We don’t really need an editorial here do we? Another week, another Five London Art Things thing and on with all this endless art coverage? Years of it. Actually this week we probably do need an editorial, or a repeat, we wont though, on with it…
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…
Kyle Barnes, Venus Rising at Pontone Gallery – on now and until 3rd October 2026 – “Kyle Barnes presents a series of paintings of large-scale, monumental, realistically- rendered female heads. Disembodied and isolated against flat colour-field backgrounds, each is depicted with a thorough coating of viscous liquid that describes the material consequence of a sudden immersion or surprising inundation. These rather startling images stimulate all kinds of speculation: Are we witnessing a birth trauma, as the subject’s features are occluded and emerge through an amniotic medium? Is this some kind of elemental transformation in progress?
The paintings are observational and forensically particular. The artist’s technique records a rigorously perceived actuality that allows for no abstraction or ambiguity. As a result, we are confronted with an image of certainty, a report of a definite physical state which is corporeal and insistent on our acceptance of the fact. So, what are we to make of this woman and her situation?
The aforementioned immersion and inundation are processes familiar to many cultural and anthropological practices. Liquid mediums of all kinds are ubiquitous as vehicles for transformation – to mark and ease the path from one state to another. Holy water, oil, blood, the serums of humans, plants and animals are all used to anoint the initiate, the supplicant and the elect. The artist’s model appears to undergo such a journey, although we are not know its particular nature.
Of course, the act of painting has a direct relationship to such processes. Oil paint is analogous to the liquidity of an anointing substance. It is a transformative process – the conjuring of images, symbols and significant markings derive from the physical manipulation of the fluid medium. In the painting of the woman we see an idea of her brought into being, the coating of her with a numinous liquid describes the magical process itself, as we see with Botticelli’s Venus born from the elemental sea”.
Pontone Gallery is found at 74 Newman St, London W1T 3DB. The gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 10am until 6pm. Venus Rising is on until 3rd October 2026
2: The Art of Sound featuring Max Cooper and Chris Watson at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station – 11th September until 15th September 2026 – “This Special Project for LDF26 invites visitors to immerse into two spatial sound installations powered by L-Acoustics at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station: Feeling is Structure by Max Cooper and Chris Watson’s Trent Falls.” and curiosity once more, the art of…
“Multi-disciplinary artist Max Cooper presents “Feeling Is Structure”: A Spatial Audio Installation. Originally developed through a commission for a live performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall, “Feeling Is Structure” investigates the relationship between physical form, perception and emotional experience. Across sound, architecture, biology and visual culture, Cooper considers structure not simply as an organising principle, but as something that actively shapes how we sense, interpret and feel. Reconfigured here as a 20-minute spatial-audio installation, the work moves beyond the conventions of album playback to become an inhabitable sonic environment. Sound unfolds across and around the listener, foregrounding the spatial, material and architectural qualities embedded within the composition. The installation offers a distinct encounter with “Feeling Is Structure” as a unique spatial-audio experience.
Artist Chris Watson will also present “Trent Falls”, a spatial sound installation guiding listeners on a journey down the Humber estuary. Beginning at Goole docks by Trent Falls, where the rivers Trent and Ouse combine into the estuary, the piece follows the ebbing tide through the reeds and booming bitterns of Faxfleet nature reserve and rattling rail freight past the now disappeared Oxmardyke gate box. The estuary flows under the thunderous expansion joints of the Humber bridge and then alongside Kingston upon Hull accompanied by the frenzied screams from Hull Fair, the sonorous tones of the cathedral bells and the cheers of Craven Park during a Hull Kingston Rovers home game. As the estuary broadens out, wading birds probe the mudflats, their calls merging into the distant ‘pipe’ music of Saltend Chemical Park. At Spurn Point where the estuary flows into the North Sea the haunting siren songs of grey seals drift along with the rolling wave wash.
Spatial sound works Lengua Desollada by Hollie Buhagiar and A Decade is a Long Time by Helen Lyon, a collaboration between L-Acoustics and the Alliance for Women Film Composers, will be selectively featured throughout the programming.
London Design Festival’s sound installations mark the first cultural programming at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station since this historic space has been under the custodianship of Glass Castle Foundation. Originally built in 1890, Wapping Power Station has been closed to the public for the last 13 years. This is a rare opportunity to explore one of the city’s most remarkable industrial spaces. Project hosted by Glass Castle Foundation.
Wapping Hydraulic Power Station is at 25 Wapping Wall, London E1W 3SF. The space is open from 10am until 5.30pm up to and including Tuesday 15th September
3: Howard Hodgkin Studio open weekend – open 12th/13th and 19th/20th September 2026 and dare I say a chance not to be missed – Sir Howard Hodgkin (1932 – 2017) was (rightly) one of England’s most celebrated contemporary artists; “Abstracted yet allusive, apparently spontaneous but in fact highly controlled, his paintings convey feeling through gesture and colour. His former studio, converted from a nineteenth-century dairy, sits in the heart of Bloomsbury”.
Howard Hodgkin’s Studio is found at 54-24 Holders Hill Dr, London NW4 1NL. A donation is required, they suggest £7, more details here
4: Broken Fingaz are in Hackney from 16th until 20th September – Something to do with monoprints. Says here that “International art-collective Broken Fingaz present a new series of original monotype prints in a four-day pop-up exhibition in Hackney”. Actually, if I was of a mind, I could probably hit their exhibition with a Pollockesque flick of a loaded paintbrush from here in the Organ bunker but you don’t really need to know that (I’m glad the Broken Fingaz crew can afford the stupid hire prices for that underused because no one can afford it space that Space rather cynically run)
“On Wednesday 16th September we invite you to the opening of our pop-up show at 85 Mare Street, Hackney where we will present a new series of monotype prints made in our studio in London. This is the first time we have shown new work in the UK since we launched our Broken Fingaz monograph in London in 2021. Monotype is a printmaking technique where an image is painted or drawn directly onto a plate and then transferred onto paper through a printing press. Unlike other forms of printmaking, the image can only be printed once, meaning each work is completely unique – somewhere between a print and an original painting….”
Find it and them in the (sometimes very annoying) Pop Up space on the Triangle at 85 Mare Street, Hackney, London, E8 4RG. There’s an opening night on Tuesday 16th Sept, 7pm until 10pm and then things are open 10am until 6pm, 17th until 20th September. For further information about the event and such, please get in touch at Yaara at brokenfingaz.com or go explore brokenfingaz.com
5: Valentine Golinelli, Rage at Studio 67 – 16th Sept until 27th Sept 2026, with an evening opening or private view or whatever you want to call it on 17th Sept 6pm until 9pm – “67 Studio x Mother Studio are pleased to invite you to Rage, a mixed media solo exhibition by Valentine Golinelli”.
“Through materials associated with femininity and domesticity, the artist explores how women are taught that anger is unladylike. That certain emotions make them difficult, irrational, unfeminine, unlovable, and must be swallowed rather than spoken. So where does the unsaid go? In this mixed media show, the needle becomes an instrument of confrontation, not comfort. Fabric carries its own inheritance: generations of women’s labor bound up with mending, softness, and silence. The work keeps both: the tenderness assigned to the medium, and the fury it was never allowed to hold”.
Studio 67 is at 67 Crabtree Lane, Fulham, London, SW6 6LP. The show runs from 16th Sept until 27th Sept 2026, with an evening opening or private view or whatever you want to call it on 17th Sept 6pm until 9pm. Go ask her via her Instagram feed.
Previously…
THE ORGAN 