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From Scottish artist Alberta Whittle's moving meditations on self-compassion, to an intimate study of Nick Wapplington's creative process, here are all the world’s must-see shows this month
From London to Los Angeles, Paris to Vienna, April’s shows delve into identity, memory, community, and experimentation. Artists like John Edmonds and Nona Faustine confront historical narratives, while Soufiane Ababri and Alberta Whittle reclaim space and challenge societal norms.
Across photography, performance, film, painting, installation, and sculpture, there are reflections on the past, celebrations of communal resilience, and advocations for social change. Ideas of displacement, cultural exchange, and activism reverberate throughout, inviting us to contemplate the complexities of the human experience. Until next month!
ONE, JOHN EDMONDS, MAXIMILLIAN WILLIAM, LONDON, ENGLAND
American photographer John Edmonds’debut London solo exhibition, One, showcases his black and white works spanning 2016 – 2022. Challenging a photograph’s ‘truth’ through what he calls ‘quasi-documents’, Edmonds’ intimate exploration of subjects – including friends and lovers – and African sculptures delves into human subjectivity with tenderness and vulnerability. The exhibition highlights Edmonds’ shift to monochrome, notably with “Back with Scales and Shadows,” exploring Blackness as both form and content while intertwining the individual and the collective, and bridging past and present.
Running until May 4, 2024 at Maximillian William, London
JAZZ, RENE MATIĆ & OSCAR MURILLO, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
British artist Rene Matić and Colombian artist Oscar Murillo join forces for JAZZ, a show inspired by the space and city of Vienna. It’s the first time Matić and Murillo are in dialogue, presenting new and existing works, including installation, film, photography, sound, and “painterly gestures”. At the show’s heart is the “dissection and reconciliation” of the “impossibilities and contradictions that arise from notions of desire, visibility and opacity”.
Running until July 28, 2024 at Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier, Vienna
LIVING ROOM, NICK WAPPLINGTON, HAMILTONS GALLERY, LONDON
It’s been more than three decades since Nick Waplington’s Living Room was published, a photo book which captured the lives of friends, families, and neighbours on an estate in Nottingham, England. Waplington spent years creating the images, many remaining unseen until now. On view at Hamiltons Gallery, this conceptual remake reimagines the cult series, showcasing the unseen photographs alongside the original sequencing that offers a look onto Thatcher’s Britain, an approach noted by Simon Baker, which achieves intimacy without intrusion.
Running until 25 May, 2024 at Hamiltons Gallery, London
SOUFIANE ABABRI, BARBICAN, LONDON, ENGLAND
Soufiane Ababri’s first exhibition at a major UK institution Their mouths were full of bumblebees but it was me who was pollinated examines desire, queerness, and diaspora in this site-specific installation of drawing, performance, and installation challenging dominant Western queer narratives. The exhibition uses The Curve’s shape to mirror the Arabic letter Zayin (ز) referencing ‘zamel’ – a derogatory term for gay men in Morocco. Ababri reclaims space, language, and history with drawings that explore diasporic queer experiences and subvert homophobia through radical friendship and collective emancipation in queer nightlife.
Running until June 30, 2024 at Barbican, London
IN THE SIMMERING AIR AND THE FLOWS OF THE UNDERCURRENT
Adham Faramawy is a London-based artist of Egyptian descent exploring materiality, the body, and toxicity across various media and challenging notions of the natural within marginalised communities. This solo exhibition In the Simmer Air and the Flowers of the Undercurrent features new installation work alongside recent video works, paintings, and sculptures that explore the interplay of land, rivers, and migratory flows, intertwining personal histories, mythology, and flora.
From March 29 – June 23, 2024 at Chapter, Glasgow
DISLOCATIONS, PALAIS DE TOKYO, PARIS, FRANCE
Dislocations spotlights 15 intergeneration artists from Afghanistan, France, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Myanmar, Palestine, Syria and Ukraine, making work amid global turmoil. Their works, influenced by exile and displacement, blend ancestral techniques with modern tools, offering fragmented narratives of resilience. Sharing their experiences of being torn between past and present, here and there, Majd Abdel Hamid, Rada Akbar, Bissane Al Charif, and others contribute to a poignant exploration of displacement, imprisonment, and conflict, echoing stories of survival and repair.
Running until June 30, 2024 at Palais de Tokyo, Paris
LEARNING A NEW PUNCTUATION FOR HOPE IN TIMES OF DISASTER
Scottish artist Alberta Whittle’s practice is a testament to self-compassion and collective healing in the face of anti-Blackness. Across drawing, film, and sculpture, she challenges Western constructs, creating interactive installations that prioritise self-care and community. Learning a new punctuation for hope in times of disaster features “Lagareh – The Last Born”, which debuted at the Venice Biennale in 2022, alongside new paintings and sculptures, blending tender portraiture with abstract symbolism. Her works intertwine history with personal narratives, echoing the themes of resilience explored in Christina Sharpe’s writings and Jean Rhys’s literature. Embellished textiles and ornate frames invite viewers into a world of introspection and kinship.
Running until May 18, 2024 at Regen Projects, LA
IN THE NOW: GENDER AND NATION IN EUROPE, BROOKLYN MUSEUM
In the Now celebrates nearly 50 women artists and over 70 works challenging gender norms and photographic conventions. As the first museum survey of European-born or based women photographers, it critiques nationalism and patriarchal structures shaping contemporary life. Curated from the Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl Photography Collection at the Brooklyn Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, all works were made after 2000.
