10 Must-See UK Art Exhibitions in September (That Aren’t in London)
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One of the best things about having done more than a year of ‘Not London’ articles is that I get to check back in on what I was whinging about a year ago in the intro, and last September - surprise, surprise - I was moaning about Frieze week. I don’t really stand by the random jab at GANNI handbags, but do like the phrase “Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall” - fair play, me.
This time around, I’ll skip the Frieze Week trash talk (please, someone, do invite me to Frieze, it's good for my ego x) and take you straight to my September recommendations for must-see exhibitions outside of London. This month, the recommendations take you from internet myths about shitting yourself to opportunities for a sleepover in an 18th-century jail - don’t tell me I don’t give you variety here.
From Belfast to Colchester, with Swansea, Liverpool, and York along the way (I can’t read a map), here are your must-see exhibitions in September outside of London.
Liverpool City Hall, Merseyside - The Minton Tiles Reveal - until 02 September
Never before has a ‘Not London’ recommendation been so time-sensitive. Is it foolish to recommend a show that finishes two days into the month? Probably. Would this one be worth a mercy dash to Merseyside? Absolutely. St George’s Hall, directly across from Liverpool Lime Street, is a Neoclassical delight, and for the first two days of September (I really should have told you about it in August - soz), a ceramic masterpiece usually hidden from view is on display for the first time in 3 years. Usually hidden underneath protective wooden flooring, the grand tiled floor created by Victorian Ceramics’ Big Dog Minton has been unveiled. You can book onto tours to walk around the perimeter of the 30,000 tile floor, or - if you’re prepared to put shoe protectors on like you’re at the swimming pool - there are limited spaces where you can walk on the tiles themselves.
This one looks particularly lovely - it’s Art in the Sky, an exhibition of contemporary art kites. The practice of flying decorative kites began around 2000 years ago in China, and I’m sure we’ve all had a go at making our own kite as children in a moment of post-Mary Poppins delirium before realising that it takes more than garden twine and half a cereal box to make something airborne. This exhibition brings together large installations and photographs from leading artists from around the world who are dedicated to the craft of decorative kite-making - borrowing some beautiful previously unseen kites from private collections - as well as works by artists interested in the sky more generally.
Mostyn, Conwy County - Brown Notes - until 03 October
The Brown Note is one of the internet's most infamous - if actually quite wholesome, given what else is on the internet - myths: an infrasonic frequency that has the ability to make you poo your pants. Rafael Pérez Evans has borrowed the myth as the title for his exhibition exploring the pressure that is ever-weakening our systems of social support and welfare. Like the Brown Note - this pressure begets very physical consequences: at the centre of the exhibition is a pile of shattered glass from a hypothetical GP surgery window, while stones rest on waiting-room chairs, available for visitors to bash together as they wait for appointments that never materialise, soundtracked by Ben E King’s Stand by Me on infinite hold-line repeat. Rather than suggest that we fix these issues, Pérez Evans is offering a new revolutionary solution which doesn’t involve returning to the status quo.
*The gallery takes no responsibility for any pants pooed during the exhibition (I assume).*
Gods House Tower, Hampshire - While We Slumber - until 12 October
The constant heatwaves this summer probably has more of us than usual “sleep divorced” from our partners, but with While We Slumber sculptor Lady Kitt investigates what we gain from sleeping in close proximity to others. From ritual, intimacy, and belonging, sleeping needn’t be seen as a passive activity. Gods House Tower is an ideal venue for this show, as the medieval gatehouse served as a jail in the 18th century, so it has seen its fair share of people communally sleeping. Plus, there is the opportunity to actually sleep at Gods House Tower on the 10th of October, with a form available on their site for you to suggest what sort of sleepover-ish things you might like to get up to. I’m putting down “get over-excited before bedtime and then when everyone else is asleep ask the nearest grown-up to call my mum to pick me up”.
