London Gallery Weekend kicks off today, with over 100 galleries providing an opportunity to discover and explore London’s world-class gallery scene, celebrating the city’s diverse cultural and creative communities. Extensive programmes are scheduled by galleries specially for the weekend includes talks, family workshops and special events. Loads of galleries to choose from. To make it easier, we have listed a couple of our favourites below!

Are you in West London? Start your LGW at Hackelbury Fine Art, presenting the first UK solo exhibition by acclaimed artist, Joanne Leonard. The exhibition Vintage Photographs and Early Collages features photographs from the 1960s and 1970s and unique early collage pieces from the 1970s and 1980s.

JOANNE LEONARD. Sonia, 1966. Vintage gelatin silver print

Make your way over to Gallery 1957, home to Of Movement, Materials and Methods, a solo exhibition by Modupeola Fadugba. This series introduces Fadugba’s expanded beading practice, a continuation of her long-standing interest in materiality, memory, and community.

And not to be missed is Harlesden High Street, exhibiting Cell 72: The Cost of Confinement by Emmanuel Massillon and Allen-Golder Carpenter. This exhibition sees the space transform into a prison cell for over 72 hours in which Allen will live inside the cell. The purpose of this exhibition is to provide a raw and unfiltered insight into the inhuman conditions and psychological effects of incarceration, drawing attention to the often overlooked realities of prison life.

If you are venturing down to South London, then you don’t want to skip Hannah Barry Gallery. Currently on view is Harley Weir’s The Garden, bringing together new and archival images that combine the artist’s signature intensity and fluid approach to image-making. For Weir, the garden is “the pinnacle and the pipe dream of where I’m going and what I want”.

In Camberwell you will find Dreamlandia at Sim Smith, celebrating 100 years of Surrealism with an intergenerational group of female artists, including Marion Adnams, Myriam Bat Yosef, Renate Bertlmann, Ithell Colquhoun, Kate Groobey, Emily Hunt, Lisa Ivory, Maria Martins, Kemi Onabulé, Grace Pailthorpe, Nooka Shepherd, Kiki Smith, Stella Snead, Emma Talbot, Toyen, and Cora Wöllenstein.

Moving closer to the river you may want to visit Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, in Tower Bridge, for Norwegian artist Martine Poppe’s East of the Sun and West of the Moon, taking us through lily ponds, rocky mountain sides and tropical gardens.

Will you be in East London? LOUISA CLEMENT at ANNKA KULTYS GALLERY extends over about 115 frames containing close-ups of the artist’s body, with text lasered onto the frames exploring the loss of our true knowledge, through algorithms and the generation of texts and the manipulation of news.

Project Native Informant has two exhibitions on at the moment, Anna Jung Seo’s O love, how did you get here? and Sean Steadman’s GIANT ATOMS. Seo primarily approaches her subjects in either painting from observation or from literary sources, whereas Steadman creates complex compositions through iterative processes informed by many threads of art history, and an interest in the natural sciences and technology.

Dotty Attie’s 40 Years at Public Gallery is the first UK solo exhibition and major retrospective of works by the artist, offering a closer look to Attie’s extensive career, and her influence in both contemporary art and feminist practice.

Now, in Central London you will be spoilt for choice. Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s No Time For Despair at Hauser & Wirth is a space of community, abundance and joy, and sees the artist explore the quieter tones of femininity and queer community guided by deep intuition.

Michaela Yearwood-Dan. The cry of my people. 2025. Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Marianne Boesky Gallery

At Ames Yavuz Polyphonies brings together works by Ibrahim Ahmed, Brook Andrew, Ana Bidart, Joy Gregory, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Betty Muffler, Seraphina Mutscheller, Thania Petersen, Stanislava Pinchuk and Lizi Sánchez. This exhibition challenge the intrinsic hierarchies and biases of language and presents voices who question dominant languages.

Mandy Franca’s Why Do I Stare at the Sky and Long for the Clouds at Night Cafe Gallery brings together new work by the artist’s, created during a time of illness and reflects on the collapse and exposure of global structures and the illusion of freedom in contemporary society.

Installation view 'Why Do I Stare at the Sky and Long for the Clouds'

Like Lovers Do by Katelyn Eichwald is presented at Cob Gallery, presenting emotional transcriptions of secrets folded into a diary, snapshots of yearning suspended between innocence and desire.

And finally, at Josh Lilley you will enjoy Erica Mahinay’s Engagements. Mahinay’s work has a distinctive character, each work utilising a unique ratio of materials and motion, colour and light.

Want to find out more? Discover all participating galleries, which exhibitions are on view now and create your own route.

Your London Gallery Weekend Guide

Nora Turato – pool7