For London Gallery Weekend 2023, the mood is hardcore
With London Gallery Weekend 2023 almost upon us (2 – 4 June), here’s our list of must-see art exhibitions
London Gallery Weekend 2023 will soon be in full swing, and despite our best intentions, tackling 125 galleries over two days feels like an ambitious undertaking. Luckily, we've whittled things down to our ten favourite shows on view during the festivities, which will also include a public performance programme (featuring selected artists Nicole Bachmann, Li Hei Di, and Minh-Lan Tran), so you have a guide during London’s art mega-fest.
Jacqueline Humphries
Modern Art, Bury Street and Helmet Row
3 June – 22 July
Stencils, fluorescent paint and black light; Jacqueline Humphries’ new ‘pre vandalised’ paintings see gridded surfaces tell enigmatic takes of defacement, abstract psychologies and the constructs of our online existences.
Narumi Nekpenekpen: ‘where you fit in my palm’
Soft Opening
2 June – 29 July 2023
LA-based Narumi Nekpenekpen's curious ceramic creatures caption a panoply of emotion, their exaggerated, warped features peeking out from a frenzied fusion of colour, form and texture. Through these intriguing sculptures, Nekpenekpen freezes facets of her own emotion and memories in porcelain and glaze, to captivating effect.
Jane Dickson: ‘Fist of Fury’
Alison Jacques
Until 24 June
Her first solo exhibition in London in more than 20 years, 'Fist of Fury' features both historical and new and recent paintings from her acclaimed ‘Times Square’ series. Signage from cinemas, adult entertainment establishments, hotels, and liquor stores place viewers firmly in the heart of the action – in gloomy streets punctuated by potent neon advertisements.
Jean-Luc Mylayne: ‘Mirror’
Andro Wekua: ‘There’
Sprüth Magers
Until 29 July
Two solo shows at Sprüth Magers offer London Gallery Weekend visitors two very different moods. Jean-Luc Mylayne’s ‘Mirror’ sees birds photographed in their natural habitats, underpinned by philosophical questions about fragility of our shared ecosystems and the brevity of life on earth. Andro Wekua’s 'There' features the artist's new multilayered paintings composed of fragments of recollections that straddle abstraction and figuration. spruethmagers.com
Chris Ofili: ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’
Victoria Miro
2 June – 29 July
The result of six years’ work, Chris Ofili’s new show, as its title suggests, takes sin as its muse, meditating on the complex experience of sinfulness in its many guises. Each painting embodies not one sin, but a range of transgressive behaviours, making for a dreamlike, eerie reflection on humanity’s relationship with right, wrong, and the mucky in-between.
Gary Simmons: ‘This Must be The Place’
Hauser & Wirth
Until 29 July
In ‘This Must Be the Place’, Gary Simmons explores the process of cultural erasure and the traces it leaves behind. Featuring a series of paintings and his first large sculptural works, the show comes ahead of Simmons’ first survey ‘Public Enemy’, opening at MCA Chicago in June 2023 and centres on historical racist tropes in culture; ‘I don't want them to be forgotten for their menace’, he told us in a recent interview.
Isamu Noguchi: ‘This Earth, This Passage’
White Cube, Mason’s Yard
Until 1 July
‘This Earth, This Passage’ centres on Isamu Noguchi’s engagement with material and performance. Over three decades, he created 20 stage sets for the choreographer Martha Graham (1894 – 1991). The exhibition includes a key example of their collaboration; a sculptural scenography which served as the setting for Graham’s Dark Meadow (1946). Other works delve into Noguchi’s boundaryless practice, and his sculptural relationship with the human body.
Maisie Cousins: ‘Walking Back to Happiness’
TJ Boulting
Until 17 June
The beautiful, bonkers AI world of Maisie Cousins was talk of the tent at Photo London this year. Her solo show at TJ Boulting combines her signature visceral photography with a new venture in AI and installation. The latter is based on family videos (destroyed when she misplaced them at art school) of Cousins visiting Blobbyland theme park with her granddad as a young girl. Here, she reconstructs the memories via AI – they’re freaky, nostalgic, and one of the most original uses of AI photography we’ve seen so far.
‘Hardcore’
Sadie Coles HQ
Until 5 August 2023
Featuring the work of 18 artists, the provocative exhibition ‘Hardcore’ is a bold, explicit exploration of carnal desires, intimacy and sex. Curated by Sadie Coles and John O’Doherty, the show shatters the status quo and explores how, amid the noise of cancel culture, discussions around complex and more nuanced sexuality have been quietened. Featured artists include Darja Bajagić, Monica Bonvicini, Elaine Cameron-Weir, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Carolee Schneemann, Cindy Sherman and Andra Ursuţa.
‘To Bend the Ear of the Outer World’
Gagosian
Until 25 August
‘To Bend the Ear of the Outer World: Conversations on contemporary abstract painting’ is an exhibition of new and recent works by more than 40 artists from the Americas, United Kingdom, and Germany, spanning both of Gagosian’s Mayfair spaces for the first time. Organised by guest curator Gary Garrels, the show delves into the significance of abstract painting today, including work by Katharina Grosse, Frank Bowling, Julie Mehretu and Oscar Murillo.
