The London art exhibitions to see in September

Group shows, major career retrospectives, intimate viewings and avant-garde performances – London is abuzz with art exhibitions. Plan your next visit with our handy, frequently updated guide to the city's best goings on. Heading across the pond? Here are the best New York art exhibitions to see this month.

London art exhibitions: what to see in September 2024

‘Homelessness: Reframed’

Saatchi Gallery
Until 20 September

In collaboration with Saatchi Gallery and the Eleven Eleven Foundation, Prince William’s Homewards Programme will present Homelessness: Reframed at Saatchi Gallery. The complex topic is showcased through artwork by artists who have either experienced homelessness or are inspired by the experiences of others, with a collective aim to break down perceptions of homelessness through conversation-starting artwork. Illustrating various forms of homelessness, from street homelessness to sleeping on sofas and temporary accommodation, the exhibition includes contributions from British photographer Rankin to graffiti artist Opake and more.

saatchigallery.com

‘Daffodils baptized in butter’

The Arts Club
26 September 2024 to 19 January 2025

The Arts Club is in full bloom as it uncovers the symbolic, mystical and historical meaning of flowers in its latest exhibition Daffodils Baptized In Butter. Through a contemporary lens, 25 artists present their unique perspective on flowers, which goes against the surface level idea that they are merely pretty, but actually represent the complexities of human life through growth and decay. Participating artists include Alvaro Barrington, Judy Chicago, Don Brown and more.

theartsclub.co.uk

‘Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers’

National Gallery
14 September 2024 – 19 January 2025

The highly anticipated Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers is open at the National Gallery this month. A curation of Van Gogh’s most recognised paintings from across the world are united in this exhibition including his ‘Starry Night over the Rhône’ (1888, Musée d’Orsay) and ‘The Yellow House’ (1888, Van Gogh Museum), as well as ‘Sunflowers’ (1888) and ‘Van Gogh's Chair’ (1889), among many other works which are rarely seen in public. The exhibition is romantic and mesmerising, offering much loved insight into his poetic work.

nationalgallery.org.uk

‘By the Seaside’

The Photographers' Gallery
Until 8 September 2024

Butlin’s heyday is remembered in John Hilde’s photographs. Through the lens of fond nostalgia the English photographer captured images of the general public at rest throughout Great Britain and Ireland during the 1960s and 1970s, from performers behind the scenes at the circus to rural life in Ireland. One of his most famous series of works captures holidaymakers at holiday camp Butlin’s, and went on to inspire fellow photographers including Martin Parr, who later said: ‘The impact they had on me in 1971 was intense and they have haunted me ever since [...] as with all Hinde imagery, they show an idealised view of the world and, after the passage of time, acquire the power of a lost dream.’

Writer Hannah Silver

‘It Will End in Tears’

The Barbican
18 Sep 2024 - 5 Jan 2025

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum presents her first solo exhibition at The Barbican. Sunstrum draws upon her experience of living across Africa, Southeast Asia, and North America with It Will End in Tears . The showcase includes a series of paintings and drawings which tells a story of a ‘femme fatale’ film noir character living in an imagined colonial outpost. The narrative takes the viewer through her life, and what happens when she deviates from societal rules.

barbican.org.uk

‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’

Wellcome Collection
19 September 2024 – 27 April 2025

Wellcome Collection’s Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights is a thought-provoking exhibition which delves into the complexities of unregulated work practices and how this impacts mental and physical health. The exhibition will consist of historical objects in parallel with contemporary artworks focusing on three places of work: The Plantation, The Street and The Home, each chosen due to the difficult, physical labour, where conditions may be unsafe, and with little to no access to healthcare, a stable income and even basic rights. From sex work, street vending, domestic labour, and prison labor to name a few, Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights highlights the inequalities people face and how their health, work and rights remain hidden.

wellcomecollection.org

Portrait of America

The Observatory Photography Gallery
26 September – 25 January 2025

Emerging photographer Katie Edwards captures the vast nation of America through a unique viewpoint- moving trains. Travelling nearly 10,000 miles and enduring 180 hours of train journeys, Edwards has captured glimpses of the country, from Southern deserts and urban dwellings to snow-capped peaks of the Cascade volcanoes. Due to the darkness in the carriage, the windows are lit up in contrast, and the lens captures the moving scenes wrapped in a beautiful frame, she said ‘I was able to see for hundreds of miles on either side of the train, and this created bizarre effects with the light as it hit specific strips of land in the expanse.’

theobservatory.org

Archive of Dissent

The Whitechapel Gallery
Until 19 January 2025

The power of the image has long held a particular resonance for Peter Kennard, artist and Emeritus Professor of Political Art at the Royal College of Art, whose current exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery is both a tribute to and a warning of the influence of information.

