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Our pick of the best exhibitions to see in London's galleries and museums opening in July and August 2025, plus some additions from outside the M25.
Aboriginal Art: Emily Kam Kngwarray at Tate Modern
Swirling dots and intricate lines cover the canvases of Indigenous Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray, in her first major European exhibition. Taking inspiration from ancestral ceremonies, emu tracks and deep connection with the natural world, these are immensely spiritual works. The artist took up painting in her 70s and, so fittingly, this exhibition includes over 70 of her works in an abstract painting process that sits well outside Western art history, and offers a fresh take on art and the land for a UK audience.
Emily Kam Kngwarray at Tate Modern. 10 July-11 January 2026, £20.
Think nature: More than Human at The Design Museum
How would we reshape the planet if we stepped away from the anthropocentric thinking and asked what the wider natural world would benefit from? That's the concept behind 'more than human' as we see the world through the eyes of pollinators, an installation made out of seaweed and architecture made for multiple species. This exhibition brings together over 140 works spanning contemporary and traditional practices, fine art, product design, architecture and interactive installations. We discover how humans can relearn to design with, and for, the natural world in the face of climate emergency.
More Than Human at The Design Museum. 11 July-6 October, £14.38+
Sculptural refresh: Sculpture in the City
We always look forward to the annual edition of Sculpture in the City, when the gaps between glass skyscrapers, and thronging pavements, are populated with new sculptures — to go alongside permanent ones remaining from previous years. It brightens up the Square Mile and gets people talking about art as they hurry to and from work (or as we like to do, exploring the City on a weekend when it's quiet). This year they have one of Ai Weiwei's iron trees and DNA imagery by Jane and Louise Wilson on the underside of escalators.
Sculpture in the City 2025. 15 July-Summer 2026, free.
Two temples: Jane & Louise Wilson at The London Mithraeum
The London Mithraeum is the awe-inducing remains of a Roman temple to Mithras. We admire how they tie this into contemporary art with regular ground floor exhibitions that always have a historic spiritual/religious angle. Now it's the turn of Jane and Louise Wilson — twin sisters who always work as a pair. Their installation looks at the parallels between the Roman Temple of Mithras and Ise Jingu, a Shinto shrine complex in Japan — two sacred places dating to the 1st–3rd century BC. Though geographically and culturally distant, both feature solar deities in their iconography and house important relics.
Jane and Louise Wilson: Performance of Entrapment at London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE. 17 July 2025–January 2026, free.
Family fun: Monster Chetwynd at Tate Modern
For the last few years Tate Modern has invited children to get hands-on with art over the Summer. This year sees another fun and whimsical installation — this time inspired by film, theatre sets and a comic opera. And who better to do that than an artist who was nominated for the Turner Prize under the name Spartacus Chetwynd, then became Marvin Gaye Chetwynd — and now goes by Monster Chetwynd. Brace yourself for a trippy installation filled with fantastical creatures, which children (and larger children) can get hands on with.
UNIQLO Tate Play: Monster Chetwynd at Tate Modern. 19 July-25 August, free.
Is beauty a beast? Virtual Beauty at Somerset House
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in a world where we're online all the time and selfie proliferation has peaked, there are beholders left, right and centre. How has this online era changed how we define beauty and how does this vary by gender, ethnicity and sexuality? Somerset House takes on these big questions in an exhibition with over 20 works from international artists working across sculpture, photography, installation and video. We've never been as obsessed with how we look as we do today, so it's a ripe topic for artists to explore.
Virtual Beauty at Somerset House. 23 July-28 September, pay what you can.
Feeling hungry? Future of Food at Science Museum
In the near future will we all be eating cricket burgers and cell-grown salmon? Science Museum takes us on a trip to see what the future of food could be, and how we can move away from the unsustainable industrial food processes of today. It takes us through the history of food's evolution, from 3,500-year-old bread to the first Quorn burger. It also looks at what we can learn from existing food processes including Indigenous Amazonian seed swapping ceremonies, growing meat from cells at home in Japan and using local radio to control pests in Kenya.
Future of Food at Science Museum. 24 July-4 January 2026, free — ticketed.
Living off the land: Millet at The National Gallery
Eschewing the aristocracy, Jean-Francois Millet — who was born into a farming family — instead painted humble people working the land: a sower, a woodcutter, a shepherd girl. This one-room display stars arguably Millet's most famous work, 'L'Angelus' — in which a farming couple pause to offer a prayer in a field. It's on loan from Paris' Musee d'Orsay, offering a rare chance for Brits to see the work of one of France's most respected realist painters, whose work went on to inspire the Impressionists.
Millet: Life on the Land at The National Gallery, Room 1. 7 August-19 October, free.
Dreamy sculpture: Tai Shani at Somerset House
The sleeping figure in a glass box is an archetype of fairy tales — think Snow White or Sleeping Beauty for starters. But whether finding themselves in this suspended state by poisoned apple or a pricked finger, artist Tai Shani wonders: what do they dream about? Are they sleeping through the many crises affecting the planet — literally living in a fairy tale? Accompanied by a 24/7 radio broadcast, Shani's aim is to provoke a discussion around how we can build a better future together. It will be hard to miss this one, placed in the middle of Somerset House's courtyard.
The Spell or The Dream by Tai Shani at Somerset House. 7 August-14 September, free.
Short run exhibitions and events
In this section we cover the shorter run events we recommend seeing in July and August.
June was the month for art university graduate shows, and now it's time for the post-grads — with the chance to see what artists who've completed their Master's degrees have produced. These include shows at Central Saint Martins (2-6 July, free), Camberwell College of Arts (7-12 July, free) and Chelsea College of Arts (7-12 July, free).
For all those artists who didn't get into the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, gallery Art Friend holds the Rejects exhibition in Stoke Newington, highlighting the quality of artists that we don't get to see at the RA (3-13 July, free). It includes a panel discussion on rejection featuring the author of this article, Londonist's art critic Tabish Khan.
Portrait painter Sarah Jane Moon hosts a collection of her works in Brixton (16-21 July, free). It features large-scale portraits of influential UK-based LGBTQIA+ figures, intimate portraits of queer friends in richly observed landscapes, and vivid studies of native birds and flora. Flux brings together 70 artists in the cavernous Bomb Factory space in Marylebone, where you get to meet them and see a wider variety of contemporary art (17-20 July, free).
Deptford X (12-27 July, free) is a festival taking over venues across the local area, engaging with the arts in the community. It has over 500 participating artists in 100+ artist-led fringe projects, eight new artist commissions and a participatory street parade created with schools around Lewisham. The festival is longer this year, which it's achieved by switching to a biennial format.
Exhibitions Outside London
If you fancy a trip outside of London, we have a couple of recommendations to catch beyond the M25.
We've always been a fan of Kew Gardens' wilder sisters site outside of London, Wakehurst. It's home to the millennium seed bank, and its latest arts programme draws inspiration from the world of seeds. Seedscapes (4 July-14 September, ticketed) includes commissioned artwork from both local and international artists that feature ceramic sculptures, woven materials, soundscapes and augmented reality.
Peruvian Indigenous artist Santiago Yahuarcani has the first international solo exhibition of his work at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester (4 July-4 September, free). Using natural dyes made from plants native to Peru, he creates work that cover ancestral memory, the sacred knowledge of medicinal plants, and the sounds of the jungle.
Every three years, Folkestone fills to the gills with art for the Folkestone Triennial (19 July-19 October, free), adding to the permanent collection of art already on display — including retained works from previous triennials. This year, 18 artists from more than 15 countries have placed artworks across the seaside town, including old railway lines, empty buildings, coastal paths and everyday public spaces.
