Tabish Khan, the @LondonArtCritic, picks his top 5 art exhibitions to see in Fitzrovia & Mayfair. Check out last week’s top 5 if you’re after more shows.
Mitchell Anderson: Sonnet @ Bernheim
Mitchell Anderson’s exhibition at Bernheim, across several floors, is chock-full of ideas across many mediums. I was particularly drawn to his playing card works that depict wildfires and vintage porn, but the cards themselves are a code that, when decoded, becomes poetry – including work by Keats. Paintings of broken chain link fences evoke memories of breaking the rules, and his readymades chart the journey from life to death. Until 17th April.
It may just be four works, but they are beguiling as each is given enough space to diffuse the light around it and reflect off walls around it. Looking at Flavin’s work has the same effect on humans as those blue lights must have on flies as you’re drawn to them. The red work downstairs makes the red text on the exhibition handout disappear in a nice, if unintentional, touch. Until 25th May.
Sophie Birch & Rachel Youn: Figures of Speech @ Alice Amati
Sophie Birch’s abstract paintings and Rachel Youn’s kinetic sculptures that repurpose mechanisms such as those from a massage chair may feel like they have little in common. However, both are united by the sense of touch or should that be out of touch? Birch’s paintings have a skin-like look, and Youn’s mechanisms are meant to mimic fingers and move flowers that are also not real. Until 12th April.
Tatiana Wolska: Trash to Treasure @ I DE V / l’étrangère
This is an impressive selection of Tatiana Wolska’s works, including sculptures made from recycled bottles, a shaved-down chair split in half, and a drawing covering an entire wall. I wrote about her work when it was at MAC, and this is a smaller sample of her impressive works, which are all about rehabilitating the humblest materials and recasting them as art. Until 12th April.
Tim Stoner: Negative Space @ Pace
You need to dig beneath the aesthetics to appreciate these paintings, just as Tim Stoner does. He builds them up in layers of paint over the years and then scrapes them back with power tools and scalpels, and even submerges them in a swimming pool to expose the layers. Get up close and appreciate these labours of love. Until 12th April.
All images are copyrighted by the respective artist and gallery. Alice Amati photo: Tom Carter. Dan Flavin image © Stephen Flavin / Artists Rights Society, New York and DACS, London 2025. Tatiana Wolska Photo: Jackson White. Tim Stoner image: © Tim Stoner. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy Pace Gallery.
