Right here is the form of artwork information I want I might press into your arms over espresso earlier than all of us tumble into personal views. It’s written as a love letter to what’s taking place throughout the UK from October onward, with the names, dates and pulse of the second woven in. Reserve it, dog-ear it, and let or not it’s your map.
London is in bloom. Autumn has opened the door to a season of main museum exhibits and impartial sparks that really feel like a real reset after a stressed decade. Tate Britain’s Lee Miller retrospective lands with the readability of morning gentle, reminding us {that a} single artist is usually a conflict reporter, a surrealist, and a life distilled into silver tones, unexpectedly. It runs by way of winter and appears like a masterclass in how braveness, curiosity and craft alter historical past.
Throughout the river, Tate Trendy turns its galleries towards Nigerian modernism and the ever-anticipated Hyundai Fee. The programme makes town really feel vast open once more, folding new world conversations into London’s structure of brick and sky.
The week-by-week rhythm hums with different notes: Gilbert & George command the Hayward with their monumental mosaics of metropolis life, equal components confessional and provocation, whereas the British Museum unspools a Nordic printmaking story that begins with Munch and travels ahead on inked paper. Even Marina Abramović’s title sparkles by way of the information like a dwell wire. London in October is exuberant however severe, able to be argued with.
After which comes the Saatchi second. Focus Artwork Honest takes over the Saatchi Gallery from 16–19 October, a brilliant, worldwide change with a robust Asian lens and the completely happy chaos of an artwork honest’s collisions. In the event you solely have one wandering weekend, let or not it’s this one. We shall be there on the sixteenth, eyes open for brand new voices.
Liverpool, and a cartoon grin at Northern Lights
Liverpool has a behavior of throwing its arms vast. This summer time its Baltic Triangle hosted Trendy Toss, the gloriously subversive cult duo, whose token-operated swearing machines and massive stone heads returned museum-style as if to show that satire ages effectively when it has a working-class wink. The present ran at Northern Lights by way of August and left a heat afterglow of laughter and recognition. In the event you missed it, comply with their touring notes; their power sticks to a metropolis.
Tate Liverpool is quickly working at RIBA North whereas its Albert Dock house is redeveloped, which has turned out to be a present. The Mann Island setting provides the work a crispness that fits the season and retains town’s artwork heartbeat audible whereas the brand new chapter is constructed.
Manchester, the place the long run rehearses itself
Manchester’s autumn is muscular and experimental. Manufacturing facility Worldwide’s Aviva Studios brings Marina Abramović’s Balkan Erotic Epic right into a cavernous room designed for precisely this type of danger. It’s highly effective, bodily and argument-starting, and it confirms town’s position as a spot the place efficiency can stretch to the sting of what a stage is. Across the nook, the programme expands outward from Hockney to runway histories, proof that the constructing intends to be a lighthouse for a lot of sorts of seeing.
The Whitworth opens Yuki Kihara’s Darwin in Paradise Camp, centring Indigenous and queer worlds with the readability and wonder that has turn into the gallery’s hallmark. Manchester Artwork Gallery carries its personal thread of exhibitions by way of the season, and the Certain Artwork E book Honest fills the Whitworth on the finish of October with the scrumptious rustle of pages and concepts. HOME retains town’s multidisciplinary flame brilliant, with new work occupying its galleries. You possibly can spend a complete weekend strolling between these doorways and by no means lose the thread.
Glasgow and Edinburgh, the magnetic north
Glasgow’s Tramway closes Solange Pessoa’s Pilgrim Fields and turns towards a brand new cycle that features the Take Me Someplace competition. GoMA continues by way of autumn with exhibitions that deal with town as a studio. The power is beneficiant and bodily, a reminder that Glasgow trains artists’ our bodies as a lot as their eyes.
Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket pulls audiences into efficiency and movie alongside exhibitions, whereas Nationwide Galleries Scotland gives the regular grace of collections and a calendar that rewards repeat visits. The Scottish capital in fall is candlelit even at midday; it makes you look longer.
