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141 exhibitions found in London

Dates: 17 Sep 09 - 13 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 176 Prince of Wales Road London
Tel: +44 (0)20 7491 5720 Website

Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 8 Heddon Street London W1B 4BU
Tel: 020 7734 7575 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 31 Cork Street London W1S 3NU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7439 1866 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 34 Cork Street London W1S 3NU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7439 1866 Website

Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 16-18 Berners Street London W1T 3LN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 4720 Website

Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 18 Dec 09
Categories: Post-War (1945-70)
Address: 23 Dering Street London W1S 1AW
Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 7578 Website

Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 18 Dec 09
Categories: Modern (1900-1945) Post-War (1945-70)
Address: 23 Dering Street London W1S 1AW
Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 7578 Website

Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 31 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 60 Great Marlborough Street London W1F 7BG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7439 2201 Website

Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 49 Dorset Street London W1U 7NF
Tel: +44 (0)20 7224 4192 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 257 Oxford St, Paddington London NSW 2021
Tel: +612 9332 1455 Website

Dates: 30 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Level 3, Silk Street, Barbican Centre London EC2Y 8DS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 4141 Website

Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 136b Lancaster Road, First Floor London W11 1QU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7985 0015 Website

Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 22 Newport Street London SE11 6AY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7582 6465 Website

Dates: 11 Nov 09 - 1 Jan 99
Categories: Post-War (1945-70)
Address: 6 Cork Street London W1S 3NX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3431 Website

Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 50 Finsbury Square London EC2A 1HD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7330 7500 Website

Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 20 Dec 09
Categories: Latin American Modern (1900-1945)
Address: 98 Boundary Road London NW8 0RH
Tel: +44 (0)20 7624 1126 Website

Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 7 Mar 10
Categories: Photography
Address: 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB
Tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7332 Website

Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art Latin American
Address: Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7323 8299 Website

A dejected ruler murdered by his own people after failing to prevent Spanish forces from conquering his once mighty empire that at its height stretched from the Pacific Ocean the Gulf of Mexico; this is the image of Moctezuma II that resonates five centuries after his demise. This show, the last in the museum’s series to explore power and empire through historical figures, investigates the less well-known period in the life of the Aztec emperor—the 18 years he reigned prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. The display tells the story of Moctezuma (reigned 1502-20) through monumental sculpture, gold and turquoise artefacts, codices, European portraits and enconchados (oil paintings with mother of pearl detail inlaid on wood panels) drawn from the museum’s collection as well as those in Mexico, the US and Europe. “We want to reinsert Moctezuma into the Columbian world as a unique ruler in his own right—not merely as a post-colonial figure. It’s a wonderful challenge,” says Dr Colin McEwan, head of the museum’s Americas department and curator of the show, in cooperation with his Mexican colleagues Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Leonardo López Luján and Felipe Solís Olguín, who died in April 2009. Divided into thematic sections, the show examines various aspects of Moctezuma’s life including his role as a semi-divine figure or intermediary with Aztec gods, his military prowess and his varied achievements as a ruler. The exhibition also delves into the Spanish conquest and presents an alternative version of the ruler’s death. On display are two 16th-century codices—shown together here for the first time—one of which depicts Moctezuma in chains and the other with a rope around his neck, suggesting he might not have willingly welcomed the Spanish, but rather been a captive who was later dispatched by the Hispanic invaders. “We’re showing how history is constructed and represented and how events can be read in the 21st century. We want to bring less well-known aspects of his life into Western historicity,” says McEwan. The show presents new scholarship on the emperor including the first in-depth reconstruction of a lost portrait of Moctezuma carved into Chapultepec Hill in Mexico City. E.S.

