Seven Must-See Exhibitions Open This Fall In London

(MENAFN- USA Art News) London's art institutions will present seven significant exhibitions this fall, featuring a range of artists from emerging talents to established figures. The shows include the first U.K. survey of Robert Ryman in over 30 years and the European solo debut of Saudi artist Mohammad Alfaraj.

The exhibitions on view span diverse media and cultural themes:

“ Robert Ryman: The Real Thing” will be at the Barbican from October 8, 2026, through February 28, 2027. This survey, the first dedicated to the artist in the U.K. in more than 30 years, is organized as a“playlist” reflecting Ryman's belief that viewing art and listening to music evoke similar sensations. The main section, the“Ryman experience,” groups works by visual relationships, such as scale, gesture, materials, and effects, without wall text. Ryman, who started painting after working as a security guard at MoMA in 1953, was a Nashville-born jazz saxophonist. “ Mohammad Alfaraj: the heart is a bird's nest, the brain is a spider web” opens at Delfina Foundation from September 29 to November 22. This marks Alfaraj's first European solo exhibition, following his institutional debut at Dubai's Jameel Arts Center and multiple Art Basel awards. The show features new commissions alongside recent works in installation, drawing, photography, film, and sculpture. Alfaraj, who was a resident at Delfina Foundation in 2018 and 2023, draws on Saudi folklore and everyday rituals, presenting humans, animals, insects, and plants as companions. A related site-specific commission, his first solo outing at a French institution, will open at Fondation Louis Vuitton in October. “ Sabine Moritz: Lie Down in Green Pastures” will be exhibited at the Garden Museum from October 8 to December 20. This exhibition marks Moritz's first institutional solo show in the U.K. and covers her three-decade career of depicting outdoor spaces. The German abstract painter's work includes pieces from the early 1990s reflecting her childhood in the German Democratic Republic, where nature offered an escape from crowded Soviet tower blocks. Other works were created on the grounds of the Central Institute of Genetic and Cultivated Plant Research, where her father worked before his death in a laboratory explosion. More recent flower studies originate from her Cologne studio. “ Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong” is at Hayward Gallery from November 24, 2026, to March 14, 2027. London will host the debut of Goldin's latest film, You never did anything wrong, Part II (2026), which headlines an exhibition of the same title at the Southbank Center's Hayward Gallery. The show also includes Part I (2024) and other career-spanning works. Both parts of You never did anything wrong shift from her usual human subjects to other species. Part I, shot on 16mm film and inspired by a myth of animals stealing the sun, features scores by Valerij Fedorenko and Mica Levi and is dedicated to Sulala Animal Rescue in Gaza. Part II, made with filmmaker David Sherman from found nature-documentary footage, is an abstract meditation on extinction. “ Salman Toor: Someone Like You” will be on view at the Courtauld Gallery from October 2, 2026, to January 10, 2027. This marks Toor's first European museum show, featuring his 2019 painting The Bar on East 13th Street, which serves as a contemporary homage to Édouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) from the collection. The Lahore-born, New York-based artist's green-tinged painting style conveys the allure of an East Village bar, recalling Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Jane Avril in the Entrance of the Moulin Rouge (1892). The exhibition includes 18 additional works exploring queer and immigrant experiences in the city. “ Wakaliga Uganda: Kibuuka Omumbaale” opens at Chisenhale Gallery from October 2 to December 6. The Kampala-based film collective Wakaliga Uganda, known for its ultra-low-budget action movies, makes its U.K. debut with a newly commissioned video work. The piece reimagines Kibuuka Omumbaale, a Buganda warrior-god, in a superhero film style. The work begins with the 1961 return of relics associated with the god from Cambridge to Kampala and follows a present-day teenager who unexpectedly inherits these powers. “ Korea” at the British Museum will run from October 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027. This expansive exhibition explores over two millennia of East Asian creative output, from bronze artifacts dating to approximately 300 B.C.E. to works by contemporary art giants. Many highlights are officially designated“national treasures,” on loan from the National Museum of Korea and Seoul's National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The collection includes Joseon porcelain, Buddhist paintings, a 13th-century ewer, and 20th-century new-media works by Nam June Paik.

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Source: Artnet News

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