10 Must-See UK Art Exhibitions in November (That Aren’t in London)
Art lovers rejoice - Frieze Week is over! Just like Christmas, it comes once a year, and what you get out of it is largely dictated by how much money your parents have.
Now, I love writing ‘Not London’, but it’s my birthday this month, and then we’re practically at New Year's, so I’ve basically checked out for 2026, so let’s crack on, shall we?
Each month I give you ten recommendations of exhibitions to see outside of London, and this month you’ve got David Bowie in Dundee, Aphrodite in the Ashmolean, and Snogging at the Sainsbury Centre (my three favourite Agatha Christie murder mysteries…). We’re kicking off with a lovely pair of shows in the West Midlands, with two East Midlands shows chucked in later on to prevent any Midlands beef…
Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham - Surreal Solihull - until 22 November
Surreal Solihull is a celebration of the Birmingham Surrealists and, in particular, Emmy Bridgewater, who lived out the last years of her life in the “nice bit” of Birmingham - AKA not actually in Birmingham (my Ancestry DNA test gave me “76% West Midlands” result, so I am 100% allowed to make that joke). Inspired by Bridgewater, 30 WM-based artists have created new work for the exhibition at the glorious MAC. I’ve been thinking back to childhood visits to see my grandparents in Solihull, and “Surreal” covers it pretty well because in my memory we were near-constantly in Brueton Park listening to public talks about hedgehogs.
Various - British Art Show 10 - until June 2028
I hadn’t heard of the British Art Show and got very confused when planning this month’s lineup because 1) there are multiple venues hosting exhibitions called ‘British Art Show 10’ and 2) The Base in Greenham’s show Small Wonders: Reimagining British Art (closing on 15 November so all attention can be on me and my birthday, presumably) also seemed to be a touring show related to the British Art Show. But fear not, I’ve got it sorted now:
- The British Art Show is an exhibition of contemporary art organised by Hayward Gallery Touring which has happened every 5 years since 1979.
- This year’s edition of the British Art Show is being held in Newcastle, Bristol, Sheffield, Swansea, and Coventry.
- The Base’s show is an exhibition of new work by 50 artists who have previously exhibited with The British Art Show.
Three venues in Coventry are hosting the first leg of the tour for the British Art Show’s 10th edition, boasting work by 37 artists including 2024’s Turner Prize winner Jasleen Kaur.
The Light, Durham - Victory Over the Sun: Encounters with Light - until 17 January 2027
It’s not just Matt Baker and English Mustard that we have County Durham to thank for - in 1879, the Sunderland-born physicist and chemist Joseph Swan invented the electric lightbulb (patenting it a year earlier than Thomas Edison, so I don’t want to be receiving any email complaints about this). ‘Victory Over the Sun’ uses this local breakthrough as the launchpad for an exhibition of sculptures and installations all about how artists have turned electric light into an artistic medium - not just something to see their subjects with, but also a subject in its own right.
Arts Collective, Northampton - Field, Mark Wallinger - until 23 January 2027
I went to the opening for ‘Field’ and did really enjoy it, but it was also genuinely just a delight to go to a private view where the wine didn’t taste like petrol. My mum was particularly mesmerised by Wallinger’s video infinitely circling the private garden in Bedford Square, to the extent that her only feedback on the online form at the end was for them to put beanbags in the video room. I enjoyed Wallinger’s The Other Wall, which saw him individually number each of the bricks on one of the gallery’s exterior walls. Although, with Arts Collective in such close proximity to the former Country Gaol Block, it did look like the bricks might all have been labelled for submission as criminal evidence.
V&A Dundee, Dundee - David Bowie: On Tour - opens 04 November until 15 February 2027
Given that I was such a huge Bowie fan as a teenager that several teachers thought it was wise to independently check in on me when he passed away, I fear that I can’t see this touring exhibition of 100 highlights from the V&A’s David Bowie archive or I might have a medical emergency. Featuring costumes, instruments, handwritten lyrics and set designs, plus Polaroids taken during makeup and costume fittings which have never before been publicly displayed, this exhibition is a must-see for fans of the man who has given middle-aged dads and their alternative teenage daughters something to talk about for more than 50 years.
This looks like a great show from Leicester’s own Jemisha Maadhavji, whose Indian heritage and upbringing in the city inform this exhibition of portraits. The work has also been influenced by the work of Susan Sontag, who I had to read in university and didn’t understand, so now refuse to ever engage with again, and plays with the idea of beauty standards and the boundaries of the gender binary. (This show will still be on in Leicester when I return to the city’s comedy festival to perform improv in an as-yet-undecided pub basement.)
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Ashmolean, Oxford - Aphrodite, The Making of a Goddess - until 11 April 2027
The girlies (me) raised on Dugald Steer’s ‘Egyptology’ and ‘Dragonology’ books are all grown up, and this exhibition at the Ashmolean all about the Goddess of Love is going to send them feral. Tracing Aphrodite’s worldwide influence over the last 5,000 years, this exhibition features over 150 objects that examine changing ideas about love, lust, and beauty. I thought while writing this, “I bet they’ve put together good merch for this show” and, reader, they have, especially for big fans of olives and/or breasts.
The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield - Marc Chagall: The Circus - open 21 November until 25 April 2027
You won’t be able to see this exhibition for two-thirds of the month, but it looks so good that I’ve included it at the earliest opportunity. Displaying Chagall’s 1967 38-part lithographic series Cirque in full, this show examines the circus motifs that the artist returned to on several occasions throughout his career. The Hepworth Wakefield promises to look beyond the surface and, aided by archival material, explore how Chagall’s experiences of love, loss, and violence shaped his fascination with the theatrical.
Sainsbury Centre, Norwich - How Do We Find Love? - opens 13 November until 30 May 2027
I sometimes think I should take a break from including the Sainsbury Centre in this column, because they do show up pretty much every time one of their new shows opens. I’ve decided that I’ll stop including them when they stop programming such good stuff. ‘How Do We Find Love?’ is the latest of the gallery’s ‘Big Questions’ around which their exhibitions are organised. Ranging from the soppy to the X-rated, their three new displays - ‘Ecstasy and the Aftermath’, ‘Love Stories’, and ‘The Last Human Kiss’ - use artworks from the gallery’s world-renowned collection to examine our understanding of love and its role in our lives, asking when love is a private or public act, why we run towards and away from it, and crucially - how can we love more, and better.
I really want to go to the Eden Project, and if I go under the guise of research for this article, can I technically write the train ticket off my taxes? [for legal purposes, this is a joke] But might travelling through some of the UK’s most beautiful landscapes to reach the Eden Project to visit an exhibition all about extinction and the climate crisis be… a bit bleak? I mean, that’s probably the point. Where better to hold it? An exhibition about impending worldwide extinction in Basingstoke would probably be a source of great relief. The exhibition does promise, however, to offer visitors a sense of hope about what can be done to protect our landscapes and wildlife, and has been contributed to by 36 artists from around the world.
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