Colchester Castle, Essex - Museum of the Moon - until 31 October
Luke Jerram’s six-meter moon is the latest of the artist’s touring planetary installations. You know the moon - the one you tried to look at through a colander during the eclipse? Well, featuring NASA imagery at an approximately 1:600,000 scale, this is as close a look at the moon as any of us are going to get (unless Tim Peake is reading this, which I assume he is). These installations are a big win for venues because it is family-friendly, and everyone wants a picture of themselves with the big moon. And I’m going to put my hands up - I want my picture taken with a big moon. Similarly, I’ve only just admitted that I do want to try matcha. I am like other girls. And what a venue for it - Colchester Castle is renowned for its huge Norman keep (the largest in Europe), built on the ruins of a Roman temple, and was also used to imprison accused witches in the 17th century, so this one is ideal for the history girlies.
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Opie’s first-ever Scottish solo and first major UK museum exhibition, To Be Seen, is all about the act of making portraits and being captured in them. With almost 80 portraits by Opie displayed alongside works from the Scottish national collection, visitors to the RSA (now with the added bonus of it not being August anymore so they won’t have to have elbowed their way through crowds of clowns and student improv groups desperately trying to palm off flyers to their show about “AI, Tom Jones, and custard” to get to the door) will enjoy this retrospective of three decades of Opie’s career. Opie is world-renowned for their ennobling portraits of often uncelebrated or everyday figures, including mothers and children and the LGBTQ+ community - figures who it is wonderful to see in halls as hallowed as the RSA.
Turner got a good look-in on the exhibition scene last year because it was his birthday (you only turn 250 once), and Wedgwood is always in the public consciousness because of your nan’s cupboards. That’s two out of the three names in this upcoming York Art Gallery show ticked off. But who is Flaxman? Well, John Flaxman was a York-born Neoclassical sculptor and draughtsman, best known for his monuments, including his one to Column-legend Lord Nelson in St Paul’s Cathedral. Visitors to the York Art Gallery will get the chance to enjoy Flaxman’s art as well as work by his friends and contemporaries, including William Blake and Angelica Kauffmann, thanks to loans from major UK institutions and York’s own collection.
The Women’s Art Collection, Cambridgeshire - What Remains - from 23 September until 28 February 2027
Murray Edwards College in Cambridge is a suitable home for The Women’s Art Collection because it’s named after two women: the college’s founding president Dame Rosemary Murray and the benefactor Ros Edwards. The Women’s Art Collection was founded in the late 80s with the purchase of Mary Kelly’s Extase (1986), and within two years, 70 further artworks by female artists had been donated. Now over 600 works of art by over 300 artists have been amassed, and Extase will be among the works on display for this special exhibition celebrating 40 years of the collection. Kelly’s work forms the starting point of the show, which explores how artworks are their own form of historical archive.
Ulster Museum, Belfast - Elizabeth Frink: Sculpture, Drawing, Print - until 07 March 2027
Elizabeth Frink is one of Britain’s most celebrated sculptors, and the Irish landscape became close to her heart and key to her practice after she first visited with her first husband, the French-Irish architect Michel Jammet (I feel the same way about the suburban Berkshire** thanks to my first* husband). Ulster Museum have put on an exhibition of Frink’s work, coinciding with them having recently permanently rehomed her Flying Figures sculpture from Belfast’s Shaftesbury Square to the exterior of the museum. This exhibition is a great opportunity to appreciate the breadth of Frink’s work beyond sculpture. The works on display were donated to the National Museums NI by Frink’s son Lin Jammet.
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** not really
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Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow - Who was Chevalière d’Éon? - until 01 July 2027
The beautiful Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum have put together a display of rare prints and books to help answer the question “who was Chevalière d’Éon?”. No, I hadn’t heard of them either, but fasten your seatbelts - they’re brilliant. D’Éon was a French spy, soldier, and diplomat born in 1728 who lived for the first half of their life as a man before living as a woman from 1777. One of the ‘King’s Secret’ spy network in France from the age of 28, their androgyny helped them to infiltrate a multitude of single-sex hush-hush scenarios. She also fought in major battles, became a knight, and spent much of her life in London. People were so fascinated by her gender that a betting pool was started on the London Stock Exchange about it. This will be a great look into the life of someone so fascinating that if you were writing their life as a fiction, your editor would tell you to dial it down a bit to make it less far-fetched.
