Top Cultural Shows To Catch In London This Fall

As fall approaches, London’s cultural scene awakens with renewed vibrancy. The city’s galleries, from grand institutions to intimate independents, offer a diverse array of exhibitions that infuse the capital with a distinct creative energy. With so many captivating shows on the horizon, which ones should be at the top of your list this season?

Here are my top choices:

Digital Art School Hauser & Wirth (Until September 19/auction September 11, 2024)

Hauser & Wirth is collaborating with Hospital Rooms, recreating the mental health charity’s Digital Art School format live within the gallery’s London space. Artists Abbas Zahedi, Shepherd Manyika and Eileen Cooper are running creative sessions for visitors, with artists and designers including Giles Deacon, Sutapa Biswas, and Sarah Dwyer hosting art activities projected in cinematic style onto the gallery walls. The idea is to inform the public about the charity’s investigations into new models and methods of humanizing mental health spaces. The exhibition will culminate in an auction at Hauser & Wirth, hosted in partnership with Bonhams, featuring works by Do Ho Suh, Rana Begum, Sutapa Biswas, Peter Liversidge, and many more.

London Design Festival V&A and across London (September 14 to 22, 2024)

Our annual design festival may not be as expansive as Milan’s, but there is still much to explore during the festivities, particularly at the hub, the V&A. I’m naturally biased since this unique museum, nestled among London’s finest in South Kensington, has long been a temple of curiosity—a refuge when I need inspiration. The V&A is a natural space to host a design festival, with creatives responding to its treasures.

It Will End in Tears, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum The Barbican Curve (September 18, 2024 to January 5, 2025)

Exhibited in this unusual curved space at the entrance to one of London’s most dynamic cultural institutions this fall is the work of Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum. Featuring drawing, painting and installation, Sunstrum’s artworks reflect her experiences of living across Africa, Southeast Asia and North America. Her theatrical installation builds an imagined world featuring a femme fatale film noir character living in a made-up colonial outpost, with audiences moving through a series of life-size dioramas and paintings.

All the Colors: Michael Craig-Martin Royal Academy of Arts (September 21 to December 10, 2024)

One that I’m very much looking forward to, curated alongside Michael Craig-Martin, the exhibition takes on the sixty-year career of one of the most influential artists and teachers of his generation. It will bring together over 120 critical works of the British artist, spanning from the 1960s through to the present day, including sculpture, installation, painting and drawing, as well as newly conceived works for the occasion.

The Call, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst Serpentine North (October 4, 2024 to February 2, 2025)

In recent years, the Serpentine has presented an array of exhibitions exploring future-facing art. Together, they’ve painted an exciting story of how machine intelligence can be harnessed positively through the lens of the artist. As Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine’s artistic director, says, artists have the power to make the invisible visible. This October, the gallery welcomes Berlin-based artists and musicians Mat Dryhurst and Holly Herndon, who are imagining the art institution as a laboratory for discovering new technologies through an artist-led AI system. Expect a vibrant discussion on the positives and negatives of AI as the duo addresses current societal concerns with the technology, and platform musical ensembles from across the country in a participatory experience for the public. The Call will show how AI can enhance the power and artistry of the voice and envisage new cultural, legal and technical methods necessary to build AI systems both collaboratively and ethically.

Emajndat Serpentine South (October 4, 2024 to March 2, 2025)

A stone’s throw across the Serpentine waters will be a very different showing. Los Angeles artist Lauren Halsey is planning to transform the gallery into an immersive environment that responds to its location in Kensington Gardens. With a self proclaimed obsession with material culture, Halsey’s visual vocabulary is deeply rooted in LA’s South Central neighborhood, working with maximalist installations and stand-alone objects, archiving and remixing the signs and symbols that populate her environment.

Frieze London Regent’s Park (October 9 to 13, 2024)

First held in Regent’s Park in 2003, the annual contemporary art fair, alongside its sister fair dedicated to old masters, heralds the start of the art season. It continues to explore and expand its horizons, reaching far beyond the boundaries of the park, and with a permanent gallery space at No. 9 Cork Street. The fair itself can at times seem overwhelming, but to my mind Frieze is a must just to pick up on conversations around contemporary art from around the world, all under one giant tent.

Target Queen Hayward Gallery (September 12, 2024)

Bharti Kher is having quite a moment. The British-Indian artist is currently showing at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the UK, and in September will be unveiling a colorful large-scale outdoor installation at the Hayward Gallery on the grounds of the brutalist Southbank Centre. Kher explores the boundaries between humanity and nature, ecology and politics with Target Queen featuring supersized bindis, reimagined from their microscopic form to macro size worn by the goddess, turning the building into a powerful feminine force.

Read my interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, creative director of Serpentine here, see Personal Structures dynamic group exhibition in Venice, and read about other art exhibition highlights here.