Art shows to leave the house for in April 2025

In Navigator, Divine Southgate-Smith drifts between memory, archive and fire – mapping what it means to feel stuck while the world burns. Using magnified, fractured images and layered materials, the artist explores how histories move, distort and repeat. Figures dissolve into abstraction, resisting the violence of visibility and the grip of institutional control. It’s not about answers, but staying with uncertainty. Laced with care, opacity, and refusal, Navigator is a call to reflect, to resist, and to keep moving – even when you don’t know where to.

Navigator runs from 6 March – 12 April 2025 at NiCOLEtti, London, UK

Jeano Edwards is a Jamaican photographer and filmmaker whose tender, poetic visuals explore identity, intimacy, and place, often centring Caribbean landscapes and diasporic experiences. On Tuesday, April 1, Edwards will debut a new film, In The Dark, The Tide Shines Bright, for one night only in London. The screening is part of a wider evening of presentations, with an accompanying publication and music cu ration by Errol from Touching Bass, including a live performance by Yohan Kebede. Edwards isn’t giving much away about the actual film just yet – you’ll just have to get down there to see it for yourself.

The presentation will take place on Tuesday April 1, 2025, from 7pm at Round Chapel, Lower Clapton, E5 0LY, London, UK

Suneil Sanzgiri’s first institutional solo show in Canada, An Impossible Address, opens with a new film. Rooted in four years of research across India, Africa, and Portugal, the work traces interwoven anti-colonial legacies through the figure of Sita Valles, a disappeared Goan-Angolan revolutionary. Set against a reimagined Bandung Conference, the show pulls memory, mourning, and resistance into the present, where unfinished histories demand to be reckoned with – loudly, tenderly, and without resolution.

An Impossible Address runs 12 April – 14 June 2025 at Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada

In Pocket Diary, Baseera Khan cracks open memory, material, and myth with a soft punch. Their UK debut blends oil painting, sculpture, and installation to explore colour as a vessel for grief, joy, and resistance. Red light becomes a portal to childhood, walnut panels carry the weight of Kashmiri craft, and chandeliers spin like disco relics of diasporic dreams. Between presence and absence, Khan offers a tender, radical archive – where personal history bleeds into collective memory and the body both disappears and disrupts. 

Pocket Diary runs from 7 March – 12 April 2025 at Niru Ratnam, London, UK

Selah at 180 Studios is Gabriel Moses’ biggest show yet – 70-plus photographs and 10 films that chart his rise across fashion, music, and sport. From portraits of Skepta and Alek Wek to music videos for Travis Scott and Schoolboy Q, the South London-born, British-Nigerian artist brings soul, style, and stillness to every frame. His new short film The Last Hour, premieres here – an intimate reflection on solitude and redemption. Rooted in memory, family, and faith, Selah is a powerful pause from an artist in full motion.

Selah runs from 28 March — 27 July 2025 at 180 Studios, London, UK

Inner Child at Opera Gallery pairs Niki de Saint Phalle and Yayoi Kusama in a vibrant, emotionally charged exhibition exploring childhood as both wound and remedy. Across 41 works – sculptures, paintings, and installations – the artists channel trauma into joy, memory into magic. From Kusama’s obsessive Infinity Nets to Saint Phalle’s surreal dreamscapes, their works pulse with colour, play, and defiance. Beneath the whimsy lies deep introspection – a reclamation of the inner child as a site of healing, rebellion, and infinite creative potential.

Inner Child runs from 3 April – 5 May 2025 at Opera Gallery, London, UK

British artist George Rouy continues his art world ascent with his first US solo exhibition The Bleed, Part II, at Los Angeles’ Hauser & Wirth Downtown. On the heels of his London show, this ‘second chapter’ will feature all new works extending his exploration of human mass, multiplicity and movement. In his signature style, Rouy captures essential experiences of contemporary life – desire and vexation, the urge to connect frustrated by alienation – to address emotional extremities in a globalised, technologically-driven age. 

The Bleed II runs from 8 February – 1 June 2025 at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles Downtown

Seconds of My Life at the Bronx Documentary Center traces 50 years of Jamel Shabazz’s photography, from junior high snapshots to iconic street, fashion, and documentary images. Rooted in Brooklyn and spanning decades, the show captures resilience, style, and community with unflinching warmth. Curated by Mike Kamber and Cynthia Rivera, the exhibition showcases Shabazz’s enduring commitment to memory-making and the power of everyday moments.

Seconds of My Life runs from 28 February – 20 April 2025 at the Bronx Documentary Center, New York City, USA

Nicole Wermers presents a large-scale installation exploring invisible labour and the ‘body-economic’. Known for sculptural works that reframe urban rituals and design, Wermers examines how materials reflect systems of class, gender, and consumption. Drawing on Depression-era dance marathons and the trope of the reclining female figure, her new work intersects public space, the female body, and historical memory – prompting us to question how societal values are embedded in everyday objects and gestures. 

Marathon Dance Relief runs from 22 March - 25 May 2025, Saturdays & Sundays, 12 - 5 pm at St Carthage Hall, Chapel Street, Lismore, Ireland

Agnès Varda’s Paris, from here to there offers a fresh and intimate look at the legendary filmmaker’s lesser-known photographic work and her lifelong bond with the city. Spanning 1951 to 2019, the exhibition centres her iconic rue Daguerre courtyard studio – once a darkroom, gallery, and creative haven – while tracing how Paris shaped her fearless, poetic practice. Featuring 130 rarely seen prints, film excerpts, personal artefacts, and playful touches like a sculpture of her cat Nini, the show reveals Paris as both muse and backdrop.

Agnès Varda’s Paris, from here to there runs from 9 April – 24 August 2025 at Musee Carnavalet, Paris, France

Feminist artist Linder’s first London retrospective spans 50 years of her groundbreaking work, exploring the body and its representation through photomontage, photography, performance and sculpture. From 1970s punk-inspired collages to debut digital works, the exhibition examines shifting attitudes toward sex, fashion, and aspiration. Using a scalpel to “cut” through societal norms, Linder critiques glamour photography and digital deepfakes. For those not in London, an adapted version of Linder: Danger Came Smiling will tour UK galleries from 2025 to 2026, continuing its incisive cultural commentary.

Danger Came Smiling runs from 11 February – 5 May 2025 at the Hayward Gallery, London, UK

Reframing photorealism as an evolving force that spans the 1960s to now, Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968 features work from over 40 artists, including Robert Bechtle, Vija Celmins, Duane Hanson, Amy Sherald and a new generation of photorealitsts, including Christine Tien Wang. Often seen as the end of figuration, this exhibition flips the narrative, showing photorealism’s enduring impact on contemporary art. 

Ordinary People runs until 4 May 2025 at MoCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, USA

It’s the last month to see Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights – an exhibition that spotlights the toll of labour on the body and the fight for workers’ rights. Featuring 150-plus objects, artworks, films and new commissions, the exhibition unpacks hidden histories of protest, healing and collective action, centring the stories of underrepresented workers in precarious conditions across the globe.

Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights runs until 27 April 2025 at The Wellcome Collection, London, UK