Alexandre Diop @ Stephen Friedman Gallery, London - "Run For Your Life !" Exhibition

Alexandre Diop

Run For Your Life !

Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

19 September - 1 November 2025

Alexandre Diop

A Vos marques ! Prêt ! Illegal, 2025

© Alexandre Diop, courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents Run For Your Life !, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Franco-Senegalese artist ALEXANDRE DIOP. This marks the artist's debut show with the gallery and his first solo exhibition in London.

Alexandre Diop’s powerful mixed-media works explore themes of history, metaphorical archaeology and socio-political change, with this body of work focusing on the relationship between movement and time, represented by dance or migration. The title of the exhibition, Run For Your Life !, is an invitation to stand for change, show tolerance, and be alert to crises around the world. Diop’s practice is interdisciplinary; his experience as a dancer, musician, and visual artist allows him to create artworks that transcend traditional paintings.

Physicality is central to the artist’s process. Diop’s rigorous approach to his work—which he refers to as object-images—combines found and recycled materials such as scrap metal, wood, leather, and textile remnants with classical techniques like oil painting. The materials are sourced from scrapyards, urban streets and derelict buildings, and then transformed through an intensive process of layering, burning, tearing, stapling and collaging onto wood panels. His material language, while firmly rooted in personal and political narratives, also engages with multiple art-historical lineages. His work draws from movements such as Dada, Art Brut, Expressionism and the Viennese Secession, while maintaining a strong dialogue with both West African aesthetic traditions and the visual codes of contemporary urban culture.

Alexandre Diop’s practice is anchored in drawing. He combines calligraphic strokes, symbols, and layered images that are painted, drawn, or sprayed. Figures— both human and animal—emerge from textured surfaces that blur the boundaries of painting, sculpture, and relief. Their stance recalls the awareness of a dancer, attuned to the body’s own rhythms. In this sense, the works look inward: they stage a dialogue between movement and stillness, surface and depth, becoming mirrors through which viewers may glimpse fragments of their own inner reality.

At the same time, Alexandre Diop’s work confronts the world beyond the self. It reflects on how individuals are bound by external forces—systems of illegality, oppression, and exclusion. In A Vos marques ! Prêt ! Illegal, 2025, a central figure cries out yet remains unheard, embodying the suffocation of life within unjust structures. The work echoes the story of Jesse Owens, the African-American runner who won Olympic gold in 1936 under Nazi rule, and becomes a call for freedom, justice, and resilience against overwhelming odds. Alexandre Diop constructs new worlds where historical, political, and social narratives unfold, offering his figures a space to resist, endure, and reimagine history.

Artist Alexandre Diop

Alexandre Diop is a Franco-Senegalese artist whose powerful, mixed-media works interrogate themes of ancestry, beauty, violence and social transformation. Drawing upon his experience as a dancer, musician, and visual artist, Alexandre Diop brings a multidisciplinary lens to his practice, crafting works that are deeply visceral and formally innovative. Alexandre Diop was born in Paris, France in 1995. He lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Alexandre Diop’s work has been the subject of major solo museum exhibitions. In 2023, his work was presented with 18th century anatomical wax models of bodies and body parts in Anatomie at Josephinum Medical Museum, Vienna, Austria. His residency at the Rubell Museum in Miami culminated in a touring exhibition, Jooba Jubba, l’Art du Défi, the Art of Challenge, shown in Miami (2022) and Washington DC (2023). In 2022, Alexandre Diop exhibited alongside Kehinde Wiley in La Prochaine Fois, Le Feu, presented by Reiffers Art Initiatives in Paris.

Notable group exhibitions include Les Apparitions, Reiffers Art Initiatives, Paris, France (2025); De Sculptura, Albertina Klosterneuburg, Klosterneuburg, Austria (2025); The Beauty of Diversity, Albertina Modern, Vienna, Austria (2024); Being Mortal, Dom Museum, Vienna, Austria (2023); The New African Portraiture, Shariat Collections, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems an der Donau, Austria (2022); and Le Mouton Noir, Gesso Art Space, Vienna, Austria (2021).

Alexandre Diop’s works can be found in the collections of Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria; AMA Venezia, Venice, Italy; AMOCA, Cardiff, Wales, UK; Espacio Tacuarí, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Josephinum Medical Museum, Vienna, Austria; Kunsthalle Krems, Krems an der Donau, Austria; MB Collection, Germany; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC, USA; Reiffers Art Initiatives, Paris, France; Rubell Museum, Miami, Florida and Washington DC, USA; Ståhl Collection, Norrköping, Sweden; Stora Wäsby Public Collection, Stockholm, Sweden and The Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA.

STEPHAN FRIEDMAN GALLERY LONDON

5-6 Cork Street, London W1S 3LQ 

www.stephenfriedman.com

Brett Murray @ Everard Read Gallery, London - "Brood" Exhibition

Brett Murray: Brood

Everard Read Gallery, London

15 October – 6 November 2025

Brett Murray 

Artist portrait with sculptures 

Photo © Mike Hall 

Everard Read London presents an exhibition of bronze and marble sculptures by acclaimed South African artist, BRETT MURRAY, on the eve of major survey of his sculpture at the Norval Foundation, Cape Town, opening December 2025.

This body of work traces its origins to the start of this decade and the artist’s experience of the global pandemic. It marks what writer, Noah Swinney, describes as “an idiomatic shift in Murray’s work from polemics to elegy; a transition from what the artist has called, an accusatory position to one that is more compassionate and empathetic.” *

The sculptural forms that Brett Murray created while at home with his family during lockdown, became two deeply personal exhibitions called Limbo, which opened in 2021 and 2022, in London and Cape Town respectively. Murray’s sculptures in these shows embodied the value of family and friendship and the lived experience that, in fraught and frightening moments, our brood and brethren take precedence.

This theme extended into a related body of sculptures and reliefs for Murray’s 2024 Johannesburg exhibition, aptly titled, Brood - a reference to both family and the posture of fretting. In a world mired in conflict, uncertainty and political tumult, Brett Murray continues to reflect and express our collective need to seek solace and safety and find sanctuary in the humans to whom we are closest. “These works are not argumentative, they’re meditative,” observed art critic Graham Wood**. “They’re not subversive, they’re introspective. They’re not about intellect, they’re about emotion. They’re not about politics, they’re about relationships.”

For his London exhibition, Brett Murray continues this intimate exploration through the creatures that emerged during the bewildering time of the global pandemic, and which continue to feel acutely relevant in a time of war and global turmoil. For some of his silent, animal avatars, the world seems to weigh heavily as they gaze heavenwards with trepidation, searching for answers. Others are brooding and subdued.

