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


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Viewing Wolfgang Tillmans at Christie’s London

Hotfoot it down to Christie’s London to see a beautiful collection of fifteen photographs by German photography giant Wolfgang Tillmans, all coming to the market for the first time from a well-established private collection. This is an exclusive chance to preview the works ahead of going up for auction during Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary sale, opening online for bids from 26 February with a live auction on 6 March.

The Way We Look includes an iconic Tillmans studio portrait of Kate Moss wearing a red dress – Kate sitting – estimated at 12 – 18,000 GBP. Other works – all from the 1990s, one of Tillmans’ most prolific and important periods – move between the artist’s observations of social political transformations of the decade, and his inimate, apparently desultory still life scenes, to early experiments with camera-less photography and abstraction that became increasingly important in his later oeuvre.

We’re intrigued to see what these reach at auction later this month. Meanwhile, this is a chance to get a rare and concise insight into the Turner-Prize winning artist’s world and ongoing, intertwined interests. As the artist once said: “within me it is all one continuum. I’m not just drifting around, taking a picture here and there. Each type of work is carefully considered in its own right. On the other hand, the great advantage is my liberty to do all these things.”

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Dates
12 February 2025 — 21 February 2025

Viewing Mickalene Thomas at The Hayward

Mickalene Thomas’ work is an act of joyful reclamation—one that tugs at the seams of historical representations until they unravel. As this newly-opened two-storey UK debut of the American artist at the Hayward proves, Thomas’ has radically insisted on love, on beauty, and on female empowerment.

Black female agency is at the centre of Thomas’ work and in this show, her figures – usually based on women in the artist’s own life and inner circle – are larger than life, and literally dazzling, rhinestones embedded in their surfaces.

Beyond these better known sides of Thomas’ work this show also delves more into her sculptures and installations, positioning her within a tradition of Black American artists experimenting with unconventional materials and forms. Thomas’ personal references are often cribbed from the 1970s, the decade of her childhood and one she often returns too, replicating furnishings, wallpaper and bric-à-brac to restage domestic environments that evoke comfort and safety.

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Dates
11 February 2025 — 05 May 2025
All About Eve, is co-curated by artist Soheila Sokhanvari and gallery director Kristin Hjellegjerde, and references the 1950 film of the same title, which follows the tale of Margo Channing, an aging Broadway star, whose career is threatened by the younger, more ambitious Eve. From this premise of female rivalry, power and patriarchy, this exhibition is a thrilling look at gender-based inequality through the ages.

Sokhanvari and Hjellegjerde have drawn together some incredible works by leading contemporary artists, such as the vibrant, cosmological Kamasan cloth paintings of Balinese artist Citra Sasmita (currently showing at the Barbican’s Curve gallery) and the groundbreaking images of Lindsay Seers who turns herself into a camera by placing light-sensitive paper in her mouth, confronting the medium’s long history of objectification, especially of women.

Elsewhere, encounter extraordinary, arresting pieces on childbirth and motherhood by Sutapa Biswas, and the beautiful nacre sculptures of Zayn Qahtani, approaching the female body as a vessel not only for birth, but as a portal between the earth and cosmos. Through works by fourteen artists, this group show is revelatory and empowering, an original and compelling exploration of female creativity and triumph.

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Dates
07 February 2025 — 08 March 2025
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