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Viewing RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Listen up, green-fingered friends: after cancellation and postponement, the Chelsea Flower Show is back in town, and with it exciting satellite events including Chelsea in Bloom (20—25 Sept) and Belgravia in Bloom (20—26 Sept). Coinciding with the Chelsea Flower Show, these smaller floral festivals transform the city’s streets, restaurants and hotels into outdoor galleries brimming with blooming installations and displays that will make you stop, stare and snap — and then post straight to Insta, of course.

It’s the first time ever the Chelsea Flower Show has been held in autumn, so the line-up is a little different this year. Taking centre stage are late-season flowers including asters and dahlias, foliage, shrubs, topiary and ornamental grasses. You’ll also see bolder tones, edibles, seedheads and seasonal vegetables including pumpkins and squashes.

New categories this year include Sanctuary Gardens, which reflects the importance of gardening, nature and the outdoors on mental health and wellbeing; and Balcony Gardens, which pays homage to small space gardening in towns and cities. Other notable highlights include the Florence Nightingale Show Garden, the first ever NHS tribute garden and the first fully organic garden. Then, of course, there’s the star of the show: the Great Pavilion.

This week-long celebration of all things floral is sure to put a spring in your step and a smile on your face. Swing by Chelsea this weekend to soak it all up.

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Dates
21 September 2021 — 26 September 2021
Curated by Hayward director Ralph Rugoff, this expansive exhibition brings together 31 contemporary artists who exploit paint as their primary medium. Little else, it turns out, unites their practice.

You’ll come across paintings with cats, dogs, shoes, spitfires, ghosts, invented scenes, historical scenes, swimmers, smokers, and a whole lot more. Paintings made from oil paint and others made with shampoo. Paintings that make you laugh, squeal, squirm and cry.

Mixing It Up is a timely celebration of the material possibilities of paint. After months of scrolling saturated, swipe-able images, it’s fantastic to see paint’s drips, mists and daubs showcased to such dazzling effect. There is a lot here to digest in a single viewing. But persevere and you’ll be handsomely rewarded.

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Dates
09 September 2021 — 12 December 2021

Viewing Humble Works, Colnaghi London

Marina mania has struck. Although the long-anticipated Marina Abramović retrospective at the Royal Academy has been postponed (again), September sees the opening of two exciting Marina shows.

The first can be found at London’s Lisson Gallery. Seven Deaths, which takes over Lisson’s Cork Street and Lisson Street spaces, features a new, immersive cinematic experience centred on the talented and tragic figure of singer Maria Callas. Colnaghi, meanwhile, stages Humble Works, a group exhibition of new pieces by Abramović, Nico Vascellari and Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich that respond to a series of masterworks spanning from Antiquity to the Modern Era.

New installation, photography and video works will be displayed alongside historic paintings or objects of the artists’ choosing, highlighting the creative synergies among artists across different ages. Among the standout exhibits is Diego Velázquez’s full-length portrait of Mother Jerónima de la Fuente from 1620, rarely seen on public view in the UK.

‘It is our privilege to present these artist’s deeply personal artistic responses to their selected masterpieces in this unique site-specific exhibition,’ says Colnaghi senior global director Chloe Stead. ‘I hope that visitors will find the juxtapositions and dialogues between the works thought-provoking, perhaps provocative, but certainly rewarding.’

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Dates
17 September 2021 — 22 November 2021
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