Exhibitions

Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World at Foam, Amsterdam: January 23 – April 23, 2025

“Photographs are often treated as important moments, but really they are fragments and souvenirs of an unfinished world,” the late Saul Leiter once said. This insightful quote inspired the title of Foam’s upcoming retrospective of the influential American photographer, featuring some 200 works. Including black-and-white and colour photographs and lesser-known abstract paintings, the show will highlight Leiter’s inimitable knack for composition and interest in abstract forms, as well as his photographic experiments with light and shadow. Fleeting moments have rarely looked so beautiful.

Raphaela Simon: Shelter From the Cold at Max Hetzler, Paris: January 18 – February 22, 2025

If you’re in Paris, be sure to see the latest solo show from Berlin-based artist Raphaela Simon, a striking new series of paintings (and one sculpture) that expand her “inquiry into questions of physicality and bodily autonomy”. Simon’s thickly layered paintings blur the line between the abstract and the figurative, and in this instance, the hot and the cold – one work finds a figure enshrouded in a puffy pink coat, for instance, another two disembodied heads floating in icy blue water. Simon is an artist who enjoys playing with “the desire of the viewer to imbue abstract forms with meaning” to playful, witty and uncanny effect, and these works are no exception.

Wim Wenders: Written Once at Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York: January 28 – March 15, 2025

This month, New Yorkers will have the chance to immerse themselves in the world of the German filmmaker Wim Wenders thanks to a new exhibition of his photographs at Howard Greenberg Gallery. All the works were taken in the US in the 1970s and 80s while the director was scouting for movie locations and journeying around the country for film events. Expect to see plenty of Wenders-style Americana (Paris, Texas fans, eat your hearts out) as well as accompanying texts written by the auteur, offering rare and poetic insight into both his filmmaking process and his day-to-day life in the movie industry.

Pati Hill with Wolfgang Tillmans at Studio M, London: January 18 – February 15, 2025

For the annual London-wide exhibition Condo 2025, Maureen Paley will play host to Paris gallery Air de Paris at Studio M, bringing together a selection of unique xerograph still lifes made between 1977 and 1990 by the late American writer and photocopy artist Pati Hill, and a single inkjet print by the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans from 2011. By placing these works alongside one another, the display will demonstrate the fascinating ways in which “both artists have explored the photocopier’s capacity for duplication and abstraction, and how the device can be both the subject of an image, and the facilitator of its production.”

Peter Hujar – Eyes Open in the Dark at Raven Row, London: January 30 – April 6, 2025

Later this month, Raven Row will open a new exhibition of work by Peter Hujar, curated by the late American photographer’s biographer John Douglas Millar, and his close friend, the artist and master printer Gary Schneider. Unusually, the display will place emphasis on Hujar’s later work, including portraits of his fellow denizens of downtown New York, his street photographs and more. Of particular note are the expansive images he made after his emergence from a debilitating depression in 1976, and the stirring pictures he took in the early 80s “as the Aids crisis devastated his community, and his work entered into dialogue with the younger artist David Wojnarowicz”.

Pirouette: Turning Points in Design at MoMA, New York: January 26 – October 18, 2025

At MoMA, upcoming exhibition Pirouette: Turning Points in Design will platform some of the most seminal objects of the modern age, ranging from Post-Its and the Macintosh 128K Home Computer through the first emoji keyboard and the Telfar Shopping Bag. Primarily made up of works from the New York museum’s extensive collection, the exhibit will seek to “highlight the role of designers at their most inventive and constructive, and demonstrate the power of design to translate human experience into tangible forms and envision a better future.”

From the Heart to the Hands: Dolce & Gabbana at Grand Palais, Paris: January 10 – March 31, 2025

Dolce & Gabbana’s blockbuster exhibition From the Heart to the Hands, which debuted at Milan’s Palazzo Reale last year, will relocate to the Grand Palais just in time for Paris Fashion Week Men’s. Curated by fashion historian Florence Müller, the show is a lavish celebration of the Italian house’s famously ornate haute couture, divided into 11 sections that highlight the key themes that preoccupy Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, from Sicilian traditions to Milanese opera. Perhaps most impressively, a section of the duo’s atelier has been transported to the Grand Palais temporarily so that visitors can witness the extraordinary hand-craftsmanship behind each couture design – fatto a mano in action.

