Welcome to the IanVisits alternative guide to London.
Lectures, talks, heritage events, organised walks and other random geeky miscellany.
This is quite an old listings page, did you want: Wednesday, 30th October 2024?
Displayed in date order by how soon they close.
Free
Alter Ego
An exhibition of Urban and Contemporary portraiture showcasing artists who work predominantly with this style. (Ending Soon Sun, 30th Oct)
BSMT Space
Encounter a little known and rarely seen side of Britain’s greatest artist. (Ending Soon Sun, 30th Oct)
Turner's House
A large scale model of Chiswick House made from LEGO is on display for a few weeks. (Ending Soon Sun, 30th Oct)
Chiswick House and Gardens
Life Through a Royal Lens explores the Royal Family through photography and brings together some of the most iconic images ever taken of the Royal Family to Kensington Palace (Ending Soon Sun, 30th Oct)
Kensington Palace
Free
The Royal Signals
Secure communication is vital to the Army. Throughout Cyber Awareness Month, the National Army Museum is showcasing the work of the Royal Signals through a series of dynamic photographs. (Ending Soon Sun, 30th Oct)
National Army Museum
An evening walking trail through the gardens lit up with spooky effects for Halloween. (Ending Soon Mon, 31st Oct)
Chiswick House and Gardens
In this exhibition, you will be introduced to the people who lived at Hogarth’s House, their relatives, friends and neighbours. (Ending Soon Sun, 6th Nov)
Hogarth's House
The show traces how menswear has been fashioned and refashioned over the centuries, and how designers, tailors and artists – and their clients and sitters – have constructed and performed masculinity, and unpicked it at the seams. (Ending Soon Sun, 6th Nov)
Victoria and Albert Museum
A display of photographs capturing factories and their workers in an era of rapid transition. (Ending Soon Sun, 6th Nov)
Victoria and Albert Museum
Seven decades of Royal visits to the Southbank Centre, events and celebrations, in this free display. (Ending Soon Wed, 9th Nov)
Royal Festival Hall
In celebration of the launch of the new Accidentally Wes Anderson Postcards, curated by Wally Koval, creator of the Instagram account and 2020 best-selling book, an exhibition of the postcards. (Ending Soon Sun, 13th Nov)
One Hundred Shoreditch Hotel
This masterpiece is considered a milestone in Chinese painting history. Usually on show for a few weeks each year to protect it. (Ending Soon Sun, 13th Nov)
British Museum
This exhibition explores the relationship between football and religion and how the two are often connected, with players praying on the pitch and fans observing religious rituals in tandem. (Ending Soon Sun, 4th Dec)
The Aga Khan Centre
A display honouring the music, people and places central to the grime scene and its roots in East London. (Ending Soon Sun, 4th Dec)
Museum of London
A display celebrating one of the city's most iconic sporting heroes, both on and off the pitch. (Ending Soon Sun, 4th Dec)
Museum of London
An exhibition of highlights from the Foyle Special Collections Library, featuring rare books, manuscripts and other items from the 16th century to the present day. (Ending Soon Sun, 11th Dec)
Maughan Library
£6.60
Scene Through Wood
This exhibition offers a visual feast of the finest wood engravings of the past 100 years, and celebrates the extraordinary artists, past and present, who made them. (Ending Soon Sun, 11th Dec)
Heath Robinson Museum
£24.50
William Kentridge
Enter a new, immersive world by the multi-sensory artist and global creative powerhouse William Kentridge. (Ending Soon Sun, 11th Dec)
Royal Academy of Arts
An exhibition about the work of Luigi Pericle, whose enigmatic imagery was the subject of numerous exhibitions during the early 1960s until he retreated into seculusion. (Ending Soon Sun, 18th Dec)
Estorick Collection
£8
Inspired!
