London Exhibition Riot...
Published 18 months ago
This weekend's unmissable art shows!!!
- Text by John-Paul Pryor
Some are about to close their doors, some are just about to kick off, some are slap bang in the middle... Listed below are the London exhibitions you can't afford to miss this weekend – from 16th century sculpture and 20th century robots to celebrity death drives, underground worlds, killer double acts, capitalist realism and a whole lot more...
The Sacred Made Real / The National Gallery
This exhibition of Spanish sculpture and painting from the 16th Century is incredible. Some of these intensely violent depictions of the crucifixion seem so thoroughly modern that you can almost imagine them gracing the walls of a Chapman Brothers show.
The exhibition runs until January 24
Wild Things / The Royal Academy of Art
This is a real eye-opener that explores the radical and revolutionary sculptural aesthetic of 20th century provocateurs Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill. Evoking an intensely sexual machine-saturated mindscape, it's full of stark, robot-like forms that were later adopted by the likes of Fritz Lang, George Lucas and Ridley Scott – a strangely prophetic exhibition infused with dark brilliance.
The exhibition runs until Jan 24
Death Drive / Wapping Project
Tomorrow is your last chance to see Dean Rogers's bleakly unsettling photographs of the places where various famous figures met an untimely demise (pictured). This show is like a taking a death trip on Lynch’s Lost Highway.
The exhibition runs until Nov 1
Gustav Metzger / The Serpentine Gallery
This intense exhibition takes you deep inside the mind of a man who is haunted by the memory of his family’s slaughter at the hands of the Nazis. This is a difficult and emotional show from an artist it has always been impossible to pin down – a harrowing exploration of humanity’s taste for politically-sanctioned murder that is heading into its final week.
The exhibition runs until November 8
Grayson Perry / Victoria Miro
This weekend is one of your last chances to see Grayson Perry’s Walthamstow Tapestry. This is arguably one of the most poignant and important works by any British artist in recent years, brilliantly charting the psycho-geography of Noughties Consumer Britain.
The exhibition runs until Nov 7
Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts / V&A
You could do a lot worse than take a trip back in time this Sunday morning. Taking you deep into the heart of Indian culture this show is full of works that evoke a period in history rich in artistic brilliance.
The exhibition runs until January 17
Anish Kapoor / The Royal Academy of Art
Sure, it's been around for a while now but if you haven't seen it yet take then some time out this weekend. Anish Kapoor's wildly imaginative, wickedly insolent and genuinely iconoclastic exhibition is astounding. There are no words to describe the power of this incredible show.
The exhibition runs until December 11
Alastair MacKinven: Abstract Capitalist Realism / Hotel Gallery
The latest show from MacKinven opens tonight!!! Expect challenging statements in large-scale paintings that riff playfully and insightfully on the capitalist consumer monster.
The exhibition runs until December 5
Chord: Conrad Shawcross / Kingsway Tram Subway
If you have got a taste for some more machine action then head up to Holborn to check out Shawcross’s weird underground universe, populated by cotton yarn and and mechanical wizardry. This will be one of the last chances you will ever get to check it out!
The exhibition runs until November 8
Famous Doubles: Paul Harvery / Wanted Gallery
Art Nouveau meets Pop in the Stuckist artist’s portraits of famous double acts, which takes in everyone from the White Stripes and The Mighty Boosh to art world royalty Gilbert & George. This is irreverent, slick, fun stuff that is only up for one more week!
The exhibition runs until November 8
