The latest art and photography exhibition reviews (updated for 2025)

Getting on the tube these days means being bombarded with dozens of ugly advertisements, selling you everything from whisky, to electric toothbrushes and LED facemasks. However, things weren’t always this way. Unlike today’s dull Underground adverts, tube stations during the 1920s and 30s were adorned with strikingly vibrant art deco posters that promoted things to do and places to go around London. Over a hundred of these are exhibited at the London Transport Museum’s latest temporary exhibition, Art Deco: the golden age of poster design, alongside objects like a cigarette case, compact mirror, and tea set that express the decadence of that period.  Back then, a post-war economic boom had propelled consumerism, affording people more leisure time than ever.  Speed, freedom, and opportunity became the ethos of an era that could harness industrial technology in recreation rather than warfare. Such carefreeness is reflected in the bold colours, opulent typefaces, sharp geometry, and indulgent scenes of Londoners enjoying a day out. While a younger audience will be drawn to their vintage aesthetic, older visitors might find them charmingly nostalgic. Art deco didn’t get its name until the 1960s when it came under academic scrutiny; during its day it was simply known as Style Moderne. Which is fitting because many of the artists regularly commissioned by London Transport took vivid inspiration from modernist art movements such as cubism, futurism, and vorticism; unknowingly...

F Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. The novelist might have changed his tune if he’d happened across a young model called Lee Miller back in the New York of the late 1920s.Even back then, in her pixie-cropped fashionista era, the New Yorker must have exuded an unquenchable thirst for discovery and reinvention. Fast forward 30 or so years and she’d been a muse for Man Ray and the Surrealist movement, starred in films, become a famous photographer, decamped to Paris, Cairo and London, traversed war-torn Europe as a daredevil journalist and finally, haunted by the conflict, holed in a cosy corner of Sussex to host arty parties and pioneer avant garde recipes like ‘onion upside down cake’ and ‘marshmallow Coca-Cola ice cream’. She died fêted as a celebrity chef. Second act? She had a folio’s worth.  All of those eras are up on the Tate Britain’s walls for the duration of the gallery’s blockbuster exhibition. Dividing Miller’s extraordinary career chronologically, it’s a time-travelling experience as well as a showcase of her technical and compositional skills. ‘Before the Camera’, shows her as a beautiful young model in NYC in 1926, the daughter of a keen amateur photographer. Walk through a dozen or so rooms and there she is, in Hitler’s bathtub, world-famous and hollowed out, returning to self-portraiture to capture a shattered continent in one image.   If the shimmery black-and-white portraits she took – from a playful Charlie...

At first sight, Candice Lin’s g/hosti, a new commission from the Whitechapel Gallery, evokes a childlike playfulness. At its centre is a maze of cardboard panels which are painted with animals like dogs, cats, and mice, cavorting in a mythical forest. Its simplistic style and bright, warm colours feel akin to the sort of whimsical mural you might find painted on the wall of a primary school. The more you weave through the circular labyrinth, however, the more you realise you’re immersed in something altogether more sinister and political than first meets the eye. Along the perimeter of the room, printed on the wall in a tiny font, you’ll find a gory fable, written by Lin. It tells the story of a man who tears tumours out of his body, and introduces us to the animals we meet in the maze, whom he then sends into the forest to collect items to help him live. The fairytale eventually dovetails into Lin’s ruminations on time and language. What could be trite is actually affecting and adds to the sense of storybook innocence that permeates the entire exhibition. I’d recommend doing a lap to read this in full first, as it sets the scene for the rest of the show. Upon entry to the labyrinth, Lin’s painterly brushstrokes are used to great effect to conjure images of fires burning and what, at first, appears to be animals playing. On closer inspection, you’ll find, however, the animals are often involved in some form of maiming, jumping through flames or playing with a human...

‘Fun’ is a quality which seems to be all too frequently forgotten by curatorial teams. But it certainly takes pride of place at the Saatchi Gallery’s The Long Now, an expansive, nine- room retrospective which aims to both celebrate its past and reiterate its commitment to championing innovation in the present and future. The show is curated by Philippa Adams, who previously served as the gallery’s Senior Director for over 20 years, and is divided into spaces dedicated to key themes which have underpinned its exhibitions over the last four decades. Abstraction, landscapes, AI and technology, and climate change are all given their own rooms. They’re populated with works, old and new, by artists with whom the gallery shares a long-running history, as well as commissions from emerging artists.A reinvention of the wheel, conceptually speaking, it may not be, but it’s a bona fide feast for the eyes. Across two floors, each room has been curated and installed with care to ensure every piece in the room can shine - no space feels overstuffed. Adams has clearly given careful consideration to how the works will complement each other, both in terms of colour and scale, which enhances the viewing experience and makes you want to linger in every room. It’s a rarity that you find yourself at an exhibition where you genuinely don’t know where to look. However, starting from the very first room, dedicated to mark making and boasting Rannva Kunoy’s marvellous, luminescent,...

I am staring at a machine that resembles a torture device from the future. A dozen spindly and black robot arms, each with a bright yellow light on its tip, are attached to two parallel black tracks. Suddenly, the machine starts zooming towards me, its arms squirming like a creepy spider.  It sounds like something out of Blade Runner, but the contraption is actually a kinetic robot sculpture, made as a collaboration between Wayne McGregor and art collective Random International. Separately, in a video, I see two dancers eloquently interacting with the apparatus. Simply put, the work explores the relationship between humans and machines, and you can see it for yourself now at Somerset House’s landmark dance exhibition.  Wayne McGregor: Infinite Bodies takes a look at the work of virtuoso choreographer Wayne McGregor – resident choreographer of The Royal Ballet, and the brains behind the ABBA Voyage avatar’s dance moves. Ever since the ’90s, when he created his first choreographic work inspired by robots (Cyborg, 1995), McGregor has been obsessed with the relationship between the body and technology. Over the years, he’s worked with cognitive neuroscientists at Cambridge, developed an AI choreography tool, and put a sci-fi ballet on the Royal Opera House stage. Now, an impressive display of his lofty work has been put on in London for all to see.  It’s a sensory delight; you can feel soundscapes vibrating in your body Walking through the dark space, visitors are taken...