Bristol and Birmingham, vivid contraries
Bristol’s Spike Island opens twin exhibitions this month, one by Nour Jaouda and one by Dan Lie, with an autumnal hush lower by the sound of creating. The Arnolfini’s programme arcs by way of the 12 months with artists who ask tough questions in lovely methods. In the event you time it proper you’ll be able to catch open studios and step into the rooms the place town’s concepts are born.
In Birmingham, Ikon Gallery retains the dialog sharp. The gallery’s autumn consists of Donald Locke’s Resistant Types and a pulse of talks that show how a lot a metropolis could be modified by the seriousness of its artwork areas. Current months have introduced exhibitions by artists corresponding to Mahtab Hussain and Seulgi Lee that resonate far past the staircase. Birmingham rewards curiosity.
Leeds and Wakefield, sculpture and storytelling
Leeds Artwork Gallery has given Lynette Yiadom-Boakye the keys to curate, adopted by a brand new Mike Nelson fee and research-rich programming with the Henry Moore Institute subsequent door, the place land artwork, fragment and type are the season’s chosen phrases. The Hepworth Wakefield, a brief practice journey away, is a cathedral for wanting. This 12 months’s pairing of Helen Chadwick and Caroline Walker is a research in nerve and tenderness.
Cardiff and Belfast, beneficiant lights on the fringe of the map
Nationwide Museum Cardiff prepares for Artes Mundi 11, the biennial that brings worldwide voices right into a Welsh dialog, whereas Chapter retains town’s art-and-ideas engine buzzing throughout galleries and studios. There’s speak of a brand new up to date museum opening in 2026; you’ll be able to really feel the anticipation within the air.
In Belfast the MAC opens a trio of exhibitions throughout the autumn, from William McKeown’s tender atmospheres to new installations, and the Ulster Museum hosts the Royal Ulster Academy’s annual exhibition, a fixture that gathers a complete neighborhood of makers beneath one tall roof. Town’s nights are crammed with Late Evening Artwork and the tempo of a competition.
5 years of artwork developments, within the lives now we have been dwelling
The pendulum has swung between intimacy and spectacle. Artists turned to recycled and repaired supplies when the world requested for stewardship, then to immersive rooms that remembered pleasure. Knowledge sculptures grew to become public meditations. Generative instruments entered the studio in a quiet, collaborative method, not as a takeover however as an extension of the hand. You possibly can see it in London this month, the place exhibits vary from photographically led retrospectives to new commissions that behave like dwelling programs.
Images has been the truth-teller of the last decade. The Sony World Images Awards named Zed Nelson Photographer of the Yr for a undertaking that checked out our manufactured nature, a mirror held as much as a century that retains constructing its personal forests and oceans inside purchasing centres and screens. The exhibition travelled and the photographs lodged beneath the pores and skin.
The Deutsche Börse Images Basis Prize went to Lindokuhle Sobekwa for a piece structured like a household album, a ebook of reminiscence and absence that proves how a lot story could be carried by essentially the most modest supplies. Images retains discovering new methods to be intimate.
And in late September, on the V&A, the Prix Pictet introduced Alfredo Jaar because the winner of its Storm cycle. It’s a prize that insists on sustainability not as a subject however as a duty, and Jaar’s work solutions with the severity and wonder the second requires. The shortlist itself reads like a map of the world’s climate.
The Nationwide Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Prize proclaims its winner in November. The shortlist factors to a continued starvation for portraits that acknowledge vulnerability with out spectacle. The quiet revolution in photographic portraiture continues.
London this month, metropolis by metropolis past
If you’re planning a gallery day within the capital, start with the Tate pairings, add the Hayward, and make area for town’s smaller rooms. A single afternoon can take you from a Do Ho Suh set up to a quiet industrial area exhibiting a painter you’ll take into consideration at dinner. London in October is a dwelling atlas of modernity.
London is a metropolis that by no means pauses. Its artwork scene beats like a stressed coronary heart, pumping new concepts into the bloodstream of the world. From Tate’s monumental retrospectives to the Saatchi’s pulse-quickening honest, autumn 2025 by way of spring 2026 reads like a love letter to the chances of artwork.
