London art exhibitions calendar

Multi-sensory installation by fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner broadly based around a series of 'shrines' created by Kapwani Kiwanga, Eric N. Mack, Paul Mpagi Sepuya and Wales Bonner herself. Along with the physical objects, the Serpentine will also host a series of meditation workshops by the musician Laraaji throughout the course of the exhibition. Mysticism, spirituality, African-American aesthetics and university clothing are all referenced in this show which precurses Wales Bonner's upcoming Autumn/Winter 2019 fashion collection. 

Korean shamanism and intense emotions of rage, sorrow and anguish inspire the artworks of Hyon Gyon. The artist's fascinating practice includes using a soldering iron on lengths of traditional Korean satin. The fabric slowly melts and liquifies in the heat, creating an intoxicating result somewhere between beauty and violence. This is the first time a European gallery has staged a solo exhibition of her art. 

Collaboration between artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy looking at race and identity in the era of advanced video games and DNA profiling. The film-based works are partly inspired by Charles Darwin and his work with taxidermist John Edmonstone, a freed slave whose contribution to Darwin's research has largely been written out of history.

The last time White Cube showed an artwork by Miroslaw Balka, it was a floor-to-ceiling rope of used soap in the group show, Memory Palace. This time, the artist's solo show features a huge installation made up of two metal walls heated to 45 degrees - also known as the maximum temperature the human body can tolerate before Bad Things start to happen to it. The work deliberately creates a sense of oppression for gallery visitors in response to global political events. It will also warm you up just as the mercury starts to plummet in late January.

New installation in the Barbican's Curve by video artist Daria Martin. The installation is inspired by dream diaries kept by the artist's grandmother, a survivor of the Holocaust. 

When soldiers from the Indian subcontinent recorded their first-hand experiences of the First World War, officials were unsettled by the 'excess of poetry' in their accounts. This new installation from Raqs Media Collective considers the consequences of ignoring wartime trauma, using their writings and many others to create a reflective dreamscape.

This collaboration between artist Eleanor Minney, Oxford Prof Liz Tunbridge and patients at Bethlem Royal Hospital centres on art exploring self-identity. Among other items on display is a four-metre-long textile work covered in hand-drawn objects relating to self and images of genetic markers.  

It's been 20 years since UK art fans last got a chance to enjoy a major exhibition of Pierre Bonnard's delectably, delicately coloured artworks. Tate Modern have taken the title of this 2019 blockbuster exhibition from the French artist's preferred practice of working from memory (which is good, because as anyone who's read the story of Lizzie Siddal and Millais' Ophelia knows, asking models to pose for long periods in a bathtub can have unwanted consequences).

Video installations and other works by contemporary artist Morag Keil. The London-based artist is interested in how advertising sells us everything we never needed, along with gender roles, escapism and social media. 

From *that* unmade bed to the recent fluoro lettering stretching waaaaay across St Pancras station, Tracey Emin has established herself as one of the most famous and fascinating artists in Britain. The whole of White Cube Bermondsey is being given over to former YBA in 2019. It's going to be MAJOR as art shows go and filled with her beautiful, sensual pink-tinted nudes. Go see.

The wonderfully weird world of Dorothea Tanning comes to Tate Modern with this large show of artworks created across seven decades. The surrealist artist's paintings are well represented here, as are the soft and bulbous sculptures from the latter parts of her career. Make sure you save time to check out the large-scale installation, 'Chambre 202, Hotel du Pavot', a hotel room invaded by contorted body parts coming through the walls. Sweet dreams! 

Diane Arbus's photographs remain some of the most striking, tender and unnerving portraits ever taken. This new show at the Hayward Gallery focuses on the earlier years of the iconic photographer's career (1956 - 62), presenting almost 100 images, many of which have never been displayed in Europe before. 

Kader Attia gets a well deserved major survey exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. The artist's works provide sensitive and thought-provoking reflections on collective memory, regeneration and post-colonialism. One of the show's highlights is a series based on the concept of 'repair', both for nations and individuals, following periods of deep trauma. 

Art galleries can be scary places. The walls are so white, the rooms are so silent and the eagle-eyed gallery attendants are just there to bark orders at you like 'PLEASE DON'T TOUCH THE ARTWORKS.' Enter Franz West and his Passstücke (Adaptives): papier-mâché sculptures designed to be handled. These irreverent, abstract works and many others are included in this major retrospective of West at Tate Modern. So go in, pick them up, move around and make some noise. It's what the artist would have wanted. 

A new (and almost certainly massive) installation from Phyllida Barlow, an artist who specialises in creating sculptural artworks out of mundane materials like cardboard and discarded wood. We don't know much about it, but it's likely to create a striking contrast with the genteel surroundings of the RA. 

Get ruff and ready with the National Portrait Gallery when it exhibits an exquisite collection of miniatures from the Tudor and Jacobean eras. The super-detailed artworks by Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver take gallery-goers back to a time when owning these teeny tiny pictures was part of a complex system of love, friendship, patronage and more. It's a rare opportunity to see these Borrowers-sized treasures, with a whole section dedicated to pictures of England's Virgin Queen. Just make sure you don't forget your glasses. 

