<h2>
Material Sensibilities<br>
30 January – 1 March 2025
</h2><h2>
EDDY KAMUANGA ILUNGA<br>
EDITION PRINTS AVAILABLE IN OUR STORE
</h2>
<h2>
Material Sensibilities<br>
30 January – 1 March 2025
</h2>
<strong>Khadija Jayi</strong>, <em>VOLCAN</em>, 2019.<br>
Burned paper and plexi glass, 24 x 24 x 10.5 cm.<h2>
Material Sensibilities<br>
30 January – 1 March 2025
</h2>
<strong>Gaia Ozwyn</strong>, <em>To be Sure of Anything (to be sure of its end)</em>, 2024.<br>
Oil and concrete on linen canvas.<h2>
William S. Burroughs<br>
6 March - 5 April 2025
</h2>
<strong>William S. Burroughs</strong>  <em>Crazy Man</em>, 1988.<br>Paint on cardboard, 83.8 x 53.3 cm.<br>
© Estate of William S. Burroughs.<h2>
William S. Burroughs<br>
6 March - 5 April 2025
</h2>
<strong>William S. Burroughs</strong>  <em>Burn Unit</em>, 1987.<br>Paint on Arches paper. 58.4 x 76.2 cm.<br>
© Estate of William S. Burroughs.<h2>EDDY KAMUANGA ILLUNGA<br>Available from our Book Store, £45.95 + P&P</h2>248 pages, 200 full colour plates throughout. Published by Rizzoli.<h2>DREAM NO SMALL DREAM: The Story of October Gallery<br>Available from our Book Store, £40 + P&P</h2>304 pages, full colour plates throughout. Edited by Gerard Houghton.
 

CURRENT EXHIBITION

30 January – 1 March 2025
Gaia Ozwyn, To be Sure of Anything (to be sure of its end), 2024.
Oil and concrete on linen canvas.
Xanthe Somers, Weaver's Woe, 2024.
Glazed stoneware, 57 × 50 × 50 cm.

October Gallery presents Material Sensibilities, an exhibition of vital and challenging works by Nnenna Okore, Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga, Susanne Kessler, LR Vandy, Jukhee Kwon, Sokari Douglas Camp and Sylvie Franquet, which explore the liminal boundaries of creative materiality, alongside new works by Xanthe Somers, Theresa Weber, Gaia Ozwyn and Khadija Jayi.

Material Sensibilities brings together sculptures, ceramics and paintings. Deploying a multitude of processes: cut, weave, burn, paste, rip, pin and embed, each piece invites the viewer to contemplate the dynamic dance between materiality and the artist’s hand.

 

FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION

6 March – 5 April 2025
William S. Burroughs, Burn Unit, 1987.
Paint on Arches paper. 76.2 x 58.4 cm.
© Estate of William S. Burroughs.
© Estate of William S. Burroughs.
William S. Burroughs, The Old Assassin, 1989.
Mixed Media on board, 50.5 x 76.5 cm.
© Estate of William S. Burroughs.
October Gallery presents William S. Burroughs, a solo exhibition of rarely seen works which features paintings and drawings created from a variety of materials. From spray paint, ink and acrylic to markers and gunshots, Burroughs' art is an expedition, identifying portals to unknown worlds and intelligences. His way of seeing is as a creative observer of states of mind. “The pictures constantly change because you are drawn into time travel on a network of associations.” For Burroughs, everything is alive, and his artwork explores this idea, as he did through words in his genre-bending writings. He belongs to no school of art; what he paints expands on the work he has developed throughout his career, in words, multimedia experiments and image-making. 


Now one hundred and eleven years since William S. Burroughs’ birth, the exhibitionhighlights the personal intelligence of his work.

Burroughs was a prolific writer. He also practiced visual art throughout his life. For decades he produced photographs, collages and films. In multimedia collaborations with Brion Gysin, they pioneered incisive tools - ‘cut-ups’- to deconstruct mechanisms of institutionalized control systems that corrupt inborn intelligence. On the death of Gysin in 1986, he became a painter. In 1987, he began painting every day. October Gallery first mounted an exhibition of his art the year after, in 1988. Although his literature had been censored in Britain, he lived in London during the late 1960’s and early ‘70s, making strong connections with many noteworthy figures of the British art scene such as Francis Bacon. References to Burroughs’ works and creative practice are now deeply embedded in Western culture, from painting to film to advertising to literature to journalism to music. His 1952 novel, Queer, is the foundation of Luca Guadagnino’s current film of the same name, starring Daniel Craig.
 

 

NEWS, EVENTS & RECOMMENDATIONS


EL ANATSUI: AFTER THE RED MOON
Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, China
30th September, 2024 – 7th October, 2025
El Anatsui: After the Red Moon has begun its highly anticipated world tour, making a global debut at the prestigious Museum of Art Pudong (MAP), Shanghai, where it will be on display until October 2025. El Anatsui’s cascading metal sculptures have dramatically transformed MAP's entrance lobby and Hall X, offering visitors an immersive experience of his masterful exploration of history, materiality and transformation. This global tour marks a significant milestone in Anatsui's career, and we congratulate him on this extraordinary achievement, which continues to captivate audiences around the world.

This exhibition was originally conceived and commissioned as the Hyundai Commission: El Anatsui: Behind the Red Moon for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, London in 2023.
Installation view of El Anatsui: After the Red Moon, 2024.
Alessandro Wang ©️ Museum of Art Pudong. Courtesy of the Artist
New Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga prints available
Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga’s striking new works from his current solo exhibition Nature Morte can now be acquired as giclee prints at the gallery and from our online store.