Huddled together or clinging to one another, many of Murray’s sculptures convey a poignant tenderness and vulnerability. These symbols of the family unit - together, touching, protected, and protecting - strike a universal chord. While some works evoke pathos, others stoke unease and allude to an inherent violence. The hopeful is countered with gaping holes that speak to the loss and hurt that are an integral part of all human experience.

* Noah Swinney, Brett Murray, Brood: The Lost Object & The Animal Series, to be published in 2026

** Graham Wood, Financial Mail (South Africa), 15-21 February 2024

EVERARD READ LONDON

80 Fulham Road London, SW3 6HR

www.everardlondon.com

Koak, Ding Shilun, Cece Philips @ Hauser & Wirth London - "Interior Motives" Exhibition

Interior Motives

Koak, Ding Shilun, Cece Philips

Hauser & Wirth London

22 August – 20 September 2025

Enter interior worlds imagined by contemporary painters Koak, Ding Shilun and Cece Philips at Hauser & Wirth London. The exhibition explores how these artists engage with the interior both as a physical space and a psychological construct. Through distinct painterly vocabularies, each artist interrogates the architectural and domestic environments we inhabit, revealing how these frameworks shape our sense of self, memory and belonging. ‘Interior Motives’ is part of an ongoing initiative at Hauser & Wirth that champions emerging and mid-career artists beyond the gallery’s roster. Produced in collaboration with Union Pacific and Bernheim Gallery, this exhibition reflects a shared commitment to a sustainable arts ecosystem.

Depicting figures in dreamlike domestic interiors, Koak’s painting practice questions the societal expectations and roles of women within the home as well as the traditional portrayal of women by male artists. With a graphic aesthetic that borrows from Japanese and European animations, Koak uses familiar iconography of the home—windows, soft furnishings, flowerpots and vases—to build alternate interiors in which her figures are liberated and given agency. Her contemporary take on art historical depictions of domestic scenes is achieved through a vibrant color palette that blurs the distinction between the imagined and real, between inner and outer worlds, her female gaze highlighting both the emotional and physical experience of her figures.

Inhabiting imaginary worlds, the characters in Ding Shilun’s paintings are often an embodiment of the artist himself, the emotions he feels and the thoughts inside his mind. His worldbuilding relies on everyday objects found in domestic spaces to enable viewers to identify with the characters depicted and emotions evoked. With a style inspired by Japanese manga and traditional Chinese painting, the artist’s interiors include fantastical and mythological elements that question viewer’s perception of reality. Influenced by both global historical events, current affairs and his own experiences, Ding Shilun’s manifestation of his interior realm doubles up as a visual representation of the absurdity of daily life.

The architectural tropes characteristic of household settings, from windows and doorways to hallways and walls, act as visual framing devices in Cece Philips’ paintings. Radiant light is a hallmark of her practice, drawing viewers into the work and leading them through the interiors, yet they are never part of the scene, observing like a flaneur. Like paintings of everyday, domestic life from the Dutch Golden Age and by Félix Vallotton, a narrative is implied—one in which Cece Philips leaves the viewer to fill in the details, encouraged by their imagination and own inner worlds. The use of color adds a layer to the narrative by suggesting a psychological reading, reflecting the figures’ mood and internal realities, as well as that of the viewer. This exploration of interiority is at once about the subject and the viewer, observation and introspection.

ARTIST KOAK

Koak

Courtesy the artist and Union Pacific

Koak (b. 1981 in the US) is known for work that portrays the complex duality of identity and human nature through a mastery of the line which extends across drawing, painting and sculpture. Rendered with exquisite technique, her emotionally charged figures and landscapes are imbued with a profound agency and inner life. Her work challenges historical portrayals of femininity, depicting figures that shift between boldness and vulnerability, resisting fixed definition and embracing emotional depth. Regardless of subject, each piece is approached with the intimacy of portraiture, suggesting a metamorphic state—a dream of becoming something beyond the self: a body becoming a lake, a flower or a landscape. In this way, painting becomes an act of defiance—a feminist gesture that resists enclosure, imagining identity as something fluid.

Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘The Window Set,’ Charleston in Lewes, UK (2025); ‘Lake Marghrete,’ Perrotin, Paris, France (2024); ‘Letter to Myself (when the world is on fire),’ Altman Siegel, San Francisco CA (2023); ‘The Driver,’ Perrotin, Hong Kong (2022); ‘Return to Feeling,’ Altman Siegel, San Francisco CA (2020); and ‘Holding Breath,’ Union Pacific, London, UK (2019). Selected group exhibitions include: ‘Infinite Regresse: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond,’ Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City MO (2024); ‘I’ve got a feeling,’ Musées d’Angers, Angers, France (2023); ‘I’m Stepping High, I’m Drifting, and There I Go Leaping,’ XIAO Museum, Rizhao, China (2022); ‘Familiars,’ Et. Al Gallery, San Francisco CA (2022); and ‘New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century,’ Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley CA (2021), amongst others.

ARTIST DING SHILUN

Ding Shilun

Courtesy the artist and Bernheim Gallery 

Photo: Will Grundy

Ding Shilun (b. 1998 in Guangzhou, China; lives and works between London and Guangzhou) harnesses his heritage, current events and a global history of art to create large and detailed pictorial works depicting the absurdity of daily life. His unique concurrence of the mythological, the historical and the everyday allow the emergence of an imaginary world with a representation of himself within our seemingly homogenous society. Rooted in pictorial references such as Gustav Klimt or Kai Althoff intertwined with interpretations of Chinese literature—namely a collection of Chinese legends, translated as ‘In Search of the Supernatural,’ written between 220 – 589 AD—Shilun’s characters inhabit imaginary worlds that serve as allegories for human experience and emotion. The precision of the details is used to contrast the different textures found in the paintings, sometimes resembling watercolor, as well as playing on a combination of co-existing perspectives, which question the distinction between real and surreal.

His recent solo shows include ‘Janus’ at ICA Miami, Miami FL (2024); ‘Invites: Ding Shilun,’ Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK (2023); ‘Paradiso,’ Bernheim, Zurich, Switzerland (2022); and ‘Mirage,’ Bernheim, London, UK (2024). Shilun’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami FL; The Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Collection of Contemporary Art, Dallas TX; High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA; Rose Art Museum, Waltham MA; Guangdong Museum, Guangzhou, China; Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria; Museu Inima De Paula, Below Horizonte, Brazil; Asymmetry Art Foundation, London, UK; and Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas TX, among others.

