Shows to See in London, October 2024
By The Editors
The English capital is overrun every year with contemporary art events, as the sibling art fairs Frieze London and Frieze Masters (both October 9–13) take over Regent’s Park. The 21st-century-focused Frieze London 2024 features more than 160 galleries from 43 countries, while the more classically oriented Frieze Masters brings 130 galleries from 26 countries, selling a range of collectibles from modern art to antique books and Greek statuary. Beyond the small booths inside the two big tents, here’s a look at shows to see across London this October.
Installation view of MIRE LEE’s Open Wound, 2024, seven-meter-long motorized turbine, steel, cement, silicone, oil, clay, dimensions variable, at the Tate Modern, London. Photo by Lucy Green. Courtesy Tate Modern.
Oct 8–Mar 16, 2025
Mire Lee
Open Wound
Tate Modern
For the ninth Hyundai Commission at London’s Tate Modern, Seoul-born artist Mire Lee presents a new site-specific motorized installation, Open Wound (2024), in the Tate’s 3,400-square-meter Turbine Hall. Known for combining mechanical objects with visceral materials—including silicone and clay—to create sprawling kinetic installations, Lee reflects on notions of psychology, the body, and human desire. Her works are frequently compared to the grotesque or the monstrous as well as to ideas of theorist Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection. This major showcase is Lee’s first solo presentation in the United Kingdom.
Installation view of HAEGUE YANG’s "Leap Year" at the Hayward Gallery, London, 2024. Courtesy Hayward Gallery.
Oct 9–Jan 5, 2025
Haegue Yang
Leap Year
Hayward Gallery
Berlin- and Seoul-based artist Haegue Yang’s first major career survey in London showcases her expansive practice of creating installations that engage the senses. Along with reimagining her breakthrough project with origami and household objects, Sadong 30 (2006), Yang is producing Sonic Droplets in Gradation – Water Veil (2024), a curtain of cool-hued steel bells that visitors walk through, generating sound. Known for references to modernist figures, the artist also reprises her iconic venetian blinds and stage lights in Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun (2024), incorporating a musical score inspired by the late Korean composer and political dissident Isang Yun’s “Double Concerto” (1977).
SUH YONGSUN, Self-Portrait, Sydney, 2020-21, acrylic on canvas, 156.2 × 212 cm. Courtesy the artist and One and J. Gallery, Seoul.
Oct 4–18
Suh Yongsun
Portrait of Ourselves: Forests to Cities
One and J. Gallery at Cromwell Place Gallery 12
Korean painter and sculptor Suh Yongsun’s solo exhibition introduces his 40-year exploration of humanity through works depicting landscapes, cities, and human figures. His bold and colorful paintings take inspiration from German expressionism, but often illustrate Korean history and mythology, influenced by the postwar period in which Suh was raised. Reflecting on the impacts of Korean modernization and urbanization that occurred from the 1960s onward, many of his works also juxtapose the feeling of isolation in contemporary society with tranquil natural imagery, demonstrating the breadth of the human experience.
Detail of GIEVE PATEL’s Two Men with Handcart, 1979, oil on canvas, 176.5 × 144.8 cm. Courtesy the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts.
Oct 5–Jan 5, 2025
The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998
The Barbican
At the Barbican, a major survey of Indian art, titled “The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975–1998” and produced in collaboration with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi, charts the country’s political and cultural evolution in the 20th century through nearly 150 works by more than 25 artists. The featured artworks span a diverse range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and film, with many showing in the UK for the first time. Participating artists include sculptor Meera Mukherjee, modernist painter Jyoti Bhatt, feminist photographer Sheela Gowda, postmodernist visual artist Rameshwar Broota, experimental filmmaker Nalini Malani, as well as the late conceptual artist Rummana Hussain, and painter Bhupen Khakhar, among many others.
Installation view of VIVIEN ZHANG’s "Flat Earth," at Pilar Corrias, London, 2024. Courtesy Pilar Corrias.
Oct 4–Nov 9
Vivien Zhang
Flat Earth
Pilar Corrias
Beijing-born, London-based artist Vivien Zhang’s second solo exhibition at Pilar Corrias explores her experience of migration through a new series of colorful, geometric, acrylic- and oil-on-linen paintings. Zhang combines insect patterns, butterfly motifs, and botany to dissect the ways in which we culturally assimilate and camouflage ourselves to fit into a socially determined reality. In these works, she also employs trompe l’oeil techniques and gestural mark-making to represent how digital imagery warps depth and space, particularly in geopolitical mapping.
HEMAN CHONG, Oleanders, 2023, single-channel 4K video: 17 min 14 sec. Courtesy Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London.
Oct 9–Nov 30
Heman Chong
The Book of Equators
Amanda Wilkinson Gallery
Singapore bibliophile and artist Herman Chong presents a suite of new works in his solo exhibition, including an eponymous series of patterned paintings on polyester fabrics, The Book of Equators (2024); acrylic-on-canvas works depicting grid-like lines, Labyrinths (Libraries) (2024); and Works on Paper #2 : Prospectus (2024– ), of eight posters featuring the 239 words leftover from his 200-page manuscript, the file for which was corrupted. Accompanying these series is his single-channel video work Oleanders (2023), showcasing Chong’s journey through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, during which he looked for paintings that depict books.
MOE SATT, Pinky Say Something, 2024, performance at Rijksakademie Open Studio, Amsterdam. Photo by Ozgur Atlagan. Courtesy Rijksakademie.
