October is when London’s art calendar segues out of summer blockbuster season and into festival mode. With Frieze Week bringing in galleries, collectors and artists from around the world and PAD London launching its programme, it’s a particularly exciting time to explore. Here are some of the exhibitions we think are worth making time for this month.
Es Devlin: Other Worlds, Design Museum
2 October 2026 — 4 April 2027
Es Devlin’s work has always occupied an interesting space between art, architecture, theatre and technology, but her latest outing at the Design Museum will be her first retrospective. The exhibition explores Devlin’s previous projects, from artworks to installations and sculpture from her decades-long career, as well as a showcase of her personal store. ‘I’m moving my studio and practically my entire 30-year archive into the Design Museum for this show,’ she says. Known for creating monumental environments for cultural and musical events, like the 2012 Olympic Games in London and the Super Bowl Halftime show, Devlin considers how design can shape collective experiences.
Amar Kanwar, Serpentine North Gallery
23 September 2026 — 31 January 2027
At Serpentine North, New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar brings together three decades of work in a major solo exhibition. Kanwar’s work straddles documentary, travelogue and visual essay, and this show presents a trilogy of films, along with an installation that projects video onto 62 handmade ramie and cotton papers. Through the legacies of decolonisation in India, Kanwar explores ideas of violence, truth, nature, humanity and power, often asking viewers to slow down and look differently. The exhibition is an immersive environment of moving images and sound — a quieter counterpoint to the intensity of Frieze week.
Ryoji Ikeda, 180 Studios
14 October — 20 December
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 and composer 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; earlier projects include the digital work Test Pattern and his large-scale 2021 exhibition at 180 The Strand.
Salman Toor, Courtauld
2 October 2026 — 10 January 2027
Courtauld presents the first solo exhibition of New York-based Pakistani painter Salman Toor. The artist’s figurative paintings often depict the lives of young, brown, queer men, exploring themes of friendship, intimacy, belonging and isolation. His subjects are often situated in domestic and social spaces both familiar and dreamlike. Drawing inspiration from the baroque period, Toor brings together contemporary experiences with the visual language of the past. The exhibition offers an opportunity to encounter his work alongside Courtauld’s permanent collection, creating an intriguing dialogue between past and present.
Cecilia Vicuña, Whitechapel Gallery
7 October 2026 — 14 February 2027
Chilean artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña has spent six decades working across art, poetry, environmental activism and Indigenous histories. Her exhibition at the Whitechapel includes a selection of paintings made in London following her self-exile from Chile after the violent military coup of 1973. These works explore themes of political violence, displacement and isolation. Her later work, reflecting her commitment to honouring Indigenous knowledge systems, is also presented here, including ‘Quipu Menstrual’, an installation made from raw wool. The work draws on the quipu, an ancient Indigenous Andean system of knotted cords used to record information. Together, these works offer a vital meditation on how we might reconnect with ancestral knowledge and reconsider our relationship with the natural world.
