A curated list of wonderful ways to spend your September, from chic new cocktail spots to must-see theatre productions and more
Exhibitions
At the ICP in New York, the upcoming exhibition We Are Here: Scenes From the Streets will set out to explore the broad range of perspectives and techniques that define modern street photography, while revealing the genre’s potential for personal and cultural storytelling. Platforming the work of more than 30 intergenerational and international artists, including Janette Beckman, Daido Moriyama, Farnaz Damnabi and Grace Ekpu, the display will seek to “reframe our understanding of ‘the street’ and the activities and exchanges that occur [there]... testify[ing] to the resilience and similarities of the human experience”.
Nike: Form Follows Motion at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein: September 21, 2024 – May 4, 2025
Since its launch in the 1960s, US sports brand Nike has grown from a grassroots startup to a worldwide phenomenon, pioneering some of the most notable innovations in sportswear. And yet it has never been the focus of a museum exhibition – something the Vitra Design Museum is set to change with its next show, Nike: Form Follows Motion. This will draw back the curtain on the brand’s design history, from its instantly recognisable “swoosh” logo through its most renowned products (like Air Max and Flyknit) and collaborations (Comme des Garçons, Virgil Abloh). It will also offer a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into Nike’s design laboratory in Oregon, where hundreds of designers team up with specialists in material engineering, body mechanics and beyond, as well as many of the world’s best athletes.
Sosa Joseph: Pennungal at David Zwirner, London: Until September 28, 2024
At David Zwiner in London, don’t miss the chance to see the first European solo exhibition from Indian painter Sosa Joseph, whose sweeping tableaux summon dreamlike recollections of her childhood home of Parumala, a lush island village located on the Pamba River in Kerala. Each one conveys an episode in the lives of Parumala’s women and girls through fluid brushstrokes and vivid colours, “revealing the mores, strictures and rituals, both religious and secular,” that underscore their everyday experiences to profound effect.
Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York: September 25 – February 9, 2025
Dance devotees in New York will delight at the news of the world’s first large-scale museum exhibition dedicated to the inimitable American choreographer Alvin Ailey, set to open at the Whitney at the end of the month. The show will take place across two storeys, one an immersive exhibition space where remarkable archival material, including performance footage, recorded interviews and notebooks, will sit alongside works by more than 80 artists, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Faith Ringgold and Kara Walker, to illustrate the themes that shaped Ailey’s life and dances. In the museum’s third-floor theatre, meanwhile, visitors can enjoy a programme of intimate live performances by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater throughout the show’s duration.
Marlene Dumas: Mourning Marsyas at Frith Street Gallery: September 20 – November 16, 2024
At London’s Frith Street Gallery, fêted South African artist Marlene Dumas will present Mourning Marsyas, a new series of typically haunting and evocative paintings, which the gallery describes as “neither portraits nor observations, but images of feelings and moods”. The works are inspired by the story of Marsyas in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a satyr who challenged the god Apollo to a musical competition. He lost and was skinned alive by Apollo for his daring. For Dumas, the god’s behaviour preempts that of our present political leaders, “who rule not by joy and justice but by addiction to power”, while the wild satyr represents “liberty and artistic freedom”. In form, the paintings convey a profound sense of mourning and despair, but in message they offer hope and encouragement.
Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue at MoMA, New York: September 15, 2024 – January 11, 2025
“There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment,” the late, great Swiss American photographer Robert Frank once said. “This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough – there has to be vision, and the two together can make a good photograph.” Frank spent his career taking good photographs, ones that captured the essence of American life, while offering a layered critique of the country’s social and cultural fabric. Now, to mark his centenary, MoMA is hosting its first exhibition dedicated solely to Frank, showcasing more than 200 works taken over the course of six decades. The aim? To shine a light on the image-maker’s “restless experimentation across mediums including photography, film, and books, as well as his dialogues with other artists and his communities”.