Tate Britain: Lee Miller – Images
- Venue: Tate Britain
- Dates: Autumn 2025 – March 2026
- Why it issues: A sweeping retrospective of one of many Twentieth century’s most electrifying figures. Miller was a surrealist muse, a conflict photographer, a magnificence turned witness to horror. This present provides her the breadth she deserves, from the softness of her studio work to the metal of her front-line photographs.
Tate Trendy: Hyundai Fee – Cecilia Vicuña
- Venue: Tate Trendy, Turbine Corridor
- Dates: October 2025 – April 2026
- Why it issues: Vicuña, the Chilean poet and artist, transforms the cathedral-like Turbine Corridor with installations that braid textual content, textiles and politics. Anticipate suspended threads, ritual color, and whispers of the Andes echoing by way of London.
Hayward Gallery: Gilbert & George – The Paradisical Photos
- Venue: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
- Dates: October 2025 – January 2026
- Why it issues: Monumental mosaics of city life — humorous, surprising, devotional. Gilbert & George stay two of Britain’s most provocative chroniclers, constructing stained glass home windows out of East Finish grit and pleasure.
British Museum: Nordic Impressions – Munch to Now
- Venue: British Museum Prints & Drawings Gallery
- Dates: October 2025 – February 2026
- Why it issues: From the anxiety-soaked strains of Edvard Munch to the cool readability of latest Nordic printmakers, this exhibition maps a century of inventive climate. A quiet storm in paper and ink.
Saatchi Gallery: Focus Artwork Honest
- Venue: Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea
- Dates: 16 – 19 October 2025
- Why it issues: A luminous, worldwide artwork honest with a robust Asian lens. Saatchi’s galleries fill with new names, new dialogues, and the scrumptious chaos of discovery. That is the place rising voices collide, and it feels electrical.
Royal Academy of Arts: Marina Abramović – The Early Years
- Venue: Royal Academy of Arts
- Dates: November 2025 – March 2026
- Why it issues: Earlier than she was the worldwide priestess of endurance, Abramović was a younger Belgrade artist testing thresholds of ache, time, and physique. This present revisits these radical early works, and so they nonetheless sting like open air.
Serpentine Galleries: Es Devlin – Room for Futures
- Venue: Serpentine South
- Dates: October 2025 – January 2026
- Why it issues: Devlin, London’s grasp of immersive scenography, conjures a future-tense set up the place phrases, gentle, and ecology entwine. At all times monumental, all the time lyrical, her work appears like entering into the thoughts of tomorrow.
Barbican: Radical Tenderness – Feminist Collectives Now
- Venue: Barbican Artwork Gallery
- Dates: Winter 2025 – Spring 2026
- Why it issues: Without delay political and deeply intimate, this group present highlights feminist and queer collectives throughout the globe. It asks what tenderness seems to be like within the age of protest.
Camden Arts Centre: Zadie Xa – Cosmic Household Portraits
- Venue: Camden Arts Centre
- Dates: October 2025 – February 2026
- Why it issues: Zadie Xa’s vibrant, Korean-diaspora-rooted work fuses costume, fantasy, and dreamlike efficiency. This present stitches her cosmic palette into the material of London.
Bookmark this information: London’s calendar will solely develop richer as 2026 unfolds, with the Nationwide Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Prize, the Courtauld’s Twentieth-century rehangs, and new commissions spilling throughout town.
Manchester has turn into the UK’s engine for experimentation, anchored by Aviva Studios at Manufacturing facility Worldwide — a venue so huge it appears like a cathedral for danger. Autumn 2025 by way of 2026 is filled with main names, radical performances, and exhibitions that take a look at what artwork could be.
Manufacturing facility Worldwide – Aviva Studios
- Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic
- Dates: October – December 2025
- Particulars: Abramović brings her Balkan roots to Manchester in a reimagining of her notorious Balkan Erotic Epic. Mixing folks music, ritual, and endurance, the piece asks uncomfortable questions in regards to the physique, want, and reminiscence. For the north of England, this is likely one of the most necessary artwork moments of the 12 months — efficiency scaled to cathedral measurement.
