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


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Viewing Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum at David Zwirner

Diane Arbus’ explosive and subversive work is well known, yet this is a rare chance to get up close with it in London, in a careful and compelling curation of 45 photographs at David Zwirner gallery (until 20 December). The works were all made between 1961 and 1971 – the decade before Arbus’ major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1972.

The show’s title suggests a private, inner world and the photographs on display focus on settings that invite and evoke intimacy, taken in bedrooms and hotel rooms, Arbus’ subjects’ sacred space. Her subjects are socialites and transvestites, nudists and disabled people, debutantes all of them fundamentally – humans.

Arbus’ photographs challenged conventions about who should be seen and looked at, where beauty might be found and celebrated, and questioned what ‘normal’ looked like. She was aware of the discomfort and awkwardness her intended audience might feel at her pictures, too – and the impossibility of truly representing another person in a picture. In her own words, “what I’m trying to describe is that it’s impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else’s…. That somebody else’s tragedy is not the same as your own.”

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Dates
06 November 2025 — 20 December 2025
Rock Paper Scissors opens at CLOSE Gallery in Somerset this week, a compelling group exhibition conceived around the simplicity and spontaneity of the eponymous playground game. The show draws parallels between its three gestures and the elemental relationships between hand, material, and imagination.

Featuring twelve artists including Kate McGwire, Ted Rogers, Hew Locke, Nicholas Lees, and Peter Randall-Page, the exhibition emphasises raw materials — stone, wood, fibre, feathers, found fragments, and pigment. The works foreground pared-back, handcrafted processes, allowing the tactile, evocative qualities of natural matter to narrate the works.

It’s also an exhibition about play and celebrating the resourcefulness of creativity. The motif of “rock, paper, scissors” becomes a metaphor for decision-making, balance, and opposition—as the works presented negotiate contrasts between weight and lightness, solidity and fragility, tension and repose. In the unique and serene setting of CLOSE’s glorious Somerset space, this elemental and poetic exhibition invites visitors to contemplate the fundamental and universal aspects of making.

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Dates
29 November 2025 — 17 January 2026

Viewing Wes Anderson: The Archives at Design Museum

The Design Museum’s Wes Anderson: The Archives is a landmark retrospective of the feted filmmaker. Created in collaboration with La Cinémathèque française and curated by Johanna Agerman Ross and Lucia Savi (with Matthieu Orléan), it offers an unprecedented look at three decades of Anderson’s work, showcasing over 700 objects drawn from his personal archive.

Visitors can explore storyboards, polaroids, sketches, and handwritten notebooks, as well as miniature sets, stop-motion puppets, and dozens of costumes from key films. The Wick’s highlights include a stunning, candy-pink three-metre-wide model of The Grand Budapest Hotel, the Fendi fur coat worn by Margot Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums, vending machines from Asteroid City, and of course, Mr. Fox in his signature corduroy suit.

The exhibition is laid out film-by-film, tracing Anderson’s evolution from early shorts like Bottle Rocket (screened as part of the show) through to his most recent work. In addition to finished props and sets, rarely work-in-progress maquettes and learn about Anderson’s love of hands-on techniques, particularly in stop-motion animation. A dazzling dive into Anderson’s signature aesthetic and symmetry that underscores how design, craft, and narrative intertwine in his incredible, irresistible work.

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Dates
11 November 2025 — 26 July 2026
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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

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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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