Energie red (Red Energy) and Ces êtres à part (Those Other People) poignantly confront the human toll and environmental devastation caused by industrial-scale mining, driven by the relentless demand for modern technology.
Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, Ces êtres à part (Those Other People), 2024.

Edition of 25. Archival giclée print (HDX ink) on 100% cotton 300gms archival paper, 40 x 43.4 cm (image size). Signed by the artist
GOVINDA SAH ‘AZAD’ at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
19th October, 2024 – 23rd February, 2025
JMW Turner and changing visions of landscape is a major new exhibition exploring artists' approaches to landscape from the 17th century to the present day.

The exhibition includes works by Govinda Sah ‘Azad’ who first encountered Turner’s art while studying at the College of Fine Art in Kathmandu. Sah’s later move to Margate introduced him to the Kentish coastline, where Turner famously captured its unique light in many of his late works. Today, Sah continues to live and work in Margate.
Govinda Sah 'Azad', Here/Everywhere, 2023.
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 140 x 160 cm.
LR VANDY at The Artist’s Garden
The roof of Temple tube station, London, WC2R 2PH
3rd October, 2024 – 3rd September, 2025
The Artist’s Garden and theCOLAB proudly present M A R Y M A R Y, a landmark outdoor sculpture exhibition in central London showcasing the work of nine women artists, including LR Vandy. It is set within The Artist's Garden — a once-overlooked half-acre rooftop above Temple tube station, now the world’s first sculpture garden dedicated to women artists.
LR Vandy, Superhero Cog Woman #01, 2019/2024. Installation view, MARY MARY at theCOLAB The Artist's Garden, Temple Station roof terrace, 2024. Image courtesy theCOLAB and © Nick Turpin.
Watch the full Gallery Talk: Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga in conversation with Hannah O’Leary on our YouTube channel.
Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, one of the leading contemporary artists from the Democratic Republic of Congo, explores the inspirations and themes behind his latest series of paintings featured in our current exhibition, Nature Morte.
Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, Ces êtres à part (Those Other People), 2024.

Edition of 25. Archival giclée print (HDX ink) on 100% cotton 300gms archival paper, 40 x 43.4 cm (image size). Signed by the artist
EL ANATSUI at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark .
11th October, 2024 - 27th April, 2025
El Anatsui's installation Akua's Surviving Children is now on view at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in the new exhibition OCEAN. Anatsui discovered these driftwood logs on the shores of Hellebaek in Denmark, and upon examining the weathered wood, he drew a poignant connection to the victims of slavery.

OCEAN is an exhibition, where history and the present meet in an intersection between art and science.
SANTOS MOTOAPOHUA DE LA TORRE and EL ANATSUI at Fondation Opale

Lens, Switzerland
15th December, 2024 – 20th April, 2025
The exhibition NOTHING TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR THE GODS at Fondation Opale highlights the intersection of art and spirituality and unfolds in three steps with more than 60 works.

The exhibition seeks to lift the veil on the visual expressions of Indigenous cultures, often ignored in the context of contemporary art, and to reveal their current relevance with featured artists such as El Anatsui and Huichol artist Santos Motoapohua de la Torre.
Santos Motoapohua de la Torre, Dos Divinidades: Tatewari y el Águila, 2018.

Beads, beeswax and plywood, 150 x 120 cm.

 

VISTING OCTOBER GALLERY

Bloomsbury, London

October Gallery has been instrumental in bringing to worldwide attention many of the world’s leading international artists, including El Anatsui, Rachid Koraïchi, Romuald Hazoumè, Nnenna Okore, Laila Shawa and Kenji Yoshida. The Gallery promotes the Transvangarde, the very best in contemporary art from around the planet, as well as maintaining a cultural hub in central London for poets, writers, intellectuals and artists, and hosts talks, performances and seminars, see www.octobergallery.co.uk/events

The rich diversity of art presented is an inspiration to collectors and enthusiasts. Institutions such as the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany; Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; Setagagya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan have all collected works from October Gallery.

Founded in 1979, October Gallery is a charitable trust which is supported by sales of art, rental of the Gallery's unique facilities, grants from various funding bodies and the active support of dedicated artists, musicians, writers and many friends from around the world. The Gallery’s Education Department is inclusive of all ages from under 5’s to PGCE student and delivers a wide range of provision, see www.octobergalleryeducation.com

October Gallery is open from 12:30 to 17:30 pm, Tuesday to Saturday.
The Gallery is closed during official holidays and the entire month of August.

October Gallery Cafe is open from 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm, Tuesday to Friday.


 

ACCESSIBILITY

There are two steps at the main entrance, each has a rise of 160mm and a 310mm tread (no handrail). The main entrance push door is 750mm wide.
Assisted or ramp access at the Gallery’s main entrance is available upon request.

Chairs can be found in the Gallery space.
The refectory is fully accessible by wheelchair.
Access to the courtyard has a 100mm ramp down coming from the corridor door.
There is also an accessible toilet in the Courtyard.

October Gallery is a Grade II listed building and therefore has no lift access to rooms above the ground floor. This includes the Theatre, the Clubroom and the first floor.

We welcome all visitors and will do our best to accommodate specific needs. Please do let us know in advance if there is anything in particular, we can help with. Call + 44 (0)20 7242 7367 or email gallery@octobergallery.co.uk preferably a day in advance.




October Gallery Education supported by: