Most of London’s big museums and galleries have just opened their big autumn shows, so there is a genuine glut of great art to see. But you’ve got absolutely ages to catch the new Turbine Hall installation or Barbican show.
Five excellent London art exhibitions closing soon
‘Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look’ at the National Gallery, until Oct 27
Slow down, open your eyes, calm your mind and just look. That’s what David Hockney wants you to do in this exhibition that pairs a stunning renaissance composition by Piero della Francesca with two works by the Yorkshireman that reference it. He wants you to take the time to consider, think about, absorb and really, genuinely look at the art. London needs yet another Hockney exhibition about as much as it needs another Pret. But the whole thing is dizzyingly layered, drowning in ideas of the gaze, of the value of art, of religion, of influence and adoration.
‘Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look’ is at the National Gallery, until Oct 27. Free. Read the review here.
Simnikiwe Buhlungu at Chisenhale Gallery, until Nov 3
If there’s any topic the inhabitants of this city can universally relate to, it’s dampness. Our wet, clammy homes on this wet, clammy island are uncomfortably, uncontrollably moist, mouldy, humid places. Amsterdam-based South African artist Simnikiwe Buhlungu has turned the gallery into a living, breathing liquid ecosystem. It’s a meditation on water and its accumulation, distribution and unstoppable cyclical spread. Although this is inarguably just some buckets of water in a room, it's still clever art with interesting ideas, even if England really didn’t need to get any damper than it already is.
Simnikiwe Buhlungu: ‘Hygrosummons (iter.01)’ is at Chisenhale Gallery until Nov 3. Free. Read the review here.
Tracey Emin at White Cube Bermondsey, until Nov 10
Tracey Emin continues the slow evisceration of her own body and psyche in her latest show at White Cube. Splayed across the walls is all the blood and torment of a life lived without fear of sadness or pain, but in the full knowledge that it must come. These dripping, messy paintings oscillate between defiant, proud obstinance and injured, quiet shame. They’re an outpouring of ire with a vulnerability that’s as beautiful as it is honest. Love, it really does tear you apart.
Tracey Emin: ‘I Followed You To The End’ is at White Cube Bermondsey until Nov 10. Free. Read the review here.
‘Un Oeuf Is Un Oeuf’ at TJ Boulting, until Nov 16
TJ Boulting doesn’t smell great. Actually, it stinks. A gross, acrid odour greets you as you walk downstairs into the gallery; the stench of eggs. Eggs are everywhere in art history, and now they’re in this basement in Fitzrovia which has been filled with small, gorgeous pieces of eggy art by the likes of Sarah Lucas, Boo Saville and Man Ray. So often group shows are boring, themeless messes. This is still a mess, literally, but it’s not boring. And its theme is eggcellent. 300 words until an egg pun, not bad.
‘Un Oeuf Is Un Oeuf’ is at TJ Boulting until Nov 16. Read the review here.
Marlene Dumas at Frith Street Gallery, until Nov 16
Skinned alive, humiliated and left to rot. The corpse-like figures in hugely influential South African artist Marlene Dumas’s newest series of paintings have suffered, and their pain is almost tangible. These are haunted, vile, dark images, filled with death and grief. They’re made by spilling paint and finding shapes, but all Dumas sees is pain and torment. Maybe it’s how she sees contemporary society, maybe it’s a reflection of her own emotional state, but either way, it makes for beautifully grim viewing.
Marlene Dumas: ‘Mourning Marsyas’ is at Frith Street Gallery, until Nov 16. Free. Read the review here.
Want more art? MORE? Jeez, fine, have the top ten art exhibitions in London.
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