Noah Davis at Das Minsk Kunsthaus, Potsdam: September 7, 2024, to January 5, 2025
When he died from complications from cancer at the age of 32, US artist Noah Davis left behind a extraordinarily rich legacy. The primarily LA-based art star made paintings, works on paper and sculptures that explored “a range of Black life”, drawing on found photographs, personal archives, pop culture, art history and his own imagination to conjure enigmatic, yet emotionally wrought scenes. Now, a new exhibition from Das Minsk Kunsthaus in Potsdam (its first destination) and the Barbican (where it will later transfer), will serve as the largest international institutional survey of Davis’s work to date. Consisting of over 50 works, some previously unseen, it will provide an in-depth overview of Davis’s singular oeuvre.
In Vienna from mid-September, Albertina Modern will present the first major retrospective of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm in honour of his 70th birthday. For decades, Wurm has explored and stretched the concept of “the sculptural”, using sculpture, drawing and instructions, as well as videos and photographs, to investigate “the paradoxes and absurdities” of modern life. In his hands, a house rendered in ultra-skinny proportions symbolises the “narrowness of bourgeois thinking and action”, while a chubby car mocks contemporary consumerism with gaudy humour. The Albertina exhibition will bring together renowned works from all stages of Erwin Wurm’s career, spanning his early wood and dust sculptures, through his famous participatory One Minute Sculptures and brand new works, displayed here for the first time.
Lee Ufan and Mark Rothko at Pace Gallery, Seoul: September 4 – October 26, 2024
Those in Seoul, be sure to pay a visit to Pace Gallery where a sure-to-be-transcendent new show will place works by the inimitable American artist Mark Rothko in dialogue with paintings by the Korean minimalist artist Lee Ufan. “Both artists use colour as a locus for eliciting a deeply contemplative state in the viewer,” explains the gallery of the pairing – a display curated by Ufan himself in collaboration with the Rothko family. “And both deal with the aesthetics of air, emptiness, and vapor in their work, investigating painting’s capacity to intensify our experience of colour.”
Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor at MoMu, Antwerp: September 28, 2024 – February 2, 2025
The Belgian modernist painter James Ensor “used masks, clothing and accessories as ambiguous instruments for unmasking: a way of revealing the true nature and deeper feelings of his masked figures.” So explains the MoMu, Antwerp, which has taken Ensor’s paintings as the starting point for its autumn exhibition, Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor. The multimedia show will explore the role of masks and coquetry in modern life – via artworks by Ensor, Tschabalala Self, Bruce Gilden, Cindy Sherman among others – while celebrating the creative potential of make-up and hairstyling from the standpoint of today’s most talented artists and designers (think: Cyndia Harvey, Peter Philips, Martin Margiela and Walter Van Beirendonck).
Pier Paolo Pasolini. Porcili at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin: September 11 – November 10, 2024
Berlin-based fans of Pier Paolo Pasolini, make sure to check out Neuer Berliner Kunstverein’s exhibition on the life and work of the radical Italian auteur, timed to coincide with the opening of Berlin Art Week. Titled Porcili (pigsties) in reference to Pasolini’s 1969 film Porcile, the show will reconstruct the director’s “corpo” through a plethora of original materials, from photographs and films to newspapers, books and costumes, taking into account the systematic discrimination he endured as a radical, openly queer member of the Communist Party, and his unwaveringly bold crusade against societal convention through film.
Et In Arcadia Ego at Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street: September 5 – October 19, 2024
The vast, expressive paintings of the late American painter Leon Golub represent some of the most searing depictions of war and state brutality in the history of modern art. For US artist Rashid Johnson, it was Golub’s “relentless approach to bearing witness”, his ability to “make ever-present such successive internalised modern horrors as the Holocaust [and] the traumas of the atomic bomb” that make his work, and influence so enduring. This month, at Hauser & Wirth’s 22nd Street space in New York, Johnson has curated a two-part exhibition inspired by Golub, with one floor dedicated to the artist’s work from the early 1950s to the late 1990s, and another featuring complementary works by other artists, such as Philip Guston, David Hammons and Johnson himself, likewise conveying conflict and uncertainty.
