And on we go, the best of our art year, Part Two od our 2025 round up kicks off with Steven Appleby’s peep show and bed in the middle of a gallery in South East London… That’s Saddie Hennessy up there being a fly at this year’s Art Car Boot Fair….
You need to start with Part One iD you haven’t read that already – ORGAN: Our best art shows of 2025, who excited? Ron Athey and Hermes Pittakos, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, David Hepher, Hetty Douglas, Geneva Jacuzzi, Lauren Halsey, A Gesture, An Action, Alexandre Diop, Brandon Ndife, Jennifer Binnie and…
On with Part Two…
11: Steven Appleby‘s Nothing is Real at Space Station Sixty Five, London SE11 – And that big retrospective, celebration and coming together of his paintings, films, animation and lots (lots) more besides – Steven Appleby’s Nothing is Real at Space Station Sixty Five Gallery, a little more real than you maybe expected… it really was his paintings that thrilled The rather excellent Steven Appleby retrospective exhibition over at Space Station Sixty Five, London SE11, has now been extended until May…
We are mostly a London-based thing, we only ever leave London to escape art, we’re mostly working artists, we haven’t got time for things like holidays or day trips and the rest of it. There was this though, if it helped anyone, we didn’t see it inthe flesh and well who knows? I do tend to agree with Sean Scully though, art is generally a force for good and Barbara Kruger does like to challenge…
12: Barbara Kruger – Launched back on 1st May 2025 and commissioned by Ribbon International in collaboration with Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railways), visual artist Barbara Kruger launched a major new graphic installation on the exterior of a Ukrainian Railways Intercity train, with Kruger applying her dare we say iconic typographic intervention to its surface – Barbara Kruger Launches a New Installation on a Ukrainian Intercity Train…
Is this the moment to take a side step on a train and mention that travelling exhibition that celebrated 200 years of rail travel in 2025? Well it looked like art (on the outside) to us and we did encounter it several times during the year, it was always busy, always engaging and art really does need to engage a lot more than it does… ORGAN PREVIEW: Inspiration, a year-long travelling interactive exhibition in, on and outside a train as part of Railway 200…
And there was The Greatest Gathering, now that really did look and sound like art as 30,000 people including us took it in (and left some #43Leaves pieces) over three excellent days up in Derby in the Summer – The Greatest Gathering? Now that’s what we call a festival, how good did that all look and sound. A Glastonbury for trains? Nah, it was far more than that… That was serious art…
Back to those wet Fridays at the start of the year in London and tramping around the West End Galleries and especially that Jakkai Siributr exhibition at Flowers Gallery (a gallery who seem to figure rather a lot on our list once again this year…)
13: Jakkai Siributr at Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London – …Big textile pieces, hangings, hangings that excite and once you’ve passed the sugar rush, hangings that demand your attention, that you read them, try to follow the figures, the symbols, the people, there’s something powerful about textile art that you don’t quite get with anything else… – ORGAN THING: On a wet Friday in London part four, Jakkai Siributr’s thrilling textile pieces at Flowers Gallery…
13: Melike‘s bold paintings and drawings continued to thrill, we have featured the Turkish artist on these pages on a regular basis over the last five or six years now, indeed Cultivate’s Melike online exhibitions have been hosted on these pages. Sometime during the Summer this happened – Expansive multi-media artist Melike has a solo show happening. Based in Turkey, she’s an artist who’s movement has been exciting us for a few years now, here’s a look at the current show…
14: John Lee Bird, his gang of performers and his Knickers thing at this year’s Art Car Boot Fair was a lot more than just fun – ORGAN THING: And so after all the counting down, the 2025 Art Car Boot Fair (almost defiantly) happened. Was it a good one? Yes it was…