Turquoise mosaic mask, Aztec/Mixtec, 1400-1521 AD

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 25 Chepstow Corner London W2 4XE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7229 8811 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 42 Hoxton Square, Lower Ground Floor London N1 6PB
Tel: +44 (0)20 7729 1290 Website

Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 12 Dec 09
Categories: Decorative Contemporary (1970-present) African
Address: School of Oriental and African Studies, Russell Square London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4915 Website

Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 12 Dec 09
Categories: Middle East Far East Photography
Address: School of Oriental and African Studies, Russell Square London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4915 Website

Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 22 Calvert Avenue London E2 7JP
Tel: +44 07714 763 489 Website

Dates: 25 Sep 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Arkwright Road London NW3 6DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7472 5500 Website

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 20 Dec 09
Categories: Video & New Media Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 64 Chisenhale Road London E3 5QZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 8981 4518 Website

Dates: 22 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: 2 Albemarle Street London W1X 3HF
Tel: +44 (0)20 7408 0362 Website

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Post-War (1945-70)
Address: Somerset House, Strand London WC2R 0RN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 2777 Website

Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 7 Mar 10
Categories: Design Decorative
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website

Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website

Dates: 18 Nov 09 - 14 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website

Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 31 Mar 10
Categories: Design Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website

Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Modern (1900-1945) Old Master
Address: Gallery Road London SE21 7AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 8693 5254 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Gallery Road London SE21 7AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 8693 5254 Website

Dates: 24 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 159 Farringdon Road Corner, Bakers Row London ec1r 3al
Tel: +44 (0)20 7833 2674 Website

Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 27 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 10 Clifford Street London W1S 2LJ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 5464 Website

Dates: 30 Sep 09 - 20 Dec 09
Categories: Modern (1900-1945) Post-War (1945-70)
Address: 39a Canonbury Square London N1 2AN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7704 9522 Website

Dates: 10 Nov 09 - 3 Dec 09
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: 148 New Bond Street London W1S 2JT
Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 5116 Website

Dates: 15 Sep 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master Contemporary (1970-present) Post-War (1945-70) Modern (1900-1945) 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 13 Berkeley Street London W1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7409 5730 Website

Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 21 Cork Street London W1S 3LZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7439 7766 Website

Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 24 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 82 Kingsland Road London E2 8DP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7920 7777 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 17-18 Golden Square London W1F 9JJ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7494 1550 Website

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 26 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 6-24 Britannia Street London WC1X 9JD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7841 9960 Website

Dates: 12 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 17-19 Davies Street London W1K 3DE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 3020 Website

Dates: 19 Sep 09 - 28 Oct 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 1-5 Exhibition Road London SW7
Tel: +44 (0) 7774 113 813 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 30 Davies Street London W1Y 4NB
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 2488 Website

Dates: 28 Oct 09 - 22 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 1a Kempsford Road London SE11 4NU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7840 9101 Website

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Photography
Address: 13 Carlos Place London W1Y 2EU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7499 9493 Website

Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 15 Old Bond Street London W1S 4AX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7399 9770 Website

Dates: 28 Sep 09 - 22 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 196A Piccadilly London W1J 9DY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7287 2300 Website

Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Post-War (1945-70) Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road London SE1 8XX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7921 0813 Website

“Each piece cultivates its own labyrinth that you can enter in to, if you were to spend a little time thinking about it.” So says Hayward Gallery director Ralph Rugoff, but it’s not a sentence you would immediately associate with the minimal paintings of Ed Ruscha. Rugoff says that through his experience of curating this autumn’s exhibition, he has discovered “layers and layers” to these “deceptively simple-looking” paintings. “The more you think about them, the more you can spin out all sorts of references and resonances that these works are setting into play,” he told The Art Newspaper. The show of 78 works, many of which haven’t been shown before in the UK, celebrates 50 years since Ruscha first made paintings that he would include in his “official body of work”. “These were works that he made when he was still a student, but works that he feels could represent him,” says Rugoff. Ruscha started out in the late 1950s looking at print media, magazines and books, which led to his focus on words, but treating words as objects or images rather than carriers of linguistic meaning. He became interested in the graphic potential of words and the ambiguity of communication. “One thing Ed often says is that he associates the word, because of the way it unfurls horizontally, with landscape,” Rugoff says. “He is taking a very broad definition of what landscape might be. Unless you’re painting people, which is something he doesn’t do, all painting might be related to landscape.” Ruscha has also been very influenced by film, particularly widescreen formats such as cinemascope. Often the proportions of his work reflect this way of framing the world, with pieces that are four or fives times as wide as they are high. “It’s about a type of look, a scanning look,” says Rugoff. “It’s not a static look at one object that’s fixed in place, it’s about a landscape you might be driving through. It’s very much a product of car culture, a reflection on that.” But there is also a fascination with the sublime in Ruscha’s work, images of majestic snow-covered mountains, fiery sunsets or rays of light, a recurring motif in his paintings. “He’s very interested in ideas of grandeur, and how even when these have become clichés, they still awaken certain yearnings in us, we’re still susceptible to them,” says Rugoff. Following this exhibition, the gallery will be closed until May 2010 for renovations. The show travels to Haus der Kunst, Munich (12 February-2 May 2010) and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (29 May-5 September 2010).R.S.

