Exhibitions

The ICP at 50: From the Collection, 1845–2019 at the International Center of Photography, New York: Until May 6, 2024
In New York, the ICP is presenting a selection of works from across its impressive archive to mark its 50th anniversary. Spanning the 19th century through today, the show will honour such legendary image-makers as Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and Robert Mapplethorpe, as well as contemporary pioneers including Deana Lawson, Susan Meiselas, Guanyu Xu and Paul Mpagi Sepuya. It will also feature a cross-section of “historically critical images and media” – ranging from documentation of the moon’s surface captured by NASA in 1966 to activist posters of the 1980s and 90s by groups like ACT UP and Gran Fury – making for a truly engaging exploration of the medium’s evolution and its “ability to reflect the values and interests of its time”.

Exteriors – Annie Ernaux and Photography at Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris: February 28 – May 26, 2024
Fans of Annie Ernaux are in for a treat. MEP in Paris will soon host an exhibition examining the dynamic relationship between photography and the French writer’s work. More than 150 photographs from the museum’s collection, captured in the latter half of the 20th century, will be presented alongside texts from Ernaux’s 1993 book Exteriors (Journal du dehors) – “a record of happenings on trains, shops and streets in-and-around Cergy-Pontoise between 1985 and 1992”. Expect to see photographs by Daido Moriyama, Harry Callahan, Dolorès Mara, Bernard Pierre Wolff, among others, complemented by Ernaux’s straightforward yet elegant prose.

Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at Barbican, London: February 13 – May 26, 2024
For those transfixed by textiles as an artistic medium, the Barbican’s forthcoming exhibit, Unravel, is guaranteed to intrigue. Through a curation of works by 50 international, intergenerational artists, including Louise Bourgeois, Faith Ringgold, Cecilia Vicuña, Judy Chicago and Billie Zangewa, the show will seek to reveal the ways in which textile art can “communicate vital ideas about power, resistance and survival”. The works offer up narratives of “violence, imperialism and exclusion”, alongside “stories of resilience, love and hope” – a testament to the power of yarn to yield an emotional response.

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at Tate Modern, London: February 15 – September 1, 2024
At Tate Modern, the inimitable Japanese artist Yoko Ono will enjoy the biggest UK retrospective of her groundbreaking work to date. For more than seven decades, Ono has deftly traversed the realms of art, film, performance and music, breaking many boundaries – and continuously campaigning for social and political justice – along the way. The display will trace the development of Ono’s multidisciplinary practice through more than 200 works, spotlighting some of her most powerful pieces and performances, such as her feminist work Cut Piece (1964), wherein her audience was invited to cut away her clothes from her form, as well as instruction pieces, scores, installations and more.

Sarah Moon: On the Edge at Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York: February 15 – April 6, 2024
Later in the month, the renowned French artist and fashion photographer Sarah Moon will open a self-curated show at Howard Greenberg, New York. Made up of more than 30 photographs taken between the late 1980s and 2022, the exhibit will feature Moon’s famously hazy and mysterious editorial shots, as well as lyrically rendered landscapes captured in Coney Island and Tuscany. “All along, I tried to avoid the anecdote, looking for an echo between what I see and what I feel, trying to reach that visual point of no return, that second that cannot happen again,” Moon explains of her chosen inclusions. “The photos I am presenting here are on the edge of that attempt.”

The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure at the National Portrait Gallery, London: 22 February 22 – May 19, 2024
The National Portrait Gallery’s next exhibition will centre on the representation of the Black figure through the lens of contemporary artists from the African diaspora, exploring the ways in which this has illuminated “the richness and complexity of Black life”. Featuring work by the likes of Michael Armitage, Lubaina Himid, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Amy Sherald, and curated by cultural polymath Ekow Eshun, the show will survey not only the presence of the Black figure in Western art history but also its absence – “and the story of representation told through these works, as well as the social, psychological and cultural contexts in which they were produced”.

Joel Meyerowitz: Dialogues at Huxley-Parlour, London: Until March 2, 2024
Dialogues, the new exhibition of work by Joel Meyerowitz at London’s Huxley-Parlour gallery, sees the American photographer highlight unexpected parallels between his images by presenting them in pairs. Timed to coincide with Tate Modern’s current investigation into the image-maker’s unique approach – an exhibit that also employs pairing as its chosen mode of presentation – the Huxley-Parlour show offers a deeper understanding of the elements that define and unite Meyerowitz’s captivating oeuvre, namely his singular employment of light, colour and composition.

Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles at Whitechapel Gallery, London: February 15 – May 12, 2024
At Whitechapel Gallery, don’t miss the chance to experience the renowned French-Algerian artist Zineb Sedira’s striking multimedia installation Dreams Have No Titles, originally conceived for the French Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale. The show will see Sedira transform the gallery spaces into a series of “carefully constructed film sets” that mirror those of specific movies, as well as facets of Sedira’s own past. The result is an “unfolding narrative” that blurs and intertwines the real and the fictional, the personal and the collective, drawing attention to “the complex layering of history and the impossibility of presenting a single, fixed interpretation of it”.

Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 at Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit: February 4 – June 23, 2024
Movie lovers: if you happen to be in Detroit over the next few months, be sure to catch the Detroit Institute of Arts’ upcoming exhibition, Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, paying homage to “the legacy of African-American filmmakers and actors from the dawn of cinema, through the golden age, and into the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement”. Comprising film excerpts, newsreels and home-movie footage as well as archive photographs, costumes, props and posters, and a selection of contemporary artworks, the show will shed light on lost and forgotten films, and the extraordinary tenacity and talent of the creatives who made them.

Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You at Serpentine South, London: February 1 – March 17, 2024
At Serpentine South, the American doyenne of text-based art, Barbara Kruger, is currently hosting Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You, her first solo institutional show in London in more than 20 years (an adaptation of her touring US exhibition). Having cut her teeth as a graphic designer at Condé Nast Publications in the 1960s, by the end of the decade Kruger had found a way to translate the “techniques and aesthetics of advertising and other media” into artworks that probe the “complex mechanisms of power, gender, class, consumerism, and capital”, a practice she has pursued ever since. Visitors to the Serpentine show will encounter various installations reimagined for specific locations within the gallery – both indoors and out – as well as moving-image works and soundscapes that prove Kruger’s oeuvre to be as engaging today as ever before.

Juergen Teller: I Need to Live at Triennale di Milano, Milan: Until April 1, 2024
For those who missed its inaugural showing at Paris’s Grand Palais Ephémère, the vast Juergen Teller retrospective, I Need To Live, has just opened at Milan’s Triennale exhibition. Showcasing some 1,000 of the German image-maker’s works, the display consists of personal and commissioned projects, some iconic, others lesser-known (including new photographic series), plus videos and installations that offer immersive insight into Teller’s idiosyncratic world, where humour, sadness, absurdity and artistry abound.

The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism at The Met, New York: February 25 – July 28, 2024
At The Met, a new exhibition will celebrate the visionary artists of the Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism movements, illustrating their integral role in the development of international modern art. Through painting, sculpture, photography, film and ephemera, the show will elucidate the “comprehensive and far-reaching ways” in which Black artists – working in New York’s Harlem neighbourhood, and other parts of the US, in the early 20th century – portrayed “everyday modern life in the new Black cities that [were taking shape] in the early decades of the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans began to move away from the segregated rural South”. Among the featured artists are Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, William H Johnson, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage and James Van Der Zee.

Performances & Events

If you’re in search of excellent live productions, as ever we have you covered. For a “raw, funny, and sensual exploration of polyamory, commitment and modern love”, head to the Southwark Playhouse to see Afterglow, the acclaimed Off-Broadway play by S Asher Gelman. Running until February 10, it follows a married couple in an open relationship, who decide to invite a new lover into their bed for the night. At Theatre Royal Haymarket, Succession’s Sarah Snook is set to star in a one-woman take on The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s classic story of “evil, debauchery and scandal”, running for 14 weeks from February 6. Audiences can look forward to “an explosive interplay of live performance and video”, commanded by Snook’s indomitable presence.

Dance aficionados, make sure to book your tickets for Festival of New Choreography, at the Royal Opera House from February 2-25. Dedicated to championing “choreographic innovation and nurturing the future of the art form”, the festival comprises multiple performances and events across the ROH’s spaces. Highlights include New Works, delivering four world premieres in one night, and Dark With Excessive Bright, an immersive work by Robert Binet.

One of legendary choreographer Pina Bausch’s most memorable works, Nelken, is headed for Sadler’s Wells from February 14-22. Described by the venue as “a bouquet of dance”, the piece will be performed by Tanztheater Wuppertal and choreographer Boris Charmatz’s Terrain project, offering up “a captivating ode to the beauty of dancing bodies”.

Opera lovers will be thrilled by the return of composer Poul Ruders’ celebrated reimagining of The Handmaid’s Tale, arriving at the English National Opera from February 1-15. Featuring a score that draws on mediaeval chants and gospel music, Ruders’ version is just as rousing as its thought-provoking source, telling “a powerful story of courage and survival in the face of repression.” Finally, Sam Holcroft’s riveting wedding drama A Mirror has just transferred to the West End’s Trafalgar Theatre, following a successful run at the Almeida. Directed by Jeremy Herrin and running until April 20, the play asks probing questions about “censorship, authorship and free speech”, while holding its audience captive.

Film

This month’s new releases provide ample reason to hide away in the cinema for hours on end. First up, there’s American Fiction, the accomplished directorial debut of US writer-filmmaker Cord Jefferson. Adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, it centres on a frustrated novelist, disenchanted with “the establishment that profits from Black entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes”. In protest, he pens “an outlandish ‘Black’ book of his own” under a nom de plume – only to receive widespread acclaim. Then there’s The Zone Of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s highly uncomfortable, masterfully shot take on Martin Amis’s disturbing Holocaust drama of the same name. It follows Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife as they “strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp”, to truly chilling effect. Canadian-American director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene) is back with The Iron Claw, a haunting biopic centred on the rise and fall of the three Von Erich brothers, who “made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s”.

