London art exhibitions to see in August

Summer is well and truly underway in London. Everyman on the Canal is back screening films we know and love, while preparations are quietly underway for Notting Hill Carnival. The warmer summer weather, longer evenings (and the expected drizzly days) are a perfect invitation to peruse London’s art scene. The month of August doesn't hold back, welcoming a variety of must-see London art exhibitions across the city. Explore the eclectic world of Gary Card at Plaster Store, celebrate 30 years of Yancey Richardson gallery, or delve into the Gorillaz 'House of Kong' exhibition, which looks at the successful journey of the virtual British band. From group shows to major career retrospectives, plan your next visit with our frequently updated guide to the month’s best offerings.

Heading across the pond? Here are the best New York art exhibitions to see this month.

London art exhibitions: what to see in August 2025

'Gathering Dust'

Plaster Store until 23 August 2025

Gary Card is a master world builder, creating sets, installations and alternate realities for everyone from Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market, to Nike and Vivienne Westwood – and Wallpaper*. Now, he is bringing his gloriously playful vision to Soho with a takeover of London’s Plaster Store gallery. Expect chaos and some really good accessories

Writer Hannah Silver
Read the full review here

Leonardo Drew: Ubiquity II

South London Gallery until 7 September 2025

At South London Gallery, Leonardo Drew marks the space with his new sculptural installation. This is the American artist’s first solo exhibition at a London institution. His works are abstract, and dance between order and chaos, each having a biolithic quality. The artist also refrains from attaching a specific meaning to each work, instead titles each piece numerically, therefore allowing the viewer to interact with the piece completely independently.

southlondongallery.org

Bill Brandt: Beach Nudes

Atlas Gallery until 13 September 2025

Works from the late British photographer and photojournalist Bill Brandt are celebrated at Atlas Gallery. The exhibition looks at Brandt’s ‘Marlborough Collection’, with many images making its public debut. Many of the photographs were taken on the East Sussex coast and shores of southern France, looking at the female form through an intimate lens. His photography technique made the subject seem elongated and distorted, taking on a sculptural form which is in matrimony with the surrounding rugged context.

atlasgallery.com

akâmi

Camden Arts Centre until 21 September 2025

The exhibition explores power, identity, absence and memory through a curation of objects, ceramics, and paintings. It marks the first major UK institutional exhibition of Duane Linklater, an Omaskêko Ininiwak multimedia artist based in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. akâmi is Omaskêko Cree for “across”. It has many figurative and literal meanings that challenge Western notions of temporality. The works reflect the impacts of colonialism, suggest new museum structures, and looks at the differences between fine art and craft.

camdenartcentre.org

Coco Capitán: Studio Debris

Maximillian William until 16 August 2025

Spanish photographer Coco Capitán presents ‘Studio Debris: A Bit of Everything, A Lot of Nothing’. The exhibition features a range of work from large-scale photographs, polaroids, and unframed prints, to paintings, and pithy phrases and notes that she has written on hotel stationery. The showcase unveils her artistic processes, and the aftermath of when creativity is an all consuming entity that can result in restlessness if not pursued.

maximillianwilliam.com

House of Kong

Copper Box from 8 August until 3 September

To mark their 25th anniversary, British band Gorillaz have announced an immersive tour through the history of the virtual band created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Delving into the world of singer 2D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, drummer Russel Hobbs and guitarist Noodle, the exhibition will span from the band’s debut single, ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’, released in 2000, through to the present day.

Writer Hannah Silver
Read more here

Virtual Beauty

Somerset House until 28 September

In today’s modern world we're hyper-aware in how we present ourselves. These complex changes to beauty in the digital world are explored in ‘Virtual Beauty’, a new exhibition featuring the work of over 20 international artists working across photography, video, installations, and sculpture. They explore our new online reality, questioning who holds the power in defining beauty when social media filters, AI, dating apps, and biometrics are reshaping our understanding of identity, race, gender, and sexuality. The works delve into dystopian themes, nostalgia, and the surreal, shifting between past, present, and future.

Writer: Emi Eleode
Read the full review here

Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Designs

Japan House until 9 November

Delve into the world of pictograms, at Japan House in London. The gallery, located on Kensington High Street, is specifically dedicated to Japanese art, design, and innovation. its latest exhibition ‘Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Designs’ explores Japan’s significant role in the development of this symbolic visual language. The exhibition looks at the origin of pictograms, from ancient Egyptian tomb carvings through to its use in present day Japan, and worldwide. Not only deep diving into its history, the exhibition also looks forward, exploring the future use of these universal signs.