ARTIST CECE PHILIPS

Cece Philips

Courtesy the artist

Photo: Rory Langdon-Down

Cece Philips (b. 1996 in London, UK) is a London-based painter whose luminous compositions explore ideas of spectatorship and voyeurism. Embodying the role and spirit of the flaneur, or flâneuse, her works draw on a multitude of sources, from the archive, film stills, found imagery and memory she weaves together historical and contemporary influences to interrogate ideas of interiority, desire and loneliness. Framing is a recurring device in Philips’ paintings, though windows and doorways, barriers and veils are constructed to challenge an easy reading of her female protagonists. Palette, attention to light and space all lend psychological and narrative depth—details that lead us through and beyond the work and activate the viewer’s own imagination.

Cece Philips held her debut solo exhibition ‘I See in Colour’ at HOME in London, UK, in April 2021. Subsequent solo shows include ‘Between the Dog and the Wolf’ at ADA Contemporary, Accra, Ghana (2022); ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,’ Peres Projects, Berlin, Germany (2022); ‘Walking the In-Between,’ Peres Projects, Seoul, South Korea (2023); and ‘Conversations Between Two,’ Peres Projects, Milan, Italy (2024). Recent group exhibitions include ‘The Painted Room,’ curated by Caroline Walker at GRIMM, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2023); ‘Digestif,’ a two-person show with Hettie Inniss at Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy (2024); and ‘The Shed’ at Berntson and Bhattacharjee, London, UK (2025). Her most recent solo presentation, ‘The Wall: Cece Philips,’ was held at Almine Rech, Brussels, Belgium (2025). Cece Philips completed her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2023 and was awarded the Fribourg Philanthropies Prize the same year.

HAUSER & WIRTH LONDON

23 Savile Row, London W1S 2ET

www.hauserwirth.com

Calida Rawles @ Lehmann Maupin, London - "This Time Before Tomorrow"

Calida Rawles

This Time Before Tomorrow

Lehmann Maupin, London

September 11 – 29, 2025

In her first solo exhibition in London, This Time Before Tomorrow, internationally recognized painter CALIDA RAWLES presents a new body of work that explores cycles of time and human experience. In her signature, hyperrealist paintings, serenely-composed figures wade and float in water. The liquid element, for Calida Rawles, is a charged substance that reflects and refracts issues of race, power, and access. Often dressed in solid-colored garments that fold and billow in response to water’s force and movement, her figures flourish in imperceptible moments of submersion and release. Alternately, the face acts as a window into the subject’s soul. In this new suite of six paintings, water is a container for the ebbs and flows that define contemporary global life. The detailed faces typical of Calida Rawles are absent, and the moments of suspension that have become hallmarks of the artist’s work take on deeper meaning. This Time Before Tomorrow comes on the heels of Calida Rawles’ first solo museum exhibition, Cadida Rawles: Away with the Tides, which debuted at the Pérez Art Museum Miami in late 2024 before traveling to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in 2025, as well as her inclusion in the 12th Berlin Biennale in 2022.

In This Time Before Tomorrow, there are no identifiable figures and time does not travel in one direction. Broken, disjointed, murky, upside-down bodies represent the feeling of being knocked off one’s axis, and hyperrealist representation dissolves into fabulism. The paintings picture the liquid and solid contours of the “in-between,” muddying the boundaries between the mundane and the extraordinary by enfolding fantastical, supernatural elements into everyday life. Where and how do we locate ourselves and each other in times of unease and upheaval? What are the consequences of totalizing neglect and frenzy? How much is too much? Calida Rawles answers these questions with play and speculation. Her new works dive more deeply into color theory, asserting her expertise as a colorist; her experiments with both color and chiaroscuro define the buoyancy and stagnation that imbibe the bodies that float, sink, and fold into one another. Strong contrasts of dark and light color, largely within a tertiary palette, create atmospheric volume, depth, and drama. Gestural brushstrokes and depictions of movement mirror states of matter as well as liquid and solid states of being. Blurring the line between hyperrealist figuration and surrealist abstraction, the darkness of the palette personifies the weight of the present while the veil of the water becomes a prism and conduit for other worlds and galaxies.

Reference images of fire, lungs, a Bodhi tree, a living snake plant, and other natural elements inform the artist’s conceptual and formal thinking. In All is One, twin subjects turn inward to face each other at the center of the canvas. Rather than a mirror image, the two sides fuse into one another. The artist’s daughter served as the model for the painting, and resemblance—twin subjects, likeness, similitude, generational transfer, and the past facing the present—forms its core. All four elements are present—fire, earth, water, air—gesturing toward balance. And yet, this is not a picture of symmetry. The subject on the right is slightly higher than its twin, while two otherworldly bubbles draw the eye into another space and time punctuated by flames, lung tissue, tree branches, and shadows.

Abstraction and figuration blend and blur, just as the flesh of Calida Rawles’ subjects diffuse into each other and into aquatic expanses of primordial liquid. Aspects from philosophy texts, speculative fiction novels, ancient and indigenous mythologies, and Black feminist poetry collections and memoirs she read while preparing for the show—including the texts The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Survival Is a Promise, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Alchemist—are also present. What is the artist’s role in moments of crisis? In When Time Carries, the certainty of time, location, and direction dissolve. Clarity and resolution give way to intermission and surrender as her subject appears to submit to water’s ability to hold, carry, and resist. Is the body floating or drowning? Ripples and bubbles obscure the figure’s face, camouflaging and hiding its identity and actions as it interacts with and is changed by its environment.

Bubbles, shadows, and stars recur in This Time Before Tomorrow as symbols of energy’s transformative potential. Both bubbles and stars are composed of gas. The result of nuclear fusion, air bubbles in this new suite of paintings double as stars and planets on the brink of transformation—an alternate state of matter and being. Once fully formed, a star releases excess fuel to create new stars. Here, stored energy and exhaustion become life forces that catalyze new entities constituted by movement, energy renewal, and subject-object relations that meet disequilibrium and disorientation with lightness and effervescence. Asymmetrical bodies of flesh, water, and gas become ciphers for power, weariness, and hope, while natural elements and processes accumulate energy waiting to be released and recycled.