Running until July 7, 2024 at Brooklyn Museum, NYC
WHITE SHOES, NONA FAUSTINE, BROOKLYN MUSEUM, NEW YORK CITY
In her series White Shoes, American artist Nona Faustine asks: “What does a Black person look like today in the sites where Africans were once sold?” Through over 40 self-portraits across New York City, Faustine confronts the city’s harrowing legacy of slavery. Wearing white pumps, which symbolise colonial and assimilation oppressions, she stands vulnerable yet commanding, embodying solidarity with her ancestors. Now on show in Faustine’s debut museum show of the same name, the work emphasises the urgent need to reckon with hidden histories.
Running until July 7, 2024, at Brooklyn Museum, NYC
BEYOND FORM: LINES OF ABSTRACTION, 1950-1970
Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950-1970 argues for abstraction as a radical tool embraced by women artists post-World War II. The exhibition, featuring over 50 artists and 80 artworks, predominantly sculptures, explores how women used abstract forms to navigate cultural and political shifts. Some names featured include Louise Bourgeois, Novera Ahmed, Ruth Asawa, Mária Bartuszová, Lynda Benglis, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Carmen Herrera, Eva Hesse, and Agnes Martin.
Running until May 6, 2024 at Turner Contemporary, Margate
HIDDEN TRACKS: A DECADE OF FREE PARTIES, SEANA GAVIN
The free party movement was born as a refusal of the commercialisation of Acid House in the 1990s, and artist Seana Gavin was deep in its midst of it between 1993 and 2003. Spending intense periods following the sound systems around Europe, from France, Spain, Holland, Italy, Berlin, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, she collected ephemera, from flyers to diary entries, and a huge amount of photographs documenting the build-up and the aftermath of raves, as well as the faces who she met along the way. She brings all of these together in Hidden Tracks, which she describes as “a document of the people, creativity and alternative way of living of a very underground scene.”
Running from 10 – 28 April 2024, Gallery 46, London
SOME MAY WORK AS SYMBOLS: ART MADE IN BRAZIL, 1950S–70S
In Brazil’s mid-twentieth-century art scene, new, diverse artistic approaches emerged after its first Modernist wave. Curated by Pablo Lafuente and Thiago de Paula Souza, the group exhibition Some May Work As Symbols highlights the interactions between abstraction, symbolism, and figuration, addressing exclusions in Brazilian art history by showcasing works by 30 artists. Celebrated internationally now, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro Concretists like Judith Lauand, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, and Lygia Pape crafted abstract geometries. Simultaneously, Afro-Brazilian symbology, developed by Mestre Didi, Abdias Nascimento, and Rubem Valentim, referenced spiritual practices like Candomblé. Street scenes, domestic life, and agricultural labour also find space through artists like Silvia de Leon Chalreo, Heitor dos Prazeres, and Madalena Santos Reinbolt.
Showing until May 5, 2024, Raven Row, London
DREAMS HAVE NO TITLES, ZINEB SEDIRA, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY
Dreams Have No Titles was initially conceived for the French Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale and immerses its audience in an installation blending film, sculpture, photography, and performance. Reflecting on 1960s and 1970s activist cinema in France, Algeria, and Italy, Sedira intertwines personal narrative with historical context. Galleries transform into film sets, evoking iconic scenes from Ettore Scola’s Le Bal and recreating Sedira’s Brixton home. A cinema amongst the exhibition screens Sedira’s film, inviting audiences to witness the convergence of reality and fiction. Through collective experiences, the exhibition underscores the enduring significance of shared narratives while cautioning against unfulfilled promises of emancipation.
Running until May 12, 2024, Whitechapel Gallery, London
FRENZY OF THE VISIBLE, SIBYLLE RUPPERT, LONDON, ENGLAND
The first UK solo exhibition of the late German-Swiss artist Sibylle Ruppert showcases her radical oeuvre of paintings, drawings, and collages spanning the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Rooted in dark surrealism and eroticism, Ruppert’s work grapples with personal traumas. Traversing Frankfurt, Paris, and New York, she settled in Paris in 1976, dedicating herself to art. Influenced by German Expressionists and literary figures like Marquis de Sade, her intricate pieces depict bodily metamorphosis, blurring lines between pleasure and pain, human and machine. The exhibition title, Frenzy of the Visible, echoes Linda Williams’ critique of power dynamics embodied in visual media, aligning with Ruppert’s exploration of corporeal intensity and spectatorship.
From 6 March – 20 April 2024 at Project Native Informant, London
LAUREN HALSEY, GAGOSIAN, PARIS, FRANCE
American artist Lauren Halsey’s Gagosian debut continues to spread her transformative vision for art and architecture, echoing the culture of her home of South Central Los Angeles. Featuring two related series: foil works (2011–) and protruded engravings (2022–), Halsey celebrates community resilience through repurposed imagery “unique to her community as a means of commemoration, celebration, and transcendence”. The foil works, mounted on insulated foam, reflect local iconography and activism, advocating against gentrification and displacement in the area. Meanwhile, her protruded engravings blend South Central’s lived experience and visual culture with ancient Egyptian iconography and Afrofuturist utopian visions, affirming and fostering communal identity.
Running until May 25, 2024 at Gagosian, Paris