Here we go then, we’re well into an already busy art year. On with another Five Art Things thing, on we go and never mind the bliss or the selfies in front of the art or whatever we said last time. Five art things, five more art things happening somewhere around right now (or any moment now). Five art shows to check out in the coming days as we repeat ourselves. We do aim to make this an (almost) weekly round up of recommended art events, five shows, exhibitions or things we rather think might be worth checking out. Mostly London things for that is where we currently operate and explore, and like we said last time, these five recommendations come with no claims that they are “the best five” or the “Top Five”, we’re not one of those annoying art websites that ignore most things whilst claiming to be covering everything and proclaiming this or that to be the “top seven things” or the “best things this weekend”. This Five Things thing is simply a regular list of five or so recommended art things happening now or coming up very soon that we think you might find as interesting as we think we will…

And we should add, that entry to these recommended exhibitions and events, unless otherwise stated, is free…

1: Misha Milovanovich, Parade at JM Gallery – 26th Feb until 4th Mar 2025 – “Sculptor Misha Milovanovich hits the Notting Hill art gallery once more. A not to miss exhibition!” so say the gallery, Misha’s work is always interesting, the gallery are almost certainly right…

“In Parade, Misha Milovanovich presents an exhibition that navigates the intersections between the human, the natural, and the mythical. Populated by sculptural installation and Misha’s interconnected sculptural forms, this body of work unfolds as a living, breathing narrative of transformation. It speaks to the rhythms of nature, mental health, and the collective act of community healing, offering a profound reflection on how art can nurture both people and ecosystems.

Central to the exhibition is Milovanovich’s continuing investigation into interconnectedness, made manifest through her sculptural forms, performative acts, and immersive soundscapes. Parade brings together new works and Milovanovich’s signature pieces, all of which stand as a testament to the transformative potential of environmental stewardship, mental well-being, and collective engagement.

Drawing from the 1917 Théâtre du Châtelet performance of the same name, Parade offers visitors a fluid, expansive experience. It invites them to engage with an art narrative that, like a garden, grows and evolves throughout the duration of the exhibition. Each performance, talk, and sound sculpture expands the conversation, reinforcing the idea that rituals of care and communal understanding are key to shifting the healing process.

Misha Milovanovich, a Belgrade-born artist who has lived in London since her late teens, graduated from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in 1997. Over the last few decades, Misha’s practice has evolved from fragmented abstract forms rooted in painting to organic sculptural creations that seem to emerge, as if born from the earth itself. These fragments, charged with personal symbolism, serve as an ongoing reflection of her life, particularly as a Mother. They are grounded in a diasporic identity, the exploration of femininity, the mystery of plant and animal life, Serbian mythology, and a search for self-synchronisation and healing. Her work is rooted in a deep, almost metaphysical dialogue with nature, a relationship that began in her early childhood on her family’s farm in Serbia, surrounded by meadows and greenhouses. There, she was steeped in the wisdom of her grandmother, a village shaman, who imparted knowledge of plant medicine and Old Slavic beliefs – foundational elements that would continue to shape Misha’s artistic practice”.

JM Gallery is at 230 Portobello Road, London W11 1LJ. The gallery is open from 11am until 6pm for every day of the show that runs from 26th February until 4th March 2025.

Previous Misha Milovanovich coverage on these pages. Misha’s website

2: Leon Kossoff, Drawings and Prints from Rembrandt, Constable and Poussin at Art Space Gallery – 28th Feb until 25th April 2025 – “Prints and drawings made in front of the originals in the NG, and the RA during the 1986 Poussin Retrospective, allowing us to experience the genius of past painters through the eyes of Leon Kossoff”. it is always good to see anything from Leon Kossoff in the flesh, this should e really interesting.

“The art of the past is a torment and a spur to invention.”

