Tabish Khan, the @LondonArtCritic, picks his top 5 exhibitions to see in London. If you are looking for more exhibitions, check out his previous top 5.
Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition 2026 at Somerset House
With an excellent mix of perfectly composed photographs and powerful stories behind them, this has to be one of the strongest years I’ve seen for this annual photography competition. Cut-out persons from photographs represent the many people who are missing in Mexico, portraits of ‘tiger widows’ in India are women who have lost their husbands to tiger attacks and are helping to regrow forests to prevent further attacks, and Bangladeshi homes photographed from above become islands when the monsoon hits. Until 4th May, ticketed.
Shane Keisuke Berkery: Shane, Come Back at Carl Kostyal
There’s an impressive style to these paintings that makes them resemble collages, as different elements from the artist’s life combine. He appears in his work, but so do his girlfriend and a fellow artist in his studio. The architecture of the gallery appears in the work, as does an entrance to Bank underground station, which is located near his studio. He also includes scenes from Westerns so that fact meets fiction in these layered compositions that combine colour and ghostly monochrome. Until 3rd May.
Katharina Grosse: I Set Out, I Walked Fast at White Cube, Bermondsey
What’s it feel like to get lost in colour? That’s what you can expect from Katharina Grosse’s gigantic canvases covered in swirls of colour; some of the biggest are probably as long as my flat. However, the best is saved for one room where colour swirls across the floor, the rocks in the space, and onto the canvas jammed in the corner of the room. Until 31st May.
Mateo Revillo: Forms Have Attitude at Niso
It’s said that a great painting leaps off the canvas; well, here they come shooting out of the walls. Mateo Revillo paints abstract works on standard canvases, then slices them apart and recomposes them, reconfiguring them in the gallery space. It plays with our perception of how paintings should be and how we interpret them when we can walk around them. Until 9th May.
Alexis Ralaivao: Flirter avec l’abstrait at Pilar Corrias, Conduit Street
Historical paintings often feature a colourful, textured piece of fabric to demonstrate the painter’s skill. Alexis Ralavaio takes it a step further, removing the sitter entirely to focus purely on the fabrics. Close-ups of a rumpled shirt and other clothing allow you to be subsumed by the folds in these large-scale paintings. Until 25th May.
Sony World Photo: Copyright Joy Saha. All other images are copyrighted by the respective artist and gallery. Carl Kostyal and Pilar Corrias photos: Benjamin Westoby / Fine Art Documentation.
