Another week, 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: Joseph Loughborough, These Corroded Poems at Well Hung, Hoxton – These five weekly recommendations tend not to be in any particular order but there really is only one place to start this week, I’d like to think this would have been one of our five recommended art shows for this week anyway, Joseph Loughborough’s upcoming first solo show, These Corroded Poems – inspired by The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The show opens tonight at Well Hung Gallery, Hoxton. For those of you who haven’t heard, hang on, no let’s start with the art, known for his bold, fractured lines and instinctive gestures, Loughborough’s figures feel at once mythic and psychologically charged. Drawn in charcoal, ink and in a rather powerful way, this really should be a strong solo show from the long-standing Portsmouth-born London-based artist who, although I didn’t know him that well, I have had the pleasure of sharing time and wall space with on a number of occasions and always found him as well as his art to be a pleasure. Sadly, Joseph rather unfairly (and rather shockingly) left us only last week, in a rather cruel way, he left us just before this already arranged solo show that now becomes something of a celebration of the person and his art, after what has been reported as a rather unexpected short battle (of battle is ever the right word) with cancer.
Here’s what Well Hung Gallery said before the news of Joseph’s passing; “We’re beyond excited to announce These Corroded Poems, a powerful upcoming solo exhibition by Joseph Loughborough, one of the UK’s most emotionally uncompromising and original figurative artists. Opening this June at Well Hung Gallery, the show features Loughborough’s most ambitious and affecting work to date. Inspired by The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, this new series reimagines the sea as a psychological space where each drawing unfolds like a weathered poem, layered with endurance, transformation and emotional depth. Known for his bold, fractured lines and instinctive gestures, Loughborough’s figures feel at once mythic and psychologically charged. Drawn in charcoal, ink and gold leaf, they are caught in moments of ritual, reflection and reckoning”.
Well Hung Art gallery and picture framers is found at 239 Hoxton Street, London, United Kingdom N1 5LG The so called Private View is on Thursday 19th June, 6–9pm and the cxhibition runs until Saturday 12 July. I’m guessing the gallery keeps regular shop hours. hang on, jsut found it, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am until 5pm, midday until 4pm Saturdays, www.josephloughborough.co.uk
2: Locus Of Voices at Proposition Bethnal Green – 20th June until 17th August 2025 with an opening on Thursday 19th June, 6.30pm until 8.30pm. Now this group show deserves a recommendation totally based on that rather excellent rather recent Sol Bailey Barker show in the rather welcome rather new Bethnal Green space on the main road just by the galleries of Three Cold Lane and that Herald Street corner where Rose Eaton and one or two other spaces like to hide. Proposition doesn’t hide, there it it, all lit up and demand you come take a look, excellent, open those doors and invite the public in, art surely must engage? I like what we’ve seen on Proposition so far…
“In a time of escalating planetary crisis, Locus Of Voices offers a vision for resilience and renewal — frameworks and calls to move with resonant systems that create ecological abundance. This group exhibition embodies the perspective that unity is not uniformity; as with biodiversity, it flourishes through multiplicity. It asks us: how does interconnectedness speak?
The constellation of featured artists creates tactile and temporal encounters with materiality, illuminating biospheric rhythms through installation, sculpture, dance, painting, music, film, and demonstrations of stewardship. Their sensory, relational practices invite us to heighten our awareness of our responsibilities within the living cosmos.
Locus Of Voices embraces immediacy and impermanence as generative actions, vibrational exchanges that sustain environmental bodies. This extends into a deeper inquiry of reciprocity: how might our movements and correspondences with the elements cultivate ecological awareness — akin to a chorus of relationships, grounded in our shared ecology?
Engaged in this dialogue are artists: Milford Graves / Jake Meginsky, Emmanuel Awuni, Naima Nefertari / Cõvco E. Kikaya, Kalpana Arias, Phoebe Collings-James, Anonymous Monastic, SERAFINE1369, Divine Southgate-Smith, Rosalind Nashashibi and Raven Chacon.