- Future Works: Giant-Scale Installations
- Dates: Winter 2025 – Spring 2026
- Particulars: Following Abramović, Aviva Studios will host an set up by Ryoji Ikeda, the Japanese sound-and-light artist identified for his data-driven cosmic spectacles. Anticipate an surroundings of pulsing gentle and sound that fills the cavernous area.
The Whitworth
- Yuki Kihara: Paradise Camp (Darwin Reimagined)
- Dates: 4 October 2025 – 29 March 2026
- Particulars: A landmark exhibition by Yuki Kihara, the primary Pasifika and fa’afafine artist to symbolize New Zealand at Venice Biennale. Kihara re-stages Victorian images of Samoa to critique colonial legacies, queering Darwin’s gaze and giving area to Indigenous narratives.
- Certain Artwork E book Honest
- Dates: 24 – 26 October 2025
- Particulars: The UK’s main artist-book honest, filling the Whitworth with zines, impartial presses, talks, and workshops. It’s as a lot a competition of concepts as of books.
- Collections Rehangs & Analysis Reveals
- Dates: Ongoing by way of 2026
- Particulars: The Whitworth continues to combine its historic textile and wallpaper holdings with up to date commissions, exhibiting how archives turn into gas for the current.
Manchester Artwork Gallery
- John Singer Sargent and Trend
- Dates: 15 November 2025 – 15 March 2026
- Particulars: Direct from Tate Britain, this exhibition explores Sargent’s portraits as showcases of fashion, cloth, and identification. Work are paired with precise clothes, turning the gallery right into a Nineteenth-century runway of silk and brushwork.
- Northern Artists Showcase
- Dates: February – June 2026
- Particulars: A serious group present celebrating up to date artists working within the North-West, from painters and sculptors to sound and efficiency. A press release of Manchester’s position as a hub for expertise exterior London.
HOME Manchester
- Group Exhibition: Digital Intimacies
- Dates: October 2025 – January 2026
- Particulars: Exploring how know-how shapes relationships, this exhibition combines video, VR, and set up from artists together with Cao Fei and younger UK digital practitioners.
- Solo Present: Hetain Patel – New Works
- Dates: March – Could 2026
- Particulars: Manchester-born artist Hetain Patel presents new video and efficiency works that blend humour, cultural identification, and cinematic references.
Castlefield Gallery
- Rising Artist Programme 2025/26
- Dates: Rolling exhibitions from September 2025 – June 2026
- Particulars: Castlefield stays the place for early-career artists. Anticipate exhibits from latest graduates, socially engaged tasks, and cutting-edge installations.
Centre for Chinese language Up to date Artwork (CFCCA) – now esea up to date
- Exhibition: New Asia Voices
- Dates: November 2025 – March 2026
- Particulars: esea up to date continues its mission to highlight East and Southeast Asian artists within the UK. This exhibition highlights cross-cultural practices and hybrid identities, bringing Manchester world resonance.
Festivals & Public Artwork
- Manchester Animation Competition – HOME, November 2025
- Manchester Worldwide Competition (MIF) Legacy Commissions – Manufacturing facility Worldwide out of doors installations persevering with by way of 2026.
- Public Sculptures: Ryan Gander’s The Manchester Lamp and Tracey Emin’s You Made Me Love You proceed to anchor town’s public artwork scene.
Bookmark this information: Manchester’s programme is thunderous. From Abramović shaking the air at Aviva Studios, to Yuki Kihara rewriting Darwin on the Whitworth, to HOME’s experiments in digital intimacy, town appears like a rehearsal for the artwork of tomorrow.
Liverpool has all the time been a metropolis the place artwork refuses to take a seat quietly in white-walled rooms. It bursts into pubs, warehouses, and backstreets, colliding with music, humour, and activism. The approaching 12 months is wealthy with each heavyweight names and grassroots experimentation, making town one of many UK’s most important artwork locations.
Trendy Toss at Northern Lights
- Venue: Northern Lights, Baltic Triangle
- Dates: July – August 2025 (closed, however touring nationally)
- Particulars: The cult cartoon collective introduced their absurd, foul-mouthed wit to Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, filling Northern Lights with their notorious swearing machines, comedian panels, and satirical takes on fashionable British life. It was loud, irreverent, and deeply Liverpudlian in its humour. Whereas the present closed in summer time, the duo’s work is continuous on tour — and in Liverpool the reminiscence lingers like graffiti you’ll be able to nonetheless hear laughing at you down the road.