This exhibition examines ways in which visual artists have taken inspiration from the literary arts – poetry, plays, novels, and also music. (Ending Soon Fri, 23rd Dec)
Guildhall Art Gallery and Roman Amphitheater
This world-first, object-rich exhibition reveals the past, present and future of how cancer is prevented, detected and treated. (Ending Soon Sat, 31st Dec)
Science Museum
£13
Helen Saunders
The Courtauld Gallery presents the first monographic exhibition devoted to British abstract artist Helen Saunders in over 25 years. (Ending Soon Sat, 31st Dec)
Courtauld Institute of Art
Discover the ground-breaking technology that changed the post forever in a new exhibition. (Ending Soon Sun, 1st Jan)
The Postal Museum
This display brings together items reflecting the varied interests and achievements of the polymath Charles Jennens. (Ending Soon Tue, 3rd Jan)
Foundling Museum
One of the most original and eccentric artists of the 18th century, Henry Fuseli, is the subject of a new exhibition at The Courtauld. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
Courtauld Institute of Art
Celebrating the life and work of one of the best loved children's authors of the 20th century. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
Victoria and Albert Museum
The first major survey of Carolee Schneemann’s work in the UK, tracing her diverse, transgressive and interdisciplinary expression over six decades. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
Barbican Centre
Explore the relationship between two of the principal buildings on Lincoln’s Inn Fields: Grafton’s Marshall Building for the London School of Economics and Political Science and Sir John Soane’s Museum. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
Sir John Soane's Museum
The first large-scale group exhibition in the UK exploring how contemporary artists have used clay in unexpected ways. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
Hayward Gallery
New research into IWM’s photography archive demonstrates just how keenly The Queen’s role as monarch has been shaped by her wartime experiences. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
Imperial War Museum
With more than fifty paintings, covering over forty years of Homer’s career, the great American Realist painter confronted the leading issues facing the United States. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
National Gallery
A free exhibition dedicated to celebrated British photojournalist Bill Brandt (1904-83). (Ending Soon Sun, 15th Jan)
Tate Britain
An exhibition of TV and film costume designs sketches from the Ann and John Bloomfield collection. (Ending Soon Sun, 15th Jan)
BFI Southbank
‘Discover Manet and Eva Gonzalès’ is the first in a series of exhibitions that look at a single painting from fresh and unexpected perspectives. (Ending Soon Sun, 15th Jan)
National Gallery
£10.50
Radical Empathy
A collaboration between award-winning writer, Yomi Ṣode, and artist and photographer, Akytom, this display questions where we place empathy.
(Ending Soon Sun, 15th Jan)
Foundling Museum
The oldest document held in the City of London Corporation’s extensive archives will go on rare public display. (Ending Soon Thu, 19th Jan)
Guildhall Art Gallery and Roman Amphitheater
A display of photographs taken between 1857 and 1970, capturing the archaeological site of Hampi. (Ending Soon Sun, 22nd Jan)
British Library
The New Black Vanguard features 15 international Black photographers contributing to a new vision of the Black figure and reframing representation in art and fashion. (Ending Soon Sun, 22nd Jan)
Saatchi Gallery
This exhibition celebrates the completion of the British Museum's digitisation project and showcases the extraordinary variety of printmaking (Ending Soon Sun, 22nd Jan)
British Museum
The first exhibition of Lucian Freud’s work in the home of his grandfather, Sigmund Freud, and aunt, Anna Freud (Ending Soon Sun, 29th Jan)
Freud Museum
This exhibition celebrates the essence of Japanese craftsmanship through the story of an enduring woodworking heritage cultivated in the densely forested Hida region of Gifu Prefecture. (Ending Soon Sun, 29th Jan)
Japan House London
Free
In Plain Sight
An exhibition exploring the different ways we see and are seen by others. (Ending Soon Sun, 12th Feb)
Wellcome Collection
Within utopian and dystopian landscapes, encounter the robots as they experience the best of human emotions: wonder, kindness, empathy, friendship, and love. (Ending Soon Sun, 12th Feb)
Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery
He built an empire that stretched across the world. Rode across the sky on a flying chariot. And descended to the bottom of the sea in a glass bell. Or did he? (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Feb)
The British Library
A major exhibition to mark the 200th anniversary of the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Feb)
The British Museum
Delve into the dreamlike relationship between Surrealism and design in this century-spanning celebration of surrealist objects of desire. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Feb)