Standard Station, 1966

Dates: 12 Oct 09 - 26 Feb 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 2 Cork Street London W1S 3LB
Tel: +44 (0)20 7494 3200 Website

Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 2 Herald Street London E2 6JT
Tel: +44(0)20 7168 2566 Website

Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 21 Vyner Street London E2 9DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 8983 4355 Website

Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 31 Oct 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945) Curious
Address: Lambeth Road London SE1 6HZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7416 5320 Website

Dates: 5 Sep 09 - 5 Sep 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945) Curious
Address: Lambeth Road London SE1 6HZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7416 5320 Website

Dates: 8 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 5 Savile Row London W1S 3PD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 3906 Website

Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 13 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 171 Union Street London SE1 OLN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7654 0171 Website

Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 5 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 20 Park Walk London SW10 0AQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7351 0410 Website

Dates: 3 Nov 09 - 23 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 5-8 Lower John Street London W1F 9DR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 9002 Website

Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 16 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 5-8 Lower John Street London W1F 9DR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 9002 Website

Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 7a Vyner Street London E2 9DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 8981 9100 Website

Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 29 Bell Street London NW1 5BY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7724 3713 Website

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 20 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 3 Olaf Street London W11 4BE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7985 9600 Website

Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 137-139 Whitecross Street London EC1Y 8JL
Tel: 020 7490 3667 Website

Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 12 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 131 Kennington Park Road London SE11 4JJ
Tel: Website

Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 6 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 5161 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Post-War (1945-70)
Address: 6 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 5161 Website

Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 29 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 7/8 Mason’s Yard, Duke Street London SW1Y 6BU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7930 2437 Website

Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 83 Great Titchfield Street London W1W 6RH
Tel: +44 (0)79 0814 0424 Website

Dates: 26 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Cambridge Heath Road London E2 9PA
Tel: +44 (0)20 8980 2415 Website

Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Latin American Old Master
Address: Trafalgar Square London WC2 5DN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7747 2885 Website

Today’s audience is familiar with the quest for the hyper-real in work by contemporary artists such as Duane Hanson, Robert Bechtle and Ron Mueck. But what are the precedents for this tradition? The National Gallery mounts an exhibition devoted to religious art from 17th-century Spain—the country’s artistic Golden Age—when hyperrealistic paintings and polychrome sculpture reigned supreme. This landmark presentation pairs 15 paintings by artists such as Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbáran alongside 14 examples of Spain’s lesser known art form—painted sculptures—to show how artists who painted on canvas were inspired and often competed with those who painted sculpture. This is the first major exhibition of Spanish polychrome sculpture ever staged and contains many pieces never before shown outside of the Iberian peninsula. Works are drawn from the museum’s collection as well as private and public collections in Spain, the UK and the US. According to the exhibition’s curator, Xavier Bray, from the museum’s 17th- and 18th-century paintings department: “In Spain, sculpture was the preferred artform to make religion more immediate, more direct. It was a shock to the senses,” adding: “We want to reintroduce this lost art form.” Scenes of the Passion were especially popular, with artists exercising their entire repertoire, including using glass for eyes, pieces of bark to simulate coagulated blood and real bone for toe and fingernails, to create the most realistic pieces. As some of the sculptures are still used as devotional objects, Bray was presented with difficulties in term of both negotiating loans and displaying the objects. In order to secure the loan of an Immaculate Conception work from a Spanish convent, Bray agreed, after a five-hour conversation, to mark the feast day (8 December) by bringing a priest into the museum. “We want to respect religious decorum as much as we can,” said Bray. One of the biggest coups is the sculpture St Francis Standing in Meditation, 1663, by Pedro de Mena. The work has never before left the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral and access to it is so limited that an Emperor of Brazil was even denied access. The exhibition also sees the return to Europe of two major paintings by Zurbáran. St Serapion, 1628, is on loan from the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, US, and The Crucifixion, 1627, considered lost until it was purchased by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1952. Both pieces have not been on view in Europe in more than 50 years. Accompanying this presentation is the focused exhibition “The Making of Spanish Polychrome Sculpture”, which features as its centrepiece the recently conserved sculpture St John of the Cross, 1675, by Francisco Antonio Ruiz Gijón. Above, Pedro de Mena, Christ as the Man of Sorrows, 1673. Coinciding with the National Gallery show is “The Mystery of Faith: an Eye on Spanish Sculpture 1550-1750” at Matthiesen Gallery. The display features 30 terracotta, stone and wood sculptures by leading Spanish artists. E.S.