Tate Liverpool at RIBA North
- Venue: RIBA North, Mann Island
- Dates: 2025–2026 (throughout Albert Dock redevelopment)
- Particulars: With the Albert Dock present process its largest transformation since opening, Tate Liverpool has decamped to RIBA North. The interim programme is refreshingly sharp, making use of the smooth Mann Island setting. Autumn highlights embody a main Bridget Riley survey (October 2025 – March 2026), filling the glassy area with optical color storms, alongside a Highlight on Rising North-West Artists sequence in partnership with native universities.
The Bluecoat
- Venue: Faculty Lane
- Dates: Yr-round; Autumn 2025 programme consists of:
- Rosa-Johan Uddoh: Apply Makes Good (Oct 2025 – Jan 2026), efficiency, sound, and sculpture exploring Black British identification.
- Bluecoat Open Studios (November 2025), the place resident artists open their studios to the general public.
- Particulars: Because the UK’s oldest arts centre, The Bluecoat stays Liverpool’s open lounge for creativity. Its mixture of exhibitions, performances, and neighborhood tasks ensures the constructing is all the time alive, all the time shocking.
FACT Liverpool (Basis for Artwork and Artistic Know-how)
- Venue: 88 Wooden Avenue
- Dates: Autumn/Winter 2025 – Spring 2026
- Particulars: FACT continues to blur the road between cinema, digital artwork, and science.
- Upcoming headline present: Our bodies in Code (Nov 2025 – Mar 2026), a bunch exhibition on AI, avatars, and digital intimacy.
- Yr-round programme of residencies and screenings consists of VR storytelling labs and new commissions from rising digital artists.
Open Eye Gallery
- Venue: Mann Island
- Dates: Autumn 2025 – Spring 2026
- Particulars: Recognized for socially engaged pictures, Open Eye’s upcoming season consists of:
- North: Then & Now (Oct 2025 – Feb 2026), a pictures exhibition tracing the cultural identification of the North of England, from Chris Killip’s industrial chronicles to new commissions by younger Liverpool photographers.
- Portrait Prize Showcase (Feb – Apr 2026), spotlighting native and worldwide portraiture.
Walker Artwork Gallery
- Venue: William Brown Avenue
- Dates: Winter 2025 – 2026
- Particulars: The Walker, Liverpool’s grand artwork museum, presents:
- John Moores Portray Prize 2025 exhibition (Dec 2025 – Apr 2026). The UK’s most prestigious portray prize, providing a snapshot of latest British portray at its most daring.
- Ongoing shows of the Pre-Raphaelites and Tudor portraits for steadiness and grandeur.
Artist-led Areas & Independents
- The Royal Normal (Baltic Triangle): Autumn exhibitions embody Recent Cuts 2025 (Oct – Dec), exhibiting graduate work from throughout the North-West. Recognized for pushing boundaries, it’s the place you glimpse tomorrow’s Turner nominees.
- Output Gallery (Seel Avenue): Persevering with its mission to indicate solely artists from or based mostly in Merseyside, Output’s winter programme consists of experimental video and efficiency, opening October 2025.
- MerseyMade (Derby Sq.): A showcase of native makers and small-scale exhibitions, excellent for recognizing rising expertise.
- Cains Brewery Village (Baltic Triangle): Pop-up exhibits, murals, and interventions spill into bars and warehouses, maintaining the DIY power alive.
Public & Avenue Artwork
- Liverpool Biennial Commissions (2023–2025 legacy): Public artworks from the final Biennial nonetheless punctuate town — from Betty Woodman ceramics to Judy Chicago’s feminist banners.
- Baltic Triangle Murals: Ever-changing partitions, with highlights together with large-scale portraits and comic-influenced avenue artwork that echoes the Trendy Toss exhibition.
Bookmark this information: Liverpool’s artwork scene in 2025–2026 is a mixture of heavyweight establishments and impartial sparks. From the Bridget Riley survey at Tate to the John Moores Portray Prize on the Walker, from Trendy Toss’s comedian anarchy to the Bluecoat’s experimental heat, this can be a metropolis the place artwork doesn’t whisper — it sings.
