It is now officially the school holidays for many children and it is also the time of year where many adults plan to take a break from working life as well. If you are stuck for things to do this summer, why not take a stroll around one of London’s current exhibitions? See below for the top exhibitions on our ‘to visit’ list this summer. All of these exhibitions will be closing soon, plan your visit today so you don’t miss out!
Children’s Commission; Edwina Ashton: In the winter hours
Every summer the Project Galleries at Whitechapel Gallery in Whitechapel High Street are transformed into spaces especially for children. With the aim of encouraging the younger generation to explore and discover artwork on their own terms, this is designed to be an environment where families can enjoy art together.
Edwina Ashton creates films, drawings and sculptures inspired by 19th Century novels and natural history illustrations: creating a cast of imaginary characters from sketches, overheard conversations and experiments with second hand materials. A fascination with how animals think and how language shapes our world, Ashton creates stories to explore human emotions and world-views.
Edwina Ashton: In the winter hours is free to visit, click here for opening hours.
Closes: 14.08.2016, Nearest Tube Station: Aldgate East
Celebrating Charlotte Brontë: 1816-1855
The National Portrait Gallery in St Martin’s Place houses the most extensive collection of portraits in the world. Founded with an aim to “promote the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture,” the gallery has temporarily dedicated Room 24 to one of the most celebrated authors of the 19th Century.
In celebration of the 200th anniversary of her birth, Celebrating Charlotte Brontë, explores her life and literary career. Including items on loan from other collections, the exhibition also presents new research into the only surviving portrait of the author and her two sisters (Anne and Emily) by their brother Patrick Branwell Brontë, part of The National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection.
Celebrating Charlotte Brontë: 1816-1855 is free to visit, click here for opening hours.
Closes: 14.08.2016, Nearest Tube Station: Leicester Square or Charring Cross
Summer Exhibition 2016
A mainstay of the arts calendar every summer, this year’s summer exhibition at The Royal Academy in Piccadilly has been curated by sculptor Richard Wilson RA. Every year thousands of pieces of work are submitted to the Royal Academy’s selection process by artists from a range of backgrounds including seasoned professionals and gifted amateurs. From this open submission the exhibition curator chooses the work that will hang in the galleries alongside invited exhibits from some of the world’s most successful artists.
The theme for the invited exhibits this year is artistic duos and includes work from Gilbert and George, brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman as well as a photographic installation by identical twins Jane and Louise Wilson. The work from these artists is surrounded by more than 1,200 works from the open submissions process, including everything from paintings to inkjet prints and everything in between, ensuring there is something for everyone to enjoy. In addition to being one of the world’s largest annual exhibitions, many of the works on show are also for sale so there is an opportunity for you to own original artworks by the future leading names of the art world.
Please Note: This exhibition contains some adult content
Tickets for the Summer Exhibition 2016 are £13.50, including a donation to The Royal Academy, click here to book.
Closes: 21.08.2016, Nearest Tube Station: Piccadilly Circus or Green Park
Mona Hatoum
Following the opening of the new Switch House extension last month, which has since had over a million visitors, there are many new things to explore at the Southbank’s museum of modern art. This is one exhibition that we think is worth visiting whilst you are there.
Mona Hatoum at Tate Modern opened in May and explores the contradictions and complexities of our world through video, sculpture and installation pieces. Described by The Telegraph as “one of the shows of the year,” there are strong themes related to confinement and surveillance, there is a political dimension to the work, encouraging visitors to contemplate what it means to be human in the world today.
Tickets for Mona Hatoum at Tate Modern cost £16, including a donation to TATE, click here to book.
Closes: 21.08.2016, Nearest Tube Station: Southwark or St Paul’s
Daydreaming With Stanley Kubrick
This exhibition at Somerset House has been created in partnership with Canon and curated by Mo’Wax and James Lavelle. All the work on display has been inspired by the cinematic work of director Stanley Kubrick, in response to a film, scene, character or theme. The exhibition has a multi-dimensional feel to it with musician James Lavelle collaborating with musicians and composers to create soundtracks for some installations.
In total 45 artists have contributed to the exhibition, with backgrounds in multiple fields including graphic design, sculpture and film making. The space itself is unusual for an art exhibition as all of the text explanations behind the pieces have been produced in a booklet, rather than being displayed on the walls. According to the curators of the show this is meant to leave as much to the viewers imagination as possible.
Please Note: This exhibition contains some adult content
Tickets for Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick are £12.50, click here to book.
Closes: 24.08.2016, Nearest Tube Station: Temple or Charring Cross
Conceptual Art In Britain: 1964-1979
This show celebrates the period when artists began to use their ideas as the essence of their work, moving away from more traditional approaches. The works on show at Tate Britain this summer features a group of artists who took art past the convential boundaries and began to suggest new ways of engaging with reality.
Taking inspiration from the real world, the questions of what is art and what can art be lead to the creation of work focussing on themes such as feminism and the troubles in Northern Ireland. Featuring work form Michael Craig-Martin, Victor Burgin and conceptual duo Art & Language, this show is sure to be a slice of art history not to miss.