Pedro de Mena, Christ as the Man of Sorrows, 1673

Dates: 18 Nov 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Trafalgar Square London WC2 5DN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7747 2885 Website

The Hoerengracht (Whore’s Canal) is a dark, intricate, large-scale installation work by US artists Ed Kienholz (1927-94) and his wife Nancy Reddin Kienholz (b1943). The piece, made between 1983 and 1988, has been shown in venues around the world since 1989, but never before in London. The walk-through installation, which evokes Amsterdam’s Red Light District through a series of dense assemblages, is staged in the National Gallery’s Sunley Room, a temporary exhibition space that holds a series of contemporary shows that connect with the permanent collection of the museum. In this case the work is being shown in relation to 17th-century Dutch paintings, including Jan Steen’s Interior of an Inn, 1665-70, and Pieter de Hooch’s A Musical Party in a Courtyard, 1677. “This connection is important,” Colin Wiggins, curator of the exhibition, told The Art Newspaper. “The National Gallery collection ends at 1900. For a younger audience, this can make the collection seem remote and inaccessible. Contemporary exhibitions that show the connection between the old and the new help to bridge that gap and can help to introduce a younger audience to the richness of the collection.” Wiggins believes that the Sunley Room is the perfect location for such shows as it is “right in the centre of the National Gallery, sandwiched between Velázquez and the Italian Renaissance. We don’t want to show contemporary work, for example, in a back corridor disconnected from the collection,” he said. “The National Gallery is a living collection and continues to inspire today’s art. It is not a collection of old dead fossils.” The last major Kienholz show in London was at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1971. “Since then this city has been strangely neglectful,” said Wiggins. We all know about Picasso, Duchamp, Pollock and Warhol, but I have become convinced that Kienholz is similarly one of the defining names of the 20th century.” The show is supported by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Dates: 28 Sep 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Park Row, Greenwich London SE10 9NF
Tel: +44 (0)20 8312 6790 Website

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Post-War (1945-70)
Address: St Martin’s Place London WC2H 0HE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7312 2463 Website

Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Photography
Address: St Martin’s Place London WC2H 0HE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7312 2463 Website

This portrait photography prize, sponsored by law firm Taylor Wessing, is seen as one of the leading international photographic awards with a £12,000 prize for the winner. The 60 works on show have been chosen from about 6,300 submissions by a panel that includes Diane Smyth, deputy editor of the British Journal of Photography, NPG director Sandy Nairne and photographer Fergus Greer. “We were all very much agreed on the work that didn’t quite hit the mark, but the process of whittling the list down to the 60 photographs that would be shown in the NPG, and then the top four that would become the shortlist, was a lot tougher,” says Smyth “It was interesting to see that two styles that seem popular in both the UK and the US—the snapshot aesthetic and highly polished, retouched imagery—were not that prominent. A large majority of the work was documentary and semi-staged”. New this year is the Elle Commission, judged by Elle’s editor-in-chief Lorraine Candy, the winner of which will be commissioned to shoot a feature story for the magazine. W.O.

