Tabish Khan the @LondonArtCritic picks his Top 5 Art Exhibitions to see in London in June. Each comes with a concise review to help you decide whether it’s for you. For those looking for more shows to see, check out his top 5 painting exhibitions.
Nan Goldin: Sisters, Saints, Sibyls @ Gagosian Open, 83 Charing Cross Road
You’ll step into this atmospheric former Welsh chapel for a film and once you step outside it won’t just be the daylight that will have you reeling but the emotional impact of the work. This is a powerful film that charts the abuse her sister went through before her death by suicide. It’s deeply personal, moving, intentionally hard to watch at times and it absolutely blew me away. Until 23rd June.
Danica Lundy: Boombox @ White Cube, Mason’s Yard
Dense is the perfect word to describe Danica Lundy’s paintings because there’s so much going on – focus on the person and you miss the dozens of objects in the background. It’s like layering ten photographs on top of each other but in a painting style that makes you want to endlessly stare at them. These are everyday moments but it feels like we’re being overwhelmed by them – the information age in a painting. Until 29th June.
The Sunderland Collection: Fathi Hassan ‘Shifting Sands’ @ No 9 Cork Street
Where we come from and where we belong is something most of us will consider in our lives. Taking inspiration from The Sunderland Collection, a private collection of rare antique world and celestial maps, Fathi Hassan has created small and large scale works that incorporate maps, and overlay them with concepts around migrations as well as portraits of recognisable trailblazers, as varied as Virginia Woolf, Charlie Chaplin and Muhammad Ali. Until 15th June.
Legacies of Crossing @ Shahnaz Gallery
In another exhibition that looks at migration this group show brings together 13 artists from South Asia and its diaspora and displays them within a gallery that specialises in Islamic and Asian art. It’s an apt setting for these artists which include the intricate maps, birds and blood vessels of Samanta Batra Mehta and the more industrial looking bridge, with links to colonialism, in prints by Palash Bhattacharjee. Until 21st June.
The Whole World Smiles with You @ Opera Gallery
This figurative exhibition brings together a variety of styles by Black artists who all look to subvert traditional Western art history by recreating famous works and poses and replacing them with Black figures whether that be a black ballet dancer in a energetic painting by Thelonious Stokes or Awodiya Toluwani’s recreation of Manet’s Olympia so the main figure is Black and the maid behind is white. Until 26th June.
Nan Goldin image: © Nan Goldin. Photo: Lucy Dawkins. Courtesy Gagosian. Opera Gallery photo by Eva Herzog. All other images copyright and courtesy gallery and artist.