This exhibition engages somatic disciplines that invoke the wisdom of ancestral bodies; animistic philosophies that recognise sentience within matter, collapsing the divide between subject and object; experiential abstraction, where compassion arises through perception and felt experience; and spiritual neuroaesthetics, which explore how aesthetic experiences activate the nervous system, initiating resonance across emotional, cognitive, and sensory dimensions, awakening memory and intuition.
Acknowledging histories of desensitisation and disconnection, Locus of Voices transmits practices of listening and care, shaped by relational, reciprocal, and intersectional ways of being. It is co-operation and symbiosis between diverse beings that sustain life and enable it to flourish. This gathering speaks to ecological consciousness as both a cultural and spiritual imperative — a call to attune to and nurture the worlds we inhabit.
Proposition Bethnal Green is at 279 Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green, London, E2 0EL. Right opposite the park on the main road, you really can’t miss it (especially at night!). Open Wednesday to Saturday, Midday until 7pm. Curated by Nissa Nishikawa. Locus Of Voices will be exhibited throughout the galleries, lecture hall, and garden in Proposition Bethnal Green, from Friday 20th June to Sunday 17th August, with an opening on Thursday 19th June, 6.30pm until 8.30pm. Gallery: website / Instagram / Facebook
3: Jenny Saville, The Anatomy of Painting at the National Portrait Gallery – 20th June until 7th Sept 2025 – We surely don’t need to include this one in the five recommended shows do we? Kind of goes without saying doesn’t it? Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting is set to be “the largest major museum exhibition in the UK dedicated to one of the world’s foremost contemporary painters”.
“Saville rose to prominence in the early 1990s, following her acclaimed degree show at the Glasgow School of Art. Since then, she has played a leading role in the reinvigoration of figurative painting – a genre that she continues to test today. Her unique ability to create visceral portraits from thick layers of paint reveals an artist with a deep passion for the process itself. From charcoal drawings to large-scale oil paintings of the human form, this chronological display includes works that question the historical notions of female beauty, the monumental nudes that launched Saville to acclaim in 1992, and new works on display for the first time. Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting brings together 45 works made throughout the artist’s career. It traces the development of her practice, spotlighting key artworks, and exploring her connection to art history. The exhibition was created in close collaboration with the artist. It brings together works from public and private collections worldwide”.
The National Portrait Gallery is at St Martins Place, London, WC2H 0HE and is is open Tuesdays through to Sundays, 10.30am to 7pm (they don’t like Mondays). it is free to get in to see the permanent collection although this is a ticketed show and tickets alas are £21 / 23.50 with donation (Free for Members). Visitors aged 25 and under can book free tickets for this exhibition, thanks to generous private donor support. ID required. Advanced booking is advised. The art world is for the young these days.
Yeah, you are right, Jenny and the NPG don’t need us, we can’t afford those prices, she is an exciting painter though, let’s have another show as our third of five recommendations, pass me that trumpet over there, have you been up the tower yet?
3: Summer 2025 at Tower Gallery, East London – June/July 2025 – A large group show in a gloriously tall chapel tower in Plaistow, East London, here’s a review we already posted: ORGAN THING: Hackney Art Week? Nah mate, we’re off up a tower in Newham and the real East London engagement of Tower Gallery’s rather rewarding Summer Show…
“There’s a whole variety of styles both in terms of the art and the artists taking part here at the Cockney Guggenheim, there’s some delicious art, some maybe not quite so good art, there’s engaging art, enlightening art. there’s art that clearly means a lot to those who have made it. The most important thing is that there’s emotion to be found here, there’s heart, warmth, and yes that does sound dangerously patronising when it really isn’t intending to be, this is a very real art show. And yes, there’s some depth here, there are standout pieces and artists you really want to know more about (which surely is how a good group show should work?). Is it lazy to say there’s something for everyone here? The curators have some how put together a show that simultaneously feels like a positively curated slightly edgy contemporary art show and at the same time something that could almost be part of a East End village fete – you get the feeling that the late Joshua Compston would more that approve of what’s happening in the Tower, a better Woolworths as it were.”
