*** Janet Wells’ quarterly review of the Arts, Gallery and Museum scene.
Barbican Art Galleries
Encounters: Giacometti
May 2025 To May 2026
Many of you will, no doubt, be aware that the space on the second floor, that until recently had been the home of the Barbican Brasserie, is now (for at least until May 2026) an art gallery, full of light and a splendid view of St Giles church.
The Barbican Arts Centre has partnered with the Foundation Giacometti, Paris, for a series of three exhibitions which will take place in the new space over the course of a year. The three artists have been chosen for their originality and ingenuity, and each will go alongside the works by the Swiss sculptor, Alberto Giacometti.
During the Summer months is an exhibition by sculptor, Huma Bhabha to be followed in September by British – Palestinian, multimedia and installation artist, Mona Hatoum. Coming next February we will have in place, the innovative work of American artist, Lynda Benglis – known especially for her wax paintings and poured latex sculptures.
Each artist will present a mix of pre-existing and new artworks which resonate with and at times, respond directly to Giacometti’s sculptures, opening new intergenerational connections and dialogues. Following a period of deep engagement with Giacometti’s work at Foundation Giacometti, each artist has been closely involved in the selection of works by the artist to include in the exhibition.
Nothing is Behind Us
8 May to 10 Aug 2025
Alberto Giacometti (1901 -1966)
Encounters: Giacometti, Barbican Art Galleries
The works chosen for this show date from 1946 onwards – his walking men became a post war icon: These represent his work when, as an artist, he was attempting to come to terms with man’s inhumanity to man. He had moved away from his surrealist more solid forms to these slender attenuated shapes – works of figurative sculpture that gradually became so slight and tiny it is as if they represent man hardly able to be alive.
Huma Bhabha 1962 –
She was born in Karachi, Pakistan and moved to the United States in1981. We are on the same theme, but her dismembered figures appear to come out of the earth: A pair of amputated, disintegrating severed feet in terracotta, plastic and sand; On another plinth, we have a head with missing parts – as if just surfaced on some ancient site. The prehistoric feeling continues in her standing figures where she carves into cork – you can still catch a whiff of the charring. As with Giacometti, Bhabha sculpts with her hands; she applies the clay with the same energy, and she also appears here to have a fascination with the fragmented body. Mask of Dimitrios, a seated figure (devoid of a body) has been assembled out of clay, wood, steel and wire. The spine is made from a metal pipe, and two plastic bags hang in the void, depicting deflated lungs.
Barbican
Feel the Sound: An Exhibition Experience on a Different Frequency
22 May to 31 Aug 2025
This is a new multi- sensory immersive exhibition that sets out to transform how we think about sound. It takes place across the Centre, allowing visitors to explore how sounds shape emotions, memories and even physical sensations.
It comprises of eleven interactive installations that invite audiences to dance to beats from car sound – systems, join in an ever – expanding digital choir, discover personal inner symphony, and feel music without any sound.
Feel the Sound will take you on a journey across locations in the Barbican, From the entrance on Silk Street, in the Curve, the public foyers, to outdoors on the Centre’s Lakeside and the Centre’s underground Car Parks.
Created especially for Feel the Sound are four new commissions that resonate from the past, reverberate with the future and transform our understanding of space and time.
Tate Modern
Leigh Bowery
Until 31 Aug 2025
Described as artist, performer, model, TV personality, fashion designer, club promoter and musician – he was unlikely to be everyone’s cup of tea. Yet Bowery created some of the most iconic images of the 1980’s and 90’s: His influence can be seen in the works of Alexander McQueen, Jefrey Gibson, Anohni and Lady Gaga. He collaborated with Micheal Clark and was painted by Lucian Freud.
He was an Australian, born in 1961in a quiet suburb of Melbourne called Sunshine; he had grown to 6ft 2inch by the time he was twelve and it is suggested, from stories of him growing up, that he was already using this unexpected height to dominate – through various outrageous acts of exhibitionism. His teenage years coincided with Australian actor Barry Humphries (also from Melbourne), who was mischievously satirizing, with an alter ego, certain Ausie characteristics
Bowery escaped Melbourne by coming to London in 1980 carrying a small suitcase and his sewing machine. He found a flat in Stepney (where he continued to live for the rest of his life) and a job hosting on Thursdays, at the nightclub Taboo in a Leicester Square basement.
Leigh Bowery, Tate Modern
In this retrospective, The Tate has provided us with an abundance of material that provides us with perhaps more insight into his private life than is usual: The film and photos document everyone he hung out with: Stories are told of insobriety and bad taste: However, his personal writings (in his round, loose hand) are poignant: His diary, where he is questioning his image; his emotional postcards of loneliness to his wife, Nicola Rainbird, when touring abroad with the Micheal Clark Company. There are some (strangely) delicate costume drawings for ballet.
The posed photos of him in his best grotesque costumes, give us a better idea of his talent: The polka dot dandy; the checked bustled black mouthed motorcyclist; the huge red bustle; the pompom head – you get a feel for the impact he must have made in his performances. The actual costumes set up on the plinths (while interesting to see up close) now have a deflated look.
Not long before Bowery’s death aged 33 of an AIDS related illness, Lucien Freud painted Leigh Bowery’s portrait: Here he is, in all of his six-foot three nakedness.
The exhibition is organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with Nicola Rainbird, Director and Owner of the Estate of Leigh Bowery.
Also at Tate Modern
Do Ho Suh: Walk The House
Until 19 Oct 2025
Fabric architectures life – sized works on paper and complex drawings made of multicoloured thread.
