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Our pick of the best exhibitions to see in London's galleries and museums opening in September 2025, plus a few additions outside the M25.
Statuesque sculpture: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum at Barbican
What happens when you pair Alberto Giacometti's slender sculptures with those of a contemporary artist? We've already had one impressive pairing with Huma Bhabha's totemic sculptures and now it's the turn of Mona Hatoum's political works. The result is disquieting, transforming Barbican's new Level 2 gallery into an unsettling domestic space where mutilated forms, skeletal figures and cage-like structures explore themes of displacement, violence and alienation. Encounters presents both career-spanning works by Hatoum, and new pieces created to face-off with works by Giacometti.
Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum at Barbican Level 2. 3 September 2025-11 January 2026, £8.
Cosmic images: Astronomy Photographer of the Year at National Maritime Museum
Nothing makes us feel quite so small as pictures of brightly coloured nebulae light years away. Every year, the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition reminds visitors that we are but humble specks in the grand scheme of the universe. With stunning views of the Milky Way, eclipses, planets and galaxies far far away it's always visually spectacular. Here's a chance to see the best of this year's crop of cosmic photography.
ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year at National Maritime Museum. 12 September 2025-31 July 2026, £12.
Pointillist perfection: Radical Harmony at National Gallery
Get ready for some serious dot-spotting. The National Gallery's first-ever exhibition devoted to Neo-Impressionism brings together a collection of pointillist masterpieces, assembled by pioneering German collector Helene Kröller-Müller — one of the first great female art patrons — in the early 20th century. The star attraction is Georges Seurat's cancan painting 'Le Chahut', making its UK debut alongside other works by Seurat and his contemporaries. These aren't just pretty pictures made of coloured dots; they were genuinely radical works which some critics thought signalled the death of painting itself. The artists' political underpinnings, meanwhile, saw them document working-class struggles and react against the dawn of the industrial age.
Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists at National Gallery. 13 September 2025-8 February 2026, £25.
Sculpture in the park: Frieze Sculpture at Regent's Park
Regent's Park is about to be invaded by art once again, as sculptures spring up in a corner of the park, for this year's Frieze Sculpture, a prelude to the Frieze Art Fairs. Curator Fatoş Üstek has assembled the pieces for 2025, including bronze works based on birdcalls, colossal sound sculptures, and a tribute to Indigenous culture. Alongside these are ghostly garments and a work that uses soil from the park itself. It's always enjoyable to see the divided opinions the works evoke, as families picnic around them and joggers pause to contemplate.
Frieze Sculpture at Regents Park. 17 September-2 November, free.
Art and drama: Theatre Picasso at Tate Modern
It's the centenary of the creation of Picasso's famous painting, The Three Dancers. To mark the occasion Tate Modern explores how the Spanish master turned art-making into theatre. Around 50 works are staged like a dramatic production, with the famed 'Dancers' taking centre stage, alongside Tate's entire Picasso collection. There's also a wool and silk 'Minotaur' tapestry making its UK debut, plus a 1959 film showing Picasso throwing his body into the act of painting. The artist was fascinated by performers — circus artists, bullfighters, flamenco dancers — constantly drawing inspiration from them.
Theatre Picasso at Tate Modern. 17 September–12 April 2026, £14.
Let them eat couture: Marie Antoinette at V&A
She lost her head, but her style never died. The V&A's first UK exhibition on history's most fashionable queen explores how Marie Antoinette became the ultimate fashion influencer — 250 years before Instagram existed — and is still inspiring fashion today. Among the 250 objects are treasures that have never left Versailles: the French queen's own silk slippers, fragments of her court dress, jewels from her private collection, and poignantly, the final note she ever wrote. Expect theatrical staging and sensory experiences, including recreated court scents and the queen's own favourite perfume.
Marie Antoinette Style at V&A. 20 September 2025-22 March 2026, £23-£25.
Making history visible: Kerry James Marshall at Royal Academy of Arts
Kerry James Marshall centres Black experiences in paintings built on Western artistic traditions, creating epic scenes from everyday moments: families picnicking, children playing, friends in hair salons. This major survey marking the American artist's 70th birthday is his largest European exhibition to date, bringing together over 70 works that rewrite art history through a Black lens. From portraits of historical figures like Harriet Tubman to scenes addressing the slave trade and Civil Rights movement, Marshall asks hard questions about who gets remembered, and how.
Kerry James Marshall: The Histories at Royal Academy of Arts. 20 September 2025-18 January 2026, £23.50-£25.50.
Fashion meets fungus: Material World at Kew Gardens
Who knew your wardrobe could be grown in a greenhouse? Kew's first ever fashion festival proves that sustainable style doesn't have to be a compromise. Vast wing-like forms made from biodegradable materials are suspended in the glasshouse, and London College of Fashion alumni present collections including a giant 3.5-metre t-shirt grown from mycelium, seaweed trousers, and garments made from pineapple fibre and nettle. It's a fashion revolution that suggests your next summer wardrobe could literally grow on trees.
