From exhibitions spotlighting indigenous heritage in Texas to ancient Roman eruptions in London... here’s our round-up of the must-see shows this month
The month of shows that runneth over from July into September as most galleries shut up shop and head for sunnier plains. Don’t be fooled, though, there are still plenty of spaces holding down the cultural fort with incredible must-see shows. From a retrospective of Peter Kennard’s politically-charged photo montages to Joy Labinjo’s stunning homage to South London’s parks and an exploration of nine Indigenous artists that looks at what it means to be Indigenous in North America today, there’s no excuse to sleep on these.
SUEÑO DE LA MADRUGADA, F. BAEZ, SOUTH LONDON GALLERY, UK
Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) is the debut solo UK exhibition of Dominican artist Firelei Báez. Báez’s immersive installations and large abstract paintings brim with colour and incorporate elements from nature, sound, and light to explore complex colonial histories and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. The exhibition sits at the interaction of ecology, power, and resistance and uses “myths and folklore as tools of cultural and spiritual resistance”, such as Ciguapa, a figure from Dominican folklore; Atabey, the Taino mother earth spirit; Oshun, the Yoruba god of rivers, love, beauty, and prosperity; and Erzili, a spirit of love from Haitian Vodou, each which “invite viewers to reconsider what it means to be human, and to imagine freedom from earthly constraints.”
Until 8 September at South London Gallery, London
GORDON PARKS, PACE GALLERY, LOS ANGELES, USA
As part of the gallery’s ongoing partnership with the Gordon Parks Foundation, Pace’s curatorial director and Dazed 100 alum Kimberly Drew has organised a presentation of the artist’s work featuring over 40 photographs made over four decades, arranged thematically. The show highlights Parks’ empathetic and intimate approach to documenting race relations, poverty, civil rights, and urban life, in the US from the 1940s to 1980s.
From 12 July – 30 Aug 2024 at Pace, Los Angeles
WE ARE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS,J. LABINJO, SOUTHWARK PARK GALLERIES
British-Nigerian painter Joy Labinjo presents her largest London institutional exhibition in honour of Southwark Park Galleries’ 40th anniversary. This new body of work celebrates the local community and draws on her visits of the local area, particularly to Southwark Park and Bermondsey. Labinjo’s paintings, sourced from both taken and found images, reflect intimate and familiar moments, inviting viewers to see themselves within the works. Known for exploring themes of identity, race, and community, Labinjo’s storytelling pays homage to the richness of everyday life.
From 6 July to 29 September 2024 at Southwark Park Galleries, London
WHAT I THOUGHT I KNEW, BERNIE GRANT ARTS CENTRE, LONDON, UK
Curated by Ronan Mckenzie, What I Thought I Knew is a group exhibition in the newly refurbished mezzanine gallery of the BGAC. The first of two exhibitions, What I Thought I Knew features ten emerging and established artists exploring familial archives and oral histories. With an emphasis on sensuality and intimacy, the artists reflect on how these stories shape our futures, whether dream or reality, while asking visitors to reappraise these same inherited narratives.
From 13 June – 31 August 2024 at Bernie Grant Arts Centre, London
RICOCHETS, FRANCIS ALŸS, BARBICAN, LONDON, UK
Mexico-based artist Francis Alÿs’ first and largest institutional solo exhibition in the UK for over a decade is currently on at London’s Barbican. Known for exploring geopolitical dynamics through painting, drawing, video, and photography, Alÿs’s collaboration with communities worldwide challenges Western-centric narratives, offering new perspectives on social and political change. This exhibition marks a significant milestone in his three-decade career, including the UK premiere of his critically acclaimed series Children’s Games (1999-present), which has been expanded following the Belgian Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, and the unveiling of a new site-specific project in the gallery for the Barbican’s surrounding community and beyond.
From 27 June – 1 September 2024 at Barbican, London
ART NOW, STEPH HUANG, TATE BRITAIN, LONDON, UK
Following in the footsteps of previous Art Now commissions including Rhea Dillon, is London-based Taiwanese artist Steph Huang. Titled See, See, Sea, Huang examines the cultural and environmental impact of cycles of production and commerce. Across sculpture, sound, found objects, and video, she will “reflect on the conditions that shape what, how and where we eat.” The exhibition – its title borrowed from the nursery rhyme “A Sailor Went to Sea” – interrogates the traces left behind by maritime trade, forcing us to question our relationship with food and the delicate ocean ecosystem.
Until 5 January 2025 at Tate Britain, London
ARCHIVE OF DISSENT, P. KENNARD, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY, LONDON
One of the most extensive displays of Peter Kennard’s work, spanning three galleries and five decades, is on show now at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. Titled Archive of Dissent, the exhibition showcases his career-spanning images of resistance, from the Vietnam War to current conflicts and environmental activism. Inspired by John Heartfield’s pioneering political montages of the 1930s, Kennard’s works deconstruct familiar images and reimagine them in various formats and scales. These pieces expose the connections between power, capital, war, and environmental destruction while revealing new possibilities emerging from the fractures of the old reality.
Until 19 January 2025 at Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
LAND OF THE MOREES, JUDE LARTEY, LA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS,
Ghanaian image-maker Jude Lartey’s solo exhibition Land of the Morees, curated by Chantel Akworkor Thompson, is a series depicting Moree, a coastal fishing village in the Fante region of Ghana. Lartey’s exhibition launches the LA Foundation of the Arts Young Artist Series, an initiative that supports Ghanaian artists under 25 years old by offering a debut solo exhibition in Accra. Acclaimed author Nii Ayikwei Parkes has contributed an essay for the exhibition, whereby he observes the dignity offered in his work to tell a profound, extraordinary, and deeply human story.