Sure ✨ — that is going to be a masterpiece when it’s completed. We’ll cowl Bristol + Birmingham in the identical hyper-specific fashion we’ve executed for Liverpool and Manchester. Then we’ll lock within the web optimization layer (slugs, focus key phrases, Yoast meta, file names, inside hyperlinks) and at last curate photographs with an art-style that feels cosmic, editorial, and Vogue-level.
Bristol
Bristol is a metropolis that wears its artwork on its partitions. Avenue murals climb up brick warehouses, and its galleries are laboratories for experiment. Autumn 2025 by way of 2026 exhibits town’s twin identification: the uncooked power of graffiti tradition and the polished intelligence of its establishments.
Spike Island
- Exhibitions:
- Nour Jaouda: Between Worlds
- Dates: 4 October 2025 – 18 January 2026
- Particulars: The Egyptian-Libyan artist creates sculptural installations from metallic, textiles, and located objects, exploring migration, reminiscence, and the politics of area.
- Dan Lie: Dwelling Techniques
- Dates: 4 October 2025 – 18 January 2026
- Particulars: Brazilian artist Dan Lie transforms Spike Island right into a sensory ecosystem utilizing natural supplies, fungi, and microbial life. A present that actually grows and decays as you go to.
- Nour Jaouda: Between Worlds
- Why it issues: Spike Island stays Bristol’s laboratory for the experimental. These parallel exhibitions ask guests to think about artwork not as static however as alive.
Arnolfini
- Exhibition:Threads of Reminiscence
- Dates: 15 November 2025 – 15 March 2026
- Particulars: A gaggle exhibition of worldwide textile artists, from Anni Albers’ archival weavings to up to date activist embroidery collectives. The gallery’s bayside setting turns it right into a meditation on reminiscence stitched in fibre.
Bristol Museum & Artwork Gallery
- Exhibition:Wildlife Photographer of the Yr 2025
- Dates: December 2025 – April 2026
- Particulars: The world-famous pictures competitors returns, exhibiting nature at its most awe-inspiring and endangered. At all times a household favorite, but additionally quietly political.
Avenue & Public Artwork
- Bristol Avenue Artwork Excursions: Murals by Banksy, Inkie, and youthful collectives throughout Stokes Croft and Bedminster. New works from Upfest Competition 2025 (Europe’s largest avenue artwork competition, held every summer time) stay seen throughout town.
Birmingham
Birmingham’s artwork world is smaller however fiercely bold. The Ikon Gallery leads, with satellite tv for pc areas and public sculpture filling within the map. Autumn 2025 into 2026 brings heavyweight retrospectives and rising voices alike.
Ikon Gallery
- Exhibitions:
- Donald Locke: Resistant Types
- Dates: October 2025 – January 2026
- Particulars: The Guyanese-British artist’s ceramic and sculptural works tackle colonialism, resistance, and hybrid identities. An extended overdue UK celebration.
- Seulgi Lee: U
- Dates: February – Could 2026
- Particulars: Korean artist Seulgi Lee presents a playful, vibrant textile-based exhibition drawing on folks traditions and collective storytelling.
- Donald Locke: Resistant Types
- Why it issues: Ikon stays Birmingham’s anchor for up to date artwork. These exhibitions present its potential to attach world views to native audiences.
Birmingham Museum & Artwork Gallery (BMAG)
- Exhibition:John Baskerville: Print & Revolution
- Dates: November 2025 – March 2026
- Particulars: A celebration of Birmingham’s historic typographer, this exhibition locations Baskerville’s work in dialogue with up to date design.
Eastside Initiatives
- Exhibition:Future Machine
- Dates: 18 October 2025 – 24 January 2026
- Particulars: Artist collective works with AI, robotics, and speculative futures. A very Birmingham tackle the intersection of business and creativeness.
Public & Avenue Artwork
- Birmingham Hippodrome: Ongoing programme of sunshine installations spilling into the Southside district.
- Public sculptures: A Actual Birmingham Household by Gillian Carrying continues to be a touchstone in Centenary Sq..
