My monthly roundup of ten excellent exhibitions to visit during November 2021 while you’re dodging the fireworks and Christmas adverts.
Phantoms of Surrealism
Whitechapel Gallery
FREE
On a hot summer day of 1936, a woman dressed in a bridal gown paraded in Trafalgar Square; her head completely covered in red roses. The mystery woman puzzled passers-by and later that day made the newspaper headlines. The archive exhibition Phantoms of Surrealism will examine the pivotal role of women as both artists and as behind-the-scenes organisers within the Surrealist movement in Britain in the 1930s.
Wish You Were Here: 151 Years of the British Postcard
The Postal Museum, Farringdon
Adults: £16 | Children: £9-£11 | Concessions: £14
Visitors can explore the postcard through history and reflect on its future with themes including romance, First World War correspondence, the Great British seaside, contemporary art and the postcard in a digital age.
Pablo Bronstein: Hell in its Heyday
Sir John Soane’s Museum, Holborn
FREE
Created especially for Sir John Soane’s Museum, a series of large-scale watercolours will take visitors on a tour of hell in a nostalgic and ironic representation of the last two centuries of progress. Imagined as a monumental city, visitors will be guided through concert halls, casinos, botanical gardens, car factories and oil rigs. A new film, featuring a group of diabolical antique dealers performing a masked ballet will also be shown.
Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace
Adults: £16 | Children: £8-£12 | Concessions: £14.50
(note: tickets can be endorsed to allow repeat visits for a year)
Sixty-five paintings that usually hang in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace and are widely acknowledged to be among the highlights of the Royal Collection have been brought together in a gallery exhibition for the first time.
Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser
V&A Museum, South Kensington
Adults: £20 | Children: Free | Concessions: £15 | Members: Free
Through over 300 objects spanning film, performance, fashion, art, music and photography, the V&A will be the first museum to fully explore the cultural impact of Alice and her ongoing inspiration for leading creatives, from Salvador Dalí and The Beatles to Little Simz and Thom Browne. Highlights include Lewis Carroll’s original handwritten manuscript, illustrations by John Tenniel, Ralph Steadman and Disney, stage costumes, fashion from Iris van Herpen and photography from Tim Walker and Annie Leibovitz.
Noël Coward: Art & Style
Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London
FREE
Bringing together never-before-seen materials from the Coward Archive, the exhibition demonstrates vividly the enormous impact that he and his creative circle had on the fashion and culture of his time, and how his legacy and influence still resonate today.
Gerhard Richter: Drawings, 1999 – 2021
Hayward Gallery, Southbank
FREE
The most extensive exhibition of Gerhard Richter’s drawings ever shown in the UK, and featuring more than 60 works on paper, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore this intimate aspect of Richter’s artistic practice.
Liminal by ALO
Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea
FREE
Liminal features over 70 works created over the past three years by the London-based Italian artist ALO. ALO describes the works as “portraits of persons I know, some are portraits inspired by people I noticed or randomly encountered, and some are a collection of features drawn from different individuals”.
RUPTURE NO 1: blowtorching the bitten peach
Tate Britain, Pimlico
FREE
Heather Phillipson has engulfed Tate Britain’s grand central galleries with colour, sound and motion. Here, salvaged machines, colossal papier-mâché sculptures and hand-painted scenes are layered with digital video and sound. Mountains of salt, bisected aircraft fuel tanks, mobile gas canisters, rotating anchors and shapeshifting roof vents are doused with tinted light.
The Art of Banksy
Belgo, Covent Garden
Adults: £32.45 | Children: £21.45 | Concessions: £21.45
This exhibition features original and authenticated works associated with, arguably, the most intriguing and talked-about artist in modern history. On display are prints, canvasses, screenprints, sculptures, unique works and limited-edition pieces mainly dated between the years 1997 to 2008, the period which resulted in Banksy’s most recognisable and well-known works.