Beyond water’s function as a vital force and historically charged site of memory, Rawles’ choices in color and pose, as well as how she renders space and the environment, are connected to broader questions of race, representation, and ethics within art history and everyday life. Each artwork is based on a photograph or series of photographs that the artist takes herself, and the tertiary colors of her palate signify the liminal space of transformation and existential angst that her figures tread. This alchemical focus on change, disillusionment, and the potential for renewal in This Time Before Tomorrow is a blueprint for the future. Reflection thus emerges not only as a surface element but also as a character in its own right and a method of making. At a time when chaos of all types—political, economic, environmental—proliferates, Calida Rawles’ new paintings prompt viewers to embrace the threshold between past and present as well as the feeling of being in transition. What results is a vibrant wellspring for inner and outer worldmaking.

LEHMANN MAUPIN LONDON

Mayfair, London

www.lehmannmaupin.com

Peter Doig @ Serpentine, London - 'House of Music' Exhibition

Peter Doig: House of Music

Serpentine, London

10 October 2025 – 8 February 2026

Peter Doig 

Maracas, 2002-2008

Oil on canvas, 290 x 190 cm 

© Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved

Peter Doig 

Painting for Wall Painters (Prosperity P.o.S.), 2010–2012

Distemper on linen, 240 x 360 cm 

© Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved 

Peter Doig 

Fall in New York (Central Park), 2002–2012 

Oil on linen, 120.5 x 98 cm 

© Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved 

Serpentine presents House of Music, a new project by one of today’s leading British artists: Peter Doig. The exhibition marks a return to Serpentine South for Peter Doig who first exhibited at the gallery in 1991 as a finalist in the Barclays Young Artist Award.

Accompanying Doig’s paintings with sound for the first time, the exhibition will highlight the significance of other disciplines to the artist’s practice, including music and film, alongside the importance of sites of communal gathering and creative exchange.

 

Envisaged as a multi-sensory environment, visitors are invited to pause and linger as they look and listen. House of Music will transform the gallery into a listening space, bringing together recent paintings by Doig and sound broadcast through two sets of rare, restored analogue speakers, originally designed for cinemas and large auditoriums. Music selected by the artist, from his substantial archive of vinyl records and cassette tapes accumulated over decades, will play through a set of ‘high fidelity’ 1950s wooden Klangfilm Euronor speakers.

Peter Doig said: “Music has often influenced my paintings. Songs can be very visual. I’m interested in what they conjure, and I’ve tried over the years to make paintings that are imagistic and atmospheric in the way music can be. Music, being an invisible art form, is open to interpretation within the mind’s eye, and reflections from the mind’s eye are often what I’m attempting to depict in my work. Many visual artists have a connection to music, whether as listeners while working or as creators. I’m excited by the idea of inviting people to share music they love, or perhaps music they’ve made themselves.”

 

Bettina Korek, CEO and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine said: “We are pleased to present House of Music, a new project by Peter Doig. Best known for his painting, Doig’s deep engagement with music and cinema is less widely known. Building on his earlier presentation STUDIOFILMCLUB, this exhibition invites audiences to explore these facets of his practice. House of Music weaves new and recent paintings with immersive sound installations, transforming the gallery into a shared, multisensory space. At its core is a fluid exchange between disciplines, an approach integral to Serpentine’s programme. Part of our ongoing series that reveals artists through unexpected lenses, this show offers a fresh encounter with Doig’s work. We look forward to welcoming him and his collaborators as they bring the space to life with their vinyl collection.”

Each painting in the exhibition engages with music in a different way: Painting for Wall Painters (Prosperity P.o.S.), 2010–2012, Music of the Future, 2002–2007, Maracas, 2002–2008 and Speaker/Girl, 2015, honour the different spaces and ways that music is experienced. Other works portray musicians performing (including Embah in Paris, 2017; Shadow, 2019) and people dancing or listening to music (Fall in New York (Central Park), 2002–2012; 2 Girls, 2017). Many of the works were created during Doig’s years in Trinidad (2002–21), a period that deepened his relationship with music through sound system culture and cinema. Blending personal memory, found photographs, and imagined scenes, these paintings are shaped by the wider cultural context of Trinidad.

At the centre of the exhibition is an original Western Electric / Bell Labs sound system, produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Developed to respond to the demands of modern movie sound, this extremely rare ‘loud speaking telephone’ consists of valve amplifiers and mains-energised field-coil loudspeakers, which were designed specifically to herald in the new era of ‘talking movies’. These speakers were salvaged from derelict cinemas across the UK by Laurence Passera, with whom Peter Doig has collaborated closely on this project. Laurence Passera is a London-based expert and devoted enthusiast of cinematic sound systems. His study of ‘class A triode’ sound technology ultimately led him to the early pioneering cinematic sound systems. The speakers provide a distinctive listening experience, thanks to the technical excellence of their design, which positions them as the forebears of modern high-end audio. Peter Doig says: “I invited Laurence to be part of the exhibition because of his long-running project to rescue and restore Western Electric sound systems. His labour has resulted in one of the most important systems of its kind in the world. This has been hidden away the studio in Silvertown, only to be heard by a select few, up until now.”

 

On the walls that surround the sound system are three large-scale paintings depicting lions roaming freely through Port of Spain, Trinidad. They reference the Lion of Judah, a recurring figure in Rastafari imagery across mural paintings in Port of Spain, a symbol of pride, resistance, and spiritual force. Doig has returned to this motif in his work since 2015, folding it into a larger interest in collective identity and iconography.

 

The title House of Music, refers to lyrics of the 2011 song Dat Soca Boat by Trinidadian calypsonian musician Shadow, who Doig admires and has depicted in his paintings over the years. A portrait of the musician in his iconic skeleton suit, Shadow, 2019, is also included in the exhibition.

On Sundays, the space will be activated by Sound Service, a series of live, in-person listening sessions. Musicians and artists including Nihal El Aasar, Olukemi Lijadu, Ed Ruscha, Samuel Strang and Duval Timothy, will play a special selection of tracks from their music collections on the analogue systems.

Sound Service is imagined as an integral component of the project that aims to expand the registers of experience in House of Music, foster dialogues through the act of shared listening, and construct a sonic landscape of London. These informal residencies are intended to extend the themes of the exhibition’s ideas: sound as memory, shared listening as gathering, the speaker as both sculpture and conduit.

 

Sound Service evenings will invite special guests to share their selected tracks and audio samples responding to one another in new and unexpected acoustic exchanges in front of a live audience. Participants will include Dennis Bovell, Lizzi Bougatsos, Brian Eno, Andrew Hale, Linton Kwesi Johnson and more to be announced.