Summer is on until 6th July (open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 3pm until 7pm). I have been invited to show a rather large canvas piece. The address is Tower Gallery, 395 Barking Road, Plaistow, London, E13 8AL. East London locals will no doubt know the place, for those from furtherafield who don’t then then the Lizzy Line speeds you to either Stratford railway station or Custom House station where a 241 bus runs between the two, the stop by the Iceland in Plaistow is what you need.
4: Mark Woods, Formula + Fetish at Vestry St. – 21st June until 26th July 2025, with an opening on Friday 20th, 18:00 – 20:00 – “Vestry St. is delighted to announce Formula + Fetish a new solo exhibition by Mark Woods, opening Saturday 21 June 2025”. Always good to see Mark’s work in the flesh (whatever he might think of what I have to say), it has been a few years, a show at, where was it? We do go to and shout about far too many art shows! No, you can never go to too many art shows!
“Following on from its success in Kendal, Vestry St. continues the journey into Formula + Fetish. For over three decades, Mark Woods (born 1961 in Surrey, UK) has produced elaborate artefacts that blur the boundaries between jewellery, fine art, fetish objects and items from cabinets of curiosities. Unnerving and evocative, the viewer is confronted with dramatic beauty, sophisticated craftsmanship and an awakening of unexpected emotions. Woods’ works invite you to leave your comfort zone and question human desires. Formula + Fetish features aspects of Woods ever-expanding practice: Objects – luxurious objects of desire and contemporary art fetishes; Jewellery – the origins of the artist’s skills in object making; Photographs – creative images; and Self-Portraits – a performance with the camera lens”.
Vestry St. is at Floor 1, 6-8 Vestry St, London, N1 7RE. The space is open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, Midday until 5pm.
5: A celebration of DIY culture: Zines, poetry, spoken word and music at Worlding – 21st June 2025 – Something a little different as the last of the five (although as we do keep saying, this is in no particular order, well besides this week and Joseph’s show). “Join us for a drop-in day of DIY culture filled with hands-on workshops, a free zine library, zine stall, live poetry, and exclusive EP launch and performance by Lira Lavix, hosted by Worlding, La chaise jaune x Artizine UK”. Looks and sounds rather interesting and for those of you who aren’t Stonehenge or celebrating the Solsice in field somewhere it could be rather good? We’re always up for a celebration of zines and DIY culture, although we never seem to get invited to be part of these things that celebrate zines and such, Organ did start life as a very very hand made hand painted zine very much evolving out of and celebrating DIY culture way back there in the last century and I suspect there were times when we were by far the biggest selling handmade zine out there but hey, enough about us and out history, we need more zines of all shapes and sizes and they should be celebrated more than they actually are, although do be careful, they could take over your life and one day you might find yourself thinking about your zine’s 40th birthday party!
What to Expect: a Zine Library and Stall (All Day) where you can browse and read from a curated collection of 200+ zines: covering everything from personal stories to protest art. Plus: discover independent zines and artists at our zine stall. There’s a DIY Badge Workshop (12–2pm) Drop in and design your own badge with Artizine UK. £5 per badge “pay on the day, card or cash” (I’ll resist the comment on cards not being very DIY and cash and soaped stamps being king)
Zine-Making Workshop (3–5pm) Make your own zine guided by Artizine UK. “Zine a feeling, a protest, or a poem and take home your creation”, you need to book for that one. Open Mic + Live Performance (5:30–9pm). Bring your words to the mic or just come and listen! Everyone is welcome to share poetry, zine excerpts, or personal writings. The open mic Features a headline performance by Lira Lavix (EP release + zine launch with La chaise jaune)
General entry is free — please register via Eventbrite, booking is essential (I am tempted to ask why? Eventbrite and gathering everyone’s details isn’t very DIY either is it?) The Zine workshop is ticketed (£15) how much, we’d do it for free or for a pay what you want donation, starting to wonder if these people really are that in tune with DIY culture? Starting to talk myself out of recommending it now! Badge-making is drop-in (£5) – pay on the day No need to sign up for the open mic — just show up and take the mic!
Worlding is at 65-69 County Street, London, SE1 4AD. It all happens between midday and 9pm – the Eventbright page with the booking details. Artzine on Instagram
THE ORGAN 