Paul Floyd Blake, Rosie Bancroft, 2008.

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 24 Old Gloucester Street London WC1N 3AL
Tel: +44 (0)20 7242 7367 Website

Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: University of Westminster 35 Marylebone Road London NW1 5LS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7911 5876 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present) Photography
Address: 16-18 Ramillies Street London WC2 7HY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7831 1772 ext 2 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 54 Eastcastle Street London W1W
Tel: Website

Dates: 11 Nov 09 - 5 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 91 Pimlico Road London SW1W 8PH
Tel: +44 (0)20 7730 7656 Website

Dates: 22 Oct 09 - 5 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Mattock Lane, London W5 5EQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 8567 1227 Website

Dates: 1 Aug 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Block K, 175 Bermondsey Street London SE1 3UW
Tel: +44 (0)20 7403 4444 Website

Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 13 Dec 09
Categories: Photography
Address: Battersea Park London SW11 4NJ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7350 0523 Website

Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 12 Dec 09
Categories: Photography Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 65 Hopton Street London SE1 9GZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7401 9229 Website

Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 12 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present) Photography
Address: 65 Hopton Street London SE1 9GZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7401 9229 Website

Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 56-58 Artillery Lane London E1 7LS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7377 4300 Website

The German film-maker Harun Farocki turned to making films for two or more screens in the mid-1990s, works that moved him from the realm of cinema to that of art galleries. Farocki’s so-called “essay films” use found footage to highlight the variance between an “official” version of historical events as portrayed in the media, and that of real life, reflecting on the way that society uses photographs and the moving image. Raven Row and Tate Modern have come together to present work from throughout Farocki’s career in the most comprehensive showing of his work in the UK. His single-screen films made for the cinema, dating from the 1960s, are screened in Tate Modern’s Starr Auditorium, curated by Stuart Comer, Antje Ehmann and the Otolith Group, while one six-screen work and eight multi-screen installations made since 1995 show at the Raven Row gallery. Farocki, born in Czechoslovakia in 1944 in the then German annexed town of Novy Jicín, rose from the politicised environment of German film-making in the 1960s, and represents the shift of the moving image from cinema to gallery. The Tate is screening more than 20 films including two of his most significant works, Images of the World and the Inscription of War, 1988, and Videograms of a Revolution, 1992, about the Romanian revolution, which, Comer says, explores “the way media culture influences how we see history and how we see war, and how war even determines history through media images”. The Tate also hosts interviews with Farocki and discussions about his work. “An analysis and understanding of editing is something that Farocki applies to all his work,” said Raven Row director Alex Sainsbury. “It drove him to work on two screens to allow what he calls ‘simultaneity’ as well as succession, so that two images could comment on one another and cross over. He is extremely interested in the way that images are used and how we are made to read them in particular ways.” A 12-screen work showing at Ravens Row, Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades, 2006, consists of found footage showing factory workers through the ages heading for home at the end of their shift. The work is also a history of cinema, as it features Louis Lumière’s La Sortie des Usines Lumière, 1895 (above), a short, silent test film of employees leaving the Lumière factory, considered to be the first motion picture ever to be made. For his newest work, Immersion, 2009, Farocki filmed victims of the Iraq war undergoing therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. A catalogue is published by Koenig Books to coincide with the Raven Row show.

Dates: 23 Sep 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 147 New Bond Street London W1S 2TS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 3939 Website

Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: 147 New Bond Street London W1S 2TS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 3939 Website

Dates: 21 Sep 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 79 Beak Street London W1F 9SU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7439 0000 Website

Dates: 9 Nov 09 - 5 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 7 Wakefield Street London WC1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7243 7345 Website

One hundred large paraffin wax portraits featuring Kate Moss, Barack Obama, Rupert Murdoch, Bernard Madoff and others, go on display in London for the first time at Riflemaker Dairy.

Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 2 Bear Gardens London SE1 9ED
Tel: +44 (0)20 7261 9510 Website

Dates: 18 Sep 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Rivington Place London EC2A 3BA
Tel: +44 (0)20 7749 1240 Website

Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 29 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 8 Duke Street London SW1Y 6BN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 3100 Website

Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 26 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 16 Clifford Street London W1S 3RG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 6487 Website

Dates: 24 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: Burlington House, Piccadilly London W1J 0BD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7300 8000 Website

Dates: 26 Sep 09 - 11 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Burlington House, Piccadilly London W1J 0BD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7300 8000 Website

A cannon fires red wax on to the hallowed walls of Burlington House as part of Anish Kapoor’s retrospective in the main galleries, a first for a living artist. Showing alongside the work, entitled Shooting into the Corner, 2008-09, are Kapoor’s pigment-coloured sculptures and reflective sculptures, as well as new and previously unseen pieces. The centrepiece of the show is Svayambh, 2007, a 20-tonne block of scarlet wax that works its way through the galleries, leaving large clumps of viscous, waxy residue on the doorframes. R.C.

Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Burlington House, Piccadilly London W1J 0BD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7300 8000 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 30 Jan 10
Categories: Design Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website

Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Decorative 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website

Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Modern (1900-1945) Post-War (1945-70) Contemporary (1970-present) Design Photography
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website

Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Design Video & New Media
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website

Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 25 Nov 09
Categories: Design Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website

Dates: 25 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Duke of York, King's Road London SW3
Tel: +44 (0)20 7823 2363 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 35 Heddon Street London W1B 4BP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7434 2227 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 69 South Audley Street London W1K 2QZ
Tel: +44 [0] 20 7493 8611 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 9 Balfour Mews London W1
Tel: +44 [0] 20 7493 8611 Website

Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 12 Berkeley Street London W1 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)207 491 0100 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 30 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields London WC2A 3BP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7405 2107 Website

Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 65 Peckham Road London SE5 8UH
Tel: +44 (0)20 7703 6120 Website

Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 26 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 125 Kensington Church Street London W8 7LP
Tel: Website

Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 20 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 23/25 Eastcastle Street London W1W 8DF
Tel: +44 (0)20 7299 7950 Website

Dates: 23 Sep 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: Millbank London SW1P 4RG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

Dates: 29 Jun 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Millbank London SW1P 4RG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 16 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Millbank London SW1P 4RG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

The annual hunt for trends and themes that inevitably accompanies the announcement of the Turner Prize shortlist has fallen this year on the works of contemporary surrealist Enrico David, installation artist Roger Hiorns, Glasgow-based artist Lucy Skaer, and wall-based artist Richard Wright. Drawing is in, while Glasgow’s standing as a British centre for contemporary art is recognised with two of the artists living and working in the Scottish city. The exhibition is curated by Lizzie Carey-Thomas, the Tate’s curator of contemporary British art: “If anything characterises this year’s shortlist it is probably craft and drawing, which underpin all of the artists’ work. They also have a very direct engagement with their materials and the process of making in the more traditional sense of the word.” Another key theme that engages the four, she says, is the process of transformation. “Lucy Skaer, for example, always starts with a found image that she transforms through a process of transcribing it from one format to another,” said Carey-Thomas. “Through that process she attempts to slow down our understanding of what we are looking at, to draw attention to the act of looking.” Skaer, who divides her time between Glasgow and London, has meditated on diverse themes in past works, including whales, prison cells and the artist Leonora Carrington. Italian-born David, like Skaer, often appropriates and uses pre-existing imagery in his sculptures, paintings and works on paper that feature comically grotesque cloth dolls and harlequins—he is shortlisted for solo shows at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, and the Seattle Art Museum. Glasgow-based artist Richard Wright (b1960), who just sneaks in under the prize’s under-50 criteria, moved in the early 1990s from figurative paintings on canvas to delicate, hand-drawn patterns and marks applied directly on to walls. The drawings relate closely to their architectural context, often sitting modestly in unlikely corners or on decorative features. Roger Hiorns is shortlisted for his Artangel-commissioned exhibition Seizure, 2008, for which he filled a disused 1960s South London flat with 90,000 litres of liquid copper sulphate to create an alien, cavernous space coated in intense blue crystals. Hiorn’s knowledge of his materials is such that he can set the works in motion and then allow them to take their course. Carey-Thomas suggests there will be surprises in the show but that the artists have remained focused on the long view. “Yes, it’s the Turner Prize and it has a higher profile than most shows of contemporary art, but I don’t think that’s really entered into their decisions as to what to show. They’ve approached it thinking about where they are now in their practice, where their work is going and wanting to reflect that in the exhibition above and beyond anything else.” The artists were selected by Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Jonathan Jones, art critic, Mariella Frostrup, writer and broadcaster, Andrea Schlieker, director of the Folkestone Triennial and Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain and the jury’s chair. The winner of the £25,000 award—the runners-up receive £5,000 each—will be broadcast live on Channel 4 on 7 December. James Hobbs

