January, it’s not all bad. Sure, everyone likes to complain about the weather, the damp, the darkness, the misery, the fat hanging around your gut from Christmas, the paltry sums remaining in your poor bank account, but cheer up, there’s art to see. Loads of it, actually, with everything from painting to sculpture and concrete poetry to scent-infused installations. It won’t help you shift your Christmas pounds, but it’s something to do eh.
Nine London art exhibitions to see in January
New Contemporaries at ICA
The annual celebration of the UK’s best art graduates returns, this time in a new venue. New Contemporaries is always a chance to see what the art schools are churning out, an opportunity to spot some potential stars of the future and to take the pulse of young art in the UK right now.
New Contemporaries is at the ICA, Jan 15-Mar 23 2025. More details here.
‘Condo’
Condo is a city-wide mega-exhibition, a collaboration between dozens of galleries from around the world, and it’s the best thing that happens in the London art world every January. The idea is that galleries from over here invite galleries from over there to share their spaces for a month. This year’s edition will see 49 galleries showing across 22 spaces, including Sadie Coles HQ hosting Jahmek Contemporary Art from Luanda, The Sunday Painter hosting Proyectos Ultravioleta from Guatemala, Project Native Informant hosting Nova Contemporary from Bangkok and loads more. It’s a chance to see what contemporary art from all around the world looks like, and the opening weekend - when the entire art scene traipses from gallery to gallery - is a chance to judge London’s art hipsters for their terrible choices in jackets and winter footwear. The perfect aesthetic experience.
Condo is at various London venues, Jan 18-Feb 15. Free. More details here.
‘Breaking Lines’ at the Estorick Collection
Though mainly known and remembered as a visual phenomenon, Futurism had poetic roots. The early twentieth century Italian are movement was founded by a poet, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and his experimental, avant garde approach to language was at the heart of everything he did. Futurism spawned loads of concrete poetry, and this in-depth show at the Estorick Collection will be a celebration of ‘the expressive force of words’.
Breaking Lines’ is at the Estorick Collection, Jan 15-May 11. More details here.
‘Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism’ at the Royal Academy
Brazilian modernism has been a hot topic in art recently. We had Raven Row’s brilliant show ‘Some May Work As Symbols’ earlier this year, and then the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s somewhat less good Lygia Clark show, and now it’s the RA’s turn with what will surely be a comprehensively historical look at the birth and evolution of modernism’s most colourful and energetic iteration.
‘Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism’ is at the Royal Academy, Jan 28-Apr 21 2025. More details here.
Citra Sasmita: ‘Into Eternal Land’ at the Barbican
The Barbican is promising a journey through ancestral memory, ritual and migration that’ll tickle all your senses in Indonesian artist Citra Sasmita’s Curve installation. The whole space will be wrapped in a panoramic scroll painting, with an ambient soundtrack and scents wafting through the room to transport you to a mythological, post-patriarchal world filled with powerful women.
Citra Sasmita is at the Barbican, Jan 30-Apr 21. Free. More details here.
Thomas Ruff: ‘Expériences Lumineuses’ at David Zwirner
Part of a group of photographers who changed the face of the medium in the 1980s (known as the Dusseldorf School), Thomas Ruff takes a quiet minimal, experimental approach to the ‘grammar of photography’. This show features wholly abstract new and recent work on the ground floor, and a selection of images from throughout his career upstairs.
Thomas Ruff is at David Zwirner, Jan 30-Mar 22. Free. More details here.
'At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World at Victoria Miro
Alice Neel was one of the most important chroniclers of modern life. The American artist painted the people around her, always with tenderness, always with bare honesty. This show – which follows up 2022’s excellent ‘There’s Still Another I See’ – looks at her depictions of figures from queer communities, including politicians, philanthropists, writers, performers, artists, friends and neighbours for a powerful examination of life on the margins, and what it's like to have piercings in unmentionable places.
Alice Neel is at Victoria Miro, Jan 30-Mar 8 2025. Free. More details here.
Jonathan Baldock: ‘0.1%’ at Bloomberg SPACE
Mythological, folkloric, paganistic sculptural shenanigans will fill the ancient Roman Temple of Mithras in English artist Jonathan Baldock’s latest installation. The work will use natural fabrics like hessian and clay to create a personal, intimate reflection on the artist’s own family history as hop-gatherers, and how that all ties to shamanistic ideas of divinity and ritualism.
Jonathan Baldock: ‘0.1%’ is at Bloomberg SPACE, Jan 30-July 2025. Free. More details here.
Christina Kimeze: ‘Between Wood and Wheel’ at South London Gallery
Solitary women seem to haunt natural landscapes in London-based artist Christina Kimeze’s show at South London Gallery. The paintings are all ghostly, hazy and enigmatic like so much contemporary figuration, but they have a joyful heart: an exploration of the enduring popularity of roller skating in Black communities in London and beyond, for a celebration of movement and freedom.
Christina Kimeze: ‘Between Wood and Wheel’ is at South London Gallery, Jan 31-May 11. Free. More details here.
Want more? Here are the top ten exhibitions in London.
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