What’s On: Exhibition and Events - November 2023
November. Another What’s On Monthly Round Up, full of exhibitions & events going on.
Wangari Mathenge: A Day of Rest
Date: 7 Oct 2023 – 4 Nov 2023. Location: The Pippy Houldsworth Gallery
About: In a series of monumental paintings depicting seven domestic workers Mathenge gives visibility to a marginalized group often dehumanized in media representations.
> More information here
Kojo Marfo
Date: 11 Oct – 11 Nov 2023 Location: JD Malat Gallery
About: This enchanting exhibition invites viewers on an exploration into the intertwined realms of success, happiness, and the burdens that shape our very existence.
> More information here
Angèle Etoundi Essamba: Africanesse
Date: 21 Sept - 18 Nov 2023 Location: Doyle Wham
About: The exhibition showcases Essamba’s groundbreaking series of vintage silver gelatin prints: black and white photographs of non-professional models, who range from family members to friends and acquaintances of the artist, to acquaintances she encountered on the streets of Amsterdam.
> More information here
Human Stories: A YOUNG SOUTH AFRICA
Date: 11 Oct - 19 Nov 2023 Location: Now Gallery
About: This year’s Human Stories spotlights South African photography, bringing together six photographers and creative practitioners documenting the diverse culture of their home nation, framed by a complex and sometimes turbulent political, socio-economic and cultural landscape. The artists included are Bee Diamondhead, Fede Kortez, Aart Verrips, Nikki Zakkas, Anita Hlazo, Ben Moyo and Karabo Mooki.
> More information here
Like Paradise
Date: 5 Oct 2023 – 5 Dec 2023 Location: Claridge's ArtSpace
About: A dynamic group exhibition curated by the renowned writer Ekow Eshun, bringing together artists of colour exploring natural landscapes.
> More information here
Vanley Burke and Francis Williams: Between Two Worlds
Date: Closes Sunday, 31 December 2023 Location: V&A South Kensington
About: Explore portraits of two Jamaican gentlemen scholars. Burke's photography and archives, alongside historical artifacts and scientific images shedding new light on the Williams painting, invite reflections on quests for identity and colonial legacies.
> More information here
The Missing Thread: Untold Stories Of Black British Fashion
Date: 21 Sep 2023 - 07 Jan 2024 Location: Somerset House
About: This autumn, Somerset House explores the stories of Black British fashion in a major new exhibition, The Missing Thread, curated by the Black Orientated Legacy Development Agency (BOLD). Spanning from the 1970s to the present day, The Missing Thread charts the shifting landscape of Black British culture and the unique contribution it has made to Britain’s rich design history.
> More information here
Shifting the Centre: Anticolonial Ways of Seeing Exhibition
Date: 26 Sep 2023 -12 Jan 2024 Location: iniva, 16 John Islip St, London SW1P 4JU
About: An exhibition of works that connects history, politics and art, through the lens of anticolonial thought and activism.
> More information here
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography
Date: until 14 Jan 2024 Location: Tate Modern
About: Bringing together a group of artists from different generations, this exhibition will address how photography, film, audio, and more have been used to reimagine Africa’s diverse cultures and historical narratives.
> More information here
Hélène Amouzou: Voyages
Date: 22 Sep 2023 - 20 Jan 2024 Location: Autograph, London
About: Contemplating the complex emotions of displacement and exile
> More information here
Armet Francis: Beyond The Black Triangle
Date: 22 Sep 2023 - 20 Jan 2024 Location: Autograph, London
About: For more than four decades, Armet Francis’ mission in photography has been to document the African diaspora. A Jamaican-British photographer with an acute understanding of black consciousness, his images are life-affirming moments that celebrate the resilience and survival of African diasporic cultures.
> More information here
Challenging the Narrative: Black Resistance to Scientific Bias
Date: 5 Oct - 28 Jan 2024 Location: BCA
About: An iteration of Wellcome Collection’s Genetic Automata Exhibition featuring the influential work of Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, exploring the impact of eugenics, scientific racism and Black resistance
> More information here
Julianknxx: Chorus in Rememory of Flight
Date: 14 Sep 2023 - 11 Feb 2024 Location: Barbican
About: Poet, artist and filmmaker Julianknxx explores themes of inheritance, loss and belonging as he crosses the boundaries between written word, music and visual art.
> More information here
Frank Walter: Artist, Gardener, Radical
Date: 4 October 2023 – 25 February 2024. Location: The Garden Museum
About: One of the most significant Caribbean visual artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Artist, Gardener, Radical will delve into Walter’s prolific body of work exploring Antiguan plants and landscapes, environmentalism, Caribbean and Black identity, social justice and the complexity of nature.
> More information here
DIVA
Date: 24 Jun 2023 – 7 Apr 2024 Location: V&A South Kensington
About: DIVA will celebrate the power and creativity of iconic performers, exploring and redefining the role of 'diva' and how this has been subverted or embraced over time across opera, stage, popular music, and film.
> More information here
Hyundai Commission: El Anatsui
Date: until 14 April 2024 Location: Tate Modern
About: El Anatsui’s Behind the Red Moon is a monumental sculptural installation made of thousands of metal bottle tops and fragments. The commission builds on Anatsui’s interest in histories of encounter and the migration of goods and people during the transatlantic slave trade. Sourced in Nigeria, the liquor bottle tops used in this commission form part of a present-day industry built on colonial trade routes.
> More information here
Thomas J Price at the V&A Museum
Date: 22 July 2023 – 27 May 2024 Location: V&A South Kensington
About: British artist Thomas J Price is celebrated for his arresting yet contemplative sculptures depicting everyday people. This display sets his work in dialogue with the V&A's historic collections.
> More information here
Legacies: London Transport's Caribbean Workforce
Date: Until 31 Aug 2024. Location: The London Transport Museum.
About: Celebrate the contribution Caribbean people have made to transport in London and British culture more widely at the new exhibition Legacies: London Transport’s Caribbean Workforce, now open at the Museum. Explore the struggles and triumphs many of these individuals and their families experienced as they moved halfway across the world from the Caribbean to the UK.
> More information here
Did you know these shows were happening or are they news to you?