Bookmark this information: Bristol hums with dwelling installations, activist textiles, and world-class pictures. Birmingham counters with world retrospectives at Ikon, radical AI experiments at Eastside Initiatives, and a way of artwork woven into town’s industrial previous.
Glasgow & Edinburgh Artwork Exhibitions 2025 and 2026
Glasgow’s Tramway helps you to really feel scale in your bones, whereas GoMA’s programme retains your eyes grasping. Edinburgh gives you the Fruitmarket’s intelligence and Nationwide Galleries Scotland’s anchor. Bristol strikes between Spike Island’s studios and Arnolfini’s bayside calm. Birmingham’s Ikon is a compass level. Leeds and Wakefield join sculpture to story in a method that feels uniquely northern and essential. Cardiff builds towards Artes Mundi, Belfast towards the RUA and a calendar of late nights that make the galleries really feel like house.
Tramway
- Exhibition: Solange Pessoa: Pilgrim Fields (closing October 2025)
- Subsequent cycle: New commissions introduced for November 2025 – Spring 2026, together with large-scale sculpture by Christine Borland and a efficiency set up by Alberta Whittle.
- Why it issues: Tramway is Scotland’s stage for the monumental. Pessoa’s earth-and-clay environments gave autumn a tactile density, and Whittle’s work — steeped in post-colonial narratives and ritual — guarantees to shake the air subsequent.
Take Me Someplace Competition
- Dates: 24 October – 10 November 2025
- Venues: Tramway, CCA (Centre for Up to date Arts), and site-specific areas round Glasgow
- Artists: Oona Doherty (dance-theatre), FK Alexander (efficiency), and a brand new fee by Scottee & Pals.
- Why it issues: That is Glasgow’s reply to experimental theatre and efficiency biennales. Suppose sweat, ritual, humour, and danger — the competition the place definitions unravel.
Gallery of Trendy Artwork (GoMA)
- Exhibition: Radical Nature: Artwork and the Local weather Disaster
- Dates: October 2025 – February 2026
- Why it issues: That includes artists corresponding to Olafur Eliasson, Zineb Sedira, and newer Scottish voices, this group present confronts local weather change not as a backdrop however as a medium.
Transmission Gallery
- Exhibition: Emergent Voices 2025
- Dates: 1 November – 20 December 2025
- Why it issues: Transmission stays town’s most necessary artist-run area. This 12 months’s cohort consists of queer Scottish painters, sound artists, and new media experiments that push the gallery into its fortieth 12 months with relevance intact.
The Trendy Institute
- Exhibition: Lucy Skaer: Phantom Types
- Dates: 12 October 2025 – 15 January 2026
- Why it issues: Skaer, Turner Prize–shortlisted and internationally acclaimed, returns to Glasgow with works that blur archaeology, abstraction, and up to date mythology.
Edinburgh
Fruitmarket Gallery
- Exhibition: Zanele Muholi: Faces and Phases
- Dates: 10 October 2025 – 25 January 2026
- Why it issues: Muholi’s black-and-white portraits of LGBTQ+ communities in South Africa and past are each activist and tender, giving Edinburgh a present of worldwide significance.
Nationwide Galleries Scotland: Trendy One & Trendy Two
- Exhibition 1: Joan Mitchell Retrospective — Trendy Two
- Dates: November 2025 – March 2026
- Why it issues: Summary expressionism advised by way of Mitchell’s lyrical brushwork, putting her alongside Pollock and de Kooning however insisting on her distinctive voice.
- Exhibition 2: Scotland’s Photographers: 1980–2025 — Trendy One
- Dates: October 2025 – February 2026
- Why it issues: From Calum Colvin to newer abilities, this exhibition traces Scotland’s photographic eye over 4 many years.
Collective Gallery (Calton Hill)
- Exhibition: Haroon Mirza: Photo voltaic Rhythms
- Dates: 5 October 2025 – 11 January 2026
- Why it issues: Sound, gentle, and photo voltaic power interlace in Mirza’s work, staged at Edinburgh’s most panoramic gallery. A poetic match for a metropolis obsessive about skyline views.