“The prints and the drawings in this exhibition were all made by Leon Kossoff in the presence of oil paintings in the collection of the National Gallery and the Poussin retrospective at the Royal Academy in London in 1985. His passion for certain painters of the past began in childhood and he began to draw from Old Master paintings as a student in the 1950s. Later the National Gallery gave him out of hours access and he would start early at 7am before the Gallery was open. Armed with charcoal and paper or a metal plate and an etching needle he would draw and redraw repeatedly in an effort to seek afresh an ever more meaningful experience and familiarity with the painting that goes far beyond the merely visual. They “… suggest deep reverence, as well as the possibility of a humbling, liberating engagement with a practitioner from a remote epoch.”.

This exhibition brings together a group of unique proofs after Rembrandt, Constable and Poussin along with 15 rare artist’s proofs after Poussin that Kossoff had gifted to a close friend that have only recently been brought out into the light. And the drawings, some never previously exhibited, have been chosen specifically to match the same subjects as the prints. Seen together they reveal something of Kossoff’s strategies to make contact with some of the great predecessors through the eyes and mind of a contemporary painter.

They are immediate, rapid, and free with a striking freshness and lucidity. But despite this apparently spontaneous appearance they were not made in a sudden burst of activity. The process was one of slow emergence, only achievable after a long and deep affinity had been established; an affinity born out of an endless dissatisfaction that spurred him to work and rework drawings and plates “as if trying to discover some elusive truth that stubbornly refuses to completely reveal itself.”.

In the 1980s Kossoff became increasingly serious about printmaking and more experimental and began a collaboration with Ann Dowker, herself a painter-printmaker. Together they adopted an experimental approach that went far beyond the conventional idea of uniform editions of an image and started to probe the medium itself with rich variations. Dozens of proofs were made that differ in inking, wiping aquatinting from one impression to the next so that each print is a unique and an independent act of interpretation in its own right.

Like Degas before him, he worked and reworked plates through state after state, and even reworked editioned states or avoided editioning altogether for to do so implied it was definitive. He has left behind a difficult trail for the archivist and historian to follow but for the lover of Leon Kossoff’s work, it is a legacy of a restless, and fascinating, search.

There is a 48-page catalogue with an essay by Colin Wiggins available. View it on line here

Art Space Gallery is at 84 St. Peter’s Street, London, N1 8JS. Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 6 pm during exhibitions.

3: Saskia Takens-Milne, Scream-Along in The Basement at The Bohemians Hair Salon – 1st March until 31st March 2025, with an opening night on Friday 28th February, 6pm until 8.30pm – Now she’s been screaming at us about this one for the last few weeks and why not? “Come on down to the Bohemians Hair Salon in Deptford for Karaoke with a disturbing twist. Leave behind the brightly lit salon and head down the back stairs to enter an interactive art installation staged in a dingy speak-easy-style karaoke bar”.

“A screen on the far wall plays a compilation of women screaming in films, with the screams muted, leaving only a ‘backing track’ of ambient sounds. Visitors can ‘scream along’ with their favourite movie screams and reflect on the Big Screen’s ability to manipulate our perception and behaviour. The installation asks us to consider the consequences of our fascination with women’s on-screen pain and what impact this screaming victim has on our perception of real women”.  Saskia Takens-Milne is a contemporary British conceptual artist known for her philosophical multidisciplinary pieces.  Born in 1977 in Watford, England, she studied at the Glasgow School of Art and later at Chelsea School of Art. She lives and works in South London.

The Bohemians Hair Salon is at 53 Deptford Broadway, Deptford, London, SE8 4PH. Saskia Takens-Milne

4: Henry Miller Fine Art: Focusing on the Male Form at The Coningsby Gallery –  3rd March until 9th March 2025 – Henry Miller Fine Art’s stand at this year’s London Art Fair was rather impressive – Cherry picking at the 2025 London Art Fair, the highlights – Antonio Sergio Moreira, that Annka Kultys installation, Abigail Norris, Myles Richmond, John Virtue, a Marton Nemes piece, John R. Grabach, Perdita Sinclair, Nancy Delouis and more… – “Henry Miller Fine Art is a gallery focusing on the male form and spanning many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture and photography from the 16th Century to the present day”. This is the follow up to the Fair.