Vietnamese-French auteur Trần Anh Hùng returns with tantalising culinary drama The Taste Of Things. Set in 19th-century France, it is the story of esteemed cook, Eugenie, and her restaurateur boss, Dodin, whose intense, two-decade relationship, and the dishes it has sparked, have led to the restaurant’s worldwide renown. But Eugenie won’t commit to Dodin, bringing about an unexpected change of tide as he finally decides to cook for her. Perfect Days, the newest offering from German maestro Wim Wenders, tells the poetic tale of a Tokyo janitor who is fuelled by a passion for rock music, books and trees. While Martin Campbell’s searing drama Memory follows a social worker and recovering alcoholic whose structured existence is turned upside-down when she attends, and is followed home from, her high school reunion by an alleged former classmate.

This month’s must-see documentaries include Dalton’s Dream, Franky Murray Brown and Kim Longinotto’s moving insight into the life of Dalton Harris, the final winner of The X Factor UK, as he battles for self-acceptance “against the backdrop of a fickle music industry”. Occupied City is Steve McQueen’s vital, chilling and exacting documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. A Wolfpack Called Ernesto, from Mexican director Everardo González, paints a vivid portrait of a lost generation, following a group of teenage gangsters in Mexico City, who collectively call themselves “Ernest”.

Food & Drink

Foodies: February’s culinary offerings will not disappoint. For those looking to celebrate the Chinese New Year with sumptuous dishes and beautiful surroundings, look no further than MiMi Mei Fair, which will transform into a “floral paradise” for the occasion, boasting two wishing trees bursting with Medinilla, anthurium, baby’s breath and hydrangea. Diners can expect a dedicated menu of traditional festive dishes, from a “Basket of Wealth” filled with three different dim sum (steamed sea bass, cabbage, and garlic chive chicken) through grilled ginger soya silver cod served with crunchy asparagus, water chestnut and white fungus.

Meanwhile at pan-Asian hotspot Chai Wu in Harrods, the team have created five Chinese New Year specials, including a traditional Lo Hei – “a prosperity-bringing dish, with fresh salmon and shredded vegetables topped with a gold leaf” – and a “show-stopping Dragon Fruit Petit Gâteau with vanilla chiffon sponge”. A wonderfully indulgent way to ring in the Year of the Dragon.

If you’re looking for a dose of winter escapism, head to Ixchel – the brand new south-eastern Mexican restaurant in the heart of Chelsea – stat. There, you will be greeted with lush plants and transportive decor (including a gorgeous fresco by Mexico-based artist Rafael Uriega), and an intoxicating array of flavours and aromas, courtesy of head chef Ximena Gayosso Gonzalez. The menu has been curated around locally sourced ingredients to bring the freshest flavours from Mexico to London. Anticipate Mexican classics like ceviches, tacos and tostadas, reimagined with a modern edge, from a sauteed prawn quesadilla with refried beans, pickled red onions and Morita chilli, to Albacore tuna sashimi with Ponzu toreada sauce. And that’s not all, the space also features a hidden tequila bar offering “one of the largest collections of agave-based liquor in Europe”.

Meanwhile, Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Sabor has just reopened its doors following refurbishment, replete with a brand new space for communal dining. Dubbed “La Mesa” (the table), the dedicated zone is just that: a table for up to ten guests, who will be offered the chance to enjoy some of the restaurant’s most iconic dishes from both the Counter and Asador kitchens, as well as a series of “La Mesa specials” that will be refreshed daily. Think tapas-style dishes like monkfish tempura, pan tomate, and piquillo croquetas with manchego and large shared plates spanning Arroz Meloso, whole suckling pig, and Rubia Gallega beef.

Modern Palestinian eatery akub will host two more supper clubs this month – on February 5 and 12 – in aid of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Raising funds for Amos Trust, Anera and Medical Aid Palestine, tickets are priced air £150 per person and include a three-course Palestinian feast and drinks.

On Blandford Street in Marylebone, Bellazul, a new neighbourhood restaurant offering Mediterranean fare, is set to open this month. Head chef Simone Serafini (of Cecconi’s, Cacciari’s and 5 Hertford Street) has crafted a menu that promises to take diners on “a culinary journey, from the rolling hills and rich flavours of Italy to the shores of Greece and its islands”, with an added dash of warm Moroccan spice. This includes a tantalising selection of seasonally changing sharing plates, including Moroccan lamb tagine and lobster spaghetti, as well as lighter dishes like the grilled salmon salad served with quail eggs and green beans.

Last but not least, in Hampstead, the team behind Michelin-starred restaurant Taku Mayfair has just opened a new restaurant, INÉ By Taku. Serving the freshest sushi, a 15-course omakase menu with specialty sakes and wines, and a contemporary Japanese a la carte menu to die for (picture lobster with cauliflower and sudachi jelly, grilled Iberico pork, Wagyu beef katsu sando and more). Kanpai!