Read more here

'A Capsule in Time' by Marina Tabassum

Serpentine Pavilion, Serpentine South until 26 October 2025

Architect Marina Tabassum designs the Serpentine Pavillion for 2025. Located along the north-south axis of the park, the pavilion features an elongated capsule-like form, with a central court. Tabassum took inspiration from park outings, summer, and green gardens and foliage which filters soft daylight. The design is rooted in her architectural language, something that is contemporary, while also nodding to a specific place, culture and history.

serpentinegalleries.org

Kathleen Ryan ‘Roman Meal’

Gagosian Davies Street until 15 August

‘Roman Meal’ is Ryan’s solo debut at the galley. Here, she explores the ideas around luxury and repulsion, touching on the ruins of capitalism in America where natural beauty turns to decay. This exhibition features two large-scale sculptures, ‘Fender Bender’ and ‘Sliced Bread’, which feature elements of decomposition and mould, both grotesque yet beautiful.

gagosian.com

'It's A Love Thing: 30 Years of LGBTQIA+ Health Advocacy'

Studio Voltaire until 17 August 2025

The 1990s, in particular, was a crucial time for the LGBTQIA+ community in Britain, with the reverberations from inequality echoing through sexual, mental, physical and social wellbeing. In response, a host of grassroots movements and campaigns sprang up around the country, in a bid for safer sex and taking pride in identity. Studio Voltaire looks at the period from 1987 to 2015, presenting archival sexual healthcare posters in partnership with London-based sexual healthcare and wellbeing organisation Spectre CIC.

Writer Hannah Silver
Read the full review here

Paul Thek: Seized by Joy

Thomas Dane Gallery until 2 August

The sun is beating down outside the window – it’s the kind of heat to bring out shades. It opens out into an overgrown garden where the undergrowth competes for space in hasty brushstrokes of strong emerald and pale purple. Further away from this chaos, the taller trees calmly blend into the white summer sky in blotches of lime green. Beyond waxy meat-filled Brillo boxes, the artist Paul Thek kept returning to looking at the world through windows and illustrate them in quick paintings – this was one he painted the year before he passed away from AIDS. Currently, it hangs in Thomas Dane Gallery in London, as part of an extensive exhibition of his paintings curated by the critic, writer and artist Kenny Schacter with the designer Jonathan Anderson.

Writer Upasana Das
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'Once Upon a Time in London'

Saatchi Yates until 17 August 2025

What is London art to you? Is it the haunted faces from Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach, ripped from a city at war? Or perhaps a punkish spirit reigns, in Damien Hirst’s medicine cabinets and Slawn’s bold streaks of colour and Yinka Shonibare’s playful motif? Or perhaps it’s all of them, in which case Saatchi Yates’ celebration of London is calling your name. Beginning in the aftermath of the Second World War, a new exhibition, ‘Once Upon a Time in London’, gathers established and emerging artists in an eclectic consideration of London’s impact on the cultural landscape.

Writer Hannah Silver
Read the full story here

Megan Rooney, 'Yellow Yellow Blue'

Thaddaeus Ropac London until 2 August 2025

The experience of looking at Megan Rooney’s work is full of surprises. Immediately striking is the size – Rooney paints freely in the ‘wingspan’ format, where she paints as far as her arm can reach – and in the glorious gradients of colours. Rooney, who refers to each group of work as a ‘family’, has explored the territory between yellow and blue, stepping into the rich prism of green, for her new body of work at Thaddaeus Ropac London.

Writer Hannah Silver
Read the full review here

‘Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting’

National Portrait Gallery until 7 September 2025

The first impression of entering Jenny Saville’s major retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery in London is one of raw, ample flesh. Viscerally rendered, luscious expanses of flesh create a vulnerable yet powerful aura around Saville’s women, who fill her vast canvases, unabashedly and gloriously taking up space.

Writer Hannah Silver
Read the full review here

‘Abstract Erotic’

The Courtauld until 14 September 2025

Alice Adams, Louise Bourgeois, and Eva Hesse delve into art’s ‘uckiness’ at The Courtauld. This new sees artists experiment with the grotesque. For all the titillating promise of its title, ‘Abstract Erotic’ is not an exhibition explicitly about sexuality. Hesse famously spoke of ‘uckiness’ in her art, and these pieces deliver it in spades. If they verge on the grotesque, even the repellant, that’s precisely the point. Some of the latex here has weathered like rotting flesh. But as Mignon Nixon explains in her accompanying essay, Bourgeois’ Portrait (1963) – a congealed mass of burgundy latex lumps, ‘like some scabrous apron or placental lining’ – shows the medium’s capacity for transformation.

Writer Katie Tobin
Read the full review here

Yoshitomo Nara

Hayward Gallery until 31 August

Japanese artist Yoshimoto Nara presents his first UK solo exhibition at Hayward Gallery. The travelling exhibiton was seen for the first time at Guggenheim Bliboa ( see the full review here). The retrospective looks at four decades of the artist’s work. Nara’s life experiences are intrinsically linked to his work, which takes the form of child-like figures and animals with large heads and wide eyes. Although primarily a painter, he also works with a variety of materials across collage, sculpture, drawing, and installation to explore ideas of home, isolation, nature, peace, resistance and freedom.

southbankcentre.co.uk

Ugo Rondinone ‘the rainbow body’