 

A publication will accompany the exhibition, featuring a newly commissioned text by Michael Bracewell exploring the intersection of music and visual arts; a short history of the development of sound systems for theatres by Laurence Passera; poems by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Derek Walcott and an in-depth interview between the artist and Serpentine’s Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist. The publication will also feature reproductions of paintings alongside archival images and engineering diagrams of the speakers included in the show. Designed by the Paris-based studio Faye and Gina, this publication will echo the design of a 12-inch record cover in format.

 

Peter Doig: House of Music is curated in close collaboration with the artist by Natalia Grabowska, Curator at Large, Architecture and Site-Specific Projects with Lizzie Carey-Thomas, Director of Programmes and Chief Curator, Alexa Chow, Assistant Exhibitions Curator and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director. The live programme is co-curated with Kostas Stasinopoulos.  

SERPENTINE GALLERIES, LONDON

www.serpentinegalleries.org

RPS International Photography Exhibition 2025 @ Saatchi Gallery, London

RPS International Photography Exhibition 2025

Saatchi Gallery, London

5 August - 18 September 2025

Lydia Goldblatt

Lick

© Lydia Goldblatt

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

Kunnath Keerthana 

Boomika 1

© Kunnath Keerthana 

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

Timon Benson 

About to Leave

© Timon Benson

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

Ville Niiranen

Family Portrait

© Ville Niiranen

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

The exhibiting artists for the 166th edition of the Royal Photographic Society's International Photography Exhibition (IPE), the world's longest-running photography exhibition, have been announced. Renowned for showcasing the diversity of contemporary photography from around the world, the works are on display at London's Saatchi Gallery.

More than 4,000 photographers, both amateur and professional, submitted work for consideration in the 166th IPE open call. 113 prints from 51 photographers were selected by a guest panel for inclusion in the exhibition.

Selected Photographers: Mark Aitken, Jocelyn Allen, Debe Arlook, Murray Ballard, Timon Benson, John Boaz, Sean Cham, Raeann Kit-Yee Cheung, Alex Currie, Megan K Eagles, Thomas Dryden-Kelsey, Andy Fell, Stefano Ferrarin, Austin Fischer, Margarita Galandina, Lydia Goldblatt, Francisco Gonzalez Camacho, Mat Hay, Ronya Hirsma, Peter Holliday, Lawrence W. Ivy, Ayesha Jones, Keerthana Kunnath, Jacopo Locarno, Deacon Lui, Mehdi Moghimnejad, Aidan Murgatroyd, Albert Ng, Ville Niiranen, Ryan O'Toole Collett, Ana Paganini, Andy Pilsbury, Tine Poppe, Matthew  Renew, Emilie Rondal Nielsen, Hyunmin Ryu, Aindreas Scholz, Kate Schultze, Nirvana Seepersaud, Aria Shahrokhshahi, Xu Shengzhe, Gokhan Tannover, Valentin Valette, lnes Ventura, Katie Waite, Alastair Philip Wiper, Hanna Wolf, Naoto Yoshida, Zeng Fengyang, ChengLong  Zhang, Danilo Zocatelli Cesco.

Francisco Gonzalez Camacho

Do(I)ce

© Francisco Gonzalez Camacho

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

John Boaz 

Fabian , Equestrian Eventer

© John Boaz

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

Aidan Murgatroyd

The Tangential

© Aidan Murgatroyd

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

Tine Poppe 

Chrysanthemum Morifolium 

© Tine Poppe

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

The IPE has always reflected the times and this year's submissions are no exception with many photographers focussing on themes that include environmental issues, identity, community, family, and culture, showing how contemporary photographers engage with and capture aspects of the world that are not only visually compelling but also socially and culturally significant.

With this edition showing at Saatchi Gallery, London, more people than ever can view the work and appreciate the broad range of photography and themes captured in the final selection.

Victoria Humphries, CEO of the RPS comments: "This is another edition of the RPS International Photography Exhibition that pushes the boundaries of creative expression and celebrates the diversity and evolution of photography. When you view this exhibition and see the same themes evolving from every corner of the world you can't underestimate the importance of the RPS International Photography  Exhibition in bringing  these works together."

Mat Hay 

Felipe Barrera Aguirre, traditional Chinampero farmer 

and agroecology teacher

© Mat Hay

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

Murray Ballard

Men Playing Cards, Muro Leccese Salento, [2022]

© Murray Ballard 

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society 

Peter Holliday 

Kalle 

© Peter Holiday 

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

Ana Paganini

Our Lady of Fatima

© Ana Paganini 

Courtesy of The Royal Photographic Society

The selection panel of experts consisted of Yuxing Chen, a Chinese artist and researcher based in the UK and previous recipient of the IPE 165 award; Kalpesh Lathigra,a British Indian artist occupying documentary and art practise and senior lecturer at London College of Communication/ University of the Arts London; Anne Nwakalor, a British Nigerian Photo Editor and Communications Officer and founding editor of No! Wahala Magazine; Nicola Shipley, Curator, Producer, Mentor and co-founder and Director of GRAIN projects; and photography consultant and long-term member of the IPE selection panel,Dr Michael Pritchard.

The two award recipients for the 166th edition of the International Photography Exhibition have been announced, with Lydia Goldblatt, and Keerthana Kunnath receiving the honours. Lydia Goldblatt  received the IPE Award for her series Fugue, which explores motherhood as a central theme, considering love and grief, mothering and losing a mother, as well as intimacy and distance.The Under 30s Award was presented to Keerthana Kunnath for her series Not What You Saw, which centres on South Indian female bodybuilders who challenge entrenched gender and beauty norms by embracing physical strength, a trait often considered as masculine.

On receiving the IPE award Lydia Goldblatt said:"It is a huge honour to have my work selected for the RPS IPE 166. I am deeply humbled and very grateful  to receive the IPE Award, and so excited to exhibit Fugue in the company of wonderful photographers. I am profoundly moved to know that this project, which began so quietly and privately, has resonated with the esteemed jury, and that it will have the opportunity to be seen by others who might a/so connect to its themes. To have my work recognised and seen within the rich context and history of the RPS is a very great privilege."

On receiving the Under 30s IPE Award Keerthana Kunnath said:" I am honoured to be named one of the two award winners at this year's RPS International Photography Exhibition. This recognition from such a prestigious institution marks a significant milestone in my photographic journey. It's a joy to see the series being appreciated and celebrated. Thanks to all the judges."

Simon Hill HonFRPS, RPS President,comments:"The RPS is proud to champion a dynamic and inclusive international photographic community. The International Photography Exhibition, with its unique legacy and global reputation, continues to be a vital platform for celebrating the richness and significance of contemporary photography. This 166th edition showcases an extraordinary collection of work from some of the most innovative and talented photographers worldwide. It is a testament to the power of photography to inspire, challenge, and connect us, and we are confident that this carefully curated exhibition will captivate and resonate with audiences through its diverse subjects, themes, techniques, and aesthetics."

