Experience the thunderous energy and meditative precision of taiko drumming in a powerful live performance. Presented in conjunction with Kenji Yoshida: The Meaning of Life, the exhibition and bar will remain open to ticket holders from 6.30 – 8.30 pm.

Join Joe Nickols, Project Curator of Samurai at the British Museum and Gerard Houghton, Director of Special Projects, October Gallery for a discussion about Kenji Yoshida and his solo exhibition, The Meaning of Life. The conversation will examine the late Japanese artist's extraordinary life and artistic career.

October Gallery’s presentation at Art Basel Qatar explores El Anatsui’s innovative approach to process and materials. The exhibited works underline how the artist has — for many decades now — explored surprising avenues that have brought about a novel and unexpected synthesis of African practices and western modes. Over a career spanning more than five decades, El Anatsui has become one of the most acclaimed contemporary artists of our time. His sculptures, employing an extraordinary range of media and many uncommon materials, have investigated a broad array of different subjects.

Govinda Sah ‘Azad’ in discussion with Dr. Katie Hill, Academic Lead, Asia and Senior Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, on the occasion of his solo exhibition, 'Journey to the Heart of Light' at October Gallery.

We are delighted to share that the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art has acquired Akua’s Surviving Children (1996) by El Anatsui. The work is now featured in the museum’s newly unveiled exhibition of over 130 pieces.

During a visit to Denmark in 1996, Anatsui discovered driftwood washed ashore in Hellebæk. The weathered logs immediately evoked, for him, the people torn from West Africa by the Danish slave trade — “torn from their land source into wild, hostile sea, tossed about, eventually returning to land with experiences of their ordeal.” Over the following days, he gathered more than thirty logs, creating a powerful memorial to a clan of survivors.

Nearly three decades later, the installation returns to Denmark’s coastline—now in the care of Louisiana Museum—where its origin and meaning resonate even more deeply.

Next spring, Yorkshire Sculpture Park will present Rise, the first solo museum exhibition by LR Vandy. Through her distinctive use of rope and found materials, Vandy transforms everyday objects into powerful reflections on migration, resilience and global interconnectedness.

Much of the rope featured in the exhibition draws on her proximity to the Historic Dockyard in Chatham—home to the UK’s last working Ropery, where rope has been produced using the same techniques for over four centuries.

Join artists Eleanor Lakelin and Junko Mori in conversation with curator Eleri Fanshawe for a special gallery talk accompanying the exhibition Lineages.

Working across wood and metal respectively, Lakelin and Mori share a deep attentiveness to natural forms, processes and cycles of growth. This conversation will explore their distinctive material practices, tracing how each artist responds to the inherent qualities of their chosen mediums through making, repetition and transformation.

In both practices, the artists’ use of line emerges as a connective thread between material and gesture as a method of ‘way finding’ that interlinks nature with contemporary sculptural form. The talk offers insight into the artists’ influences and shared sensibilities, inviting audiences to consider how an expanded notion of line operates as both concept and form within their work.

The talk takes place on the gallery’s ground floor and has disabled access

Join Govinda Sah ‘Azad’ in discussion with Dr. Katie Hill, Academic Lead, Asia and Senior Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, on the occasion of his solo exhibition, Journey to the Heart of Light at October Gallery.

This exhibition highlights Sah’s latest large-scale oil and acrylic paintings on canvas and presents selected smaller scale works. Journey to the Heart of Light weaves together the artist’s personal journeys through both inner and outer realms. Beginning his artistic career in the Himalayan mountains close to where he was born, Sah first moved to London to study at Wimbledon College of Arts, before moving from London to Margate, where he recently opened a purpose-built studio.

The conversation will examine Sah’s creative process and unpack the influence of the different environments that the artist has lived in upon his artistic progress.

The talk takes place on the gallery’s ground floor and has disabled access

Order The new catalogue to accompany the exhibition El Anatsui: 'Go back and Pick'. Includes an essay by Gus Casley-Hayford. 16 page softcover.

Kew Gardens presents their new exhibition Material World inside the Temperate House, featuring a breathtaking installation by artist Nnenna Okore, titled Between Earth and Sky. Okore’s monumental sculpture transforms organic materials into a flowing, immersive form, inviting us to reconsider the beauty and potential of everyday matter.

Bringing together art, plants, and design, Material World explores the connections between textiles and sustainability, highlighting how nature continues to inspire both what we wear and the futures we imagine.

October Gallery is pleased to open for extended hours during the new exhibition El Anatsui: ‘Go Back and Pick’. In collaboration with Frieze Digital Map, visitors are invited to come and see the exhibition at the gallery during Bloomsbury Afternoon and West End Day.

El Anatsui’s internationally renowned sculptural practice continues to challenge the way we look at sculpture today. ‘Go Back and Pick’ presents a new series of wall-mounted sculptures, which evolve from the planar wooden reliefs that characterised his art in the 1980s and 1990s.

This exhibition is in two parts and ‘Go Back and Pick’ can also be viewed at Goodman Gallery in Mayfair.

In the lead-up to our forthcoming exhibition El Anatsui: ‘Go Back and Pick’, we are delighted to offer a special price on the monograph El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture.

Written by distinguished scholars Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, this groundbreaking publication draws on over three decades of research to present an authoritative account of Anatsui’s extraordinary practice. From his early wood reliefs and terracotta works to his later monumental bottletop hangings, the book reveals how Anatsui’s art embodies a restless search for new models of making and meaning.