House of Music, the latest solo exhibition by Peter Doig, marks new territory for the artist who is increasingly known for being Europe’s most expensive painter, thanks to his works repeatedly selling for record-breaking, eye-watering sums on the secondary market. The show is Doig’s first foray into integrating sound into his work, through the inclusion of two sets of restored, cinema-standard analogue speakers which take centre stage in the Serpentine South Gallery, surrounded by a series of new and old paintings which relate to the artist’s love of music. The aim appears to be to transform the gallery into a listening space, something akin to the many hi-fi listening bars which have been popping up in spades around the UK in recent years, or Devon Turnbull’s excellent and hugely popular Hi-Fi Listening Room at Lisson Gallery the year before last. A smattering of plush recliners and chic tables and chairs are dotted around the various rooms, inviting art lovers to sit and enjoy the sounds of Doig’s personal vinyl collection as you take in the sights of his mesmerising, large scale paintings inspired by his time spent living in Trinidad, observing the country’s sound system culture which seemingly had a profound effect on the Scottish painter.  The only problem is, despite going to great lengths to acquire these mammoth speakers - they were ‘harvested from derelict cinemas’ by Doig’s collaborator Laurence Passera - you can’t actually hear the music very well. A private...

To the layperson, high-fashion shows can be a source of confusion. Why would anyone spend thousands on a dress constructed entirely of razor blades, or a pair of decrepit shoes that have been deliberately sullied or even torched? Well, because sometimes creating unwearable garments is actually the point, thank you very much. And that’s exactly what the Barbican’s latest fashion exhibition illustrates.  From the controversial £1,400 Balenciaga destroyed trainers, to Jordanluca’s pee-soaked jeans, and dresses that have been pulled out of bogs, Dirty Looks peers at the muckier side of fashion design. Don’t expect immaculate gowns displayed solemnly in glass cases. This isn’t a historical look at haute couture, or a glossy advert for a fashion house concealed inside a gallery show. The exhibition, featuring more than 120 garments from designers including Maison Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Issey Miyake, takes a clever thematic approach to the philosophy of dirt within fashion, showing how ideas around industrialisation, colonisation, the body, and waste, can be illustrated on the runway.  One particularly icky room is dedicated to bodily fluids, showing artificially sweat and period-stained garb, others to food stains, pieces made with rubbish and to trompe l’oeil faux-grimy clothing.Stand-out pieces include a torn and muddy lace dress from Alexander McQueen’s controversial ‘Highland Rape’ collection, a creepy Miss Havisham-esque Comme des Garçons...

Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha is on from May 8 until August 10 2025, followed by Mona Hatoum in September and Lynda Benglis in February 2026.  In the Barbican’s new, light-filled gallery, the City of London skyline provides a fitting backdrop for the tall, wiry works of Alberto Giacometti beside the hybrid, fragmented figures of Pakistani-American sculptor Huma Bhabha.  For ‘Encounters’, the Giacometti Foundation lent some of the Swiss artist’s most elemental figures for an exhibition that will evolve in the coming months with responses from other artists, including Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum and American sculptor Lynda Benglis. In the first of the three, Bhabha’s sculptures focus on the fragmented body – but where Giacometti’s figures are stretched and attenuated, expressing solitude and existential suffering, she fractures the human form more explicitly, tearing it apart. Though separated by decades – Giacometti shaped by postwar Europe and Bhabha by postcolonial trauma and global violence after 9/11 – their works share a profound interest in the aftermath of war and the psychological scars left behind, speaking to the bruised and battered bodies that exist beyond the immediate experience of conflict.  Bhabha fractures the human form more explicitly, tearing it apart The exhibition demands a slow and meditative engagement. As visitors move throughout, the sculptors’ works are arranged at shifting heights: frozen in mid-stride or suspended in stillness, some...

It’s hard to know if Italian Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna was issuing a doom-laden warning or just a doe-eyed love letter to history. Because written into the nine sprawling canvases of his ‘Triumphs of Caesar’ (six of which are on show here while their gallery in Hampton Court Palace is being renovated) is all the glory and power of Ancient Rome, but its eventual collapse too. It starts, like any good procession, with a load of geezers with trumpets, parping to herald the arrival of victorious Caesar. As they blare, a Black soldier in gorgeous, gilded armour looks back, leading you to the next panel where statues of gods are paraded on carts. Then come the spoils of war, with mounds of seized weapons and armour piled high, then come vases and sacrificial animals, riders on elephant-back, men struggling to carry the loot that symbolises their victory. The final panel, Caesar himself bringing up the rear, remains in Hampton Court, so there is no conclusion here, just a steady, unstoppable stream of glory and rejoicing.  The paintings are faded and damaged, and have been so badly lit that you can only see them properly from a distance and at an angle. But still, they remain breathtaking in their sweeping, chaotic beauty.  Partly, this massive work is a celebration of the glories of the classical world and its brilliance, seen from the other side of some very dark ages. But along with its rise, you can’t help but also think of Rome's demise, of what would eventually...