From 1 August at LA Foundation for the Arts, Accra
NATIVE AMERICA: IN TRANSLATION, BLANTON MUSEUM, TEXAS, USA
Nine Indigenous artists – from the late Cree artist Kimowan Metchewais to Martine Gutierrez, Alan Michelson, and more – are brought together in this exhibition to raise questions about identity and heritage, land rights, and histories of colonialism. Curated by Wendy Red Star, these works examine the complicated relationship between photography and the representation of Native Americans while also asking what it means to live in North America today.
From 4 August 2024 – 5 January 2025 at the Blanton Museum of Art, Texas
A LAKE AS GREAT AS ITS BONES, E. ALRAI, MAXIMILLIAN WILLIAM
A Lake as Great as Its Bones is a solo exhibition by Emii Alrai, inspired by Lake Nemi in Italy. The installation includes ceramics, metalwork, and sculpture, drawing from the lake’s rich history – which dates back 36,000 years ago after a volcanic eruption that cratered the earth – as the location of sunken Roman ships built under Emperor Caligula in 1 AD. Alrai’s work explores material histories and museological structures, using materials such as bitumen, gypsum, and polystyrene to evoke a romanticised past, critique Western museology, and question the value and truth in historical narratives while embracing the tenuous relationship between fact and fiction.
From 18 July – 7 September 2024 at Maximillian William, London
DUOS: THE ART OF COLLABORATION, CHARLESTON, SUSSEX, UK
The Chinese proverb that good things come in pairs rings true in Duos: The Art of Collaboration, which sees artist couplings (romantic, platonic, and otherwise, alive and dead) such as Athen Kardashian and Nina Mhach Durban, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, The White Pube, amongst others, form the artistic foundation of this group show that accompanies the gallery’s main show Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story. Drawing inspiration from the collaborative endeavours of Hepworth and Preece as well as the Bloomsbury group’s collaborative ethos.
Runs until 8 September 2024 at Charleston, Sussex, UK
THE FLOODED GARDEN, OSCAR MURILLO, TATE MODERN, LONDON, UK
It’s a hard act to follow in the footsteps of those who have taken over the Turbine Hall; in recent years, that list includes the annual commission started with Louise Bourgeois in 2000 and in recent years has included Kara Walker, Anicka Yi, Tania Bruguera, and El Anatsui. So the announcement that Oscar Murillo will take over the space this year doesn’t feel surprising, given the weight his name carries. Rather than pulling from his own politically charged oeuvre, he draws on Monet to create an enormous painting garden whereby guests can pick up a brush and create a collaboration canvas. Titled The flooded garden, it nods to Money’s paintings of his flower garden in Giverny, France, while building on Murillo’s Surge works, which will be displayed in the South Tank. Reviewers are divided, so you’ll just have to decide for yourself.
Until 26 August 2024 at Tate Modern, London, UK
WITHOUT MEN, K. VOLEAU, CHRISTOPHE GUYE, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
Since her breakthrough project Hola Mi Amol, Karla Hiraldo Voleau has challenged the clichés of female objectification with deeply personal and political work, and confronts normative views of masculinity by producing compelling, disturbing, and beautiful images of men. Her first solo exhibition, Without Men, features works that explore the female gaze through photography and performance. The series Hola Mi Amol defies stereotypes about Dominican and Latino men, while Another Love Story reappropriates her past relationship by re-enacting it, whereas A Man in Public Space, examines masculinity by embodying her male alter ego, Karlos.
Until 24 August 2024 at Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland
IN CONTIGUITY, SHERBERT GREEN, LONDON, UK
Five London-based artists whose works explore motion, contact, tension, and sound in this London show. Ocean Baulcombe-Toppin, Jermaine Francis, Juliette Lena Hager, Pía Ortuño & Jake Walker each examine how bodies traverse time and space through video, sculpture, painting, installation, and photography. Baulcombe-Toppin uses found objects and domestic items to create ceremonial assemblages reflecting her British-Bajan heritage and spirituality, whereas Francis blends archival materials in his photographic and film works to address race, class, and hyper-productivity. Lena Hager’s Triptych (notations) installation transforms the gallery floor into a warped theatre, exploring social rituals through game boards and Ortuño’s works combine industrial materials with traditional pigments, reflecting her Costa Rican heritage and quarry training. Lastly, Jake Walker’s abstract paintings capture the multisensory experience of movement and sound, informed by his ballet training.
For 13 July – 14 September 2024 at Sherbert Green, London
SHIFTERS, DUKE OF YORK’S THEATRE, LONDON, UK
After a stellar, sold-out run at London’s Bush Theatre, Shifters gets its West End debut, with the equally brilliant Heather Agyepong and Tosin Cole returning to their roles of Des and Dre, two people whose lives push and pull against each other in painful and pleasurable ways. Written by Benedict Lombe and directed by Lynette Linton, Lombe will be the third Black British female playwright to have her work staged in the West End. As someone who was lucky to see this in its Bush Theatre iteration, it’s a must-see, with an added must to support this much-needed representation in an industry that is far too often male, pale, and stale.
From 12 August – 12 October 2024 at Duke of York’s Theatre, London, UK