10 Must-See UK Art Exhibitions in July (That Aren’t in London)
“You always start Not London with some dig at London and why it’s terrible - it’s lazy and unfair!” Yes, and I intend to continue.
By
Verity Babbs
July 1, 2025
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
I found myself in the Capital during London Gallery Weekend, where almost 150 galleries throughout the city opened their doors for late-night openings and events. So dedicated am I to this column, where I share with you the absolute best exhibitions the country has to offer, literally anywhere other than London - I attended none of them, in protest.
I was actually cat-sitting for a friend near the very nice Hampstead Heath, so it might be the case that I don’t actually hate London, it’s just that I need to be in London living the life of a Lady of the Manor: unemployed, stinking rich, and unattached because my husband spends all of his time away hunting because he hates me.
But until that happens (fingers crossed!) I'm out here waving the flag for the rest of the UK - so here are the exhibitions you should see outside of London this July.
John Hansard Gallery, Hampshire - Mazepa’s Ride - until 6 September
I live in Southampton and it’s got everything: about 100 plaques letting you know that Jane Austen once had a birthday party here, a mural of Craig David in the multistory car park, and now, thanks to the John Hansard Gallery, a great big BDSM horse. Artist Mykola Ridnyi’s Mazepa’s Ride is a trilogy of works all about Ivan Mazepa - the head of state of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate at the turn of the 18th century and a legendary Ukrainian figure. Mazepa’s story has been told countless times, perhaps most famously by Lord Byron in a (moody) narrative poem of 1819 and by Tchaikovsky in a (moody and long) opera in 1883. Ridnyi unpacks the facts and fictions about the military leader in this multi-media exhibition, through computer screens, a rap battle, and the aforementioned BDSM horse (which stars in a collaboration with queer synth pop band Lyudska Podoba, being writhed on by non-binary BDSM performers).
Ikon Gallery, West Midlands - Thread The Loom - until 7 September
This one’s for you, loom-heads out there! Looms have been around for almost 10,000 years, and yet it’s taken until 2025 for one to be the star of a contemporary art show!? Thank God IKON is here. With a state-of-the-art Studio Dobby Loom on loan from Birmingham City University, IKON is hosting a series of micro-residencies with West Midlands creatives, exhibiting the textile art produced during the residencies alongside the beast itself. Thread The Loom is part of a series of three exhibitions at IKON dedicated to British craft heritage, with the gallery having focused on printmaking last year with Start The Press! and gearing up for a summer centred on ceramics in 2026. But now is the year of the loom. Yes, I have typed “loom” so many times that it no longer feels like a real word.
Oasis might be on tour in July, but so is John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night To The Rain, making its first stop at the National Museum Cardiff. Noel and Liam wouldn’t have had a hope of putting together the immersive audio-visual activist work that made its Venice Biennale debut last year, but John probably could have written ‘Magic Pie’. A founding member of Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah's work is another of his laser-focused critiques of historical injustices, exploring how listening can be an empowering political act. “What could we achieve if we learned to truly listen”, the NMC website asks, like an exasperated substitute teacher, but if visitors combine their visit to Akomfrah’s work with the museum’s exhibition about the 1930s photo-magazine Picture Post, I’m sure they will leave with a genuinely heightened understanding of the importance of audio, image, and how we engage with the world around us.
Newlands House Gallery, West Sussex - Andy Warhol: My True Story - until 14 September
Who was Andy Warhol? He was an American Pop Artist, he was blond, and he loved soup. But who was he really? That’s what Andy Warhol: My True Story in Petworth gets to the bottom of. Curated by Warhol expert Jean Wainwright, the exhibition brings together drawings and prints by the artist as well as photographs, recordings, and objects to give audiences a more intimate idea of the Man Beneath the Mop. Andy Warhol: My True Story also gives a glimpse into Warhol’s close relationship with his mother, the artist Julia Warhola, tenderly displayed in the domestic spaces of Newlands House Gallery, a Grade II-listed 18th-century townhouse that Warhol no doubt would have covered with tinfoil and used for some banging parties.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Ceredigion - From Ceramics to Sound - until 25 September
Like clay and funicular railways? Aberystwyth will sort you right out. Kicking off at the same time as the International Ceramics Festival (27th - 29th June), From Ceramics to Sound showcases three creatives with clay at the heart of their practices. Exploring how clay can be brought to life through human interactions, much of the exhibition is dedicated to the sounds of clay, soundtracked by a huge sound installation from Copper Sounds, and a voice installation by Abi Haywood inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. The show also includes William Cobbing, who blew up online a few years ago with his performances where he covers his head in a huge wedge of clay, and uses cheese wire to cut away at the huge mass, revealing pools of colourful paint that oozes from eye holes and a mouth, in a way that mesmerised you and also makes you clench your bumhole and pray that he doesn’t sever something.
