Tabish Khan, the @LondonArtCritic, picks his top 5 exhibitions to see in museums in London at the beginning of this year. If you are looking for more exhibitions, check out his previous top 5.
This is a fantastic exhibition that challenges how people living with disabilities have been stigmatised, patronised and struggled because the world isn’t designed for them. It’s filled with empowering activism, artwork, and designs that make the world more disability-friendly. It’s an important exhibition, and excellent that those with disabilities and their companions can visit for free. Until 15th February.
Charting her phenomenal career, this exhibition features surrealist works and collaborations with Man Ray and Jean Cocteau, as well as one self-portrait that appears to have been chiselled from marble. It takes us right through to her harrowing war photography, including the famous shot in Hitler’s bathtub and the horrific images of the Holocaust she captured. Until 15th February.
This exhibition is filled with wonderful works, including those by Vincent Van Gogh, Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat. The focus is on Pointillism (creating landscapes with just dots of paint), and what’s great is discovering works by artists I didn’t know much about, such as Maximilien Luce, Anna Boch and Jan Toorop. I’ve never seen such an impressive collection of Pointillist paintings. Until 8th February.
It feels like we’re overloaded with data today. Ryoji Ikeda makes that visually palpable in an experience where we lie back and are bombarded with data, from numbers to climate maps and a whole load of sensory information that’s too much to process and, at times, blinding. Prepare to be dazzled. Until 1st February.
This year’s annual prize exhibition features powerful photographs, including one of a burns victim lit by window light. A weightlifter without legs, a surgeon coming off his shift, and a large family photo with persons of mixed races and heritages. It feels much improved over previous years, when celebrities featured heavily; even when recognisable faces appear, they are shot brilliantly, including a dynamic one of Keir Starmer from below, through a glass table. Until 8th February.
All images are copyrighted and courtesy of the respective artists and galleries. Lee Miller image: copyright of the Lee Miller Archive and photo copyright of Tate, taken by Sonal Bakrania. National Gallery image: © Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Photographer: Rik Klein Gotink. Ryoji Ikeda photo: Alice Lubbock. Taylor Wessing photo: © Martina Holmberg.
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Art Critic for both FAD and Londonist. See as many exhibitions as possible and write reviews, opinion pieces and a weekly top 5 for FAD.