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Bankside Power Station, 25 Sumner Street London SE1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Bankside Power Station, 25 Sumner Street London SE1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 5 Apr 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Bankside Power Station, 25 Sumner Street London SE1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Bankside Power Station, 25 Sumner Street London SE1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Bankside Power Station, 25 Sumner Street London SE1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website

The German film-maker Harun Farocki turned to making films for two or more screens in the mid-1990s, works that moved him from the realm of cinema to that of art galleries. Farocki’s so-called “essay films” use found footage to highlight the variance between an “official” version of historical events as portrayed in the media, and that of real life, reflecting on the way that society uses photographs and the moving image. Raven Row and Tate Modern have come together to present work from throughout Farocki’s career in the most comprehensive showing of his work in the UK. His single-screen films made for the cinema, dating from the 1960s, are screened in Tate Modern’s Starr Auditorium, curated by Stuart Comer, Antje Ehmann and the Otolith Group, while one six-screen work and eight multi-screen installations made since 1995 show at the Raven Row gallery. Farocki, born in Czechoslovakia in 1944 in the then German annexed town of Novy Jicín, rose from the politicised environment of German film-making in the 1960s, and represents the shift of the moving image from cinema to gallery. The Tate is screening more than 20 films including two of his most significant works, Images of the World and the Inscription of War, 1988, and Videograms of a Revolution, 1992, about the Romanian revolution, which, Comer says, explores “the way media culture influences how we see history and how we see war, and how war even determines history through media images”. The Tate also hosts interviews with Farocki and discussions about his work. “An analysis and understanding of editing is something that Farocki applies to all his work,” said Raven Row director Alex Sainsbury. “It drove him to work on two screens to allow what he calls ‘simultaneity’ as well as succession, so that two images could comment on one another and cross over. He is extremely interested in the way that images are used and how we are made to read them in particular ways.” A 12-screen work showing at Ravens Row, Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades, 2006, consists of found footage showing factory workers through the ages heading for home at the end of their shift. The work is also a history of cinema, as it features Louis Lumière’s La Sortie des Usines Lumière, 1895, a short, silent test film of employees leaving the Lumière factory, considered to be the first motion picture ever to be made. For his newest work, Immersion, 2009, Farocki filmed victims of the Iraq war undergoing therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. A catalogue is published by Koenig Books to coincide with the Raven Row show.

Louis Lumière’s La Sortie des Usines Lumière, 1895

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 47 Approach Road London E2 9LY
Tel: +44 (0)20 8983 3878 Website

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 74 Mortimer Street London W1W 7RZ
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7631 4210 Website

Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Curious
Address: Buckingham Palace Road London SW1A 1AA
Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 1377 Website

Paintings by Johan Zoffany, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, and Dutch 17th-century artists Pieter de Hooch and Godfried Schalcken, are included in this exhibition of conversation pieces. Such works depict and celebrate intimate and informal aspects of family life, and were associated with a Dutch 17th-century middle-class tradition. A third of the 40 paintings are by Dutch 17th-century artists, followed by English 18th-century conversation pieces which are considered a continuation of the Netherlandish tradition. The English section seeks to emphasise the close relationship of the royal family to the genre, using it as a platform to present themselves in a more private and approachable fashion. So, for example, there are works showing the monarch in an intimate environment. According to curator Desmond Showe-Taylor “through the conversation pieces the royal family delivered an important message, communicating the idea of a model functioning family”. Included is Zoffany’s The Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1772-78, which depicts a gathering of artists and gentlemen in a landscape of masterpieces.

