Tabish Khan, the @LondonArtCritic, picks his Top 5 Gallery and Museum Exhibitions to see in London this Summer. Check out the previous top 5 if you’re after more shows to visit.
Misan Harriman: The Purpose of Light at Hope 93
When people in the UK face a clampdown on how and what they can protest, these photographs celebrate the banners people bring to them. These include people asking for justice for Grenfell, stating Black Lives Matter and the many marches against the genocide in Gaza, including one powerful image of holocaust survivors attending a protest against the genocide. Until 30th October, free.
Dr Jasmine Pradissitto: Tender Machines at the London Museum of Water and Steam
This museum has been transformed with prints, paintings, and sculptures for the museum’s first contemporary art exhibition. A dramatic bride is enshrouded in steam and sits underneath one of the engines, while other sculptures are made from Jasmine Pradissitto’s unique pollution-absorbing NOXORB material. The industrial machinery of the past, paired with works that reflect on the damage that contemporary industry has done to the world, is the perfect marriage. Until 31st October, ticketed.
Ken Nwadiogbu: Yellow is the New Black at Kristin Hjellegjerde, Tower Bridge
Did you know that yellow is the brightest colour the human eye can perceive? Neither did I, but that’s at the centre of Ken Nwadiogbu’s celebration of black bodies. It feels like both a nod to the erasure of black lives in Western media and the black being the colour that is the least reflective of natural light. There are references to migration and the surreal as some figures have sprouted angel wings in this eye-catching collection of figurative paintings. Until 6th September, free.
Alien Shores: Landscape, once removed at White Cube, Bermondsey
Many galleries host group shows during the Summer months, but this one, featuring contemporary artists exploring the landscape, is rather special. Noemie Goudal’s film of a landscape gradually collapsing sits opposite Sholto Blissett’s stunning Romantic landscapes. Pranay Dutta’s graphite and charcoal landscapes are adjacent to Eva Jospin’s Forest of cardboard and wood. Glenn Brown’s cherubic head emerging from a tree and Ken Gun Min’s surreal landscapes incorporate gemstones and thread. There’s such a diversity of landscapes in this show, which also includes works by Anselm Kiefer and David Hockney. Until 7th September, free.
Contraptions and Connections at Heath Robinson Museum
A deer-guitar hybrid that plucks its strings and plays a tune when you press a pedal, a cymbal that crashes after inserting a twenty pence piece and lots of other fantastic contraptions abound in this exhibition of kinetic art – old and new. It’s fun, inventive, humorous and keeping in line with Heath Robinson’s contraptions. It’s an exhibition that makes it well worth the trip out to Pinner. Until 26th October, ticketed.
Hope 93 image copyright Misan Harriman, Ken Nwadiogbu photo Benjamin Deakin, Alien Shores image © White Cube (Ollie Hammick), Contraptions and Connections image copyright Tabish Khan.
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Art Critic for both FAD and Londonist. See as many exhibitions as possible and write reviews, opinion pieces and a weekly top 5 for FAD.