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 Electric Kiln at Rajan Bijlani

Rajan Bijlani is a collector and dealer of 20th century art and design, who last year opened his home and collection to the public for the first time, with an exhibition of artists and designers of South Asian heritage. In time for Frieze week, Bijlani is extending this invitation once again with a new exhibition at his London base, originally designed as a studio for the ceramic artist Emmanuel Cooper.

Electric Kiln pays homage to this history of the space, exploring into the ceramic works of Cooper and Lucie Rie, juxtaposed with charcoal drawings by Frank Auerbach, presented on Chandigarh tables and desks, and amidst a collection of modernist furniture pieces by Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier. It is a stunning, three-floor show with a synergy of tones, textures and materials between these approaches, made immersive in this intimate setting overlooking Primrose Hill.

And at the centre is the electric kiln – both a tool and a metaphor, a machine for firing clay but also the site of transformation. This spirit is what guides the exhibition – as the title suggests – positing the idea of London itself as a kiln, a place where the creative practices of Cooper, Rie and Auerbach, who all arrived in the city early in their careers, flourished and forged new ideas. It’s a poignant, timely love letter to London and to the pursuit of beauty that happens here.

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Dates
10 October 2025 — 16 November 2025

Viewing The Land Sings Back at The Drawing Room

If you want to get away off the beaten path this week, The Wick recommends a trip to Bermondsey to see The Land Sings Back, a special collaboration between the Drawing Room and Colomboscope – a contemporary art festival and creative platform for interdisciplinary dialogue in Sri Lanka founded in 2013.

The beautifully curated group show reimagines our relationship with our breathing planet, through the vibrant, enquiring and delicate works of thirteen artists from South Asia, Africa and the Carribean, who each delves into their ancestries and inherited wisdoms to consider environmental justice, and drawing’s potential as an active agent of social histories.

The vivid, contemplative and evocative works by artists including Shiraz Bayjoo, Otobong Nkanga, Rupaneethan Pakkiyarajah, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, and Charmaine Watkiss, disentangle drawing from its colonial uses and reinstate it as a tool for transference of indigenous knowledge, ecological and philosophical meanderings.

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Dates
25 September 2025 — 14 December 2025

Viewing PAD London at Berkeley Square

If design is more your thing, be sure to visit PAD this week. The fair was founded in 2007 by renowned Parisian antique dealer Patrick Perrin and it’s still going strong almost two decades on with annual editions held in Paris (in April) and London. It is the only fair of its kind in London dedicated exclusively to historical and contemporary design and is the place to get familiar with the very best design from around the world.

It’s always an eclectic, diverse and surprising mix, allowing encounters with familiar and discoveries of the new. Highlights at this year’s London edition, which boasts eleven new galleries, included works by Faye Toogood at Friedman Benda’s booth, exquisite pieces by Alexey Drozhdin, who combines glass and charred oak, and a special selection of works from the Middle East, showing at the fair for the first time – we can’t wait to see the stunning ceramic and glass pieces by Lebanese designers at Beirut-based PIK’D’s presentation.

In all, 20 galleries feature this year, ranging from rare historical pieces to the new and never-seen-before. Perrin told AD magazine: “Galleries will showcase ground-breaking pieces combining masterful craftsmanship with innovative concepts, rare collectible pieces that are available for sale for the first time and will stage dialogues between works from various eras and cultures.”

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Dates
14 October 2025 — 19 October 2025
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Photo: © David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

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The Wick Culture - The Weston Collections Hall at V&A East
Storehouse, including over 100 mini
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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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