7 Too-Good-to-Miss Exhibitions in London Every Art and Design Lover Should Have on Their Radar Right Now — A Culture Editor's Winter Bucket List
Take these art shows in London as your antidote to cold weather slumberness
January can be a hell of a month for those of us who have indulged too hard in the holiday period and are yet to get back to their top form. But if there's one thing to rejoice about us being at the peak of winter, it's that the most depressing month of the year also coincides with the awakening of the British capital's cultural scene, where hundreds of appointments are ready to entertain arts-versed readers for weeks to come, starting from the best design and art exhibitions in London.
This month, a leitmotif runs through many of the most exciting London art shows: the desire to embrace objects and their materiality as vehicles for meaning; as containers for the most absurd, surreal, or verosimile of stories. Or, even, as gateways into specific beliefs, traditions, and cultures — into different ways of being. It is a theme that proves just how much the things we surround ourselves with can influence our lives, one that rings especially relevant as we approach a new beginning. Still, when it comes to uncovering the best new exhibitions in London, things are (forgive the pun) very rarely so black and white.
Saatchi Gallery's 40th-anniversary exhibition gathers large-scale works from esteemed artists like Richard Wilson and Jenny Saville alongside new commissions to explore climate change, technology, and the scope of human genius across the decades. Oscar-nominated director Luca Guadagnino brings a rare slice of Italy to Thomas Dane Gallery with Luigi Ghirri: Felicità, an emotional retrospective he curated, dedicated to the work of the great photography pioneer. While multidisciplinary artist Leah Clements examines tropes of illness and perception in her enigmatic debut UK solo exhibition, Apophenia.
Keen to know more? Find all the London art shows I have on my list for the weeks to come below.
1. Together, Sarah Myerscough Gallery
Where & When: The Schoolhouse, 18 Balderton St, London W1K 6TG. To February 7
Many of the design and art exhibitions in London that speak to me most are centered around the action of making as both a sense and a shape-giving process, and so it's no coincidence that I have recently taken up a pottery course. Within the more traditional, aesthetics-led contemporary art world, though, not a lot of attention is paid to either craft or function. On view at Sarah Myerscough's new Mayfair headquarters until February 7, Together gathers contributions from 30 artists, makers, and designers who view their practice as a vessel of "shared humanity, cultural heritage, and a primordial connection to the natural world".
Whether through animated furniture, curious stoneware sculptures, or uncanny fiber compositions, the London art show seeks to demonstrate that, just like artist Theaster Gates says, "without the pursuit of making, I would have no purpose," capturing hands-on creativity as the ultimate way to be in touch with planet Earth. Got here too late? Make note of Thread, another one of Sarah Myerscough Gallery's unmissable exhibitions in London, and dive into the philosophy of weaving as a physical gesture and universal language spanning centuries (March 26-May 14).
2. Massimiliano Gottardi: Zero, Alice Amati
Where & When: 27 Warren St, London W1T 5NB. To February 28
Instinctively, the see-through, fish tank-looking boxes that punctuate, alongside other crafty, curious forms, Zero, artist Massimiliano Gottardi's ongoing solo show at gallery Alice Amati, feel like long-forgotten time capsules — visible manifestations of a way of living, of being, created to be discovered by someone else further down the line. Staring closely at these glass cases, it is easy to spot the many domestic objects that, much like sea life constrained into a bowl, exist pretty much motionless inside them, submerged in water.
A chunky, vintage radio. Cutlery, stacked-up plates, and wine glasses. Crunched up foliage, paper cutouts, and half-finished beverages. There is a familiarity in Gottardi's work that attracts viewers almost immediately to it, but it's in depriving these common items of their original purpose that the artist imbues them with an almost eerie feeling. To him, they are embodiments of our relationship to chance; how the flow of life is constantly reassessed by it, put on hold, or disrupted.
Elsewhere in the gallery, geometrically designed talismans, including an oversized, 20-faced die, hint at mysterious sacred rituals. Despite the immediacy of certain symbols — the candle-lit altar, for example — it's like we have lost our ability to interact with them; to decipher their use. The London art show, then, feels like a metaphor for the dual face of the consumerist world, where stuff is sold to us as a remedy to everything, but most often than not, it doesn't cure us. Rather, it clutters our lives.
Plan your visit to Massimiliano Gottardi: Zero.
3. Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, Sadie Coles HQ
Where & When: 17 Savile Row, London W1S 3PN. To March 21
With over 40 artists on display, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, one of the first exhibitions to land at gallery Sadie Coles's new Savile Row space, borrows its intricate narratives from an Oscar Wilde novella of the same title. It brings the building's layered history as a 1870 arts club and the Irish author's vivid, sharp commentary on the Mayfair of the time together into one. Already in the 19th century, Wilde had recognized the spasmodic human obsession with appearance, and just how much people are willing to risk — or to trade — to prevent their looks from perishing over time.
Taking the performative nature and drama of Victorian high society as its backdrop, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime populates Sadie Coles's 17 Savile Row room with a series of colorful, eccentric projections of the self. Spanning photography, sculpture, and installation, the works on view in this London art show seek to denounce how both our lust for perfection and the 'touched-up' portrayals resulting from it "continue to conceal alternative private or primal impulses, and that our dependence on the observation of others remains absolute," explains the gallery.
