In London for Frieze Week? Don’t Miss These 15 Must-See Gallery Shows During the Fair

Frieze Week in London is upon us once more, and there’ll be no
shortage of gallery exhibitions, art fairs, and swanky parties
competing for the attention of the art world’s best and
brightest.

It can be hard to keep track of all the shows opening in the
busy week, so we’re here to help. For what’s on in museums, we’ve
already put together a guide to some of the unmissable institutional
shows to see across Europe this fall. And, If you have time to
travel further afield, you can always catch a train out to Kent
coast for the Turner Prize Exhibition in
Margate, or take a trip to the Oxfordshire countryside for
Maurizio Cattelan’s show at Blenheim Palace, albeit without
Cattelan’s famous golden toilet, which remains MIA since it was stolen the
morning after the show’s opening party. Some hangover.

In the meantime, here are some of the top gallery shows you need
to know to be up to speed during Frieze.

“Mark Bradford:
Cerberus” at Hauser & Wirth
October 2 – December
21

“Cerberus” is Mark Bradford’s London debut exhibition with
Hauser & Wirth. In it, Bradford will show new work, including
paintings and a film, Dancing in the Street (2019), which
takes inspiration from the ancient myth of Cerberus, the
three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades. Bradford has long
held an interest in in-between figures and spaces, just as he
himself is often occupied by both his career as an artist and his
commitment to community engagement.

Hauser & Wirth is located at 23 Saville Row, London, W1S
2ET.

“Kara Walker” at Tate
Modern
October 2 – April 5, 2020

The American artist Kara Walker promised a deep dive into
Britain’s history at Tate Modern and she has more than delivered
with her soaring fountain Fons Americanus. It’s
a hard job to top past Turbine Hall commissions, but Walker’s riff
on the high Victorian memorial outside of Buckingham Palace is an
unforgettable response to Britain’s leading role in the
transatlantic slave trade and its legacy.

While her fountain of tears flows on Bankside, Walker’s more
familiar black cut-paper silhouettes addressing race, gender,
sexuality, and violence can be seen at Sprüth Magers in Mayfair. “From Black
and White to Living Color: the Collected Motion Pictures and
Accompanying Documents of Kara E. Walker, Artist,” has been
organized by the critic and curator Hilton Als. It opens October 4
through December 21.

Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG.

Sprüth Magers is located at 7A Grafton St, Mayfair, London,
W1S 4EL.

“Neïl Beloufa” at kamel
mennour
October 1 – November 11

Rising star Neïl Beloufa is showing a series of luminous,
brightly-colored flowers and cars in resin. They look like stained
glass, and the images could be straight out of a picture book, but
on closer inspection you will find that they are made from recycled
materials and rubbish from Beloufa’s studio. Behind that car is an
old six-pack, an empty pizza box, or wrapping materials. The trash
work for sale in the commercial gallery space ironically comments
on the waste of consumer society, and aims to disrupt the standard
cycle of consumption and destruction.

kamel mennour, 51 Brook Street, Mayfair, London, W1K
4HW.

“Nate Lowman: October
1, 2017”at David Zwirner
October 2 – November
9

Nate Lowman will showcase a chilling new series of paintings for
his London debut at David Zwirner. Lowman,
who is from Las Vegas, began the series in 2018 in response to
crime-scene photographs from the mass shooting that took place at a
country-music concert in his hometown on October 1, 2017. The
authorities published the photos of the Mandalay Bay hotel room
from which the gunman targeted his victims as part of an attempt to
understand the attacker’s motive.

David Zwirner 24 Grafton St, Mayfair, London W1S
4EZ.

Betty Parsons at
Alison Jacques
October 2 – November 9

One of London’s leading gallerists pays tribute to the
pioneering Betty Parsons, who helped give the likes of Jackson
Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still their first breaks in
New York’s art world. The show focuses on Parsons as an artist in
her own right rather than a trailblazing art dealer. She created
colorful abstract paintings on the weekends in her Long Island
studio. Frieze week shows still tend be mainly a boy’s club, so
extra kudos to Jacques for helping to correct gender bias.

Alison Jacques, Orwell House, 16-18 Berners St, Fitzrovia,
London W1T 3LN

Danh Vō at South London
Gallery
September 19 – November 24

The South London Gallery regularly organizes solo shows by
international artists that much larger institutions would give
their right arm to host. The in-demand Vietnam-born, Danish
artist Danh Vō is a case in point. His works weave together ideas
about migration and integration with his own life history could not
be more topical. Vo is the first artist whose solo show fills
the institution’s main gallery and its new annex in a former fire
station across the street. If you think Tate Modern is the only
gallery to see in South London, then you’ve never been to South
London Gallery. (Camberwell is also where it’s at.)

South London Gallery, 65 Peckham Rd, London SE5
8UH

Sterling Ruby at
Gagosian
October 2 – December 14

The US artist takes a break from the fashion world to get back
into sculpture by way of a major solo exhibition at Gagosian. For
his London debut with the mega-gallery, Ruby fills Gagosian’s
cavernous rooms in King’s Cross in North London with works based on
tables and blocks that give Minimalism a radical twist. The show
includes new works from his ongoing series “ACTS” (short for
Absolute Contempt for Total Serenity) and “TABLE,” which are based
on salvaged welding tables.

Gagosian Gallery, 6-24 Britannia St, King’s Cross,
London WC1X 9JD 

Antony Gormley at Royal
Academy of Art
September 21 – December 3

The sculptor and Royal Academician has
filled the venue’s prestigious main galleries with an array of
heavy-hitting works. The walls and floors required reinforcing to
cope with the extra loading. But “Antony Gormley” the exhibition is
not all about heavy metal showstoppers, such as the room
transformed into a steel cave. The survey also features early,
intimate works as well as a wealth of the artists’ sketches as a
contrast to his more familiar steel-and-concrete sculptures based
on his own body. Do not miss the tiny sculpture inspired by the
artist’s daughter when she was a baby in the Royal Academy’s
courtyard. Easily overlooked and understated, the show is a quiet
triumph before Gormley blasts into the beyond.

