London 2017: Major Exhibitions (Jan-June)

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Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London

The Great Exhibition, India no. 4, by Joseph Nash (c) Royal Collection Trust

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Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London
Robots
Diana: Her Fashion Story
The American Dream: Pop to Present
The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains
California
Making Nature: Part II
Mies van der Rohe & James Stirling: Circling the Square
 

 

Robots, Pink Floyd and California are all the subject of major exhibitions in London this year. Discover which museums and galleries you should be visiting in 2017 with our shortlist of the best exhibitions taking place throughout the capital.

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New Old: Designing For Our Future Selves

A look at how design could help improve our ageing population.

Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6AG

Tube: High Street Kensington Station

 

Dates: 12th January - 19th February 2017

 

Marking the 30th anniversary of Helen Hamlyn's pioneering New Design for Old exhibition at the Boilerhouse Project, which stemmed from the philanthropist's focus on the design of homes for older people, New Old explores the potential for design and designers to enhance the experience of our later lives. The pop-up exhibition at the Design Museum explores how, as our population ages rapidly, we can lead fuller, healthier and more rewarding lives. Curated by Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design at the Royal College of Art, it will feature specially designed commissions and will look at themes such as home, working, community, identity and mobility.

 
 
 

Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London

A look at the legacy of the influential Lockwood Kipling.

Victoria and Albert (V & A) Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL

Tube: South Kensington Station

 

Dates: 14th January - 02nd April 2017

 

Lockwood Kipling, father to Rudyard Kipling, was an influential but largely unknown figure in the Arts and Crafts movement and this free V & A exhibition will certainly help to rectify that. The display shows Kipling's collecting and curatorial practices in museums in Bombay, Lahore and at the South Kensington Museum (as the V&A was then known). Included are some wonderful examples of Indian craftsmanship such as a bracelet of enamelled gold set with diamonds, a purple woven silk prayer carpet and a sword and helmet.

 
 
 

Robots

Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2DD

Tube: South Kensington Station

 

Dates: 08th February - 03rd September 2017

 

Showcasing the evolution of modern robotics from a 1582 iron manikin to one of the first walking two-legged robots, the Science Museum's new exhibition explores the deep-seated drive to recreate ourselves and how robots have been shaped by religious belief, the industrial revolution, 20th century popular culture and dreams of the future. Robots will reveal the remarkable 500-year story of humanoid robots with over 100 robots on display, 12 of which will be working models that you might get to interact with. In addition to the exhibition, the Science Museum has also launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise £35,000 to rebuild the UK's first humanoid robot, Eric. If successful, Eric will form the centrepiece of the Robots exhibition.

 
 
 

Electricity: The Spark of Life

Electricity in all of its life-giving and death-dealing powers.

Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE

Tube: Euston Square Station , Euston Station, Warren Street Station

 

Dates: 23rd February - 25th June 2017

 

Don't be shocked... the Wellcome Collection's new spring 2017 exhibition, Electricity, may be full of surprises but it's also an education. It gave life to Frankenstein's monster but electricity can used as a life-giving force in real life too. This exhibition shows the developments in the application of electricity in healthcare as well as its contradictory life-giving and death-dealing powers. Alongside three new commissions by international artists John Gerrard, Camille Henrot and Bill Morrison, there are over 100 objects from ancient spark-inducing amber to exhibits helping us imagine what the future of electricity might look like.

 
 
 

Diana: Her Fashion Story

A look at the evolution of Princess Diana's style, with an extraordinary display of garments.

Kensington Palace State Apartments, Kensington Gardens, London, W8 4PX

Tube: High Street Kensington Station

 

Dates: 24th February - 31st August 2017

 

Twenty years on from her death, Kensington Palace traces the evolution of Princess Diana's style in Diana: Her Fashion Story. From the demure, romantic outfits of her first public appearances to the glamour, elegance and confidence of her later life, the exhibition will explore how Diana navigated her unique position in the public eye. From her earliest royal engagements, she was closely scrutinised and soon learned to use her image to engage with and inspire people. Visitors will be able to see extraordinary garments from her collection, the pale pink Emanuel blouse worn during her engagement portrait by Lord Snowdon in 1981, Victor Edelstein's iconic ink blue velvet gown work at the White House when the Princess danced with John Travolta, and a blue tartan Emanuel suit worn for an official visit to Venice in the 1980s, which will go on public display for the first time having recently been discovered and acquired by the Royal Palaces.

 
 
 
 

Mies van der Rohe & James Stirling: Circling the Square

This major new exhibition looks at two architectural schemes proposed for the City.

RIBA Architecture Gallery, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD

Tube: Great Portland Street Station

 

Dates: 08th March - 25th June 2017

 

A renewed examination of two architectural schemes proposed for the same City of London site, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) presents a major new exhibition, Mies van der Rohe & James Stirling: Circling the Square, in spring 2017. Commissioned by architectural patron and developer Lord Peter Palumbo, Mies van der Rohe's unrealised Mansion House Square project will be explored alongside its built successor, James Stirling Michael Wilford & Associates' newly listed No. 1 Poultry. The design history of the two schemes, from the 1960s to the 1980s, spans three decades of the mid-20th century, when pop art, high modernism and postmodernism co-existed and collided.

