Our top picks of exhibitions together with cultural spaces and places, both online and in the real world.

All, Art, Auctions, Exhibitions, Travel & Hospitality, Initiatives

Viewing Art Basel

The Wick Culture - Carrie Mae Weems, Painting the Town #17, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco adn Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Above Carrie Mae Weems, Painting the Town #17, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco adn Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

The Wick Culture - B. Ingrid Olson Judtih's, Glyph [Clockwise is a direction and so is south], 2012-2025. Courtesy of the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna. Photography by B. Ingrid Olson / Studio

Above B. Ingrid Olson Judtih’s, Glyph [Clockwise is a direction and so is south], 2012-2025. Courtesy of the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna. Photography by B. Ingrid Olson / Studio

The Wick Culture - Galerie 1900-200. Marcel Duchamp, LH.O.O.Q, 1965. Courtesy of Galerie 1900-200, Paris-New-York

Above Galerie 1900-200. Marcel Duchamp, LH.O.O.Q, 1965. Courtesy of Galerie 1900-200, Paris-New-York

The Wick Culture - Tschabalala Self, The Covetor, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich / Vienna. Photography by Christopher Burke / Shoot Art

Above Tschabalala Self, The Covetor, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich / Vienna. Photography by Christopher Burke / Shoot Art

The Wick Culture - Ebun Sodipo, What if Laure Was / A Black Goddess Come to Earth, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, London. Photography by Eva Herzog

Above Ebun Sodipo, What if Laure Was / A Black Goddess Come to Earth, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, London. Photography by Eva Herzog

Above Carrie Mae Weems, Painting the Town #17, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco adn Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Above B. Ingrid Olson Judtih’s, Glyph [Clockwise is a direction and so is south], 2012-2025. Courtesy of the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna. Photography by B. Ingrid Olson / Studio

Above Galerie 1900-200. Marcel Duchamp, LH.O.O.Q, 1965. Courtesy of Galerie 1900-200, Paris-New-York

Above Tschabalala Self, The Covetor, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich / Vienna. Photography by Christopher Burke / Shoot Art

Above Ebun Sodipo, What if Laure Was / A Black Goddess Come to Earth, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, London. Photography by Eva Herzog

Art Basel

Messeplatz 10
June 19 – 22 2025

Art Basel is upon us – the godfather of art fairs in the pristine Swiss city opens this week and runs to Sunday. 280 world class galleries gather at the Messeplatz to present booths, with special events and a programme of talks, tours and other activities across the city.

The Wick recommends a public guided tour spotlighting 14 women working on an ambitious scale and presented at Unlimited, Art Basel’s special sector for monumental scale projects. This year includes Petra Cortright’s 50 webcams with over 200 compositions, Nicola Turner’s new ten-meter-high sculpture made of horsehair and wool, and a huge new painting by Katherine Bernhardt.

What is considered a commercial work is shifting and plenty of projects at Basel this year push the criticality and role of art in today’s political climate to new places. A case in point: Nir Altman’s presentation of French artist Ndayé Kouagou, a performance and video artist that blurs the language of TV, TikTok, advertising and art in a masterful and ingenious way. A new work, A not that dirty mirror (2025) will be shown, featuring a TV-style vox pop presenter stopping passersby to ask: ‘What do you think of what’s happening here and elsewhere?’

Viewing Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting at The National Portrait Gallery

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Drift, 2020-2022, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Drift, 2020-2022, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Compass, 2013, Private collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Compass, 2013, Private collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Chasah, 2020, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Chasah, 2020, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Aleppo, 2017-2018, Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and NGS

Above Jenny Saville, Aleppo, 2017-2018, Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and NGS

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

The Wick Culture - Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, Private Collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, Private Collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Drift, 2020-2022, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Compass, 2013, Private collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Above Jenny Saville, Chasah, 2020, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Aleppo, 2017-2018, Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and NGS

Above Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003, Private Collection. Courtesy of Gagosian and Jenny Saville

Above Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, Private Collection. Courtesy of Jenny Saville and Gagosian

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting

National Portrait Gallery
20 June – 7 September 2025

The summer blockbuster you’ve been waiting for is at last here: Jenny Saville’s epic solo show The Anatomy of Painting is unveiled to the public at the National Portrait Gallery from tomorrow. It is the British painter’s largest ever museum exhibition in the UK (including 45 works) and cements her status as one of the world’s most significant painters working today.

Saville’s career goes back to the 1990s, when she already won acclaim for her 1992 degree show at Glasgow School of Art – a series of monumental-scale, visceral and charged female nudes that ruptured the genre and catapulted Saville into the limelight. Since then, Saville has continued to revolutionize the genre and how we look at bodies in her paintings and charcoal works.

This display unfolds chronology charting the evolution of her work but the continued and consistent passion for her process and subject matter, unwavering and increasingly masterful. Saville has a unique ability to completely floor the viewer with the familiar, questioning ideas of beauty – especially for women – and in a push-pull dialogue with the history of art. The curation was organised in close coordination with Saville herself and gives an unprecedented insight into her way of thinking, working, and seeing. An unmissable show.

Viewing Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons at Dulwich Picture Gallery

The Wick Culture - Rachel Jones, Gated Canyons, 2024. Photography by Eva Herzog

Above Rachel Jones, Gated Canyons, 2024. Photography by Eva Herzog

The Wick Culture - Pieter Boel, Head of a Hound, (c.1660-5), oil on canvas, DPG594. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Above Pieter Boel, Head of a Hound, (c.1660-5), oil on canvas, DPG594. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

The Wick Culture - Rachel Jones, Gated Canyons, 2024. Photography Eva Herzog

Above Rachel Jones, Gated Canyons, 2024. Photography Eva Herzog

Above Rachel Jones, Gated Canyons, 2024. Photography by Eva Herzog

Above Pieter Boel, Head of a Hound, (c.1660-5), oil on canvas, DPG594. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Above Rachel Jones, Gated Canyons, 2024. Photography Eva Herzog

Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons

Dulwich Picture Gallery
10 June – 19 October 2025

The Wick are huge fans of the young British abstract painter Rachel Jones, who has already received numerous accolades and acclaim, at only 34 years old (not to mentioning designing a Brit Award!). This anticipated exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery is a landmark for Jones but also for the gallery, who open their entire main exhibition to a show by a single contemporary artist for the first time in its history.

Gated Canyons demonstrates why Jones has made a name for herself – its not only her striking, unforgettable palettes with contrasting bold hues, but her brilliant, seamless command of expressive, joyous mark-making with oil stick and oil pastels, moving between abstract and almost-recognisable motifs.

This completely new and never-seen-before body of work ranges from large-scale to intimate, and riffs on Dulwich Picture Gallery’s collection, and in particular a painting by Flemish artist Pieter Boel, Head of a Hound (1660-5). It’s a thrilling collision with the history of art, reseen, reinvigorated and reinterpreted for today. Jones is capable of making you think, but perhaps just as importantly, of making you smile.