Zoffany’s The Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1772-78

Dates: 8 Oct 09 - 31 Mar 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Old Castle Street London E1 7NT
Tel: +44 (0)20 7320 2222 Website

Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 21 Dering Street London W1S 1AL
Tel: +44 (0)20 7409 3344 Website

Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 15 Carlos Place London W1K 2EX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7409 3344 Website

Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Far East Decorative
Address: Cromwell Road, South Kensington London SW7 2RL
Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 2000 Website

Dates: 18 Oct 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 25 Vyner Street London E2 9DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7613 1609 Website

Dates: 6 Jun 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Decorative
Address: Hertford House, Manchester Square London W1M 6BN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7563 9500 Website

Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Hertford House, Manchester Square London W1M 6BN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7563 9500 Website

Damien Hirst has returned to painting his own paintings, showing a new series of 25 works created between 2006 and 2008, “No Love Lost”, within the lavish surroundings of the Wallace Collection. Hirst’s love of skulls and butterflies shows no signs of abating in this series of memento mori works, with pieces such as the triptych The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, 2008, depicting skulls suspended within webs of faint white lines on dark backgrounds, one with a menacing shark’s jaw in the centre. Another, Requiem, White Roses and Butterflies, 2008, shows a still life of roses in a vase, with butterflies radiating outwards, again interweaved within a network of faint lines, while a vibrant lemon punctuates the darkness in Skull with Ashtray and Lemon, 2006/07 (above). All have a prominent blue palette—the series was originally titled “The Blue Paintings”. “Showing Damien Hirst’s work at the Wallace Collection presents an opportunity for our regular visitors to see our collections in a different light—passing from our galleries of 17th- and 18th-century works to one of contemporary painting,” says Wallace Collection director Rosalind Savill. “Naturally there will be a lot of interest in this new work resulting in many visitors coming to the collection for the first time.” The two upper galleries where Hirst’s work will be shown have been closed as part of the museum’s ongoing refurbishment programme, so no works will need to be displaced. The galleries will be hung with French silks matching the wall coverings in the Oval Drawing Room, “ensuring the galleries are an extension of the intimate, luxurious atmosphere of the Wallace Collection”, says Savill. Hirst clearly relishes the chance to validate this new vein within such a rich art historical setting. “I like Ruskin’s idea of art, that there’s an unbroken line all the way back to the cavemen, and we are just the most recent additions,” he states, in typically grand fashion. Rosie Spencer

Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Curious
Address: 77-82 Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7522 7888 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 77-82 Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7522 7888 Website

Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Curious
Address: 77-82 Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7522 7888 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 77-82 Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7522 7888 Website

The French artist Sophie Calle’s first UK retrospective consists of 12 key works dating from 1979 to the present. Its aim, says director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery Iwona Blazwick, is to “look at the political and social dimensions of her work,” said Blazwick, “and focus on the way that she enters into dialogues and a social contract with the participants of her projects.” It includes the premier of the English language version of the installation Take Care of Yourself (left), which was first shown in the French Pavillion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. It is based on an email sent to Calle by her partner in which he told her he wanted to end the relationship. She responded by asking 107 women, including judges, dancers and therapists, to comment on the email. “She precipitates something creative from something negative,” said Blazwick, “and affects a kind of alchemical translation into something that is art.” Little in her life seems to be off limits for Calle; her work Couldn’t Capture Death, 2007, shows Calle’s mother’s final moments on her death bed. The exhibition continues to the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, from 16 January to 16 May 2010. J.H.

Take Care of Yourself

Dates: 18 Sep 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 50-58 Vyner Street London E29DQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 8980 2662 Website