The Design Museum
Through some of our country’s most provocative artists, this exhibition presents an alternative perspective on modern Britain. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Feb)
Somerset House
Free
This is England
See portraits of the full England football squad and manager by artist Matt Small. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Feb)
Guildhall Art Gallery and Roman Amphitheater
Explore newly uncovered stories of African and Asian children in the care of the eighteenth-century Foundling Hospital. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Feb)
Foundling Museum
From Lucian Freud to Kiki Smith, life drawing to minimalism and etching to collage, this exhibition spans an intriguing range of styles and techniques used in art on paper from 1960 to today. (Ending Soon Sat, 25th Feb)
British Museum
The exhibition includes rare pieces of porcelain and lacquer, samurai armour, embroidered screens and diplomatic gifts from the reigns of James I to Her Majesty The Queen. (Ending Soon Sun, 26th Feb)
The Queen's Gallery
Rebel Rebel, the first major UK commission by Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari, celebrates and commemorates feminist icons from pre-revolutionary Iran. (Ending Soon Sun, 26th Feb)
Barbican Centre
An installation of six large-scale clay columns inspired by traditional architectural practices in Chile, by Swedish-Chilean artist Anton Alvarez (Ending Soon Tue, 28th Feb)
100 Bishopsgate
This exhibition examines Dickens’s interest in the paranormal, his ‘hankering after ghosts’, and how he became a master ghost story teller publishing over 20 spooky tales. (Ending Soon Sun, 5th Mar)
Charles Dickens Museum
£22
Cezanne
Tate Modern presents a once-in-a-generation exhibition of paintings, watercolours and drawings by Paul Cezanne. (Ending Soon Sun, 12th Mar)
Tate Modern
A display of over 1100 works by the Lithuanian artist and celebrated composer Mikalojus Konstantina, widely credited as Lithuania’s greatest artist. (Ending Soon Sun, 12th Mar)
Dulwich Picture Gallery
£16.50
Anthony Daley: Son of Rubens
Abstract Expressionist painter Anthony Daley will present a new body of work, which explores his career-long fascination with the work of 17th century Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Mar)
Dulwich Picture Gallery
£16
Africa Fashion
Africa Fashion explores the vitality and global impact of a fashion scene as dynamic and varied as the continent itself. (Ending Soon Sun, 16th Apr)
Victoria and Albert Museum
£15
Executions
The Museum of London is bringing the lives and legacies of those who died and those who witnessed executions first hand to a major new exhibition (Ending Soon Sun, 16th Apr)
Museum of London Docklands
£16
Maria Bartuszová
Delicate, evocative plaster sculptures inspired by the natural world (Ending Soon Sun, 16th Apr)
Tate Modern
An exhibition of cartoons about Boris Johnson. (Ending Soon Sun, 16th Apr)
Cartoon Museum
Thamesmead Codex celebrates the voices and local community of Thamesmead, London (Ending Soon Sun, 7th May)
Tate Modern
A new series of fresco paintings by Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings (Ending Soon Sun, 7th May)
Tate Britain
Free
War Games
The UK’s first exhibition to explore what video games can tell us about conflict. (Ending Soon Sun, 28th May)
Imperial War Museum
The V&A's first exhibition to celebrate the colourful and dynamic popular culture of South Korea, following its early origins to its place on the global stage today. (Ending Soon Sun, 25th Jun)
Victoria and Albert Museum
Free
Yinka Ilori
Dive into the colourful world of artist/designer Yinka Ilori through installations, patterns and graphics that aim to shape and inspire a joyful and playful experience. (Ending Soon Sun, 25th Jun)
The Design Museum
Discover the natural world in all its wonder and diversity at the newly redesigned Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition (Ending Soon Sun, 2nd Jul)
Natural History Museum
Visit an 'abandoned' Tube station underworld and discover what secrets lurk beneath our busy streets in this Hidden London exhibition. (Ending Soon Mon, 31st Jul)
London Transport Museum
Astronomy Photographer of the Year is an annual competition featuring the world’s greatest space photography. (Ending Soon Sun, 13th Aug)
National Maritime Museum
In this immersive genre-defying exhibition you will embark on a once in a lifetime adventure through the cosmos to explore visions of the future through the science of today. (Ending Soon Sun, 20th Aug)
Science Museum
Free
Road to Recovery
This exhibition follows the challenging journeys of rehabilitation and recovery taken by soldiers who have suffered a life-changing physical or mental injury. (Ending Soon Mon, 28th Aug)
National Army Museum
This display celebrates the glittering world of musical theatre, exploring the evolution and craftmanship of iconic musicals (Ending Soon Mon, 27th Nov)
Victoria and Albert Museum
This exhibition follows the lives of British soldiers in Germany over the past 75 years. (Ends on Wed, 21st Aug)
National Army Museum
