Top Picks Global Culture
Now Open
Until 22 November
Until 3 January 2027
15 October to 18 January 2027
© Matty Smith/UPY2026
Until February 2027
Until September 2027
Permanent Display
Top Picks United States: Narrative Art
Opened 22 September
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts, Los Angeles
Celebrating the enduring power of images to shape belief, memory and imagination, this ambitious new institution traces visual storytelling from ancient cave paintings to comics, murals and cinema. Its inaugural presentations bring together more than 1,300 works across 30-plus galleries, placing artists from Artemisia Gentileschi and Frida Kahlo to Norman Rockwell, Jacob Lawrence and Takashi Murakami in a broad, inclusive history of narrative art. Highlights include immersive reproductions of global landmarks, galleries devoted to illustration and graphic storytelling, and Star Wars in Motion, featuring concept art, props and costumes. Two drop-in cinemas, a free research library and a sculptural public park extend the experience beyond the galleries.
Top Picks Italy: Art Festival
Until 22 November 2026
Venice Biennale
Venice, Italy
Established in 1895 to restore Venice’s cultural prominence, the Venice Biennale is now a leading contemporary art event. The 61st edition features artists from 100 countries and transforms the city into a global art destination. Alongside the Biennale, the European Cultural Centre is hosting the eighth Personal Structures biennial at Palazzo Morais, where Hong Kong ceramic artist Solan Chiu is presenting her immersive installation, Galloping Dreamscape.
Top Picks United Kingdom: Magical Realism
Until 3 January 2027
Frida: The Making of an Icon
Tate Modern, London
The Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Tate Modern traces her rise to global icon status. The exhibition brings together more than 30 works by Kahlo, including rare self-portraits, photographs, and personal objects, alongside works by modern and contemporary artists shaped by her legacy. Moving beyond myth, it reveals how Frida fashioned her own image and why her art still resonates through identity, feminism and popular culture.
Top Picks United States: The Frick Collection
Until 18 January 2027
Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450-1500
The Frick Collection, New York, New York
The Frick Collection presents Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450-1500, an exhibition that highlights Siena’s role in technical innovation and artistic ambition during the Renaissance. Nearly 40 statues, reliefs, medals, candelabra, and other objects, many leaving Tuscany for the first time, feature masters such as Donatello, Vecchietta, and Francesco di Giorgio. Among the highlights is Donatello’s rarely seen tomb slab of Bishop Giovanni di Bartolomeo Pecci. The exhibition moves beyond the usual Florence-focused stories to explore bronze as a luxurious art form and a material shaped by foundries, faith, politics, and war.
Top Picks United Kingdom: Underwater PHOTOGRAPHY
Until February 2027
2026 Underwater Photographer of the Year
Underwater Photographer of the Year
Australian photographer Matty Smith’s captivating image, Rockpool Rookies, featuring Southern elephant seal pups playfully learning to swim in a Falkland Islands rockpool at sunset, has won the Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026 title. Selected from nearly 8,000 global entries, the photo highlights the seals’ resilience post near-extinction, captured with a custom dome for a stunning under-over view. Other highlights include Japan’s Kazushige Horiguchi’s clownfish hatching and France’s Cecile Gabillon Barats’ mischievous sperm whale calf, celebrating ocean youth and behaviour in this UK-based contest.
Top Picks United Kingdom: Astronomy PHOTOGRAPHY
Until September 2027
ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 18 Winners
National Maritime Museum, London
The Shark Nebula (LDN 1235) is 650 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. A dark nebula, it is made of interstellar dust dense enough to block starlight. The blue-coloured areas are reflection nebulae.
From luminous auroras to distant nebulae, these award-winning photographs reveal the cosmos through a compelling blend of science and artistry. Ali Alobaidly’s The Quiet Predator leads the exhibition, a finely detailed portrait of the Shark Nebula, its interstellar dust forming a celestial silhouette. Young winner Nikolaos Strimpoulis’s Mineral Moon brings out the lunar surface’s subtle colours, while other highlights capture Saturn’s rare ring-plane crossing, sweeping star trails, and a spectacular aurora.
Top Picks United Kingdom: Renaissance to 20th-century Art
Permanent Collection
Courtauld Gallery Collection
Somerset House, London
The Courtauld’s permanent collection brings together paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture and decorative arts from the Renaissance to the 20th century, with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist highlights at its core. The collection includes Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and Edgar Degas’s Two Dancers on a Stage, presented alongside other masterpieces. Visitors can explore three floors of art, with around 250 works on display at any one time from a collection of more than 30,000 objects.