Events & Performances
If you’re looking to book some excellent live events to ease the post-summer blues, we’ve got plenty of recommendations. First off, there’s Akram Khan’s Giselle, performed by the English National Ballet, which will return to Sadler’s Wells for the first time in five years from September 18-28. Khan, choreographing his first full-length ballet, delivers a haunting and visceral reimagining of the 19th-century classic about love, betrayal and redemption, which promises to leave audiences spellbound.
On 28 September, V&A East will host a free night across seven levels of UCL East’s campus to celebrate the abundance of Latinx creative talent flourishing in east London. InBetween: A Latinx Takeover will invite visitors to “explore ideas of place, communal care, resistance and the in-between space the Latinx diaspora is often forced to inhabit”. Expect DJ sets from Latinx queer club night 2C PERREA, live performances from singer-songwriter Montañera, and works by multidisciplinary artists including Daniel Re, Nina González-Park and performance-based community Diasporas Now.
This month, the brilliant David Oyelowo will take to the stage as the titular hero of Coriolanus, Shakespeare’s timeless political tragedy about Rome’s most celebrated warrior. The brand new production, directed by Lyndsey Turner, premieres at the National Theatre from September 11 – November 9 and is sure to sell out fast, so get booking. At The Royal Court from September 20 – November 16, Giant by Mark Rosenblatt will offer a darkly comic exploration of “the difference between considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric”. Set in 1983, it homes in on the real-life moment when revered children’s author Roald Dahl published an antisemitic article and was forced to decide between making a public apology or risking his name and reputation. Don’t miss the West End transfer of Shifters by Benedict Lombe either – at Duke of York’s Theatre until October 12 following its sold-out run at the Bush Theatre. An intoxicating rom-com, it tells the tale of two lovers who have reunited after years apart, carrying new secrets and old scars.
At Forma HQ in Bermondsey from September 26 – October 26, meanwhile, check out the London edition of The Artists Film International, a touring programme of film works from 15 international artists and artist collectives, which offer diverse investigations into “the ways in which solidarity can be articulated through moving-image”. The launch party on September 26, from 3pm until late, promises a special evening of performances, screenings, and collaborations including the London premiere of MASS by visual artist, filmmaker and poet Nadeem Din-Gabisi.
Film
Our most anticipated film releases this month include Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 classic, in which Michael Keaton reprises his role as the titular “bio-exorcist”, accidentally summoned by the now-expanded Deetz family (Winona’s back too) upon their return to Winter River. A wonderfully imaginative movie-within-a-movie, My First Film is the debut feature from US director Zia Anger and follows a filmmaker as she revisits her first haphazard attempt at shooting a movie 15 years prior. In the nail-bitingly tense thriller Red Rooms from Canadian writer-director Pascal Plante, meanwhile, Juliette Gariépy gives a rousing performance as a model who develops a burgeoning obsession with the high-profile case of serial killer.
In Camera marks British filmmaker Naqqash Khalid’s accomplished debut feature: a razor-sharp satire on the film industry and contemporary race politics in which a young actor struggling to secure parts takes matters into his own hands. Co-written and directed by Iranian filmmakers Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, My Favourite Cake is a stirring romance set in 1970s Iran, where an elderly widow takes second chance on love in defiance of accepted social practices. Then there’s Indian director Shuchi Talati’s latest offering, Girls Will Be Girls – the tender and complex story of Mira, a 16-year-old boarding school pupil, whose budding romance with a new student is interrupted by her overbearing mother.
