Gray Wielebinski: Bring Me Men
At Nicoletti, Old Street, until 4 July. This satirical show critiques masculinity through collage and installation, including a large aluminum sign from a US army base. Nicoletti is one of London's newer galleries.
Delaine Le Bas: Leap
At Maureen Paley, Bethnal Green, 4 June to 25 July. The 2024 Turner prize nominee blends found objects, textiles, and glass works exploring alchemy and witchcraft in her first show at this influential East End gallery.
Helen Marten: This Weather
At Sadie Coles HQ, Soho, until 12 September. The Turner prize winner presents five films from her recent opera project, continuing her complex conceptual practice at this thriving gallery.
London Gallery Weekend runs from 5-7 June, with free entry to all events.