Painter of an artwork popularly considered the 'National Painting of Norway', Harald Sohlberg made an artistic career out of capturing his native country in all its snow-tipped glory. This nice bit of programming by the DPG is the first major show of Sohlberg's works outside of Norway and it corresponds with the 150th anniversary of his birth. Expect some truly lovely landscapes, lushly coloured and soaked in woodland light. 

Don McCullin is one of Britain's most prolific photographers, with a career that has taken him across the globe. Tate Britain now displays over 250 images snapped and printed by McCullin. The locations range from the war zones of Syria and Vietnam to the haunting landscapes of Somerset, where the photographer now lives.

Artist Ian Kiaer's recent solo exhibition in Paris was titled 'Endnote tooth', this related show is also called 'Endnote', but with the 'tooth' switched to 'ping', a reference to a Samuel Beckett short story. The exhibition also looks at visionary architecture and features multi-layer paintings using plexiglass previously found in London bus shelters. 

Frank Bowling gets a much-deserved major exhibition at Tate Britain. The artist's long-running career has seen him develop a unique style fusing abstraction with elements of figurative art. Londoners are in for a treat with this show which includes the artist's stunning 'map paintings' and his 'poured paintings' (created by literally pouring paint down a canvas). Whatever you do, don't miss the opportunity to see these gorgeously-coloured artworks in all their glory. 

In her lifetime, Russian artist Natalia Goncharova helped found avant garde modern art movements, worked with Sergei Diaghilev at the Ballet Russes, designed dresses, created theatre set designs and much, much more. This exhibition at Tate Modern is overdue and should help to resurrect her reputation as a major artist you should know about.

'Get your kit off' has been the rallying cry of generations of artists dating back hundreds of years. The RA brings together a selection of the best ever painted in this show dedicated to the nicest nudes of the Rennaisance. One of the highlights will surely be Titian's 'Venus Rising from the Sea' (the 16th-century version of that Bond girl scene), but don't go just expecting endless recreations of the female form. The RA is promising to hang as many Adams as Eves on the wall here, showing how artists haven't just painted, carved and sketched naked women. They did men, too.  

Look into the painting. Look into the painting for longer. Keep looking into the painting. Look at the painting with the intensity of a heron about to catch a slippery fish. Now: stop looking at the painting. Turn around and walk in a straight line. Ah. Walking it's hard sometimes, isn't it? Bridget Riley, Queen of Op Art, gets a big solo show at Hayward Gallery in autumn 2019 and it's going to be filled with the British artist's famous perception-altering artworks from across seven decades. 

Go on, say it. 'Who?' Helene Schjerbeck, that's who and, hopefully come 2019 you'll never need to ask again. Helene Schjerbeck might not be that well known outside her native Finland, but her paintings cry out for greater recognition. Over the course of a long career, Schjerbeck skipped lightly between different artistic trends and traditions, creating stunning self-portraits and many intimate images of her female friends and relatives. The Finnish Laura Knight, perhaps? Find out with this great bit of programming by the Royal Academy.

Retrospective of the innovative abstract expressionist artist Lee Krasner. As the title suggests, one reason for buying a ticket is to check out Krasner's vivid, large-scale canvases that explode in fireworks of colour. But that not all. You'll also be able to see her superb charcoal drawings and some early self-portraits. The Barbican aims to stop Krasner always being mentioned in the same breath as her husband (also an artist). So we're not even going to say his name.

The art of Paul Gauguin isn't exactly unknown (to say the least), yet there's never been an exhibition exclusively of his portraiture - until now. See how the artist put his own twist on the traditional genre of painting as he walked away from impressionism and dove into the murky seas of symbolism. 

It's the exhibition whoever invented the scream emoji has been waiting for. The British Museum stages a huge exhibition of Norway's most famous painter, Edvard Munch. The show, which includes major loans from the Munch Museum in Oslo, will focus on the artist's prints and his unique ability to crystalise intense human emotions like grief, sorrow, jealousy and desire - you know, the ones we felt long before we had the emojis to represent them.

This neat little bit of exhibition planning brings Henry Moore's 'Helmet Head' sculptures back to the very institution that inspired them. Recent research has discovered how the sculptor used the Wallace Collection's archive of armour as inspiration for his 20th-century creations. You can now compare Moore's works with the Renaissance-era pieces he studied when coming to the Wallace Collection during the 30s and 40s. 

In 2003, visitors to Tate Modern went mad for Olafur Eliasson's Turbine Hall installation 'The Weather Project'. The artist is now back at the same galley with a big exhibition and an outside artwork. He's even taking over the Terrace Bar, turning it into a vegetarian canteen. 

Fancy seeing an art show this weekend but no idea where to go? Well look no further. You can't go wrong if you head down to one of our ten favourite art exhibitions taking place in the capital right now.