Top ten art exhibitions in London (2024)

The story goes that modernism ripped everything up and started again; and nowhere did more of that mid-century aesthetic shredding than Brazil. Helio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark, Ivan Serpa et al forged a brand new path towards minimalism, shrugging off the weight of figuration and gesturalism in favour of geometry, colour and simplicity. But Raven Row’s incredible new show is challenging that oversimplified narrative, showing how figuration, traditional aesthetics and ritual symbolism were an integral part of experimental Brazilian art from 1950-1980.

At some point in the past, this show might have been a shock, it might have caused uproar.But this isn’t the past, this is 2024, so seeing room after room of paintings of Black figures by Black artists in the National Portrait Gallery isn’t shocking: instead, it’s just totally normal.

The most surreal thing about Shuvinai Ashoona’s world of half-human hybrid sea creatures, ice and writhing tentacles is how un-surreal it all is. This is normality for the Inuit artist.

If anger is an energy, there’s enough here to power the Tate for decades. The gallery is buzzing with the violent ire and shrieking fury of second-wave feminism, because after all the freedom and liberation promised by the Swinging Sixties, British women in the 1970s had to deal with the reality: that not much had changed. And they were furious. This is an exhibition of 100 feminist artists and collectives kicking violently against the system.