RPS - ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

www.rps.org

SAATCHI GALLERY, LONDON

www.saatchigallery.com

The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers @ Cristea Roberts Gallery, London - "The Sum of the Parts. The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers" Exhibition

The Sum of the Parts

The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers

Cristea Roberts Gallery, London 

Until 29 August 2025

Josef Albers 

Homage to the Square: Ten Works by Josef Albers, 1962 

The complete portfolio of 10 screenprints 

Paper and Image each: 43 x 43 cm (each) 

Edition of 250 

Photo courtesy of Cristea Roberts Gallery, London

Cristea Roberts Gallery presents the first exhibition dedicated to all of the print portfolios made by Josef Albers.

The Sum of the Parts: The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers, features eighteen portfolios using lithography, silkscreen, inkless intaglio and embossing. The portfolios made over a period of 14 years which are increasingly rare to see in their complete form, is each a powerful demonstration of how markedly original Albers was in his understanding of colour and line.

Josef Albers (1888 - 1976), was one of the greatest abstract artists of the twentieth century, creating seminal works in painting, stained glass, and furniture.  He was also a dedicated printmaker who produced work in a variety of print techniques right up until his death in 1976. His complete graphic oeuvre comprises some 350 editions. In printmaking, Josef Albers found the perfect vehicle with which to realize the full array of his imagery and to develop his theoretical approach to colour.

Josef Albers made his first suite in 1962, Homage to the Square: Ten Works by Josef Albers. It was the first time he explored his Homage to the Square painted imagery in a series of prints. Using an array of solid, unmodulated colours, the viewer is invited to perceive shifting depth and change of tone in multiple works at once.

Josef Albers went on to produce more sets, which each take a particular compositional theme, which is then explored through variations of tone, colour and line. Midnight and Noon, 1964, brings together two opposing colour sets, printed in different densities, in a single portfolio. In Soft Edge-Hard Edge, 1965, edges define forms but then begin to disappear before your eyes, creating a conflict between what is precise and what is an illusion. White Line Squares, 1966, features colours registered side by side, delineated by a single white line. The addition of this precise line creates the appearance of four colours, although only three inks are used. 

In the early 1970s Josef Albers spent almost two years making Formulation: Articulation, 1972, a set of two boxed portfolios each containing 66 sheets of paper screenprinted with imagery from every decade of his career, from the Bauhaus period to early woodcuts, pre-Columbian influences and his Homage to the Square explorations. 

A realisation of the essential ideas in Albers’ works, Formulation: Articulation demonstrates the visual and material connections that drove the artist’s practice over the preceding forty years.

Arguably two of Josef Albers most important works in any medium, are the portfolios Gray Instrumentation I and II, made in 1974-75. Together they are the ultimate expression of Albers theoretical approach to colour. The basis for each work is the interactions between different shades of grey. This exploration by Josef Albers was prompted by seeing black and white photos of his Homage to the Square paintings.

In previous portfolios colours were typically printed on top of one another. However, the inks used in Gray Instrumentation I and II, were applied adjacently without overlapping, a level of precision that had not been seen in screenprinting before and a process more closely aligned with Josef Albers painting. Nick Fox Weber, Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, states “As a totality, the twenty-four prints that comprise these two portfolios are in many ways Albers’s ultimate masterpiece.”

Still driven by his need and desire to discover colour relationships beyond anything in his previous work, Josef Albers made Never Before in 1976, which developed upon ideas he had started exploring over twenty-five years earlier in painting. The portfolio was completed, but Josef Albers was too unwell to complete signing each work. As a result a number of prints remain unsigned.

David Cleaton-Roberts, Gallery Director explains, “At the time of his death, he had just completed the series aptly titled Never Before. While artists creating works in series is not unique to printmaking, the ability to formulate, develop, and present an idea through multiple images, tied together by an underlying ethos and/or medium was perfectly realised by Albers using techniques that simultaneously allowed for multiplicity, repetition, and variation.”

The individual plates that make up each portfolio in this exhibition challenge or echo one another, support or oppose one another, but when viewed together, the visual perception and interpretation achieved demonstrates that the whole is always much greater than the sum of its parts.

The Sum of the Parts: The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers is accompanied by a 144-page fully illustrated hard-back publication. Featuring texts by Nicholas Fox Weber, executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and David Cleaton-Roberts, a senior director of Cristea Roberts Gallery.

CRISTEA ROBERTS GALLERY

43 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG 

cristearoberts.com

The Sum of the Parts. The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers

Cristea Roberts Gallery, London, 12 June - 29 August 2025

British Art Fair 2025: Spotlight on L.S. Lowry by Crane Kalman Gallery

Spotlight on L.S. Lowry 

by Crane Kalman Gallery

@ BRITISH ART FAIR 2025

Modern and Contemporary British Art

@ Saatchi Gallery, London

25 - 28 September 2025

Crane Kalman Gallery, a new exhibitor at British Art Fair, reveals personal connections to L.S. Lowry, presenting a series of rare works by one of Britain’s most popular painters for sale.

L.S. LOWRY 

Sunday Morning, 1938  

Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches / 46 x 61 cms

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

L.S. LOWRY 

Farm Buildings, Worsley, 1914

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

L.S. LOWRY

Woman Walking, 1965 

Oil on canvas, 28 x 22.9 cms / 11 x 9 inches

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

L.S. LOWRY 

A Group of Seven, 1965

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

“In 1949 Andras Kalman opened The Crane Gallery in a basement air-raid shelter in South King Street, Manchester, where the weekly £2 rent was paid by the regular pawning of his typewriter. With persuasion and charm, he managed to obtain for his first exhibition, works by Sir Jacob Epstein, Matthew Smith, Lucien Freud and John Craxton; despite sending invitations to every influential name he could discover, no one came.” Writes Shelley Rodhe in her biography, A Private View of L.S. Lowry (Collins, London 1979). The author takes us to the first meeting between Lowry and Kalman in 1950: “Lowry appeared at the second exhibition, bought a picture and as Kalman recalls ‘it cost him about £20 and I think he bought it only to give my morale a boost’. Visits to the gallery ensued, as did many hours in conversation about artists and the artworld, leading to a lifelong friendship.” 

Andras Kalman at the Crane Gallery, Manchester, 1956, 

tying a painting by Graham Sutherland to the roof of his Alvis. 

