The newcube London Guide

While we can’t believe it’s nearly October, we’re starting strong with the city guides for this year’s fair season: London. What we love most about London is that it holds the medieval and the ultra-contemporary in the same breath. Home to Turner, Bacon, Emin, and now generations of artists who’ve made this city their own, London doesn’t choose between its past and its present;  it continues building on both.`

See the guide below for London-based newcube team member Natalie’s take on where to look, eat, and shop during Frieze week.

SEE

London’s institutional calendar this fair season is stacked, spanning everything from mid-century icons to artists redefining figuration right now.

90s @ Tate Britain: A generation-defining decade gets its due. If you want to understand where a lot of contemporary British art’s nerve and irreverence comes from, start here.

Salman Toor @ The Courtauld

Renoir @ The National Gallery | Issy Wood at the National Portrait Gallery 

Ana Mendieta @ Tate: Mendieta’s work always lands with a physical weight, and seeing it in this context is a reminder of how far ahead of her time she was.

V&A Storehouse – a true treasure trove and worth the trek, the V&A storehouse is the closest thing we have to a cabinet of curiosities spanning textile, fashion, furniture, art, design, music and more. Something for everyone, with nuggets of human history sprinkled throughout, this palace really is the answer to the question: what artifacts tell the story of contemporary human history. 

GALLERIES

Timur Si-Qin @ Albion Jeune 

Gabriel Orozco @ White Cube Bermondsey: Orozco has a way of making you look twice at the ordinary, and Bermondsey’s scale suits the ambition of this show.

Carmen Herrera @ Lisson

Bernard Piffaretti @ Kate McGarry

Rebecca Warren @ Maureen Paley

The Afterlife of Magritte @ Gagosian

EAT & DRINK

London eats like a city that refuses to sit still, the best meals here move between the unfussy and the theatrical, often within the same afternoon.

Towpath: A canal-side café that only opens seasonally, and somehow still feels like the best-kept secret in Hackney. Go for the coffee, stay for whatever’s chalked up on the board that day. 

The River Cafe 

Ducksoup

Tamil Prince

Maison François

Cafe Cecilia 

Jolene

The French House: once frequented by Francis Bacon, the French House is one of the quaintest-yet-crowded pubs in London. Half pints only and french cider by the bottle. Worth packing yourself in like a sardine and overhearing the conversation next to you. 

SHOP

Choosing Keeping: If you’re as nostalgic of a person as I am, Choosing Keeping is the place for you. Pens, letter boxes, custom stationary and more, something about this store satisfies the type A part of my brain, while inspiring me to put pen to paper. 

Alex Eagle

Idea Books

Hai Studio

Liberty London 

Jessica McCormick 

London always gives you more than you can fit into one trip and that’s part of its charm. If you’re in town for Frieze and want expert guidance navigating it all, get in touch with newcube.