April Diary: The best exhibitions and events to visit this month!

It’s April, it’s warming up, and the prospect of venturing outside is no longer filled with dread. The sky is blue-ish, the winter chill has gone and British Summer Time is officially in effect.

To celebrate, It’s Nice That have curated their pick of the best exhibitions and events to visit this month! From Stanley Kubrick to Jenny Holzer, from New York’s MoMA to London’s Serpentine Gallery, the April Diary edition will make sure you’re in the know, no matter where you are.

Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition
The Design Museum, London
26 April – 15 September 2019

Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition tells the story of Stanley Kubrick the “obsessive genius”, exploring his unique understanding, love and collaboration with the creative design process of film making, from storyteller to director to editor. The exhibition will walk visitors through, step-by-step, how Kubrick created elaborate worlds for films like The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It will also outline some of his most poignant collaborations with designers like Saul Bass, Milena Canonero, and Ken Adam.

Jenny Holzer: Thing Undescribable
The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
22 March – 9 September 2019

The Guggenheim Bilbao will present the largest exhibition to date of Jenny Holzer’s work. Curated by Petra Joos in collaboration with the artist, the show will highlight Frank Gehry’s architecture through site-responsive installations. Works will include Truisms and Inflammatory Essays posters with text in five languages, cast plaques, and painted metal signs that reference Holzer’s beginnings in street art, as well as engraved benches and stone sarcophagi. 

Hito Steyerl: Power Plants
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London
11 April – 6 May 2019

One of most prominent figures in futuristic contemporary art, Hito Steyerl, opens her new exhibition at the Serpentine’s Sackler Gallery this April. Known for her exploration of power structures, capitalism and artificial intelligence, Steyerl’s work is seminal and influential. This time, the German visual artist presents a digital project and guided neighbourhood walks that tackle themes of wealth, austerity and social housing.

Ernesto Neto: Blow
Pinacoteca, São Paulo
30 March – 15 July 2019

This exhibition gathers 60 works by some of one of the country’s best known artists working in contemporary sculpture. Styrofoam spheres and large immersive installations exhibit in the space, exploring notions of gravity in the artist’s work. Collaborating with the Huni Kuin indigenous community which consists of over 7500 people, the work takes on expressions of nature and fundamentally examines the human condition by assessed structural bias. 

Gina Beavers: The Life I Deserve
MoMA PS1, New York
31 March – 2 September 2019

Do you like painting? Good. Do you like the grotesque? Oh, brilliant. In that case, you’ll love the work of US artist Gina Beavers. Taking in everything from makeup tutorials to bodybuilding via food porn, her viscous and visceral approach to painting makes us squirm in the best way possible. 

Van Gogh and Britain
Tate Britain, London
26 March – 11 August 2019

Bringing together the biggest collection of Van Gogh’s painting in the UK for almost a decade, this new exhibition at Tate Britain will showcase some of the iconic Dutch artist’s greatest pieces, indulging Sunflowers, Shoes, Starry Night on the Rhône, L’Arlésienne, and two works from his time spent as a patient at the Saint-Paul Asylum, At Eternity’s Gate and Prisoners Exercising. Through these works, we get a glimpse into the short, but poignant time Van Gogh spent in England in the 1870’s, during which time he was endlessly inspired by his surroundings.

Vienna on the Path to Modernism
The National Art Center, Tokyo
24 April – 5 August 2019

Showcasing the work of renowned artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Wagner and Koloman Moser, among others, this exhibition looks at the Viennese art scene between the late 19th and early 20th century. A period of rapid artistic progression, the Viennese fin de siècle culture saw developments materialise that had been set in motion 100 years before and stretched into painting, sculpture, design and fashion.

Paul Anthony Smith: Junction
Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
4 April – 11 May 2019

Inspired by two of the most prominent black, cultural theorists, Franz Fanon and Stuart Hall, artist Paul Anthony Smith’s Junction is a celebration of the post-colonial Caribbean, its people and the complexities of a hybrid identity. The exhibition also features a striking picotage on pigment prints that, through methods of obscuring and concealing layered information, looks to question and challenge photography’s ability “to retain past truths and constructed realities”.

Ancient Textiles from the Andes
The Whitworth, Manchester
29 March – 15 September 2019

This exhibition offers a rare glimpse into some ancient Andean textiles, still in great quality. Dating back from 300 BC to 1400 AD, the breathtaking textiles showcase textile design and technique from some masters of the art. The show also explores the context behind the textile works, from local rituals to the international market, investigating the impact of conversation and how we understand the textiles as a result. 

Sarah Morris: Machines do not make us into Machines
White Cube Bermondsey, London
17 April 2019 – 30 June 2019

“Throughout her career, Morris has been drawn on a wide range of subjects, from American corporate identities and graphics, to GPS technologies, mapping and psychology,” says the usually austere folks over at one of the UK’s most sombre gallery spaces. We’re looking forward to seeing how the hyper-colourful American painter applies her usual geometric gloss and steely sheen to such a variety of topics in this, her first solo show on British soil in six years.