That evening, on the trunk road to London, it blew off. After a s

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

Andras Kalman with Sir Ian McKellen below, c. 2000’s 

talking to children on their school trip to 

Crane Kalman Gallery about Lowry’s work

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

L.S. LOWRY and Lord Richard Attenborough 

at the opening of the artists exhibition 

A Tribute to L.S. Lowry at Crane Kalman Gallery, London, 1966 

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

Kalman first exhibited L.S. Lowry’s work in 1952 and Crane Kalman has continued to exhibit his work ever since, hosting a 70th anniversary exhibition at their Knightsbridge gallery in 2022.

Laurence Stephen Lowry RBA RA (1887 – 1976)  is best known for painting the daily lives of Northern British people, often against the background of the modern industrial city. He also painted timeless seascapes and country landscapes that were often empty and even desolate. Collections that hold Lowry’s work include The Tate, London; The Royal Academy of Arts; London; The Hepworth, Wakefield; The Lowry, Salford; Kettles Yard, The University of Cambridge; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Setagaya Museum, Tokyo.

Crane Kalman Gallery will be exhibiting seven works by L.S. Lowry for sale at British Art Fair 2025, including examples of his best known city scenes, landscapes, a portrait and a series of his later, more haunting and comic works. The price range is £25,000 to £1million. You will find them on the ground floor at Saatchi Gallery, 25-28 September 2025.

L.S. LOWRY 

Houses and Fencing, c. 1925

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

L.S. LOWRY 

Crowded Street Scene, 1933  

Pencil on paper, 6.5 x 8.75 inches / 16 x 22 cm

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

L.S. LOWRY 

Portrait of a Man, 1920

Courtesy of Crane Kalman Gallery

Andrew Kalman, son of Andras Kalman and director of Crane Kalman Gallery said: ”To celebrate our debut participation at the British Art Fair, Crane Kalman Gallery is delighted to present a selection of paintings and works on paper by L.S. Lowry. Arguably, no exhibition of Modern British Art would be complete without featuring Lowry, who remains deeply popular with the general public, feted and collected by lovers of 20th-century British art.”

BRITISH ART FAIR 2025 - Modern and Contemporary British Art

Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York HQ, King’s Road, London SW3 4RY

www.britishartfair.co.uk

CRANE KALMAN GALLERY

178 Brompton Road, London, SW3 1HQ 

www.cranekalman.com

Bridget Riley @ Tate Britain, London

Bridget Riley 

Tate Britain, London 

21 July 2025 – 7 June 2026

Bridget Riley 

Concerto I, 2024 

Tate, Presented by the artist 2025 

© Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved

Tate announced that it has received the gift of a major recent painting by BRIDGET RILEY (b.1931), one of the most influential artists of our time. Premiering at Tate Britain as part of a new display of Riley’s paintings running until 7 June 2026, Concerto I 2024 has been generously donated by the artist and joins Tate’s holdings of her work spanning a remarkable six-decade working life.

Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain said: “We are extremely grateful to Bridget Riley for her generosity in making such a significant gift to the nation. Riley’s work changed the landscape of abstract art and Concerto I demonstrates how she continues to expand her practice while upholding a commitment to exploring energy and sensation through colour and form. We’re delighted to be able to show the painting in Tate Britain’s free collection displays over the next year, and I have no doubt it will soon become one of the best-loved works in the gallery.”

Bridget Riley 

Elongated Triangles 5, 1971 

Presented by the Institute of Contemporary Prints 1975. 

© Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved 

Photo © Tate (Sonal Bakrania)

Renowned internationally for her visually vibrant works, Bridget Riley’s particular approach to painting involves the skilful balancing of forms and colour to explore perceptions of space, balance and dynamism. Her recent works, Concerto 1 and Concerto 2 reflect the artist’s abiding love of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters and their engagement with colour. High in key, Concerto 1 is uplifting, while Concerto 2 explores hidden images.

Bridget Riley 

Fall, 1963 

Tate, Purchased 1963 

© Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. 

Photo © Tate (Joe Humphrys)

Highlighting Riley’s dialogue with the sensory experience of sight, the new display includes Fall 1963, an important early abstract painting in Tate’s collection. The artist has described this painting as “a field of visual energy, which accumulates until it reaches maximum tension.” Using black and white curves, it evokes feelings of both elation and disturbance. Fall is being shown for the first time since receiving sustainable conservation treatment as part of GREENART, a groundbreaking new project researching ways to preserve cultural heritage using environmentally friendly materials.

Building on the long-standing relationship between Bridget Riley and Tate, this display is the artist’s fourth showing at the institution, having previously presented displays in 1973, 1994, and a large-scale retrospective survey in 2003. Fall was the first work by Bridget Riley to enter Tate’s collection in 1963 and has since been joined by nine paintings, 25 studies, and three works on paper by the artist. Concerto I is the first work by Bridget Riley created within this decade to be brought into Tate’s collection, expanding its representation of her practice.

Bridget Riley’s work is part of a series of regularly changing displays at Tate Britain to be staged since the gallery unveiled a full rehang in 2023. Collection works by Jacob Epstein, a key figure in the direct carving movement of the early 20th century, are currently installed in the Duveens Galleries at the heart of Tate Britain. Exploring the interplay between carving and modelling in Epstein’s work, monumental sculptures in stone are juxtaposed with bronze portrait busts. On 28 July, Pieter Casteels’s painting A Fable from Aesop: The Vain Jackdaw 1723 will be shown for the first time as part of a display looking at how artists have been inspired by birds. Several new artist interventions, first implemented with the rehang, will also appear throughout the collection. Found ceramics painted by Lubaina Himid will feature in the room exploring the rise of the urban metropolis in the era of Hogarth. Archive materials from Stuart Brisley’s time working on a project to record the experience of the inhabitants of Peterlee New Town and its surrounding villages will be included in the display exploring the place of abstract art in Britain’s post-war reconstruction.

