Summer has arrived. Have you planned your UK staycation yet? To help you, Artlyst has put together a selection of twelve exhibitions to tempt you outside of London and across the length and breadth of the UK.
New Arrivals | From Salvador Dalí to Jenny Saville
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Presenting a fascinating showcase of the most recent acquisitions at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, this exhibition offers a stunning range of modern and contemporary work, including painting, sculpture, photography, film and more.
The Rules of Art
National Museum, Cardiff
Until 4 June 2023
The Rules of Art? brings together five hundred years of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, film and ceramics to pose questions about representation, identity and culture.
Works of art will be displayed in a way that questions social and political power and shows how artists have pursued a shared purpose: to push, subvert, question and reimagine what art can be.
Vertigo Sea by John Akomfrah, one of a number of major new acquisitions, will be displayed among other featured artists such as Rembrandt, Thomas Jones, Pablo Picasso, Gwen John, Maximilian Lenz, Clare Woods, Bedwyr Williams, Caroline Walker and Clémentine Schneidermann.
Ron Mueck
The MAC, Belfast
29 July – 20 November 2022
A powerful exhibition of Mueck’s meticulously sculpted figures, from mini to mammoth, that act as psychological reflections of the human condition. This is the first exhibition of Mueck’s work in Ireland and brings together seven of his key works including Dead Dad, 1997 and his monumental work In Bed, 2005.
Jaume Plensa: In Small Places, Close to Home
YSP
18 June – 30 October 2022
In small places, close to home comprises two complementary installations of drawings that convey the richness of Plensa’s drawing practice. It highlights the artist’s devotion to a medium that embraces many materials and processes including collage, etched glass, industrial paints and solvents, and extends into three dimensions via wire drawings in space. Like his sculpture, Plensa’s drawing investigates the human condition and dreams of more progressive and united global futures, exploring opposing concepts such as language and silence, darkness and light. The exhibition continues in the 18th century Chapel where it resonates with its qualities as a spiritual and meditative place.
NB Robert Indiana: Sculpture 1958-2018 is still on Until 8 January 2023
The first major UK exhibition of sculpture, painting and prints by American artist Robert Indiana, spanning a 60-year career.
British Art Show 9
Whitworth Art Gallery, Castlefield Gallery, HOME, Manchester Art Gallery
27 May – 4 September 2022
British Art Show is recognised as the most pertinent and ambitious recurrent exhibition of contemporary art produced in the UK, taking place every five years. The ninth edition brings the work of some of the most exciting contemporary artists to Castlefield Gallery, HOME, Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth.
The exhibition is structured around three main themes – Healing, Care and Reparative History, Tactics for Togetherness, Imagining New Futures – and has been conceived as a cumulative experience, adapting, and changing for each city, and presenting different combinations of artists and artworks that respond to their distinctive local contexts.
In Manchester, the exhibition showcases 19 artists across the city. Artists include Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Simeon Barclay, Oliver Beer,Than Hussein Clark, Oona Doherty, Sean Edwards, GAIKA, Patrick Goddard, Anne Hardy, Andy Holden, Joey Holder, Elaine Mitchener, Grace Ndiritu, Hardeep Pandhal, Hetain Patel, Abigail Reynolds, Katie Schwab, Caroline Walker
Vivian Maier: Anthology
MK Gallery, Milton Keynes
11 June – 25 September 2022
Vivian Maier (1926-2009) has only recently been revealed as one of the most significant photographers of the 20th century. She was a professional nanny in New York and Chicago for over 40 years but took hundreds of thousands of photographs, which were found when her belongings went to auction in 2007.
Howardena Pindell: A New Language
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
2 July – 30 October 2022
Pindell is a major contemporary artist based in the US. ‘A New Language’ brings together work from her six-decade-long career, including paintings, works on paper and video. The exhibition traces the development of Pindell’s experiments in artistic form. Her work continues to respond to racism from the 1970s to the present day.
Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning
Turner Contemporary, Margate
9 July – 25 September 2022
Guyanese-born British artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard’s Turner Prize-nominated exhibition Carbon Slowly Turning, will span Turner Contemporary’s first-floor galleries. Pollard’s first major retrospective exhibition examines her substantial contribution to British art. Her work explores how images and identity are constructed, especially in representations of history and the landscape, working with film, photography, installation and sound. Neither a retrospective nor a chronological display, this exhibition interrogates Britishness, race and sexuality.
Nathan Coley: Tentative Words Change Everything
Various venues around East Sussex
Until 29 August 2022
Throughout summer 2022, six illuminated text sculptures by contemporary British artist Nathan Coley will be on display at surprising locations in and around the Lewes district of Sussex including Charleston, forming Tentative Words Change Everything: an outdoor exhibition featuring some of the artist’s most important works.
Ad Minoliti: Biosfera Peluche / Biosphere Plush
Tate St Ives
28 May – 30 October 2022
Artist Ad Minoliti draws on the rich legacy of geometric abstraction in Latin America and presents alternative universes influenced by feminist and queer thought. The exhibition will also feature Minoliti’s ongoing project The Feminist School of Painting, transforming part of the gallery space into an active classroom.
Glyn Philpot: Flesh & Spirit
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Until 22 October 2022
The first major exhibition of British artist Glyn Philpot R.A. (1884-1937) in almost 40 years. Bringing together over 80 paintings, drawings and sculptures, many unseen in public for decades, the exhibition charts the artist’s development from Edwardian society portraits to his shift to a radically modernist style in the 1930s.
Seafaring
Hastings Contemporary, Hastings
Until 25 September 2022
Seafaring at Hastings Contemporary brings together more than fifty works from 1820 to the present day that explores the drama, beauty and strangeness of life at sea. Artists include Cecily Brown, Peter de Francia, Elisabeth Frink, Eric Ravilious, Alfred Wallis, Frank Brangwyn and Maggi Hambling.
Read Jude Montague’s Review Here