September’s must-see documentaries, meanwhile, include Knock Out Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story by Rick Lazes, Tom DeNucci and Seth Koch – the poignant story of the fabled boxing promoter Kellie Maloney, known for steering Lennox Lewis to championship fame, who came out as trans at the age of 64. Cyborg: A Documentary is Carey Born’s riveting portrait of the colour blind artist – and first formally-recognised cyborg – Neil Harbisson, who has an antenna implanted in his head that enables him to “hear” colour. While Sugarcane, a powerful and important film from Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, investigates abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in Canada, before turning a lens to the reckoning this ignites on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.
Food & Drink
Nothing raises the spirits like a well-mixed drink or a delicious dinner with friends, and thankfully this month has plenty of tempting new culinary and cocktail offerings to lure us out of the house as shorter evenings encroach. At Savile Row’s beloved Italian restaurant Sartoria, a chic new drinks spot, Sophia’s Bar, has just opened, taking its inspiration from the endlessly elegant Italian actress Sophia Loren. There, a fresh and inventive cocktail menu pays tribute to moments and themes from Loren’s life, from La Diva Americana, a vibrant citrus blend reflecting Loren’s international appeal, to the rich and layered La Dolce Vita, which encapsulates the essence of Italy’s “sweet life”.
At Japanese hotspot The Aubrey, meanwhile, the aesthete and illustrator Aubrey Beardsley remains the enduring referencepoint as the bar and restaurant sets out to launch the second edition of its acclaimed cocktail publication, The Yellow Book, on September 20. An ode to the namesake British magazine of the 1890s, for which Beardsley was the Arts Editor, The Yellow Book: Volume II presents guests with art-adorned chapters featuring a selection of tasty modernist drinks. Choose from such enticing options as the Medusa – an aromatic cocktail made of Rice shochu, vanilla syrup, clarified yoghurt, passion fruit and lime, mixed with The Aubrey’s own-label champagne. Or indeed the Sex Strike, named after “the sex rebellion led by Lysistrata in an effort to end the ongoing Peloponnesian War”, which blends Roku gin, yuzu liqueur, quinine and lime leaf cordian with peychaud’s bitters.
Tom Seller’s London restaurant Restaurant Story will this month join forces with another two-Michelin-starred eatery, Tommy Myllymäki and Pi Le’s AIRA in Stockholm, for two exclusive four-hand dinners on September 10 and 11. The menu will combine signature dishes from Myllymäki and Seller’s repertoires as well as seasonal dishes from their respective restaurants. The chefs are united in their love of “incredible seasonal produce”, here presenting diners with “masterful plates that truly tell a story” – srom squid with oyster emulsion, sorrel and caviar to pumpkin agnolotti, pickled trumpet mushrooms and brown butter, and champagne baba, peaches and Peruvian black mint ice cream for dessert.
For those in search of an elevated brunch, head to Bombay Bustle on Maddox Street, where restaurateur Samyukta Nair has just launched a tantalising line-up that evokes the bustling metropolis of her hometown, Mumbai. Served every Saturday and Sunday, highlights include Schezwan Cheese Dosa; Akuri Truffle Naan with Indian spiced scrambled eggs; and the Gulab Jamun Tiramisu with dark chocolate, mascarpone and Pedro Ximenez, along with an accompanying, equally flavourful cocktail menu.
Last but not least, for any Londoners looking to celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival with delicious Taiwanese fare, head to Mr Bao in Peckham or Daddy Bao in Tooting, which will both mark the occasion with exclusive dishes, drinks specials, a tasty take on the traditional mooncake – a matcha pastry filled with white chocolate and strawberry mochi, no less – and a dumpling workshop, from September 16-22.
Alternatively, on September 17 and 18, BAO Borough will welcome back guest chef Eric Sze of New York restaurants 886 and Wenwen for two nights of dedicated Moon Festival barbecues (a Taiwanese tradition). Guests will enjoy a four-course feast comprising specially made bao, sharing platters, skewers straight from the grill and, of course, Moon Cake Bao for dessert. Happy feasting!