TATE BRITAIN

Millbank, London SW1P 4RG

www.tate.org.uk

Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely: Myths & Machines @ Hauser & Wirth Somerset

Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely

Myths & Machines

Hauser & Wirth Somerset

17 May 2025 – 1 February 2026

Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely 

in front of their home and studio ‘Auberge du Cheval Blanc,’ 

Essonne region, 3 March 1967

Harry Shunk and Shunk-Kender Photographs

Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2014.R.20) 

Gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation in Memory 

of Harry Shunk and Janos Kender 

@ J. Paul Getty Trust

Courtesy Niki Charitable Art Foundation and Hauser & Wirth 

Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely

Nana dansant (Nana mobile), 1976

Painted polyester, iron stand with electric motor

by Jean Tinguely

43.5 x 20 x 14 cm / 17 1/8 x 7 7/8 x 5 1/2 in

© 2025 NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION

All rights reserved

Courtesy Niki Charitable Art Foundation and Hauser & Wirth 

Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely

La Grande Tête, 1988

Painted polyester, electrical system

225 x 225 x 140 cm / 88 5/8 x 88 5/8 x 55 1/8 in

Photo: Laurent Condominas

© 2025 NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION

All rights reserved

Courtesy Niki Charitable Art Foundation and Hauser & Wirth 

‘We couldn’t sit down together without creating something new, conjuring up dreams.’—Niki de Saint Phalle, ‘A little of my story with you Jean’ (1996)

Niki de Saint Phalle (1930 – 2002) and Jean Tinguely (1925 – 1991) are reunited in a major site-wide takeover at Hauser & Wirth Somerset in collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation. The first exhibition dedicated to both artists in the UK illustrates Saint Phalle and Tinguely’s visionary artistic output and enduring creative collaboration over three decades. Two emblematic figures of contemporary art, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely defied conventional artmaking and were fuelled with rebellion, in both life and art. The exhibition features unseen works on paper and art décor by Niki de Saint Phalle, alongside her Shooting Paintings and monumental open-air sculptures. Iconic kinetic machines by Jean Tinguely range from the 1950s to the final year of his life, in addition to multifaceted collaborative works made by the duo throughout the 1980s. 

The Bourgeois Gallery introduces the artists’ distinct visual language, production methods and social commentary that developed in parallel, and through collaboration, over the course of their careers. The Tinguely works within this space are exemplary of his sculptural practice as research, exploring art based on movement, chance, relative speed and sound. His ‘anti-machines’ feel more relevant now than ever before, constructed from scrap metal and an assemblage of found materials, designed to highlight the flaws of modern technology and society’s displacement of humanity. Overlooking these works stands Saint Phalle’s ‘Big Lady (black)’ (1968/1995). By 1965, Saint Phalle began to introduce polyester to create more voluptuous dancing figures that could be displayed in public parks and other outdoor locations, as seen in ‘Les Trois Graces’ (1995 – 2003) that is presented in the farmyard in Somerset. 

The Rhoades Gallery features Saint Phalle’s first functional sculptures, made for the film ‘Un Reve plus long que la nuit’ (1976). The film was written, directed and acted by Saint Phalle, alongside Tinguely and her daughter Laura Duke. Art and life were interchangeable in Saint Phalle’s universe and the decorative elements for the film, such as thrones, tables and mirrors, instigated a sustained interest in making art to be lived with, which resulted in larger-scale immersive projects. It was Saint Phalle’s passion for fantasy and mythology that contributed to Tinguely’s monumental sculptural work, ‘Le Cyclop’ (1969 – 1994), in the forest of Milly-la-Forêt, France, a project of boundless action between artists and a dream of utopia. A mutual source of inspiration can be seen in ‘Le Grande Tête’ (1988), a union of Tinguely’s robust mechanical base with Saint Phalle’s mysterious abstract face as a silent observer, a motif she began developing from the 1970s, in response to multiple realities and dream states that can exist simultaneously. Skating amongst the gold furniture is ‘Patineuse’ (c. 1967), from her most famous and recognizable series, the Nanas. Saint Phalle’s army of brightly colored Nanas interrogate the various roles of women, often liberated from tradition and radiating energy and vitality.

The Pigsty Gallery pays homage to Saint Phalle’s Shooting Paintings, which began in 1961 against a backdrop of political violence and unrest in France. Saint Phalle fired a rifle at canvases or low reliefs resembling altars or effigies, often exploding bags of hidden paint across the work’s surface. The process of creation was a paradoxical destructive act, utilizing sensations of violence and demolition to promote a sense of renewal and catharsis for the artist and the viewer. The performative action was both inward-looking, demonstrating Saint Phalle’s regaining of control and strength over a strict Catholic upbringing and abusive father but, at the same time, responding to the period in which they were made, and bursting with rage at institutional forces and masculinist values. Tinguely was a primary supporter of these works and his own auto-exploding sculptures and incendiarism in art shared this adventurous spirit and eagerness to challenge artistic norms. 

The Workshop Gallery presents an intimate collection of drawings and works on paper by Saint Phalle, many of which reflect on her relationship with Tinguely and the creative stability and trust they provided for one another. The repetition of birds, snakes, dragons and mythical creatures appear frequently in Saint Phalle’s writings and sculptural work, drawing from the symbolic language of African, preColumbian and eastern cultures. Birds are often believed to be messengers from one world to the next, representing complete freedom and immortal reinvention. In addition to independent works by Tinguely, including ‘Radio Sculpture’ (1961), ‘IBM’ (1960) and Rocker III (1963), stands a final collaborative work, ‘Pallas Athéna (le chariot)’ (1989) that relates to the seventh card in the Tarot which appears in Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden in Garavicchio, Italy. 

Saint Phalle’s extraordinary combination of architecture, the enchantment of nature, and the spiritual world is integral throughout her practice, most notably in her ambitious vision for the Tarot Garden. This is prominent across the open-air presentation in Somerset, including ‘The Prophet’ (1990), ‘Tête de mort I’ (1988), ‘Le Poète et sa Muse (1999) and ‘Les Trois Graces’ (1995 – 2003), alongside Tinguely’s ‘Fountain III’ (1963), a large motor-driven fountain on display in the Rhoades Gallery lobby that is activated throughout the summer. 

Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle

back from the Cyclop, La Commanderie,

Dannemois, France, 1973

Photo: Laurent Condominas

© Laurent Condominas

Courtesy Niki Charitable Art Foundation and Hauser & Wirth 

Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely met and started working together in Paris, France in the late 1950s and were married in 1971. The pair forged an extraordinary personal and artistic relationship that continued to renew itself across multiple projects until Tinguely’s death in 1991, when Saint Phalle took over stewardship of his works until she died a decade later. The artists’ legacy and work are continued through the work of Niki Charitable Art Foundation and Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland. The basis for the collection at the Museum Tinguely was provided by Niki de Saint Phalle’s donation of 52 sculptures from the Estate of Jean Tinguely, alongside many letters, graphics and archives. 

HAUSER & WIRTH SOMERSET

Durslade Farm, Dropping Lane

Bruton, Somerset BA10 0NL

www.hauserwirth.com