Material World at Kew Gardens. 20 September-2 November, £22.
The final frontier: Space at Science Museum
The Science Museum's rejigged space gallery has lift-off, featuring exhibits on the first space race (including a firm museum favourite, the Apollo 10 Command Module, as well as the radio headset used by Neil Armstrong to communicate with Mission Control), and the future of space travel (will humans soon have a base built on Mars?). While the UK doesn't have its own space programme it has designed satellites, heat shields and propulsion systems — all on show in this new setup. We're obsessed with all things outer space (who isn't?) and, unlike Katy Perry, this is probably the closest we're likely to get to it.
Space at Science Museum. Opens 20 September, free.
Game over: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley at Serpentine Galleries
What if a video game could force you to have the difficult conversations you've been avoiding? Artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley wants us to go deep with videogames in an exhibition that brings together thought-provoking art with a multiplayer gaming experience. You can play games that cover the polarisation of opinions and censorship — topics that are particularly relevant today. No Pac-Man, Doom or Age of Empires in sight.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: The Delusion at Serpentine North. 30 September-18 January 2026, free.
Short run exhibitions and events
In this section we cover the shorter run events we recommend seeing in September
All eight artists in 'Clay In Vivo' at ASC Art House Gallery in Croydon (2-14 September, free) work with unfired clay so the sculptures they present will transform over the course of the exhibition. It's an unpredictability we rarely expect from ceramic artworks and the results could be heart-breaking.
Dulwich Picture Gallery is opening up with an additional three acres of green space around the gallery, including a permanent ArtPlay pavilion and everyone's invited to celebrate its launch with a weekend of family-focussed activities (6-7 September, free).
Sothebys is getting all surreal, showcasing the collection of Pauline Karpidas (8-16 September, free). Not merely showing off her Surrealist masterpieces, the auction house itself undergoes a makeover, in the vein of Karpidas' extraordinary London home.
While most arts university graduate shows took place over the summer, there's one last place to spot the next big thing at the post-graduate show for the graduating students at City & Guilds London Art School* (9-13 September, free). It's always an impressive showing of new artistic talents, as well as a chance to meet the artists and buy work to support their early career.
Spanning painting, photography and sculpture, the ArtGemini prize enters its 12th year and this time all of the shortlisted and winning exhibitions are showing at the Exhibitionist Hotel in South Kensington (11 September-2 October, free). We've been mightily impressed by what we've seen in previous years.
September is design time across London as London Design Festival takes over swathes of the city (13-21 September, mostly free). It pops up at hubs including V&A and Design Museum, as well as across 10 'design districts' — from Bankside to Brompton, Stokey to Shoreditch. With more exhibitions, workshops and talks than you can possibly cram into eight days, you're spoilt for choice.
If sculpture's more your bag, then London Sculpture Week has you covered (20-28 September, free and ticketed events). It's a celebration of all the public sculpture we have in this city and includes tours and talks around the fourth plinth, sculpture in the city, the Line public sculpture trail — and much more sculpture to discover.
If you're in the market for buying art, get to Art Car Boot Fair at Lewis Cubitt Square, King's Cross (20 September, £5-15). Artists turn up in their cars, open up their boots and sell artworks from them — often at bargain prices. Often, artists whose work you couldn't normally afford, sell lower cost items.
The best of British art, modern and contemporary, is on show and sale at the British Art Fair at Saatchi Gallery (25-28 September, £22+). It includes some of Britain's most established and emerging artists and there's a chance to purchase a work if it takes your fancy.
If you want to buy art and support a great cause, The Art on a Postcard exhibition ** is a one-day-only affair at the Bomb Factory in Marylebone (27 September, free). Each postcard-sized work starts the bidding at £50 and all proceeds go towards the Hepatitis C Trust. If you want to visit artists in their studios then the Cumberland Road Studios in Wood Green will be open for Open House Festival, and anyone is welcome to drop in (21-22 September, free).
Exhibitions Outside London
Fancy a trip outside of London? We have a couple of recommendations to catch beyond the M25.
The Sainsbury Centre in Norwich always sets its exhibition and events around a provocative question, and this time it's: 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?' (20 September-May 2026, free). The show includes contemporary artists looking at migration and displacement in the world today, while looking back on the history of why we're so obsessed with images of violence.
The Towner Art Gallery has over 100 works by the brilliant painter of the English landscape Eric Ravilious, and now they are getting a permanent gallery for us to enjoy them (opens 26 September, free). Ravilious regularly painted the local landscape, and here's a chance to see his views of Beachy Head alongside wood engravings, ceramic designs and his original designs for the murals in Morley College, London. There are also works from those in his circle, including works by his incredibly talented wife, Tirzah Garwood.
* The author of this article is a trustee of City & Guilds London Art School.
** The author of this article is one of the guest curators for the Art on a Postcard exhibition.
