This is your last chance to see these seven fantastic London art exhibitions

Autumn is a big time for art, with all the major galleries opening new exhibitions for the new season. That means some current favourites have to close to make way. So it’s time to say goodbye to some of the best exhibitions of the year; goodbye Tavares Strachan at the Hayward, TTFN Yoko Ono at Tate Modern, arrived Francis Alys at the Barbican.

You only have a month (or sometimes even less) to spot these artistic gems.

Seven exhibitions closing soon

Installation view by Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Intergalactic Palace, 2024, and Ruin of a Giant (King Tubby), 2024. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy of the artist and Hayward Gallery.

Tavares Strachan: ‘There Is Light Somewhere’ at the Hayward Gallery, closing September 1

Strachan reveals hidden black histories – histories ignored, forgotten, erased by dominant white Western narratives – and breathes new life into them. He creates new encyclopedias, launches space programs, rebuilds old ships. It’s dizzying, complex, elusive, because that’s what history is. Black histories have been erased and forgotten for so long that you can forgive Strachan for trying so hard to say so much. He just has to cram a lot in.

Read the review here.

4. Francis Alÿs Children’s Game 14, Piedra, papel o tijera, Mexico City, Mexico, 2013 In collaboration with Julien Devaux and Félix Blume Courtesy of the artist

Francis Alÿs: ‘Ricochets’ at the Barbican, closing September 1

It is a hard heart that can leave Francis Alÿs’ Barbican exhibition without feeling a little broken. At the Barbican, the Belgian artist has turned his attention to children, filling the gallery with dozens of videos of children’s games from all over the world. The work is intended as an archive of children’s games, of the vital importance of play, but the context of war, pain and loss cannot be ignored.

Read the review here.

Judy Chicago: Revelations, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine North. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Jo Underhill. Thanks to Judy Chicago and Serpentine.

Judy Chicago at the Serpentine, closing Sept 1

Erased, forgotten, overlooked, subjugated, dominated; Judy Chicago saw what history, what society, had done to women, and she did something about it. The pioneering American feminist has used her art to expose patriarchal injustices for decades. This show focuses instead on her drawings and paintings, all aimed squarely at her primary target: power and those who wield it. And when she has it in her sights, she is virtually unstoppable.

Read the review here.

‘Dominion’ at Newport Street Gallery, closing September 1

Your taste reflects your personality, so all the art in this gallery of sarcasm, foul language and death could only be by Damien Hirst. Curated by his son Connor in his gallery from art from his own collection, ‘Dominion’ is a portrait of a man through the art he loves, and it is exactly what you think it will be. The show is a mix of colleagues, friends and idols, including work by Jeff Koons, Sarah Lucas, Francis Bacon and Marcus Harvey. This is the equivalent of genes, a set of markers, ideas, traits, passed down from father to son. Humor, gore, morbidity, cynicism and a few Francis Bacons, it’s not a bad legacy.

Read the review here.

Penny Slinger © Penny Slinger / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

Penny Slinger at Richard Saltoun, closing September 7

Sex, blood and sacrilege; Penny Slinger knows how to tell a surreal story. The LA-based, London-born artist has been at the forefront of feminist art since the 1970s, and this gothically atmospheric exhibition pushes her ideas deeper into society’s strange, repressed psyche than ever before. The collages and films here feel like a traumatic psychedelic trip through English values, a Hammer Horror-esque journey into sexual and gender oppression in middle England.

Read the review here.

Installation image: Rheim Alkadhi: Templates for Liberation, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2024. Photo: Rob Harris, ICA

Rheim Alkhadi at the ICA, closed on September 8.

You can fit the entire history of a nation into a tarpaulin. Rheim Alkadhi certainly can. The artist, who grew up in Iraq, uses the sturdy plastic material to tell endless stories of colonial exploitation, capitalist greed and ecological disaster, sculpting it into floor-standing sculptures or hanging it up as filthy canvases. Alkadhi’s point is a powerful one, and it’s when art is given the space to speak that its voice resonates loudest.

Read the review here.

Lonnie Holley at Camden Art Centre, closing September 15

Since the 1970s, Lonnie Holley has led a loose movement of black American artists from the Deep South who examine the legacies of slavery and everyday injustices that shape their society. By digging into the detritus of society, the rotten bones of America, and improvising with it, Holley is able to tell stories that need to be told. He reconstructs and reconfigures the world around him, and the results feel powerful, necessary, and often beautiful.

Read the review here.

Want more art? Here are the top ten exhibitions in London.

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