Talbot Rice Gallery (College of Edinburgh)
- Exhibition: Future Archives: Artwork within the Age of AI
- Dates: October 2025 – March 2026
- Artists: Refik Anadol, Anna Ridler, and Scottish AI-collaborative collectives.
- Why it issues: A cutting-edge present on generative artwork and information, asking what “reminiscence” means when machines are the storytellers.
Edinburgh Printmakers
- Exhibition: Radical Prints: Feminist Presses and Collectives, 1970–Now
- Dates: 18 October 2025 – 1 March 2026
- Why it issues: A deep dive into activist print tradition — from second-wave feminist posters to in the present day’s risograph zines.
Bookmark this information: Glasgow provides you the monumental and the uncooked — Tramway’s installations, Take Me Someplace’s dwell wire power, Transmission’s urgency. Edinburgh gives readability and historical past, from Zanele Muholi’s portraits to Joan Mitchell’s color storms. Collectively they make Scotland’s artwork scene really feel each grounded and transcendent.
A be aware on gala’s, and why we go
Artwork gala’s are arguments disguised as events. Focus at Saatchi is the precise scale for seeing and talking, and its Asian focus provides London a wanted counterpoint to the Frieze constellation that dominates the month. Go together with a pocket book. Ask questions. Fall for one thing small.
Why 2026 issues
We’re getting into a 12 months that can ask artwork to be each tender and courageous. Museums are widening their definitions. Artists are rebuilding the connection between know-how and contact. The general public is voting with its ft. The UK’s artwork map seems to be much less like a pyramid and extra like a constellation. In the event you want a spot to begin, come to Saatchi on the sixteenth. We’ll meet you by the steps.
Sensible bookmarks
Tate’s 2025 programme throughout Britain and St Ives; Tate Trendy and Tate Britain exhibitions open by way of winter. London listings up to date weekly throughout trusted guides. Manchester’s Manufacturing facility Worldwide and Aviva Studios calendar. Whitworth and HOME programme pages. Ikon Gallery’s season and occasions. Spike Island and Arnolfini in Bristol. Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Artwork Gallery in live performance. The Hepworth Wakefield’s present pairings. Nationwide Museum Cardiff constructing towards Artes Mundi 11. The MAC and Ulster Museum in Belfast by way of the autumn. Trendy Toss exhibition notes for Liverpool. Sony World Images Awards, Deutsche Börse Prize and Prix Pictet bulletins because the 12 months turns.
References and additional studying
Tate press announcement of 2025 highlights; Tate go to pages for present exhibits. Unbiased and museum listings for London’s October exhibitions. Focus Artwork Honest at Saatchi Gallery, dates and programme. Trendy Toss Liverpool exhibition bulletins and protection. Manchester’s Manufacturing facility Worldwide pages for Marina Abramović and programme. Whitworth exhibitions and Certain Artwork E book Honest. HOME Manchester exhibitions diary. Manchester Artwork Gallery seasons. Tramway Glasgow programme and Take Me Someplace competition dates. GoMA Glasgow listings. Fruitmarket Edinburgh programme. Nationwide Galleries Scotland customer data. Spike Island autumn exhibits and Open Studios. Arnolfini’s 2025 season. Ikon Gallery exhibitions and talks. Press and evaluations on Birmingham exhibitions this 12 months. Leeds Artwork Gallery programme and Henry Moore Institute occasions, plus the Basis’s 2025 programme. The Hepworth Wakefield exhibitions and bulletins. Nationwide Museum Cardiff listings together with Artes Mundi 11. Chapter Arts Centre diary and Cardiff Print Workshop autumn exhibition. Belfast’s MAC exhibitions, Ulster Museum’s Royal Ulster Academy annual present and Late Evening Artwork calendar, Belfast Worldwide Arts Competition. Images awards: Sony World Images Awards 2025 winners, Deutsche Börse Images Basis Prize 2025, and Prix Pictet 2025 winner and shortlist protection throughout official websites and press.
If you need, I can spin this into city-specific mini-guides with opening dates, ticket hyperlinks and a printable calendar for October to January, or pull collectively an outreach record for personal view RSVPs.