Tickets for Conceptual Art In Britain:1964-1979 are £12, including a donation to TATE, click here to book.
Closes: 24.08.2016, Nearest Tube Station: Pimlico
Painters’ Paintings from Freud to Van Dyck
Inspired by works in the collection previously owned by painters, this show at The National Gallery explores the stories behind the private acquisitions of artists from over 500 years of art history. Looking at the various reasons that painters acquire other painters works as well as the relationships painters have with the work they purchase and what happens when paintings from artists private collections enter into public collections.
For anyone interested in art history, the relationships people forge with art or any budding masters looking for inspiration, this looks to us like an ideal exhibition to visit.
Tickets for Painters’ Paintings from Freud to Van Dyck are £12, click here to book.
Closes: 04.09.2016, Nearest Tube Station: Charring Cross or Leicester Square
Fox Talbot: Dawn Of The Photograph
The Science Museum is always a fun place to visit, especially if you have children, although possibly not as well known for the artistic side of the exhibition schedule their latest exhibit explores the science behind an artistic technique close to our hearts.
Looking at the life and work of William Henry Fox Talbot, this show in the Media Space includes over 170 images from the national photography collection. The show looks at how the invention of the negative-positive process revolutionised communication and earned Talbot the title of the father of modern photography. This is billed as one of the most comprehensive collections of Fox Talbot’s work and features work from his contemporaries as well as his own experiments, documenting the development of the photographic printing process.
Tickets for Fox Talbot: Dawn Of The Photograph are £8, click here to book.
Closes: 11.09.2016, Nearest Tube Station: South Kensington
Is there an exhibition that you would love to see this summer? Share your suggestions with the Innova Art team by posting a comment below.
Nice idea for the summer newsletter.
But contains some serious misspelling.
R.A. Summer Show. 4th Line last word[s] “gifted ammeters”
ammeter |ˈamɪtə|
noun: an instrument for measuring electric current in amperes.
I think you mean amateur |ˈamətə, -tʃə, -tjʊə, ˌaməˈtəː|
noun: a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid basis!
And the first line of the next paragraph, “Gilbert and Gorge” [George]. These are household names in the trade.
It is one of the better R.A. Summer shows. During the last few years the curators seem to have had some great ideas and have brought a new level of competence to the variety of work and how it is arranged. Richard Wilson has done a splendid job. He seems to have dispensed with the use of specific rooms for specific purposes and mixed up the media and the format of the show. Prints appear amongst paintings and sculpture. A very enjoyable show.
Newport Street Gallery: show closing 16 – 10 – 2016.
Not to be missed is Jeff Koons Now at the Newport Street Gallery, Newport Street, SE11 6AJ, owned by Damien Hirst; the gallery building is also nominated for the RIBA Prize this year. The show is full of brilliantly colourful sculpture, weird images and arrangements of objects reminiscent of Surrealist art. The enormous metal coloured sculpture in the form of inflated balloons shaped like creatures as in ‘Ballon Monkey (Blue)’ with exquisite transparent surface shine and ‘Acrobat’, a giant shellfish balanced between two pieces of furniture, made to look like an inflatable object (the source material), and exquisitely painted to look like the inflated gaudy original, defying it’s weight as real cast metal. Some artworks are expressly ‘adult material’ and photography is strictly forbidden!
Dulwich Picture Gallery
Winifred Knights, [who you might ask?] 1899 – 1947. The gallery is showing exquisite pictures from her early years until her premature death in her 1940’s. She attended the Slade School at 18 years old, at the breakout of WW1. She eventually won the Rome Scholarship or Prix de Rome in Decorative Art, the first woman to do so, and spent time honing her skills in Italy. The work is new to me, apparently a student of a local Dulwich school and seen as a star student. Hers is an interesting life of commitment to art and her attitude to her relationships. The originality of some of her work, in particular the late landscape work shows her amazing talent in drawing and colour. Some of her colour work and original compositions show her painterly potential, possibly never fully realised. You can sense the early italian influences in her palette and compositional harmonies. This is a lovely show with much to see and enjoy; close scrutiny will be well rewarded!
Art Space Gallery: Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, 84 St. Peters Street, London N1 8JS
This was a pleasant surprise! As a casual caller at the gallery I wasn’t prepared for the splendid show of paintings by Jeffery Camp. Though I know his work well, this show was a real pleasure as an overview of his long career. Jeffery Camp, now 94 and still hard at work, has retained his beautiful colour sense. Some works date back to the late 50’s and up to more recent times. The painting have a scumbled, textural appearance, quite tactile and allowing the appearance of objects to blend and blur, patches of paint show how things can be described without resorting to mere illustration. There is an unusual eye and experienced eye for composition at work here. Shaped canvases have been in his repertoire for some years and are seen here in a wide range of sizes and shapes. The show ends next week. Don’t miss it if you are in Islington!
Hi Philip,
Thank you for pointing out the mistakes in our article – we have now corrected them, please do let us know if you spot any more!
Also, thank you for the additional suggestions of shows to visit, they certainly look interesting!