Northern Lights at Fondation Beyeler, Basel: January 26 – May 25, 2025

Looking to escape January’s inevitable gloomy days? Then perhaps a trip to Basel in Switzerland is in order. Fondation Beyeler will soon lift the curtains on its latest exhibition, Northern Lights, dedicated to landscape painting by artists from Scandinavia and Canada created between 1880 and 1930. The show will feature 74 works by such major artists as Hilma af Klint and Edvard Munch, as well as lesser-known talents like Helmi Biese and Emily Carr, offering visitors a chance to trace the development of Nordic landscape painting in modern art. Experience lush Nordic forests, sun-drenched Scandinavian summers and the magic of the aurora borealis through the breathtaking art they inspired.

New Contemporaries at the ICA, London: January 15 – March 23, 2025

Annual art exhibition New Contemporaries returns to the ICA for its 75th edition, as ever spotlighting the work of emerging and early career artists selected via an open call. This year’s judges Liz Johnson Artur, Permindar Kaur and Amalia Pica have selected 35 artists working across different media for the occasion, among them Sun Oh, Georgia Dymock, Asmaa Jama and Gouled Ahmed. Together, the compelling works on display “offer an overview of [the] urgent lived concerns, interests and social realities from this generation”. 

Barkley L Hendricks: Space is the Place at Jack Shainman, New York: January 9 – February 22, 2025

In its forthcoming exhibition Space is the Place – a reference to the 1972 film by the Afrofuturist icon Sun Ra – New York’s Jack Shainman gallery will present a selection of paintings, drawings and works on paper made in the 1970s by the late American artist Barkley L Hendricks. Best known for his pioneering contributions to Black portraiture, Hendricks, like Sun Ra, also boasted a fascination with the cosmos, employing “symbols that allude to the stars, planets, and cosmic elements” in works that serve as a “catalyst for empowerment and escapism”. Here both facets of Hendricks’ practice will come together to “create a space where Black identity is simultaneously grounded in history and connected to a limitless future”.

A Kind of Language at Fondazione Prada, Milan: 30 January 30 – September 8, 2025

Movie lovers, it’s time to make your way to Milan, where Fondazione Prada will soon present an enticing new show dedicated to the complex creative process behind filmmaking. A Kind of Language will unite more than 1,000 items, with a particular focus on storyboards, all made between 1930 to 2024. Mood boards, drawings and sketches, scrapbooks and notebooks, annotated scripts and photography will also feature, revealing the ways in which auteurs including Pedro Almodóvar, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Hayao Miyazaki, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Satyajit Ray, Agnès Varda and many others build their worlds.

Angela Santana at Saatchi Yates, London: January 15 – February 20, 2025

Swiss-born artist Angela Santana “reimagines how we might present, witness, and digest the female nude” through a female lens in the context of an age brimming with illicit online imagery. Her upcoming solo show at Saatchi Yates sees her continue this endeavour through a series of bold new oil paintings that translate the female form into something strange yet familiar – think: Georgia O’Keeffe colours and Francis Bacon fragmentation with a digital slant.

Events & Performances

There are plenty of great new productions arriving this month, including the West End transfer of The Years, Eline Arbo’s much-praised adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s novel Les Années. Opening on January 24 at the Harold Pinter Theatre, the show sees five actors come together to create “an unapologetic portrait of a woman shaped by her rapidly-changing world”.

At the Royal Court from January 11, don’t miss A Good House, the thrilling and funny new play from Amy Jephta about “a couple who discover the limits of good neighbourliness and what is required to fit in”. From January 24th at the Duke of York’s Theatre, meanwhile, Brie Larson will make her West End debut as the Greek heroine Elektra. The first major revival of Sophokles’s electrifying and enduringly relevant play in more than a decade, this anticipated production is based on a translation by the award-winning poet Anne Carson.

Following its acclaimed run in Stratford-upon-Avon, Kyoto, a rousing new play by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, will transfer to Soho Place on January 9. Transporting audiences to the Kyoto Conference Centre on December 11, 1997, where the world’s nations remain in deadlock 11 hours after the UN’s landmark climate conference should have ended, this tense political thriller is immersive in every sense.

For “a gripping opera of shame, betrayal and redemption”, head to the Royal Opera House from January 15 for Claus Guth’s Olivier award-winning production of Jenůfa, the 19th-century domestic drama by Czech composer Leoš Janáček. Finally, this month marks the return of the Mime London festival replete with many wonderful wordless performances including Not a Word, a poignant new piece by Galway-based company Brú Theatre. Arriving at the Barbican on January 21, it centres around a forgotten class of Irish emigrants “who worked hard, faltered and slowly faded from memory”.

