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


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Opera curtains play a starring role in the work of Antoine Wagner, whose photographs of their blood-red, silky folds at Tristan Hoare Gallery make us look at them anew. The French-American artist and film director has captured those that adorned opera houses graced by soprano Maria Callas throughout her 36-year career. Through his lens, we see how they are more than just stage coverings – they play an active part in shaping an audience’s experience, concealing and revealing, and serving as visual and symbolic thresholds.

Wagner’s new video work, Where It Starts, It Ends invites us to have an intimate exchange with the visceral velvet fabric. When staring at the abstract drapery, you can almost imagine yourself in Callas’ shoes, counting down the seconds to when she will step on stage. After viewing Wagner’s work, you’ll never see a stage curtain the same way again.

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Dates
08 March 2024 — 05 April 2024

Viewing  Seeing Red: a pulse-quickening show at Phillips

What does the colour red mean to you? In Seeing Red, a selling exhibition presented by Phillips and curated by Jane Neal and Fru Tholstrup, we discover all manner of expressions of this intense hue, evoking everything from love and passion to danger.

From former Monday Muse, Lara Bohinc’s voluptuous seating – recalling the sensuality of the female form – to Dale Chihuly’s intestine-like Ruby Red chandelier, these are visceral works that seduce and repel. Marina Abramović, Miles Aldridge, Charming Baker and Helen Beard also star in this pulse-quickening exhibition. Catch it before it closes.

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Dates
16 March 2024 — 24 March 2024

Viewing  Tracey Emin’s ode to the sleepless in Margate

A year after opening TKE Studios – her community of affordable art studios and residency spaces in Margate – Tracey Emin has gathered together works by female identifying artists who work there in a show bluntly titled, We Do Not Sleep. The British artist is a long-term insomniac and the idea of rest has taken on new meaning for her after her battles with cancer, encouraging her to think of the plight of other women, especially mothers, and how sleep is a rare luxury for them. “Women who have children, they don’t sleep – they’re awake the whole time,” she told art historian Katy Hessel, in a talk at the former bath house. “Every woman who’s a mother has to do that. It’s like torture… then they have to look good too.”

Alongside portraits of women in various states of action or repose by artists including Laura Footes, Joline Kwakkenbos and Vanessa Raw, are several large-scale drawings by Emin herself. “I like the freshness of them, I like the spontaneity of them,” says the artist, who had no pre-planned notion of what the outcome of the works would be when she began working. “I didn’t know that they were going to look so Freddy Krueger and so violent and so painful.” As well as the trials of sleep deprivation, Emin also spoke about the liberation insomnia can bring. “If you’re happy and you have insomnia, God has given you 24 hours a day – it’s an amazing thing.” For the insomniacs among us – of which there are several on team Wick – this show both resonates and uplifts.

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Dates
09 March 2024 — 19 May 2024
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The Wick Culture - Yeonjoon Yoon, Gavin Poole, Conrad Shawcross, Tristram Hunt at UMBILICAL

Happenings Conrad Shawcross: UMBILICAL at Here East

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The Wick Culture - Gallery view of the 2025 Summer Exhibition
Photo: © David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Happenings RA Summer Party

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The Wick Culture - Katy Wickremesinghe at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Happenings Rachel Jones at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Happenings
The Wick Culture - Katy Wickremesinghe at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Happenings Rachel Jones at Dulwich Picture Gallery

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The Wick Culture - The Weston Collections Hall at V&A East
Storehouse, including over 100 mini
curated displays ‘hacked’ into the ends
and sides of the storage racking. Image by Hufton + Crow for V&A

Happenings V&A East Storehouse

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The Wick Culture - Shezad Dawood

Happenings Chain of Hope at Saatchi Gallery

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