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TOP 12 UNMISSABLE ART EXHIBITIONS

London’s Best Art Shows This March

The capital is teeming with immersive art exhibitions beckoning us to leap inside paintings; AI shows offering to guide our digital avatars around artists’ minds; powerful installations to explore and retrospectives of some of the most influential artists of the 20th Century.

So we’ve cherry-picked the cream of the arty crop for our round-up of London's top 12 art exhibitions this March.

When Flowers Dream

It’s your last chance to catch the utopian, candy-coloured world of Pip & Pop - aka Aussie artist Tanya Schultz - made from sweets, sugar and craft materials. Ending on 5 March, When Flowers Dream at Kew Gardens' Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art uses eye-popping colours to immerse viewers in a magical food fantastia, exploring consumption and abundance. Don't miss the bespoke installation for Kew; a trippy landscape filled with foods of the future, created in collaboration with Kew scientists. When Flowers Dream, Kew Gardens, Richmond TW9 3LL, UK. Until 5 March

Frameless

Immersive art experiences are beckoning us to leap into paintings all over the world, but Frameless is art immersion on steroids. Situated in Marble Arch, it is the largest, permanent multi-sensory experience in the UK. Boasting four, themed galleries - Beyond Reality, Colour In Motion, The World Around Us and The Art Of Abstraction - with some of the world’s greatest works of art exploding across the walls, floors and ceilings of a 30,000 sq ft space. You can step inside more than 43 masterpieces by 28 artists, including Kandinsky, Monet, Van Gogh, Klimt, Munch, Monet, Rembrandt, Dali and Cezanne with musical scores accompanying each brushstroke.

Frameless, Marble Arch, London W1H 7FD, UK

Vogue X Snapchat: Redefining the Body

Curated by Edward Enninful OBE, this FREE collaboration between Vogue and Snap Inc illustrates how augmented reality can advance the realm of physical fashion, transforming clothing designs through Snapchat’s interactive Augmented Reality Lense. Launched during London Fashion Week, it features six of the world’s leading fashion brands and designers, from Dior, Kenneth Ize, Richard Quinn and Stella McCartney to Thebe Magugu and Versace.

Vogue X Snapchat. 84-86 Regent Street, London, UK. Until 5 March

Van Gogh Exhibition: The Immersive Experience

This immersive juggernaut has been touring the world, welcoming more than 5 million visitors.

And it has found a new home at London’s Spitalfields.

Lose yourself in the iconic brushstrokes of more than 300 works, in this light and sound spectacular featuring two storey projections, plus a drawing studio and VR experience exploring his life and inspirations.

You can even enjoy a beautiful piano show from pianist Lara Melda while admiring Van Gogh’s work through cutting-edge 360° digital projections.

Van Gogh Immersive Experience, Commercial Street, London E1 6LZ, UK. Until 16 April.

David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (Not Smaller & Further Away)

Using large-scale projection in a remarkable new, immersive gallery space, David Hockney takes us on a personal journey from LA to Yorkshire, through 60 years of his art, with a specially composed score by Nico Muhly and commentary by the artist himself. Lightroom’s vast walls and revolutionary sound system enable us to experience the world through the eyes of one of the most influential artists for the 20th Century, from the Sixties to the present day. David Hockney Lightroom Show, 12, Lewis Cubitt Square, London N1C 4DY, UK. Until 4 June.

Dali Cybernetics: The Immersive Experience

Discover the surreal universe of Spanish genius Salvador Dali in London's first, collective metaverse show, entered via an interdimensional digital arts portal, because doors are so last year.

Explore his masterpieces through large-format projections, interactive installations, holograms, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

A virtual reality experience with total freedom of movement that will invite visitors to spend fifteen minutes in Dalí's digital universe.

Each visitor will have a digital avatar to physically walk with their companions in a collective virtual space where the most recognized works of Dalí will come to life, immersing you in a world of melting clocks, space elephants and giant ants. Launched in Spain, the London show has proved so popular, its run as been extended until 17 April.