15: Erin M Riley at Mother’s Tankstation, East London – Those new spaces one East London’s Three Colt Lane still feel a little soulless, a little lacking in character, a touch clinical, they don’t feel broken in yet (and they show no interest in East London’s artists). We caught Erin M.Riley work while Mother’s Tankstation were billing their part of the mostly underwghelming Condo London 2025 as a collaborative presentation with P·P·O·W, a gallery from New York, a gallery that in turn has rather stood out at Frieze in recent years, although where were they this year? The prospect of a P·P·O·W presentation was rather exciting. The work of Erin M. Riley hanging the space looked powerfully good, here’s our feature… Exploring this year’s Condo London Pt.1 – We’re East at Soft Opening, The Approach, Erin M. Riley at Mother’s Tankstation, Moka Lee at Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, Liam Gillick, Jason Haam Gallery and lots more…
16: Bianca Raffaella‘s first major solo show, we have been covering Bianca’s art for a little while now, this, once again a Flowers, was a step up though, this was quite a bit more and indeed they were paintings you just had to look at, Hettie Judah’s part deserves a mention in this round up as well – ORGAN THING: Bianca Raffaella’s Faint Memories at Flowers, Cork Street, London, a conversation with Hettie Judah and a painter who’s paint you really really need to just look at…
17: Sasha Stiles seemed to be constantly on our horizons again in 2025, there she was on our social media feeds, in our poetry books and just about everywhere again this year. No bad thing, I like the shape of her words, I like her digital greens and that she’s doing everything I shouldn’t like and that I do so like it everytime I see it…
And talking of Sasha Stiles, it was at Annka Kultys Gallery that we did first encounter Sasha a handful of years back. Annka Kultys Gallery left that East London industrial estate it as hiding on during the summer of 2025 and reopened in more central location and with a strange policy that involved demanding silly money to just attend the openings as she tried to “change the model”. Needless to say we haven’t paid the fifty odd quid demanded to just attend her openings or lectures full of pontificating talking heads rather than the actual artists, shame really, it was one of our favourite galleries. Before she did reloacate there was that Sara Sadik show as well as that excellent challenge of that brilliant Annka Kultys hang or was it an installation or work in progress at the mostly rather boring London Art Fair back in January, that really was a brilliant booth…
18: Sara Sadik – Sara Sadik at East London’s Annka Kultys Gallery, more questions asked?
19: Annka Kultys Gallery at the London Art Fair; well the fair itself was mostly a rather underwhelming affair, Annka Kultys did inject a bit of bite though and there was one or two other things that made it worth going again – 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…
20: Susie Hamilton‘s Underground at Paul Stolper Gallery stood out as the art year started to draw towards an end – Susie Hamilton’s Underground at Paul Stolper Gallery, London WC1 – There’s something more here than we’ve seen before, this is a little more than just another Susie Hamilton exhibition…
17: Canalboat Contemporary – that small gallery on the side on a Canal boat thats been moving up and down the Regent’s Canal here in London all year did keep coming up with interesting bite size mostly week-long shows. Those shows were stand-outs in terms of Artist-led things, shows that included artists such as Jennifer Pochinski, Dan MacCarthy, Henry Ward, Laurie Cole, achel Coyne, Lindsay Mapes, Scott McCracken, Tony Rainbird and quite a few more, those links will take to some of the pieces about the shows, we look forward to more in 2026. The Lindsay Mapes week was a particular standout – Back to the delight of the Canal Boat Contemporary, last week that box on the side of the boat featured the paintings of Lucile Haefflinger, this week we find Lindsay Mapes and her excellent Pick’n Mix installation…
18: David Shrigley – Okay, we can’t resist putting it in, it was a highlight oF the London year, I hope it all sold, I hope it was all money for old rope, what a load of old rope it was – David Shrigley’s Exhibition of Old Rope at London’s Stephen Friedman Gallery. Is he doing anything more than just having a laugh at art’s expense?
