The art edit

After back-to-back art fairs last month, we might be experiencing some slight art fatigue. But with upcoming exhibitions ranging from Peggy Guggenheim’s pioneering influence on Britain’s avant-garde scene to Nan Goldin’s deeply personal moving-image works, London’s galleries are offering plenty of reasons to make time for art this month. Whether revisiting the legacies of influential cultural figures or discovering the work of artists pushing painting in new directions, these are five exhibitions worth adding to the diary.

Peggy Guggenheim: A Revolutionary Eye, Royal Academy of Arts

21 November 2026 – 14 March 2027

Before Peggy Guggenheim became one of the most celebrated art collectors of the 20th century, she was a young gallery owner with a determination to challenge Britain’s artistic establishment. In 1938, she opened Guggenheim Jeune on Cork Street, creating a gallery that helped champion Surrealism, abstraction and other avant-garde movements that were yet to find their footing in Britain.

Now, the Royal Academy revisits this moment, bringing together works by some of the artists who helped define its legacy. Expect to see works by Eileen Agar, Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, among others. The exhibition celebrates one collector’s vision and explores a moment when the boundaries of British art were being redrawn.

Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong, Hayward Gallery

24 November 24 2026 - 14 March 2027

At the Hayward Gallery, the celebrated photographer and filmmaker presents four recent moving-image works, accompanied by photographs and images from her archive. These include ‘Memory Lost (2019–2021)’, an exploration of addiction and its aftermath; ‘Stendhal Syndrome (2024)’, which juxtaposes classical and Renaissance masterpieces with intimate portraits of Goldin’s friends and lovers; and the two-part ‘You Never Did Anything Wrong (2024-2026)’. The latter takes the form of a home movie centred on a solar eclipse, drawing on a myth that eclipses are caused by animals stealing the sun. Together, the works offer an intimate and thought-provoking encounter with one of contemporary art’s most distinctive voices, seen through the lens of her moving-image practice.

Hyun-Sook Song, Sprüth Magers

6 November 2026 – 23 January 2027

Korean-born artist Hyun-Sook Song draws on memories of her early life in rural South Korea, before moving to West Germany as a young woman. Working with the traditional medium of egg tempera on canvas, her paintings are informed by the rhythms and gestures of agricultural life, from harvesting rice with a sickle to unravelling silk threads. There is also a quiet influence of traditional calligraphy in her distinctive, sweeping brushstrokes. In a world of overwhelming technological development, Song’s paintings offer a moment to slow down: meditative works rooted in memory, movement and cultural heritage. Bringing together new paintings and earlier works, this exhibition marks Song’s first presentation in the UK.

Ryoji Ikeda, 180 Studios

Until 20 December 2026

Showing for the second time at 180 Studios, Ryoji Ikeda’s installation data-verse [n°1] explores the physical, atmospheric and otherworldly qualities of sound and light. The Japanese visual and sound artist describes the installation as a ‘total sensory experience’. Visitors lie beneath a vast LED screen as Ikeda’s electronic soundscapes surround them, creating the sensation of looking simultaneously through a microscope and into deep space. The show continues the long-running collaboration between Ikeda and 180 Studios; earlier projects include the digital work Test Pattern and his large-scale 2021 exhibition at 180 The Strand.

Nicole Eisenman, Sadie Coles Savile Row

Until 21 November 2026

Head to Sadie Coles for a final chance to see 10 new works by French-born American artist Nicole Eisenman, all made this year. The exhibition showcases her versatility as a painter, with each canvas exploring a different subject, style and sensibility. Known for her colourful, figurative paintings of distorted social scenes and almost cartoon-like characters, Eisenman moves between expressive figuration, abstraction and biting social satire. Her latest works reveal just how many worlds, emotions and narratives a single canvas can contain. Drawing on art history, popular culture and the absurdities of modern life, she brings together the grotesque and the beautiful in compositions that are as playful as they are thought-provoking.

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