Planning a trip across the pond? While there’s plenty to see (and plenty reason to limit time spent jaunting around town in this heat), we would encourage all travelers to reserve at least a day for gallery hopping. After all, few will want to miss new showings by Alex Israel, Anne Imhof, and Lucien Smith’s return to the white cube. For a more efficient outing under the sun, we’ve outlined the 15 must-see gallery exhibitions currently on view in London.
“Upside Down” by Alex Israel
Where: Gagosian, Davies Street
When: Through Sept. 5
Why It’s Worth a Look: Alex Israel’s latest takes his persistent motif of a surfboard’s fin and quite literally flips it on its head. With four new fin sculptures hanging from the gallery’s ceiling, the exhibition transports viewers to the beaches of sunny Southern California, caught under a rogue wave.
Know Before You Go: The fin motif has appeared in much of Israel’s portfolio, beginning with his teen surf film SPF-18 in 2017, all the way to his handbag collaboration with Louis Vuitton and his upcoming logo design for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“My Moody Muse” by Steven Shearer
Where: David Zwirner, Grafton Street
When: Through July 31
Why It’s Worth a Look: The Canadian artist returns to London for his first solo show in 20 years, bringing oil paintings and drawings that dive ever deeper into portraiture. Drawing inspiration from art history, fantasy, and pop culture alike, Shearer’s figures leave much unanswered. The uncanny slides in further as he has of late incorporated digital processes into the age-old practice of oil painting.
Know Before You Go: The works on view are a blend of new paintings, and significant recent works and drawings on loan, all presented ahead of Shearer’s major exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum next year.
“This Weather” by Helen Marten
Where: Sadie Coles HQ, Savile Row
When: Through Sept. 12
Why It’s Worth a Look: Marten’s five-chapter film takes viewers through a lifetime: childhood, community, sexuality, interiority, loss. All voiced by different women, viewers will hear five monologues played over animated images that hint at violence, sexuality, grief, and care.
Know Before You Go: Originally conceived for Art Basel Paris 2025 in collaboration with Miu Miu, “This Weather” was part of an opera performance, 30 Blizzards, before transforming into the five new chapters on view here.
“Seizure of Hope” by Roni Horn
Where: Hauser & Wirth, Savile Row
When: Through Aug. 1
Why It’s Worth a Look: For her first solo in London in a decade, Horn presents never-before-seen works from her “Seizure of Hope” series alongside one of her renowned large-scale glass sculptures. In her paintings, Horn uses the written word as her medium, focusing on repetition, obsession, and instability. Prepare to overthink.
Know Before You Go: The show rewards close observation; the more you look at a piece, the more destabilized you will feel.
“Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska — Zanzibar“
Where: Lisson Gallery, Lisson Street
When: Through Sept. 5
Why It’s Worth a Look: This collaboration between artists Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska spans two decades. Himid’s diptych paintings from 1999 are paired with a libretto composed by Stawarska in 2023, crafting a multimedia atmosphere that tackles themes of memory, loss, and survival.
Know Before You Go: The show is the latest in the artists’ ongoing working relationship, evidenced most recently by their work in the British Pavilion of the 2026 Venice Biennale, and dating back to a 2020 joint exhibition at Wiels in Brussels.
“Welcome Back” by Jiab Prachakul
Where: Timothy Taylor, Bolton Street
When: Through July 11
Why It’s Worth a Look: The Thai-born, France-based artist makes her U.K. solo debut with nine autobiographical portraits presenting those closest to her: friends, artists, and family, many of whom are also creatives of Asian descent and living in Europe.
Know Before You Go: The show follows the artist’s recent institutional solo debut at the Contemporary Austin last year. Her pieces, as the artist notes, are intended to “invite us into a series of longing conversations with a circle of my close friends.”
“The Sky in the Cave” by Oliver Beer
Where: Thaddaeus Ropac, Dover Street
When: Through July 31
Why It’s Worth a Look: Beer’s latest project brings together music, film, and installation for an immersive viewing experience. In his “Resonance Paintings” series, the artist takes cave noises and turns them into images by using sounds and frequencies to guide pigment into abstract compositions.
Know Before You Go: The exhibition comes alongside the release of a limited-edition vinyl soundtrack that captures Beer’s experience recording with Rufus Wainwright inside a prehistoric painted cave in the Dordogne.