And yet another one at Stephen Friedman’s place…
19: Jim Hodges at Stephen Friedman Gallery and the almost complete darkness of that big…– On a wet Friday in London part two, on to Thomas Ruff’s expériences lumineuses at David Zwirner Gallery and then a rather powerful Jim Hodges show at Stephen Friedman Gallery…
20: Alison Chaplin‘s A Life in Pictures was just a delight – Alison Chaplin’s A Life In Pictures, a retrospective exhibition of her paintings at East London’s Art Pavilion is an art show really worth your time…
20: Jai Chuhan at The Approach – we were at the East London gallery up above the pub of the same name for pretty much all of their shows again this year although things maybe didn’t seem to stand out like they have in past years, Jai Chuhan’s show did though – Jai Chuhan at East London’s The Approach, vivid paintings so vitally alive and then in the Annexe new works by Peter Davies and Mary Ramsden…
21: Misheck Masamvu at Goodman Gallery – ORGAN THING: Misheck Masamvu’s paintings at Cork Street’s Goodman Gallery are alive with movement, with colour, with always controlled but not too controlled energy. Meanwhile Woo Jung Ghil’s paintings at Kearsey and Gold are apparently meditative odysseys…
22: Tricia Gillman at Clifford Chance over in London’s Dockland (a show that I do believe has been expanded into 2026?) – Tricia Gillman’s big Paintings From the Eighties at Clifford Chance, Canary Wharf, London. Paintings from a rather different London. There a dynamic, not a noise, Tricia Gillman never seems to need to make a big noise. They are formal but not too formal, actually they’re just right, and there they are, right there, big paintings on a big wall in a big line…
23: Anne Rothenstein was also back at Stephen Friedman in 2025 – Anne Rothenstein at Stephen Friedman Gallery. There is something captivating, distinctive, it is just a pleasure to be in a quiet peaceful gallery with her paintings…
24: Sol Bailey Barker at Proposition – Sol Bailey Barker, Pansentient Arboriculture at Proposition Bethnal Green, East London – is he the real deal? How much depth is there to these interpretations of the evolution of sacred objects and lost cultures?
25: EarthBall – yes that album is a serious piece of art, as is the cover – Stop, there’s a new EarthBall album. They are painters, EarthBall paint music and somehow, they’ve dialled it all up even further, this is intense, this is a serious album…
26: Lady Pink‘s Miss Subway at D’Stassi – Good street art or graff or Urban Art was thin on the ground or the street and especially in the galleries in 2025, there was a rather strong Lady Pink show though – Lady Pink’s Miss Subway show at East London’s D’Stassi, she’s a lot more than just that photo, a lot more than just old school NYC graff royalty…
27: Sho Shibuya’s daily paintings at Unit, another show that was just a delight: Sho Shibuya’s daily painting practice, his Falling from the Sky, his New York times and his weather at London’s Unit Gallery…
28: Lucy Jones at Flowers, Cork Street (and her banners flying above Cork Street) – Painter Lucy Jones, totally, completely and absolutely, Lucy Jones and her rawness, her way of doing what she needs to do with such a powerful economy…
29: Taylor Silk and that show that we aready said (at the start of this piece) kicked off the year so well, and that Fanny Bleach performance in the freezing cold first week of January on the opening night – Taylor Silk’s Soft Domme opening night at East London’s Wilton Way Gallery, so much more than just playful fun…
29 and a bit: Skunk Anansie – An artist is an artist is an artist is an artist. Skunk Anansie’s new single, one of their strongest releases for quite some time, is something a few of London’s art galleries, curators could maybe do with paying attention to…
30: Perpetual Motion Machines at Pilar Corrias – James Owen at Pilar Corrias, Perpetual Motion Machines in the same gallery, a couple of intriguing London art shows just opened…
And that was it, our 30 or so art selections for 2025. There was more of course, lots of other shows that we explored and enjoyed, there was hundreds of them coverered on these pages again this year. And yes, there were leaves left on the street again and there were those Cultivate on line shows, and Madeleine Strindberg continued to produce challenging work, there was more Julia Maddison, there was Emma Harvey‘s defiant Fuck Your Boys Club handmade prints, there was Edgington and Mark Burrell and there were more group shows at those Safehouse spaces over in Peckham that carried on pecking at us, there was more Sean Scully, that excellent David Hockney show that doesn’t need our coverage, there was more more more, there’s always more art, we’ll be along with more in a moment won’t we? Shall we casrry on doing this in 2026? Would you like us to? (Sean Worrall)
And yes, we might have our review policy but sometimes things like review policies need to go out the window and there was that awful car crash of an exhibition over on Newport Street – Triple what?! The full horror of that Newport Street car crash. Who told Invader and Fairey that for one second teaming up with Hirst might just be a cool idea? Did we really just see all that…
Previously on there fractured pages…
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