“This exhibition features a selection of works, including drawings, prints and paintings by acclaimed artists such as Leonard Rosoman, David Hutter, Robert Medley, Sascha Schneider and Antoine Calbet, as well as photographs by the likes of Edwin Townsend and Arthur Tress”. For those of you who can afford these things, all works are priced at £1,000 and under.

The Coningsby Gallery is at 30 Tottenham Street, London, W1T 4RJ. The gallery is open seven days a week, 11am until 6.30pm (4pm on Sunday). Here’s the Henry Miller Fine Art website

5: Claudia Pagès Rabal at Chisenhale Gallery – 28th Feb until 11th May 2025 – “For her Chisenhale Gallery commission, Pagès maps the rhythms and recurrences of sites of resistance“. Seems like an age since we went to Chisenhale which is a little strange and possibly more of a reflection of what goes on there than us even though the space is a short walk away from us here in East London, we are after all out at galleries and art events all the time. This should be rewarding though.  

“Claudia Pagès Rabal’s practice intertwines words, bodies, music, and movement. She examines structures of containment that facilitate the flow of commodities and capital. Recent works have centred histories of waterways, paper, and legislative language. Continuing her research across the Iberian Peninsula during the Al-Andalus era, Pagès’ new body of work turns towards sites of defence across its borderlands. For her Chisenhale Gallery commission, Pagès maps the rhythms and recurrences of sites of resistance. Five defence towers built under the Hispanic March – a military buffer zone established by European forces in the 9th and 10th centuries – become the protagonists for a new moving image work. Choreographed sequences of dance, light, and sound will trace forms of self-defence, and map the ways colonial practices of erasure persist through time”.

Chisenhale Gallery is 64 Chisenhale Road, Bethnal Green, London, E3 5QZ, the show runs from 28th Feb until 11th May 2025. The gallery is open Tuesday through to Sunday, 10am until 6pm.

And we surelyt don’t need to recommend this one?

Leigh Bowery – Leigh Bowery! at Tate Modern – 27th Feb until 31st August 2025 – We really don’t need to recommend this do we? “A celebration of the boundary-pushing career of artist Leigh Bowery”, a major retrospective, “Leigh Bowery’s short but extraordinary life left a distinct, undeniable mark on the art world and beyond. An artist, performer, model, TV personality, club promoter, fashion designer and musician, Bowery took on many different roles, all the while refusing to be limited by convention. From his emergence in the nightlife of 1980s London through to his later daring and outrageous performances in galleries, theatres, and the street, Bowery fearlessly forged his own vibrant path. He reimagined clothing and makeup as forms of painting and sculpture, tested the limits of decorum, and celebrated the body as a shape-shifting tool with the power to challenge norms of aesthetics, sexuality and gender.

Embracing performance, club culture and fashion design, Bowery created some of the most iconic images of the 1980s and 90s that continue to resonate, with his influence seen in the work of figures such as Alexander McQueen, Jeffrey Gibson, Anohni, and Lady Gaga. This eclectic and immersive exhibition is a rare chance to experience many of Bowery’s ‘Looks’ alongside his collaborations with artists including Michael Clark, Charles Atlas, Nick Knight, Fergus Greer, Stephen Willats, Nicola Rainbird, Mr Pearl, and Lucian Freud. It will provide a fresh insight into the creative scenes in London, New York and beyond featuring Sue Tilley, Princess Julia, Jeffrey Hinton, RuPaul, Les Child, Andrew Logan, Cerith Wyn Evans, Lady Bunny, Trojan, Rachel Auburn, Scarlett Cannon, Lanah P, MINTY and Boy George.  Moving from the club to the stage, to the gallery and beyond, step inside Bowery’s dynamic creative world that blurred the lines between art and life. The exhibition is organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with Nicola Rainbird, Director and Owner of the Estate of Leigh Bowery

Tate Modern is of course at Bankside, Southbank, London, SE1 9TG. Opening times Monday to Sunday 10.00–18.00. You will need to buy a ticket unless you are a Tate member.

There is also After Taboo, Poulomi Desai and Ron Athey with Hermes Pittakos at Tate Modern, London, March 1st…

More of our extensive art coverage here

And this just opened – Cultivate Presents Madeleine Strindberg – an online art exhibition…