Autumn is the best time of year for art exhibitions in the UK, but before the country’s major institutions and galleries put on their big end of year shows you’ve still got the time to catch their summer extravaganzas. This is your last opportunity to see everything from clever, funny installation art to big, imposing sculptures at country houses, powerful Black painting to immersive conceptualism.
Seven UK exhibitions closing soon
Dion Kitson at Ikon, Birmingham, until Sep 8
Kitson, in his first ever institutional show, brilliantly and often hilariously mixes found objects and weird ephemera, to take weird, funny, satirical stabs at British culture. This is a minimal, stark, and often silly look at the way British towns are slowly but inexorably falling to pieces.
More details here.
‘After The End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989-2024’ at Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea, Until Sep 14
The ubiquity, affordability and availability of the camera has made it an essential tool for countless contemporary artists. Here, Focal Point Gallery looks at how working class photographers use cameras to document the reality of everyday life in the UK.
More details here.
Lynda Benglis: ‘Recent Sculptures’ at Turner Contemporary, Margate, until Sep 15
American sculptor Lynda Benglis does the impossible: she makes solid seem liquid, hard seem soft. She’s a modern master of twisting material into new forms, and this show focuses on her newest experiments in making things look like things they ain’t.
More details here.
Tony Cragg at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, until Sep 22
Cragg by name, and judging by his sculptures, craggy by nature. Tony Cragg has been one of the leading figures in British sculpture for over 50 years, and his clever, flowing, undulating and craggy massive sculptures have been placed in the grounds of the beautiful Castle Howard.
More details here.
‘The Time Is Always Now’ at The Box, Plymouth, until Sep 29
The artists in this show, which has travelled from the National Portrait Gallery, depict the Black figure in endless ways and contexts. As straight portraits by Amy Sherald, as forgotten figures from art history by Barbara Walker, as characters of memetic mythology by Michael Armitage. The Black figure, like Blackness itself, isn't one thing, it’s complex, indefinable
More details here.
Beatriz Milhazes: ‘Maresias’ at Tate St Ives, Until Sep 29
Mixing Brazilian and European modernism with endless other esoteric influences, Milhazes became one of the leading voices in contemporary Brazilian art in the 1980s, and has never stood still since. This show at the Tate in Cornwall celebrates her super-bright, mega-colourful, part-printed approach to painting.
More details here.
Ibrahim Mahama: ‘Songs about Roses’ at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, until Oct 6
The Ghanaian artist has had plenty of London shows (including recently shrouding the Barbican in a vast purple cloak) but this is his Scottish debut. The show features large drawings and materials collected from a railway built by the British to move goods around West Africa.
More details here.
RIP Germain at Fact, Liverpool, until Oct 13
Fresh from being celebrated as the future of London art by this very publication, RIP Germain’s Fact show is an extension of the ideas from his recent ICA exhibition. Here, Germain’s created a heady, immersive installation delving into ideas of gatekeeping and exclusionary structures.
More details here.
Want more? Here are the best exhibitions in London right now.
And here are the best exhibitions coming to the capital in autumn.