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

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Viewing Chila Kumari Singh Burman Compton Verney

The Wick Culture - Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Installation view, Rich Mix 2023
Courtesy of the artist

Above Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Installation view, Rich Mix 2023 Courtesy of the artist

The Wick Culture - Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Tattooed In Places You'd Love To Lick, 1990s
Courtesy of the artist

Above Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Tattooed In Places You’d Love To Lick, 1990s Courtesy of the artist

The Wick Culture - Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Our Dad The Magician Eating a Light Bulb 2021
Courtesy of the artist

Above Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Our Dad The Magician Eating a Light Bulb 2021 Courtesy of the artist

Above Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Installation view, Rich Mix 2023 Courtesy of the artist

Above Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Tattooed In Places You’d Love To Lick, 1990s Courtesy of the artist

Above Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Our Dad The Magician Eating a Light Bulb 2021 Courtesy of the artist

Chila Kumari Singh Burman: Spectacular Diversions

Compton Verney
Warwickshire
CV35 9HZ
31 October 2024 – 26 January 2025

Equally spectacular and surreal is this dazzling Chila Kumari Singh Burman exhibition, unveiled at Compton Verney today. As the darkness creeps in ever earlier, Burman’s brilliant exhibition brings illumination to the countryside, lighting up the historic facades of Compton Verney with the artist’s trademark neon works that she has made since lighting up the Tate Britain with her widely acclaimed installation in 2020.

Beyond the kaleidoscopic intervention that takes over the front of the house, the exhibition continues inside with array of works from new and recent sculptures, many of which have not been shown before, to earlier prints, collages and films. It’s Burman’s largest exhibition in recent years, and encompasses a 40-year period in which the artist has explored her Hindu-Punjabi cultural identity, feminism, and working class Liverpudlian upbringing, amongst other themes.

Viewing Meriem Bennani: For My Best Family

The Wick Culture - Meriem Bennani, Orian Barki, John Michael Boling and Jason Coombs
2 Bouchras in Flip-Flops, 2024
Courtesy of the artists

Above Meriem Bennani, Orian Barki, John Michael Boling and Jason Coombs 2 Bouchras in Flip-Flops, 2024 Courtesy of the artists

The Wick Culture - Meriem Bennani
Research for Sole crushing, 2024
Courtesy of the artist

Above Meriem Bennani Research for Sole crushing, 2024 Courtesy of the artist

The Wick Culture - Orian Barki, Meriem Bennani, John Michael Boling and Jason Coombs
Stills from For Aicha, 2024
Courtesy of the artists

Above Orian Barki, Meriem Bennani, John Michael Boling and Jason Coombs Stills from For Aicha, 2024 Courtesy of the artists

Above Meriem Bennani, Orian Barki, John Michael Boling and Jason Coombs 2 Bouchras in Flip-Flops, 2024 Courtesy of the artists

Above Meriem Bennani Research for Sole crushing, 2024 Courtesy of the artist

Above Orian Barki, Meriem Bennani, John Michael Boling and Jason Coombs Stills from For Aicha, 2024 Courtesy of the artists

Meriem Bennani: For My Best Family

Fondazione Prada
31 Oct 2024 – 24 Feb 2025

It’s Halloween – and this week we’re all about the supernatural and otherworldly shows. First up is a weirdly wonderful project by Meriem Bennani, the Moroccan artist’s largest to date. For My Best Family creates a spooky atmosphere over two floors of Fondazione Prada in the form of a multi-sensory work examining how to be together.

A mechanical installation made up of 192 flip flops cheekily titled Sole crushing sees the shows march in eerie autonomy to a ballet-symphony-riot. It’s cathartic and chaotic, and intended to also evoke a state of delirium, something like the noise of a stadium, or the sounds of a Moroccan deqqa marrakchia.

Elsewhere, there’s a new film Bennani has made in collaboration with Orian Barki, set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, following the story of a Moroccan jackal filmmaker living in New York. The fiction within a fiction with its animated animal protagonists is both funny and touching, and contemplates how animation can be a potent vessel for meaningful messages in troubling times.

Viewing Asian Art Week London

The Wick Culture - Anonymous | Pheasants beneath wisteria | Edo period, late 17th - early 18th century
Courtesy of Sotheby's

Above Anonymous | Pheasants beneath wisteria | Edo period, late 17th – early 18th century Courtesy of Sotheby’s

The Wick Culture - Morita Shiryu (1912-1998) | Fuku | Showa period, 20th century

Above Morita Shiryu (1912-1998) | Fuku | Showa period, 20th century

Above Anonymous | Pheasants beneath wisteria | Edo period, late 17th – early 18th century Courtesy of Sotheby’s

Above Morita Shiryu (1912-1998) | Fuku | Showa period, 20th century

Asian Art Week London

Various Venues
30th October – 8 November, 2024

Taking place every Autumn for more than two decades Asian Art Week London aims to bring together leading international dealers and auction houses from the UK, Europe, USA and Asia in the UK capital, focusing on galleries and auction houses specialising in in a wide variety of ancient to modern Asian art, ranging from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Islamic and Middle Eastern and Himalayan to Central Asian, Southeast Asian regions.

Exhibitions showcase and offer for sale important Asian artworks, and are often accompanied by academically researched publications, while the many receptions, lectures and special events create a unique occasion to engage with Asian art. The 27th edition of the event begins on 30th October. At auction, we are especially excited about Sotheby’s online sale (29 October – 5 November) Art of Japan showcasing rare masterpieces spanning the 12th Century to today, including 17th-Century screens, and Senju Hiroshi’s waterfall painting, a Shadow Painting by Takamatsu Jiro, as well as minimalist white ceramics by Kurado Taizo.

Elsewhere, among the gallery participants, be sure to head to specialist dealer Raquelle Arzan’s presentation of Vietnamese contemporary and Indochine Art, and don’t miss a visit to new gallery, Ming Gu, on New Bond Street, established last year by Guming Song, to exhibit emerging and mid-career artists of East Asian heritage, bringing artists who are steeped in traditions and yet to challenge it with their modern interpretation. The annual Asian Art in London Gala Party takes place on Wednesday, October 30 at the V&A.