Top 10 art exhibitions in London
Our critics' pick of the must-see exhibitions this season
1
Jake and Dinos Chapman: Come and See
- Rated as: 4/5
- Free
Jake Chapman’s head appears from a giant vagina, like a gurning Jack Nicholson in full-on ‘Here’s Johnny!’ mode. A stop-motion artist-cockroach gets soaked with spooge. But these aren’t the best parts of Jake and Dinos Chapman’s queasily awesome film ‘Fucking Hell’ (2013)...
- Serpentine Sackler Gallery West Carriage Drive, Kensington Gardens, W2 2AR
- Thu Dec 12 - Sun Feb 9
2
Paul Klee: Making Visible
- Rated as: 5/5
- Critics choice
No other artist of the twentieth century made marks, lines and doodles sing with quite the same melody as Paul Klee. As a result, you’ll spend ages peering at and poring over the witty, joyful masterpieces in this career-spanning retrospective of the Swiss-German artist, watching Klee’s ideas spring to life on canvas and on tiny sheets of paper that become flickering constellations.
- Tate Modern Bankside, SE1 9TG
- Thu Dec 12 - Sun Mar 9
3
Installation view of 'Situaltion' at Whitechapel © Sarah Lucas. Photo: Stephen White
Sarah Lucas: Situation Absolute Beach Man Rubble
- Rated as: 4/5
- Free
Get ready to be tantalised and titillated by this long-overdue survey of an often-overlooked YBA (Young British Artist). This retrospective revisits the playfully suggestive works of Sarah Lucas – and it is not for the faint-of-heart.
- Whitechapel Gallery 77-82 Whitechapel High St, E1 7QX
- Until Sun Dec 15
4
National Gallery of Art
Whistler and the Thames: An American in London
- Rated as: 4/5
In the mid-nineteenth century, just across the Channel, artists were pushing the boundaries of art as far as they could. The stark realism of Gustave Courbet and the powerful innovations of Edouard Manet set the radical tone that the impressionists would soon follow. It was the birth of modernism. Over here, we had James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose atmospheric distillations of place remain icons of the period.
- Dulwich Picture Gallery Gallery Rd, SE21 7AD
- Thu Dec 12 - Sun Jan 12
5
Elmgreen & Dragset: Tomorrow
- Free
For autumn 2013 the Danish/Norwegian duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset (of boy-on-a-rocking-horse Fourth Plinth fame) are creating a site-specific installation in the V&A's former Textile Galleries. The exhibition is an elaborate installation of a grand domestic setting belonging to a fictional architect. Objects from the V&A's collection are presented alongside artworks, furniture and every day items to create an unexpected encounter for the museum visitor.
6
Key. 9
Honore Daumier
Lunch in the Country, c. 1867-1868
Oil on panel
26 x 34 cm
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Photo (c) National Museum of Wales
Daumier: Visions of Paris
- Rated as: 4/5
Was Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) the greatest caricaturist that ever lived? That’s the question you start asking yourself about halfway through this enthralling exhibition.
- Royal Academy of Arts Piccadilly, W1J OBD
- Thu Dec 12 - Sun Jan 26
7
Suzanne Treister: In the Name of Art and Other Recent Works
- Rated as: 4/5
- Free
There’s a chance you may leave this exhibition more paranoid than you entered it, maybe even with the urge to fashion some sort of tinfoil hat for yourself. Because British net art pioneer Suzanne Treister’s latest works mine the bottomless depths of government control and military surveillance in our post-Snowden/WikiLeaks society.
- Annely Juda 23 Dering St, W1S 1AW
- Thu Dec 12 - Fri Dec 20
8
Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity
- Rated as: 4/5
- Free
Celeb mums, endless Instagram baby pics: we're used to seeing images of motherhood but its realities are seldom expressed. In unflinching photos and videos, the eight artists here consider more nuanced ways of seeing a universal subject.
- Photographers' Gallery 16-18 Ramillies St, W1F 7LW
- Thu Dec 12 - Sun Jan 5
9
Spencer Murphy, 'Katie Walsh', 2013 © Spencer Murphy
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013
- Rated as: 4/5
Like any good portrait show, the Taylor Wessing Prize leaves you wondering about the ways we judge beauty, whether it’s a beautiful face or a prizeworthy image.
- National Portrait Gallery St Martin's Place, WC2H 0HE
- Thu Dec 12 - Sun Feb 9
10
Exhibition view of 'Re-View: Onnasch Collection', 2013 Courtesy the artists and estates, Onnasch Collection and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne
Re-View: Onnasch Collection
- Free
All three Hauser & Wirth's gallery's are simultaneously presenting works by eminent artists from the collection of Reinhard Onnasch, the German dealer who opened his first gallery in New York after the Second World War and is responsible for introducing German artists including Dieter Roth and Hanna Darboven to an American audience. Curated by post-war scholar Paul Schimmel, the show focuses on works from a twenty year period between 1950 to 1970 covering various movements from Pop Art, Fluxus to Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism.
- Hauser & Wirth 23 Savile Row, W1S 2ET
- Thu Dec 12 - Sat Dec 14
Top art features
Top 10 art exhibitions in the city
Our critics' pick of the must-see art exhibitions in town this season
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London art calendar
See the London art exhibitions calendar
Popular art exhibitions
- Paul Klee: Making Visible
- Jake and Dinos Chapman: Come and See
- Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art
- Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2013
- Elmgreen & Dragset: Tomorrow
- Only in England: Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr
- Daumier: Visions of Paris
- Whistler and the Thames: An American in London
- Turner and the Sea
- Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity
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