16 UNMISSABLE EXHIBITIONS THIS AUGUST
London's Best Exhibitions and Art Shows this August
Tech continues to wield its power in this month's major exhibitions, with optimistic AI shows exploring caring robots, giant NASA-aided planet models, or installations pondering smartphone's impact within an arty hellscape.
For fans of tech, there are also a gaggle of immersive 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.
There is also some good, old-fashioned art, using actual paintbrushes - all hail the return of the brilliant Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
So point your eyes here and then take them there
Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy
It’s the Glastonbury of the art world, with works by art titans and emerging artists in every conceivable medium and style, so there is something for everybody.
This year, renowned British painter David Remfry takes the reins as exhibition co-ordinator. His exhibition explores the theme "Only Connect" inspired by the famous quote in Howards End by E.M. Forster.
Among the 1,614 featured works, are towering sculptures by the late Phyllida Barlow, Richard Malone’s dramatic mobile installation in the Wohl Central Hall, and a funny painting by comedian Joe Lycett. There are also pieces by Tracey Emin, Hew Locke, Barbara Walker, Gavin Turk, Lindsey Mendick, Caroline Walker and many more.
RA Summer Exhibition, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. 13 June - 20 August
Mars: War & Peace
Luke Jerram has plucked the Earth and Moon from space and served them to us inside beautiful churches, halls and swimming pools. And now the pioneering artist is wowing us with Mars, via a jaw-dropping, seven metre model, complete with insanely detailed NASA imagery of the Red Planet’s rocky surface at a scale of 1 : 1 million.
The installation is part of the Kensington and Chelsea Festival and is free to view at All Saint’s Church from 31 July to 8 August and Jubilee Square from 10-13 August.
Mars: War & Peace. All Saints' Church W11 1JS (31 July-8 August and Jubilee Square, Kensington Town Hall W8 7NX (10-13 August) FREE
AI: Who's Looking After Me?
If you’re not awake at night, worrying about robots taking over the world, are you even human?
This show might allay some of your concerns, by offering a refreshingly optimistic spin on AI.
The exhibition delves into the positive impact it is having on our lives now and in the near future, across healthcare, dating, travel and law.
It includes self-driving cars, AI romance experiments, a robotic arm that cares for cats and learns about their needs and Wesley Goatley’s eerie installation, featuring twenty malfunctioning and abandoned Alexa Voice Assistants singing to each other and telling stories about the world that created them.
AI: Who's Looking After Me? Science Gallery, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 9GU. Until 20 January 2024
V&A's Blockbuster DIVA Exhibition
Drop your mic, polish your sequins and sashay over to the V&A for DIVA, its latest, blockbuster exhibition. More than 250 personal items, including 60 outfits are on display from legends including Sir Elton John, Cher, Prince, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Jones. Many of these will be on show to the public for the first time. The new show celebrates the drive, power and creativity of some of the most iconic divas, past and present, and how they shaped popular culture. Highlights include celeb designer Bob Mackie’s creations for Cher, Tina Turner and Pink; the Oscar-winning, fringed black dress rocked by Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot and Sir Elton’s Louis XIV inspired 50th birthday look, complete with powdered wig and train. Fans can also admire the diamanté-studded wellies and couture, pink Julien MacDonald gown worn by Dame Shirley Bassey for her 2007 Glastonbury set.
Head here for more info. DIVA, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL. 24 June - 30 April 2024. Tickets £20
Colors Festival London
Get a turbo-hit of dopamine at Colors Festival.
The family-friendly exhibition at Camden’s Hawley Wharf is a celebration of paintings, photography and illustrations by an eclectic mix of 40 established and up-and-coming street artists from around the world.
And the 1000m² exhibition features enormous and bright immersive works, which can be manipulated and touched. The show includes street art stars like Angry Dan, Kekli, Remi Cierco, Hazard One, Lisa Lloyd and Dale Grimshaw.
Colors Festival, Camden Market, Hawley Wharf, Unit M120 - M133, Water Lane, London, NW1 8JZ. until 3 September
Sarah Sze - The Old Waiting Room
Writer Zadie Smith has compared Sarah Sze’s immersive sculptural installations to being inside an exploded smartphone, and the artist’s exciting, new show conveys the volatility of life in the age of the smartphone.
Transforming Peckham Rye Station’s large, Victorian waiting room - which has been empty for nearly 50 years - Sze has created a model of the fragile world, illuminated by flickering videos and bound together by found materials to express the way our digital world both swaddles and suffocates us.