“Georg Baselitz: Back Again”
Where: White Cube, Bermondsey Street
When: Through Aug. 30
Why It’s Worth a Look: Named after his final paintings, “Back Again,” this exhibit is the last put together by Baselitz prior to his death. Showcasing the different motifs and subjects that Baselitz explored during his six-decade-long career, it highlights his signature figures: eagles, heroes, and his wife and lifelong muse, Elke Kretzschmar.
Know Before You Go: This exhibition is a rare, and the last, opportunity to see Baselitz’s life’s work, assembled by the artist himself, skewering the obsessions he returned to time and again, and through them, the first flashes of his legacy.
“Vinegar and Piss” by Dominic Watson
Where: The Sunday Painter
When: Through July 11
Why It’s Worth a Look: The Margate-based sculptor has constructed a galleon from salvaged children’s playhouses, paper mache, and wax, filling it with the most surreal of characters. At the back of the space, the eye is drawn in particular to a larger-than-life head, vomiting through the floor.
Know Before You Go: Grossed out? The installation is meant to recall the current state of England, a nation adrift in its own turmoil, but too juvenile (hence the title) to pull itself out of decline.
“Citizen” by Anne Imhof
Where: Sprüth Magers, Grafton Street
When: Through Aug. 1
Why It’s Worth a Look: Imhof’s “Citizen” concerns itself with the body: how it’s observed, its movement through space. The show deepens ideas explored in her past projects, “DOOM: House of Hope” and “Fun ist ein Stahlbad,” through large paintings, oil pastel drawings, bronze reliefs, sculptures, and film.
Know Before You Go: The four-channel film, Citizen, is screened on the upper floor, and is composed of footage shot by a performer during four nights of Imhof’s “DOOM” run.
“Burn Down the House” by Lucien Smith
Where: Kearsey & Gold
When: Through July 17
Why It’s Worth a Look: Smith’s first solo in the U.K. focuses on that iconic moment in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s home plummets out of a tornado and back down to Earth. Smith suspends time and paints this moment as it unfolds across canvases. He pulls inspiration from a myriad of sources, including Christopher Wool’s relentless freedom, as well as the Talking Heads and Martha Rosler, Cady Noland, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer.
Know Before You Go: As the artist notes, “Everything is suspended in this moment of loss of control. That’s the feeling I’m after. Everything you’ve built, thrown up in the air.”
“The Enchantment of Reason” by Rachel Maclean
Where: Josh Lilley
When: Through Aug. 1
Why It’s Worth a Look: At Josh Lilley, Maclean turns her maximalist, hyper-saturated aesthetic toward the proliferation of A.I. This exhibition asks us to think about the effects it has on creativity and authorship, here doing so by pulling from the “fairy mania” that once overtook the Industrial Age.
Know Before You Go: Across paintings, sculpture, and film, the artist delves into the mania that emerges at the fringes of our psyches as new technology warps and reanimates it. In her film, viewers follow a “contemporary tech-bro-come-Victorian-engineer” whose ability to generate fairies leads to jealousy and existential madness.
“92-01 ‘In Livin Color’” by Alvaro Barrington
Where: Emalin
When: Through Aug. 15
Why It’s Worth a Look: Barrington here explores the crack epidemic’s effect on Black communities throughout the United States in the ’80s and ’90s. Music, art, and fashion emerge as a response to these devastations, now rendered in four distinct environments.
Know Before You Go: Music posters, handbags, bikes, and boomboxes populate the rooms, as Barrington melds these familiar touchstones with intricately adorned new canvases.
“Tim Breuer“
Where: Across Champ Lacombe and Tramps locations
When: Through July 25
Why It’s Worth a Look: Berlin-based Breuer’s exhibition occupies three different sites with a series of new, characteristically misty and dark canvases. Larger oil paintings hand alongside miniature colored pencil compositions and etchings.
Know Before You Go: In many of the pieces, Breuer investigates perhaps the most universal and liminal space we inhabit: public transit. Shadowy figures filter in and out of train stations and buses as they head we know not where and from where.
“Death’s Sacred Mirror” by Thomas Houseago
Where: Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Dover Street
When: Through Sept. 19
Why It’s Worth a Look: Houseago‘s latest showing places his own sculptures in direct conversation with ancient artifacts and works by artists of influence, including Henri Matisse, Louise Bourgeois, and Meret Oppenheim. The result? A “cabinet of curiosities” curated by the artist himself.
Know Before You Go: The exhibition centers around a new edition of Houseago’s Crystal No. 1, 2026, a patinated brass and abstract figure that towers over its viewers.
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