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Our pick of the best exhibitions to see in London's galleries and museums opening in February.
Blooming Brilliant: Orchids at Kew Gardens

The annual Orchids exhibition at Kew Gardens always makes it feel like summer's come early. This year it's the turn of Peru to showcase over 3,000 species of its orchids in the Princess of Wales glasshouse. References to local wildlife, such as alpaca and flamingos, along with Machu Picchu, are woven into the floral arrangements — forming a vibrant microcosm of the South American country.
Orchids: Inspired by the beauty of Peru at Kew Gardens. 1 February - 2 March, £20-£22 (includes admission to the gardens).
What the Dickens: 100 years of the Charles Dickens Museum

48 Doughty Street is the only surviving London house in which Charles Dickens lived, and is also where he completed The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. 100 years on, the museum marks its centenary of being open to the public with a special exhibition featuring previously unseen items, as well as some of the museum's greatest treasures.
Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens Museum. 5 February - 29 June, £12.50.
American history: Noah Davis at Barbican Art Gallery

Whether referencing recent elections, the American Civil War or daytime television, Noah Davis' paintings capture both the everyday and historic milestones of the US from his viewpoint — highlighting those close to him, but also the wider racist and misogynistic portrayal of Black subjects for the sake of entertainment. Davis' works were one of the highlights of 2024's The Time is Always Now at the National Portrait Gallery, and an exhibition dedicated to his works promises to be powerful.
Noah Davis at Barbican Art Gallery. 6 February - 11 May, £18.
AI Ai: Ai Weiwei at Lisson Gallery

Political artist Ai Weiwei presents new works, including military stretchers covered in obscenities made from buttons, in a look at how language and national identity are related. He also recreates historical masterpiece using Lego bricks, with Van Gogh's crows reimagined as drones. Ai Weiwei's embrace of technology stretches to the exhibition press release, which is written by ChatGPT, and the exhibition title decided by Google Gemini.
Ai Weiwei: A New Chapter at Lisson Gallery. 7 February - 15 March, free.
Living with illness: Donald Rodney at Whitechapel Gallery

Donald Rodney was born to Jamaican parents in the West Midlands in the 1960s, at a time of extreme racial prejudice, and this exhibition charts his bright but fleeting career shortened by illness. Rodney lived with sickle cell anaemia and harnessed the condition to confront the prejudices and injustices surrounding racial identity, Black masculinity, chronic illness and Britain's colonial past.
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker at Whitechapel Gallery. 12 February – 4 May, £15.
Stop and smell the ... : Flowers at Saatchi Gallery

They look and smell beautiful, but in the hands of artists, flowers can become so much more. Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture stretches from symbolism in Renaissance and the hyper-real Dutch paintings, through to contemporary artists such as Rebecca Louise Law, who creates immersive hanging installations from dried flowers. Fashion and jewellery are covered too — and there's a scientific look at the medicinal and poisonous qualities of some flowers. Altogether, the show blossoms with over 500 artworks and objects.
Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture at Saatchi Gallery. 12 February - 5 May, £20.
Impressive Impressionism: Goya to Impressionism at the Courtauld

Van Gogh's painting of patients at a hospital in Arles, Toulouse-Lautrec's portrait of the female clown Cha-U-Kao, and Goya's still life of three salmon steaks are three of many Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces usually on display at the Oskar Reinhart Collection in Switzerland, which travel to the UK for the first time, in 2025. Their destination: the Courtauld, which boasts its own trove of Impressionist masterpieces.
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Goya to Impressionism. Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection at The Courtauld. 14 February - 26 May, £14.
Mech-animals: Robot Zoo at Horniman Museum

Everyone loves animals and robots, so how about some robot animals? Using pistons for muscles, pipes instead of intestines, and computerised 'brains', the robot animals at Horniman Museum show how their real-life counterparts see, hear, hunt, hide and move. How do chameleons change colour? What makes grasshoppers leap so high? How do bats see at night? Through other interactive exhibits, visitors can try their hand at squid racing and fire a chameleon's 'tongue-gun'. We saw it when it was last at Horniman in 2017, and you're in for a fun and fascinating show.
Robot Zoo at Horniman Museum and Gardens. 14 February to 2 November, £9.75 for adults / £6.50 for children.
Gods & Minecraft: Making Egypt at Young V&A

Pyramids, mummification, Egyptian Gods... ancient Egypt is a topic that adults and children can never get enough of. For aspiring Egyptologists, Young V&A has a family focused exhibition that includes ancient artefacts such as a sarcophagus and decorative funerary masks, and a look at how stories and images from the Egypt of yore continue to influence art, design and popular culture — from Hollywood movie The Mummy to Minecraft.
Making Egypt at Young V&A. 15 February - 2 November, £10.
Prepare to be dazzled: Leigh Bowery at Tate Modern

It's time to celebrate the audacious life and groundbreaking work of Leigh Bowery — artist, performer, model, designer and musician. From his suburban Melbourne roots to transformation into a global icon, the exhibition showcases the artist's dazzling costumes, collaborations, and provocative performances. It includes Bowery's portrait by Lucian Freud and explores his enduring impact on aesthetics, gender and popular culture.
Leigh Bowery! at Tate Modern. 27 February - 2 September, £18.
Short run exhibitions

Art reflects the world around us, and for visually impaired artist Bianca Raffaella that's a very different world to many. In her latest paintings at Flowers Gallery (12 February - 15 March, free) Raffaella captures fleeting moments suspended in "persistent vision," where her sight is in constant motion, and images appear only briefly as faint shadows or flickers of light.
Esra Kizir Gokcen's exhibition at 54 The Gallery, in Shepherd Market (26 February - 9 March, free), is about the migratory experience and ultimately the hope of travelling for a better life. She imagines this through paintings and an installation of boats filling the space.
In terms of art fairs, Collect 2025 at Somerset House (28 February - 2 March, £23) has all things contemporary craft and design on display and available to buy. It's always filled with intricate and spectacular objects and artworks.
Exhibitions outside London

Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge (21 February - 1 June, pay what you wish) tells the story of the fight to end transatlantic slavery, its aftermath, and its ongoing legacies. Focusing on the period from 1750 to 1850, this history is told through the stories of individuals and communities from across the Caribbean, Europe and the Americas, as well as through historic objects and works by contemporary artists.

Resistance at Turner Contemporary, Margate (22 February - 1 June, free) is the brainchild of artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen. The exhibition explores how acts of resistance have shaped life in the UK and the powerful role of photography in documenting and driving change. It spans from the radical suffrage movement in 1903 to the largest-ever protest in Britain’s history — the Anti-Iraq War Protest of 2003.