Dali Cybernetics. 152 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL. Until 17 April.

Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons

Constructed from materials scavenged from salvage yards, junk shops, auctions and flea markets, the immersive installations in this eerie and atmospheric exhibition represent the first major retrospective of work by internationally acclaimed British artist Mike Nelson. Weaving references to science fiction, failed political movements, dark histories and countercultures, they touch on alternative ways of living and thinking: lost belief systems, interrupted histories and cultures that resist inclusion in an increasingly homogenised and globalised world. The Hayward Gallery is completely unrecognisable in this disorienting and brooding show, which features sculptural works and new versions of key large-scale installations. Hayward Gallery, Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XZ, UK. Until 7 May

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms

The Instagram-friendly Infinity Mirror Rooms have no doubt saturated your social media pages for the past few months. But if you’re late to the party, the run has been extended until June to check out one of the most talked about shows of the past year.

The immersive installations of endless reflections include Kusama's Chandelier of Grief, a room which creates the illusion of a boundless universe ofrotating crystal chandeliers.

A small presentation of photographs and moving image – some on display for the first time – provide historical context for the global phenomenon that Kusama’s mirrored rooms have become today.

Tate Modern. Bankside, London SE1 9TG, UK. Until June.

Spaces In-Between

Immersive experience studio, Pixel Artworks and visual light artist, Rupert Newman have launched Outernet London’s first interactive body movement artwork, Spaces In-Between.

The new show enables the public to synch their body movements with a breathtaking, digital light artwork on the largest digital canvas in the world, made up of 360-degree, four storey screens.

As you move, so will the digital screens in three, giant artworks, ‘Tessellations,’ ‘Transcendence’ and ‘A Step Beyond’ accompanied by music from composer Sarah Warne.

Spaces In-Between. Outernet, Charing Cross Rd, London WC2H 8LH, UK. Free. Until September.

Headstrong: Women and Empowerment

Headstrong celebrates the work of female photographers in Britain. It looks at women who have made work exploring their representation, everyday lives and what it means to embrace diversities that challenge the conservative order of patriarchal society. Their work is playful, thought-provoking and often surprising and is one of the first shows for the shiny, new Centre for British Photography.

Headstrong: Women and Empowerment. 49 Jermyn St, St. James's, London SW1Y 6LX, UK. Until 23 April.

Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle

The Barbican presents the largest UK exhibition to date of American artist Alice Neel, whose vivid portraits captured the shifting social and political context of the American twentieth century. Describing herself as ‘a collector of souls’, Neel worked in New York during a period in which figurative painting was desperately unfashionable. Crowned the ‘court painter of the underground,' her canvases celebrate those who were marginalised in society: labour leaders, Black and Puerto Rican children, pregnant women, Greenwich Village eccentrics, civil rights activists and queer performers.

This exhibition brings together more than 70 of Neel’s most vibrant portraits, shown alongside archival photography and film, bringing to life what she called ’the swirl of the era’.

Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle. Silk St, Barbican, London EC2Y 8DS, UK. Until 21 May

Dan Pearce: DNA

Mixed media artist, Dan Pearce has reflected on a decade in the art scene and the cultural influences which have had a lifelong impact on his work, for DNA, his biggest solo show yet - and on 23 March, you can meet the artist, while viewing his latest work at the the Clarendon Fine Art, Covent Garden exhibition.

It includes Lichtenstein-inspired lenticulars, which transform before your eyes, revealing Monroe, Dali and Twiggy behind a heart-shaped gun; the Queen sporting back tats and piercings, surrounded by affectionate graffiti, and swarms of black butterflies gathering to form a skull. The artist’s work employs spray paint, hand-painted acrylics, lenticular, neon lights, objects, 3D printing, screen-printing, textured resin, gold leaf and collage, as well as his own photography and street art and he has amassed a big celebrity following, from Idris Elba, Anthony Joshua and Sharon Osbourne to Boy George, 50 Cent and will.i.am.

DNA Exhibition, Clarendon Fine Art, 117 Long Acre, London WC2E 9PA. 23 March