Sadie Coles HQ until 2 August 2025

‘The rainbow is a bridge between everyone and everything,’ says Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone on his latest exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ. ‘the rainbow body’ features sculptures with a figurative form, set within a fluorescent context. The gallery space has been installed with rainbow shades that mirror the colour of the sculptures, creating a visually intriguing dynamic between the installation and the layout of the space, and nodding to the larger theme of suspended time.

sadiecoles.com

Do Ho Suh 'Walk the House'

Tate Modern until 19 October 2025

Do Ho Suh's exhibition, 'Walk the House' at Tate Modern, sees the South Korean artist recreate his homes from Seoul, New York, London and Berlin. Upon entering the exhibition the visitor is confronted with a closed door. But it is not one that blocks passage into the exhibition, or stops you immediately reading the range of works filling the wide open Blavatnik Building gallery. The door is part of the meticulously sewn and constructed Nest/s (2024), a series of 1:1 reproductions of thresholds of homes the South Korean artist has lived in

Read the full review here

Writer Will Jennings

Michaela Yearwood-Dan ‘No Time for Despair’

Hauser & Wirth London until 2 August 2025

The exhibition title, ‘No Time for Despair’ is taken from a 2015 Toni Morrison essay, in which the novelist and editor looks back to a conversation she had with a friend in 2004, the year George W Bush Jr was re-elected into office. In the year of Trump’s re-election and worldwide conflict, it is a prescient nod. For artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan it is a complicated emotional response that comes through in the works themselves. Large-scale and abstract, they are ultimately joyful in their bright colours, swirling patterns and embrace of non-traditional materials, such as glitter, sequins, crystal and gold leaf. Viewed up close, the paintings appear alive and gloriously textural, replete with thickly drawn waves of paint that make bold foils for glistening materials and snippets of song lyrics, poetry or her own writings, which undulate over the works.

Read the full review here

Writer Hannah Silver

In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats

Barbican until 3 August

‘In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats’ is a new immersive virtual reality experience that, with the aid of headphones, goggles and haptic vests, taking users, in groups of four, back to the future. To a time when 1000s of British youngsters were congregating weekly in fields, warehouses and industrial estates to dance till dawn to repetitive beats – a time when these 'illegal Acid House parties', and the authorities’ attempts to curb them, were the lead item on the Nine O’Clock News.

Read the full review here

Writer: Craig McLean

Ed Atkins

Tate Britain until 25 August 2025

In Ed Atkins’ new London exhibition, the artist prods at the limits of existence through digital and physical works, including a film starring Toby Jones. ‘It’s big, oppressive and slightly uncomfortable,’ Atkins says of the show, which surveys 15 years. Alongside the large-screen videos are drawings and text pieces, as well as a pair of eerie, undulating beds. One blood-red drawing features the artist’s head attached to a spider’s body.

Read the full review here

Writer Emily Steer

Giuseppe Penone: Thoughts in the Roots

Serpentine South Gallery until 7 September 2025

Italian artist Giuseppe Penone’s latest exhibition is a retrospective looking at the expansive body of work he has created from 1969 to the present. ‘Thoughts in the Roots’ looks at his lifelong exploration of the relationship between humans and nature. The artist is known for his use of wood, iron, wax and terracotta which helps to create a synergy between artistic and natural process. Through a series of sculptures and installations, visitors can explore the way Penone uncovers nature’s intricate structures.

serpentinegalleries.org

Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha

The Barbican until 10 August 2025

Pakistani-American artist Huma Bhabha is known for her inventive sculptures, drawings, and photographs that reinvent the figure and its expressive possibilities. At The Barbican, her exhibition titled ‘Nothing is Behind Us’, is Bhabha’s first at a London public institution. The exhibition includes four sculptures on show in Europe for the first time. Bhabha’s works are shown alongside iconic pieces by Giacometti such as Walking Woman I (1932) and Walking Man I (1960). This marks the first in a year-long partnership, titled Encounters: Giacometti, between the Barbican and Fondation Giacometti in Paris, which pairs works by Giacometti with those of contemporary sculptors.

www.barbican.org.uk

1880 THAT: Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader

Wellcome Collection until 6 April 2026

At the Wellcome Collection creative duo Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader have collaborated on their latest exhibition ‘1880 THAT’ which includes film, installation and drawings to explore the communication between signed and spoken languages, and challenge a medical perspective of deafness as something to be cured. The brick motif is a recurring theme in the exhibition symbolising the building blocks of language, as well as the act of throwing bricks as a gesture of protest. The exhibition is a mix of witty design, humour and word play to uncover the complexities of meaning and (mis)understanding.

wellcomecollection.org

Leigh Bowery!

Tate Modern until 31 August 2025

Tate Modern celebrates the life and career of artist Leigh Bowery. Never limited to convention, Bowery adapted to many roles from artist to performer, model to fashion designer. He saw himself as the canvas and reimagined clothes and makeup as tools for sculpture, using his body as a shapeshifting tool to challenge sexuality and gender. The exhibition is a chance to see his different 'looks', and many collaborations.

tate.org.uk