Archive of Dissent unites photomontages, installations and the newspapers where his images first appeared, paying tribute to the space’s original purpose, once known as the ‘People’s University of the East End’ and used as both a refuge from poverty and a place to nurture radical philosophies around art and politics.

Writer Hannah Silver

‘Grace’

Tate Britain
Until January 2025

Alvaro Barrington’s latest exhibition Grace is a curation of Black culture and identity drawn from his own experiences and memories growing up in ex-British colony Grenada and New York City. Installed in Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries, the exhibition is built around three key figures in his life; his grandmother Frederica, his close-friend or sister Samantha and his mother Emelda. Grace is also inspired by the hymn Amazing Grace, a piece of music that sits at the heart of Western Black culture.

Writer: Amah-Rose Abrams

‘Awaken Metamagical Hands'

Gazelli Art House
Until 28 Sep 2024

Uniting code with art, Awaken Metamagical Hands explores the world when mathematics and creativity meet. The collective group of artists work as engineers, and take a step back to see how computers have awakened its ‘creative hands’ within the advancements of artificial intelligence. From an exploration of interactive software and the world of generative art, the exhibition raises important questions about the boundaries of code and AI as art and the future of creativity.

Writer Tianna Williams

'Somnyama Ngonyama'

Tate Modern
Until 26 January 2025

Zanele Muholi, artist and visual activist, celebrates the lives of South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in a series of arresting portraits that aim to offset the stigma around queer identity in African society. On showcase at Tate Modern, and also The Southern Guild in Los Angeles, Muholi considers their own form in portraits taken all around the world, each with intriguing aspects, from wearing crowns of clothesline pins, bed sheet cloaks or lipstick made from toothpaste and vaseline.
tate.org.uk

Writer: Hannah Silver

‘Deadweight’

Whitechapel
Until 15 September 2024

Winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2022-2024, Dominique White stages a new exhibition, ‘Deadweight’, at Whitechapel, featuring work that results from her six-month Italian residency completed as part of the award. The show – its title a reference to the measuring of the weight of ships’ contents, both people and cargo, as a single unit – sees the artist explore Afrofuturism, Afro-pessimism and hydrarchy (the practice of gaining power over land using water). Artworks take inspiration from marine ephemera such as anchors, sails and rope, and include unwieldy, twisted forms in metal, some deliberately corroded in the sea by the artist.

Writer Bridget Downing

whitechapelgallery.org

'Solid Light'

Tate Modern
Until 27 April 2025

Anthony McCall, a trailblazer within experimental cinema and installation art, presents Solid Light at Tate Modern, an exhibition dedicated to the artists' immersive works. Using beams of light projected through thin mist, resulting in solid light forms, allows visitors to playfully interact. The exhibition will also feature film, photography and archive material.

'The World To Me Was A Secret'

The Cosmic House
Until 20 December 2024

The Cosmic House was always intended as more than a home. A postmodern masterpiece, it was created by Charles and Maggie Jencks between 1978 and 1983 in London’s wealthy Holland Park. It functioned as a living space for the radical couple’s family and a hotbed for creative and architectural thought. Little within the house follows the rules of conventional design: the traditional staircase was replaced with a single spiral that is stamped with zodiac signs; everything from doorknobs to toilet flushes are present as unsettling doubles; and a lintel fireplace is painted to emulate polychromatic marble.

Writer: Emily Steer

'Fragile Beauty'

V&A
Until 5 January 2025

Avid photography fans Elton John and David Furnish have amassed a vast array of images over the years. Now, more than 300 rare prints from their collection are set to go on show at a new V&A retrospective divided into eight themes, from reportage and the male body to American photography and celebrity. Works from artists such as Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing and Diane Arbus are exhibited alongside fashion photography by the likes of Irving Penn, Horst P Horst and Herb Ritts. Highlights include intimate portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and Nan Goldin’s Thanksgiving series.

Writer: Hannah Silver