Film

This month is positively packed with exciting new film releases. First up, there’s Nickel Boys by American filmmaker RaMell Ross. A brilliant adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, it traces the budding friendship between two young African-American men sent to a brutal reformatory in 1960s Florida. A Real Pain, the sophomore feature from US actor-director Jesse Eisenberg, follows two very different cousins from the US (played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) as they reunite for a tour of Poland to honour their late grandmother. A thoroughly entertaining odd-couple caper ensues that’s funny and forlorn in equal measure. Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín returns with Maria, another sumptuous portrait of a female icon: the Italian opera star Maria Callas. Angelina Jolie gives a career-defining performance as the renowned diva as she lives out her final days in Paris, resulting in an operatic feast for the eyes and ears.

Don’t miss Babygirl, the much-talked-about erotic thriller from Dutch director Halina Reijn, starring Nicole Kidman as a high-flying CEO who begins “a torrid affair” with her much younger intern. For something slower but no less compelling, there’s Vermiglio, the beautifully made new drama from Italian director Maura Delpero. Set in a small mountain village at the end of World War Two, it follows the arrival of a deserting soldier, whose appearance upends the life of a local family. James Mangold, the US director behind Walk the Line, returns with another acclaimed music biopic, A Complete Unknown, starring a wonderfully enigmatic Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan on the path to stardom.

Another remarkable performance comes courtesy of Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy – a woman tormented by anger and depression – in Hard Truths, Mike Leigh’s stirring new portrait of a British family. For great documentaries, be sure to catch Architecton, Victor Kossakovsky’s majestic musing on humanity’s relationship with architecture, spanning thousands of years’ worth of building history, and Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story, Sinéad O’Shea’s brilliant portrait of the revered Irish author who passsed away last summer, told via her personal journals.

Food & Drink

After all the holiday feasting, many attempt to embrace a more mindful approach to eating and drinking in January. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves along the way. Why not combine a restaurant visit with a day of walking in the Oxfordshire countryside, for instance? Picturesque new pub The Bat and Ball will open its doors on January 8 in the village of Cuddesdon. And with a kitchen overseen by Michelin-star-trained chef Rick Owens, and a menu of elevated pub classics with a focus on sustainability and seasonality, it won’t disappoint. Opening dishes include chicken liver and port parfait with a shallot crumb served with sourdough bread, Calnan’s sausages with buttermilk mash, caramelised onion gravy and crispy onions, and an apple and blackberry crumble for pud. 

Next week, Isaac McHale of The Clove Club will open a new, more casual restaurant named Bar Valette on Kingsland Road, fusing his love of southern French cuisine and simple Spanish cooking. Former Clove Club chef Erin Jackson Yates will head up the kitchen, delivering dishes like Monégasque barbajuans and venison meatballs as well as larger platters of chops, steak and grilled fish to share. 

Two new Sunday lunch menus have caught our attention this month. The Slow Sundays sharing menu at Dalston eatery Oren offers guests the chance to indulge in warming winter braises, inspired by the slow-cooked stews and bakes of the Middle East, North Africa and Mediterranean. Expect plates of cured sardines with pink peppercorns and house-fermented pickles, followed by wild rice and spelt mejadra with pumpkin and tahini, or beef short rib with chard, dried Persian lime and freekeh. The Harissa Bloody Mary looks delicious, too. 

Not far away on Wilton Way, recently opened restaurant Sesta has just launched a line-up of hearty sharers created with leisurely Sunday lunches in mind. Nibble on nihari goose rillettes croquettes, and Wind sausage and squid-stuffed chicken wings with fermented chilli honey, before tucking into plates of smoked brisket steamed pudding, glazed carrots and ox heart katsuobushi, and monkfish and prawn dolma with ouzo butter, braised cimi di rapa and vermouth.

If you’re partaking in Veganuary, make your way to Holy Carrot in Notting Hill. There, you can enjoy an array of inventive and delicious dishes made with plant-based, low-waste, seasonal ingredients, from coal-roasted leeks served with corn, almond and aji chili to foraged wild mushroom cassoulet with smoked tofu and chestnut.

Finally, for those looking to do something special for Lunar New Year, we recommend checking out Joyeta Ng’s week-long residency at Carousel, beginning January 28, where Ng will showcase comforting, home-style Cantonese dishes (in her own words, “Imagine how a Chinese mother would cook for her nearest and dearest”). Her previous, celebrated specialties include grilled Mangalitza char siu pork, and scallops served with vermicelli and salted lemon so although the menu is yet to be announced, we have no doubt that diners are in for a treat. Happy New Year!