Here, naked bodies float from above or lie on the floor. Human eyes appear to be inspecting both the figures in the canvases nearby and those observing them. While, albeit represented together, pairs of lovers can't seem to escape a feeling of solitude. Wrapped in flowy, pale antique rose curtains, with Persian rugs placed atop wooden floors, the exhibit stands as a manifesto to the egotism and the fragility inherent to the era of post-truth.
Plan your visit to Lord Arthur Savile's Crime.
4. The Long Now: Saatchi Gallery at 40, Saatchi Gallery
Where & When: Duke of York's HQ, King's Rd, London SW3 4RY. To April 26
How do you capture a gallery's 40 years of programming in one single show? Continuing at the Chelsea hotspot through April 26, The Long Now: Saatchi Gallery at 40 attempts to answer that — and more. The group show, which brings together nearly 50 artists, including long-acclaimed names like Edward Burtynsky, Olafur Eliasson, Alex Katz, Sterling Ruby, and Damien Hirst, as well as rising personalities such as Dima Sroji and Ibrahim Mahama, was conceived by Philippa Adams, senior director at the art platform between 1999 and 2020.
Inside, you'll find anything from ginormous ants climbing up the walls to wall-wide, mesmerizing, sprawling canvases, and a vintage yellow car floating above the heads of some visibly distressed performers, to towering sculptures and walk-through installations suspended between the truth and the surreal. At once reflecting the spectrum of contemporary creative expression and that of the preoccupations that incite artists to continue creating, The Long Now: Saatchi Gallery at 40 is a physical exploration of the dilemmas that shape life today, from the rise (and rise) of technology to the shifting notion of identity and climate change.
Plan your visit to The Long Now: Saatchi Gallery at 40.
5. Leah Clements: Apophenia
Where & When: 97-99 Hoxton St, London N1 6QL. Opening February 6. To May 2
One of the exhibitions in London I am most excited to visit this month reconnects me with the work of local multidisciplinary artist Leah Clements, whose production I have written about in the past, and yet never ceases to surprise me. Apophenia, her first major solo show in the UK, is named after a condition that makes people spot patterns or connections between unrelated phenomena or events. For this new exhibition, Clements, who has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and uses her practice as a means of exorcising the impact this has on her life, has developed a single-channel film along with a body of sculptural, as well as audiovisual works.
In the video, which follows a female protagonist on a journey through thermal sites across Bath, Wales, London, and Bristol, the artist zooms in on water as a source of healing and purification, largely from distorted perceptions of illness and disability and what these entail. Visitors are invited to watch the footage while lying on medical seating resembling that of wellness clinics, psychoanalysis therapy rooms, or hospitals, as conversations between Clements and writer Jenn Asworth delve into the reality of living with a long-term condition while playing out in their ears. Through thorough, multisensory immersion, the experience transforms guests from passive visitors into active feelers, bridging the gap between the actor's, the artist's, and observers' own experiences.
Plan your visit to Peer Gallery.
6. Luigi Ghirri: Felicità, Thomas Dane Gallery
Where & When: 3 and 11 Duke Street St James's, London SW1Y 6BN. To May 9
Ask any Italian what the best exhibitions to see in London right now are, and they'll include a mention of the photography retrospective that's just opened at Thomas Dane Gallery, Luigi Ghirri: Felicità. Originally from Emilia Romagna and departed prematurely in 1992, Ghirri is one of the most innovative photographers to have been born in and have graced the Italian peninsula.
He is not just the greatest inspiration for my own visual practice, having invented a way to reveal the infinite subtleties, the nostalgia mixed with mystery that defines the landscapes and stories of my native Italy via his poignant color photography. But, as it turns out, he has also inspired Oscar-nominated director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria, Bones and All, Queer), who curated this London art show alongside long-term collaborator Alessio Bolzoni, dearly. The result is a captivating sequence of never-before-exhibited or rarely seen Ghirri images that capture Italy up close, unveiling a different side to it.
Plan your visit to Luigi Ghirri: Felicità.
7. Wes Anderson: The Archives, The Design Museum
Where & When: 224-238 Kensington High St, London W8 6AG. To July 26
With his hyper-symmetric gaze and his pastel-tinted interiors, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Wes Anderson hasn't just earned himself a name in the cinema empire — he's shown us a different way to look at and take in the world. In the recently inaugurated Wes Anderson: The Archives exhibition at the Design Museum, the American director's genius is out in full force, and so are the countless ephemera, film costumes, and models strikingly displayed throughout this London art show.
Accompanied by a spectacular, meticulously compiled catalogue of the same title, the exhibition marks the first time that Anderson's precious arsenal is presented to the public in the UK, and comprises more than 700 objects related to his movies, including some featured in his latest release, The Phoenician Scheme. Much just artist and designer Bethan Laura Wood's recent Platform showcase at the museum, Wes Anderson: The Archives is a world worth getting lost in, or, actually, more than just one!
Book your ticket for Wes Anderson: The Archives.
Not in London but still looking for inspiring destinations fit to uplift you this winter? Dive into our newest travel trends 2026 report to get a taste of the cities and activities destined to inspire globetrotters in the year ahead, or revisit our coverage of past design exhibitions to keep all notable galleries, fairs, and pop-ups on your map.