Arnolfini, Bristol - Sahara Longe: The Other Side of The Mountain - until 28 September
I thought for a little while that I might move to Bristol, so I took myself there on a weekend. I immediately found myself incredibly intimidated by the very cool, arty couples walking through the city’s museums, and equally intimidated by their very cool, arty babies born in Bristol after mum and dad moved from South London for “a chiller vibe”. But don’t let the toddlers named after classical composers put you off: the Arnolfini is one of the country’s absolute best contemporary arts spaces. This summer, they’re hosting Sahara Longe’s debut institutional solo show, filled with dreamlike semi-abstract work inspired by Fauvism, German Expressionism, the literary work of Doris Lessing, childhood memories, and recent experiences with Norwegian Christians, which sounds like a winning combo to me.
The Maltings, Northumberland - Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller - until 12 October
Up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, The Maltings have a monograph of Cedric Morris, who made a huge impact on 20th-century art as well as on botany and bird-breeding (freelance careers, eh?). Along with his life partner, Arthur Lett-Haines, Morris created the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. He forged many lasting friendships and mentorships with some of the most important British artists of the last 100 years, including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, and Barbara Hepworth. Artist, Plantsman & Traveller (the first two titles gracing his Suffolk gravestone) demonstrates how central Morris’ horticultural practice - breeding 90 new varieties of irises, of which he grew more than a thousand each year - was to his painting practice, bringing together loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex - Rachel Whiteread - Until 2 November
When you do a Rachel Whiteread show, you should go big. If anything, just to avoid the risk that she’d cast you in cement (although, what a way to go). Goodwood Art Foundation have gone big with their exhibition of work by the YBA legend, making the most of both their state-of-the-art contemporary gallery spaces and their 70-acre South Downs landscape, with sculptures by Whiteread stationed in both, alongside the recent photographic work. The newly founded Goodwood Art Foundation’s grounds are set to be a brilliant environment for Whiteread’s cast sculptures (which date from two separate decades of her practice), contrasting their brutal minimalism with verdant greenery. The grounds are also where they forage for ingredients for their swanky cafe, so listen out for the distinctive rustle of chefs on a deadline in the undergrowth.
Perth Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross - GLASS - until 2 February 2026
You know it’s going to be good when the exhibition title is capitalised. GLASS at Perth Art Gallery is all about the Scottish watercolour tradition. No, not really, it’s about glass. Taking visitors across thousands of years of glassmaking, from ancient Syria to the modern-day prowess of glass producers in Perth and Kinross via medieval Venice, GLASS is a comprehensive and surprising guide to all things glass. In 2021, Perth was named as the UK’s first (and only) UNESCO City of Craft and Folk Art, thanks to the region’s centuries-long history of traditional craft practices, for which the wealthy trading city was known as Craftis Toun by the early 1500s. Promising to show us glass as we’ve never seen it before, this show is bound to be fascinating, given how much we have seen glass before.
I included this exhibition purely out of indignance. Surely he couldn’t paint anything? Who did Thomas Stuart Smith think he was? Well, it turns out he was an accomplished artist and art collector, the primary founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, created just after his death to house his massive collection. And, to be fair to him, he did paint loads of different stuff, from significant, outspokenly abolitionist portraits of Black sitters at a time when such works were rare, to still lives, and a nice painting of a cave. This exhibition also showcases some of the jewels of Stuart Smith’s collection, made by some of Scotland’s greatest 19th-century artists, and is the show to see for anyone looking to get an overarching idea of the museum’s history and the life of its founder.
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