Royal Academy of Art, Burlington House, Piccadilly, Mayfair,
London W1J 0BD, United Kingdom

Damien Hirst at
White Cube
September 20 – November 2

They kill butterflies at Damien Hirst studio, don’t they? White
Cube gets to debut the artist’s supersized and colorfully retro
mandalas made of thousands of butterfly wings, which continue to be
a theme since he first began as a YBA. Never short on chutzpah, the
artist’s giant canvases reference the religious symbol of the
cosmos in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Shinto
traditions. Hirst’s trippy version of a Victorian
lepidosterist’s display thrilled Guardian art critic
Jonathan Jones, who gave the show a rave review.

White Cube Mason’s Yard, 25-26 Masons Yard, St. James’s,
London SW1Y 6BU

James Rosenquist at Thaddaeus
Ropac
September 11 – November 22

This exhibition may revise your ideas about Pop art and James
Rosenquist’s role in its irresistible rise. Highlights include
experimental early works, several featuring light bulbs and
Plexiglass, and Yellow Applause (1966), a
motorized painting in which two hands on separate canvases clap.
The show also features preparatory studies for Rosenquist’s
signature works, including Marylin (1962), which is at the
MoMA in New York. Museum loans and works from the artist’s estate
make this a must-see exhibition.

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Ely House, 37 Dover St, Mayfair,
London W1S 4NJ 

Elizabeth Peyton at
National Portrait Gallery
October 3, 2019 – January 5,
2020

This is not a commercial gallery show but we wanted to include a
shout-out for Elizabeth Payton, who takes on the patriarchy at
London’s National Portrait Gallery. The US artist is the first to
be given free reign over the UK’s collection of portraits of the
“great and the good,” infiltrating its historic rooms with her own
works. It is the most radical rehang of the collection so far since
director Nicholas Cullinan took the helm with a mission to make the
National Portrait Gallery a contemporary art player. Peyton’s
expressionist portraits of Kurt Cobain, Frida Kahlo, Napoleon, and
Jonas Kaufmann go head-to-head with her take on some of Britain’s
finest, including David Bowie, David Hockney, and Queen Elizabeth
II.

National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin’s Pl, Charing Cross,
London WC2H 0HE

“I’ve Grown Roses in This Garden of
Mine” at Goodman Gallery
October 3 – November
2

The South African gallery is pulling out the stops for its
London debut. The inaugural exhibition in its Mayfair space
features work by an intergenerational selection from its own
roster, including El Anatsui, Kudzanai Chiurai, David Goldblatt,
and William Kentridge, to name but a few. The show takes its title
from a searing work by Gabrielle Goliath about gender-based
violence, and the exhibition looks at ways of healing and repair.
All in all, it’s a blockbuster.

Goodman Gallery, 26 Cork Street, London, W1S
3ND

“Dialectical Materialism” at Karsten
Schubert
September 28 – October 6

The trailblazing and sorely missed art dealer Karsten Schubert
was working on this group exhibition up until his untimely death at
the end of July. It focuses on key artworks by British sculptors
that Schubert believed will stand the test of time, none more so
than two artists he did so much to support: Rachel Whitehouse and
Alison Wilding. They are shown alongside Antony Caro, Richard Long,
Barry Flanagan, and William Turnbull. Called “Dialectical
Materialism,” the show is a celebration not only of British
sculpture since the 1960s, but also the scholar and gallerist’s
life and achievements.

A pop-up bookshop will include some of the many publications of
Ridinghouse, the imprint Schubert co-founded. Well worth a detour
from Frieze Masters nearby.

Karsten Schubert, 1 Park Village East, London, NW1
7PX

Anna Maria Maiolino at
Whitechapel Art Gallery
September 25 – January 12,
2020

The Brazilian artist, who was born in Italy, transforms the
Whitechapel Gallery’s ground floor with clay works that she
rolled and kneaded into slabs, balls, and sensuous loops.
Maiolino’s gestural forms make a memorable start in this
long-overdue survey of a veteran artist who since the 1960s has
been taking sculpture in a new, often politically engaged
direction. The show “Making Love Revolutionary” also includes the
artist’s work on paper, textile, and on film, some of which she
made during the dark years of Brazil’s military dictatorship.
Opening in time for the traditionally male-dominated Frieze week
makes the Whitechapel’s programming all the more impressive.

Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High St, Shadwell,
London E1 7QX.

Hew Locke at Hales
Gallery
September 26 – November 9

The London-based sculptor has been navigating Britain’s
colonial-era history for the past three decades. Following Locke’s
show “Patriots” at New York’s PPOW Gallery last year, which
revealed the racism and anti-Semitism of some of the figures
commemorated in public art, “Where Lies the Land?” at Hales Gallery
brings the story of conquest, exploitation, and imperialism back
home to London.

The exhibition includes a ghostly fleet of ships, plus Parian
busts of Queen Victorian and King Edward VIII, among other other
royals smothered in gaudy trinkets. New works include Jumbie
House 1 (2019), a rickety haunted house inspired by Guyana’s
traditional wooden homes. Amid the chaos of Brexit, the phrase
“uncharted waters” is often invoked. Locke’s work, like Kara
Walker’s fountain at Tate Britain, is a Little Englander’s worst
nightmare.

Hales Gallery, 7 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA

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Must-See Gallery Shows During the Fair appeared first on
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