 
 
 

The American Dream: Pop to Present

British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG

Tube: Tottenham Court Road Station , Russell Square Station, Holborn Station

 

Dates: 09th March - 18th June 2017

 

This spring the British Museum stages the first major exhibition on modern and contemporary American printmaking. Through the work of artists like Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol,The American Dream: pop to present takes us through fifty years of American art, from Pop art to the New York and West Coast scenes in the early 1960s to the rise of minimalism, conceptual art and photorealism. American printmaking was the ideal medium to express America's power and influence in the days when race, AIDS, and feminism were causing a stir.

 
 
 

Imagine Moscow: Architecture, Propaganda, Revolution

Through a series of rarely seen materials, this exhibition marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution.

Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6AG

Tube: High Street Kensington Station

 

Dates: 15th March - 03rd June 2017

 

Kicking off the first whole year at the Design Museum's new Kensington home, Imagine Moscow: Architecture, Propaganda, Revolution marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution. Through a series of rarely seen materials, from large-scale architectural drawings to propaganda from the period, the exhibition shows Moscow as it was imagined by a bold new generation of architects and designers in the 1920s and early 1930s, presenting an idealistic vision of the Soviet capital that was never realised. Each of the eight projects presented in the exhibition will introduce a theme relevant to life and ideology in the Soviet Union and provide and insight into the culture at the time.

 
 
 

The Japanese House: Architecture and Life After 1945

A major new exhibition on Japanese domestic architecture.

Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS

Tube: Barbican Station , Moorgate Station

 

Dates: 23rd March - 25th June 2017

 

In 2017, the Barbican hosts the first major UK exhibition on Japanese domestic architecture from the end of the Second World War to now. The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 looks at a field which has consistently produced some of the most influential and extraordinary examples of modern and contemporary design. In the wake of the war, the widespread devastation of Tokyo and other cities in Japan brought a desperate need for new houses, and the single family house soon became the foremost site for architectural experimentation and debate. This exhibition will showcase some of the most exciting architectural projects of the last 70 years, many of which have never before seen in the UK.

 
 
 

Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myths

This major exhibition sheds new light on the world-changing events of the Russian Revolution.

British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB

Tube: King's Cross Station , Euston Station

 

Dates: 28th April - 29th August 2017

 

The British Library marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution with a major exhibition this year. Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myths will shed new light on the world-changing events of this period, putting a focus on the experiences of ordinary Russians living through the extraordinary times. Uniting the personal and the political, the exhibition will tell the story of the Revolution through posters, letters, photographs, banners, weapons, uniform and film, portraying the hope, tragedy and myths at the heart of the seismic Revolution. It will begin with the reign of the last Tsar and explore the growth of revolutionary movements that brought about the transformation of Russian's traditional monarchy into the world's first Communist state. The Royal Academy of Arts also marks the anniversary of the Russian Revolution with a powerful new exhibition, Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932.

 
 
 
 

The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains

This blockbuster exhibition brings together memorable Pink Floyd moments.

Victoria and Albert (V & A) Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL

Tube: South Kensington Station

 

Dates: 13th May - 01st October 2017

 

They've given us The Dark Side of the Moon, pigs flying over Battersea Power Station and giant inflatable teachers. Now, this spring, these memorable Pink Floyd moments are brought together in one blockbuster exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Album covers and stage sets, performances, instruments, handwritten lyrics and psychedelic prints are among more than 350 objects and artefacts on display. We'll also get to experience never-before-seen classic Pink Floyd concert footage and a custom-designed laser light show. What a fitting tribute to mark 50 years since the band released their first single, Arnold Layne.

 
 
 

California

The first exhibition to explore a state's current global reach.

Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6AG

Tube: High Street Kensington Station

 

Dates: 24th May - 15th October 2017

 

A landmark exhibition, California at the Design Museum is the first to examine a state's current global reach. From LSD to iPhones, the ambitious project presents the idea that California has pioneered many tools of personal liberation. Starting in the 1960s, it charts the journey from the counterculture to Silicon Valley's tech culture through political posters, personal computers and self-driving cars. Additionally, it will go beyond hardware to examine how user interface designers in the Bay Area are influencing common day-to-day activities, revealing how this culture of design and technology has, in a way, made us all Californians.

 
 
 

Making Nature: Part II

This exhibition considers the idea of a museum of nature.

Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE

Tube: Euston Square Station , Euston Station, Warren Street Station

 

Dates: 22nd June - 10th September 2017

 

The second part of a year-long exploration by the Wellcome Collection into how humans relate to other animals and the world around us. Making Nature asks the question that has captivated philosophers, anthropologists, scientists, ethicists and artists for centuries. With contributions from visitors to the Wellcome Collection, this exhibition considers the idea of a museum of nature. Discover the many and varied ways we are personally connected to the natural world and the implications this has for the planet. The first part, 'Making Nature: How we see animals', continues until 21st May 2017, overlapping with this second instalment, so both can be seen together.

 
 
 
 
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