Oct 1–Nov 17
Moe Satt
Rest the Thumbs on the Cheekbones
Delfina Foundation
Burmese artist Moe Satt’s first solo exhibition in the UK showcases his new site-specific commission Hunting and Dancing (2024), comprising monochromatic images of the artist’s hands, in various symbolic gestures, that have been silkscreened onto curtains at the Delfina Foundation. The work comments on the sociopolitical power of hand movements such as the Turkish “wolf salute” (associated with ethno-nationalism), which was recently banned in Bremen, Germany. Also on display are works such as his video installation Hand Around In… (Yangon, Busan, Jogja) (2012–19), and his bullet case and wax-cast pinky finger sculpture Pinky Say Something (2024), which likewise interrogate the connotations of bodily gestures.
GUIMI YOU, Lovers and Flowers, 2024, oil on linen, 97 × 145.8 cm. Courtesy the artist and Almine Rech, London.
Oct 7–Nov 9
Guimi You
Unwind
Almine Rech
“Unwind” presents new oil-on-linen paintings by South Korean artist Guimi You. Her works combine both traditions of Korean painting and oil painting to create scenes filled with rich hues and blurred figures as if taken from dreamy scenes. The artist invites viewers to witness moments of respite from her life outside the studio as she spends her time in cafes, parks, and gardens.
Installation view of NAIRY BAGHRAMIAN’s "Jumbled Alphabet" at South London Gallery, London, 2024. Photo by Jo Underhill. Courtesy South London Gallery.
Sep 27–Jan 12, 2025
Nairy Baghramian
Jumbled Alphabet
South London Gallery
Across her two-decade-long career, Iranian sculptor Nairy Baghramian has explored connections between the self, space, and the object. In “Jumbled Alphabet,” the artist subverts expectations of children’s building toys that are made to fit together with the sculptures from her Misfits series (2021), which presents pieces that intentionally do not fit together and are considered “dysfunctional.”
Installation view of KENT CHAN’s "Solar Masses" at A.I., London, 2024. Courtesy the artist and A.I.
Sep 20–Nov 2
Kent Chan
Solar Masses
A.I.
In Singaporean artist Kent Chan’s first solo exhibition, “Solar Masses,” the multimedia artist showcases a collection of video art, objects, and prints that delves into the fates of tropical artifacts held within various European museum storage depots. With an added auditory component made through collaborations with electronic music producers, Kent explores the legacies of colonialism in relation to the tropics.
GEUMHYUNG JEONG, Under Construction, 2021-24, at the 11th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, 2021. Photo by Cheolki Hong. Courtesy Seoul Mediacity Biennale.
Sep 25–Dec 15
Geumhyung Jeong
Under Construction
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
In her solo exhibition at the ICA, “Under Construction,” Seoul-born choreographer Geumhyung Jeong presents newly commissioned installation and video works alongside a series of disturbing yet sensual performances with self-built automatons. Rather than mere objects, her skeletal machine figures act as co-performers, broaching our technophobic concerns and reimagining a more complex, mutually empathetic relationship with robots.
YU NISHIMURA, Synopsis, 2023, oil on canvas, 194 × 162 × 3.2 cm. Photo by Kei Okano. Courtesy the artist and Crevecoeur, Paris.
Oct 8–Nov 9
Yu Nishimura
Synopsis
Sadie Coles HQ
Kanagawa-born painter Yu Nishimura unveils his tranquil life in paintings of friends and family, pets, and pastoral landscapes in “Synopsis.” Often creating works in oil and implementing a minimalist palette, Nishimura has built an artistic style that combines features found in scroll paintings, Japanese anime, and ordinary digital images that record home and family life.
Installation view of HEEMIN CHUNG’s "UMBRA," at Thaddeus Ropac, London, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Thaddeus Ropac.
Oct 8–Nov 20
Heemin Chung
UMBRA
Thaddaeus Ropac
For her first solo exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, Seoul-based artist Heemin Chung presents new paintings, sculptures, and a video that address the subject of loss. Titled “UMBRA,” in reference to the darkest shadow cast by celestial bodies, the exhibition includes Chung’s signature gel canvases, exploring the philosophical and material concept of death, and a multimedia sculpture series inspired by traditional Korean funeral rites.
Installation view of YU HONG’s "Islands of the Mind" at Lisson Gallery, London, 2024. Courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Yu Hong
Islands of the Mind
Lisson Gallery
Making her London debut, Beijing-and New York-based figurative painter Yu Hong expands on the body of acrylic-on-canvas works that she unveiled in her solo show at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, in 2023. Inspired by Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin’s Island of the Dead (1880–1901), Yu depicts “psychological landscapes,” with each painting representing an emotion such as love, expectation, survival, oblivion, or repose.
PIO ABAD, Giolo’s Lament, 2023, engravings on marble. Courtesy the artist and Tate Britain.
Sep 25–Feb 16, 2025
Turner Prize 2024
Tate Britain
The Tate Britain presents the works of four artists shortlisted for the 40th Turner Prize. Among this year’s nominees are Filipino artist Pio Abad, who presents his three-meter concrete sculpture of former First Lady Imelda Marcos’s bracelet, Kiss The Hand You Cannot Bite (2019) and his drawing of maps, I am singing a song that can only be born after losing a country (2023). British figurative painter Claudette Johnson is showing a pastel- and oil-on-bark painting of a mother and son, titled Pieta (2024). Scottish sculptor and sound artist Jasleen Kaur’s Yearnings (2023) is a mixed-media installation and layered soundscape. British Romani artist Delaine Le Bas’s textile sculpture Marley (2023) takes inspiration from a ghostly character in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843).
