We’ve brought together the best art, design and immersive exhibitions from around the UK to inspire you as museums and galleries slowly reopen during this painful pandemic.
These group and solo exhibitions – including work from Warhol, Mondrian and more – will inspire and educate you. We’ll be updating throughout 2020 as more events return to schedules with the reopening of venues; many events planned earlier this year are still up in the air and are removed from this page until dates are confirmed. We’re hoping venues receive backing from the UK government, otherwise we fear many shows will never come to be.
We kick off with essential ongoing shows from Tate Modern and the Royal Academy of Arts. Be aware safety procedures are now in place alongside limited entrance and ticketing, so read up on info first before buying tickets or visiting in person.
Mushrooms: The art, design and future of fungi
Reopening July 16th until September 13 2020
Somerset House, London, England
Bringing together the work of over 40 leading artists, designers and musicians, Mushrooms looks at fungi’s colourful cultural legacy, as well as the promise it offers to reimagine our relationship with the planet.
Contributing artists include Takashi Murakami (who we interviewed recently), Haroon Mirza, Hannah Collins, Adham Faramawy, Annie Ratti, Simon Popper, Jae Rhim Lee, Graham Little, Seana Gavin, Perks and Mini, and Mae-ling Lokko.
Picasso and Paper
Reopening July 16th 2020 until TBA
Royal Academy of Arts, London, England
From effortlessly expressive drawings that led to towering sculptures to the colossal collage, Femmes à leur toilette, Picasso’s work with paper spans his entire lifetime and showcases his constant drive to invent and innovate.
This exhibition shows Picasso’s creative process first-hand in remarkable documentary footage of the artist at work, studies for Guernica, and sketchbooks where the seeds of revolutionary masterpieces first took shape, including Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
Immerse yourself in Picasso’s world of paper and discover how – with this everyday material we know so well – he found the means to explore the furthest reaches of his creativity.
Andy Warhol
Reopening July 27 2020 until November 15
Tate Modern, London
This major retrospective is the first Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern for almost 20 years. As well as his iconic pop images of Marilyn Monroe, Coca-Cola and Campbell’s soup cans, it includes works never seen before in the UK. Twenty-five works from his Ladies and Gentlemen series – portraits of black and Latinx drag queens and trans women – are shown for the first time in 30 years.
Visitors can also play with his floating Silver Clouds and experience the psychedelic multimedia environment of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.
Image: Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987) Debbie Harry 1980, Private Collection of Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport 1961 © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc / Artists Right Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London
Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers
July 31 2020 until TBA
Design Museum, London
A new show at London’s Design Museum reminds us that the relationship between visual opulence and electronic sound has been a long one.
Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers is the museum’s first music-themed exhibition, encompassing not just classic sleeves but also the light beam sights of Jean-Michel Jarre’s laser harp and the more extreme end of Aphex Twin’s videography.
Although adapted from last year’s popular Electro Expo at Musée de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris, the show has been made into a beast of its own with the museum premiere of a Chemical Brothers ‘sensory spectacle’ from creative studio Smith & Lyall.
There’s also a celebration of a half century of Kraftwerk history through a half-hour 3D experience, which’ll no doubt be familiar to those who’ve seen the German group’s amazing live performances.
Mondrian
4 November 2020 – 14 February 2021
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. This exhibition features art from all periods of his fascinating career: from early landscapes to his distinctive abstract paintings using geometric shapes.
Also on show are works by De Stijl artists Theo van Doesburg, Bart van der Leck and Gerrit Rietveld.
Image: Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), Composition with large red plane, yellow, black, gray and blue, 1921. Courtesy of Kunstmuseum Den Haag
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https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/illustration/best-art-design-exhibitions-2020/