AUTUMN BEACON DISPATCH

28 Sept

London fashion meets art, archives re-opened, new rooms for attention

London enters autumn with precision. Exhibitions, fairs and pop-ups are leaning into material honesty, collaborative staging and sharper curatorial framing. Below, the highlights to see now, the emerging undercurrents, and what this signals for the months ahead.

What London feels like right now

September has brought a noticeable shift. Institutions and independents alike are curating with intent, preferring depth over spectacle. Fashion and art are in open dialogue, often sharing spaces, while photography, performance and craft are being treated with equal seriousness. The mood is not overstated; it is attentive, measured, and willing to linger.

Practical landscape, the month’s beacons

Barbican, “Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion.” A major survey that puts craft, wear, and imperfection back at the centre of image-making. From McQueen to Westwood, the exhibition presents clothing as living archive rather than pristine commodity. Runs 25 September – 25 January.

Victoria Miro, Stan Douglas. Douglas’ high-production photographs and films investigate how histories are told and retold. The London show (26 September – 1 November) is a rare chance to see his work in depth, bringing cinematic scale into the gallery.

V&A East Storehouse, David Bowie Centre. Now open in Stratford, this dedicated archive combines notebooks, stage costumes and recordings with public access. It serves as both display and study resource, modelling how cultural memory can be activated.

Other notable signals:

— Queeriosities, the Peckham makers fair, foregrounds queer artists and creates a welcoming public for work that often sits outside traditional spaces.

— Rethinking Fashion Image at Central Saint Martins frames student fashion photography as social and ecological inquiry as much as style.

undercurrents

Agency and representation.

Recent work places clear emphasis on who controls narrative. Rachel Jones’ commission at The Courtauld uses colour and scale to reframe how bodies move within institutional space. Sophy Rickett’s re-staging of Pissing Women (1995) reads today as a sharp critique of public and corporate boundaries.

Memory and archives.

London is drawing heavily on archival material—from Bowie’s notebooks to photobook revivals—as a way of testing the present. This is not nostalgia for its own sake, but a practical use of history as raw material.

Design and protest.

The Museum of UnRest’s Right to Protest demonstrates how graphics and design can be re-seen as historical record and contemporary statement at once.

Emergent trends

Immersive staging. Projects such as Black Sun, Red Gold in the Crypt Gallery show how performance, textiles and sound are being used to transform exhibition settings into temporary environments.

Sustainability and material honesty. From repair-driven fashion at the Barbican to river-focused photography, ecological thinking now informs method and presentation rather than appearing as afterthought.

Networked platforms. Basel’s new Premiere sector for smaller galleries suggests large organisations are adjusting to a mid-scale, distributed economy. Independents and fairs like Queeriosities in London mirror that shift.

Digital with material grounding. International shows such as Love Sex Dissonance in Berlin point to a post-internet sensibility that prioritises texture, embodiment and context over screen-based novelty.

What to go to, now

1) Stan Douglas — Victoria Miro

When: 26 September – 1 November 2025

Why: A rare chance to experience Douglas’ complex, cinematic works in a concentrated setting.

Where: Victoria Miro, Wharf Road.

2) Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion — Barbican Art Gallery

When: 25 September 2025 – 25 January 2026

Why: Curates imperfection and repair as central to fashion’s language.

Where: Barbican Art Gallery.

3) Kerry James Marshall: The Histories — Royal Academy of Arts

When: 20 September 2025 – 18 January 2026

Why: The largest European survey to date of Marshall’s work, spanning painting, prints and sculpture. The show foregrounds Black presence, memory and narrative within art history.

Where: Royal Academy, Burlington House, London W1J 0BD.

4) Cai Guo-Qiang: Gunpowder and Abstraction — White Cube, Bermondsey

When: 26 September – 9 November 2025

Why: Cai’s work with gunpowder and explosive media offers a counterpoint: volatile materials, controlled gesture, a dialogue with destruction as making.

Where: White Cube, Bermondsey.

5) Lee Miller Retrospective — Tate Britain

When: 2 October 2025 – 15 February 2026

Why: A sweeping look at Miller’s career—from surrealist experiments and fashion photography to war correspondence. A landmark moment for photographic history in London.

Where: Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG.

6) Hugh Hayden: Hughmans — Lisson Gallery

When: 27 September – 1 November 2025

Why: Hayden’s sculptures and installations often play with scale, material and domestic fragments. This London show is a chance to engage his sculptural logic in person.

Where: Lisson Gallery, Bell Street, London.