Introduction: A Month of Inspiration
September in Europe marks the return of the cultural calendar, when museums and galleries unveil their most ambitious exhibitions after the summer lull. It’s a time when art lovers can immerse themselves in both timeless masters and provocative contemporary voices, often in settings that amplify the works’ significance. From the grandeur of Venice to the intellectual rigor of Basel, this month offers some of the most compelling exhibitions in years. Here are eight essential shows to experience, curated with the eye of both a traveler and an art expert.
1. Marina Abramović at the Royal Academy of Arts, London
Marina Abramović’s exhibition at the Royal Academy is nothing short of historic: she is the first woman in the RA’s 250-year history to command a solo show in its Main Galleries. Abramović has redefined performance art through her fearless explorations of endurance, pain, and the boundaries between artist and audience. This show offers re-performances of seminal works such as The Artist is Present, alongside new installations that challenge our understanding of intimacy and presence. For anyone invested in the evolution of contemporary art, Abramović’s retrospective is essential viewing, an opportunity to witness a career that has consistently pushed art to its outer edges.
2. Olafur Eliasson at Fondation Beyeler, Basel
Few artists have altered how we perceive light, space, and nature as profoundly as Olafur Eliasson. His new exhibition at Fondation Beyeler transforms the gallery into a series of sensory environments where perception itself becomes the medium. Expect vast installations of light and mist, geometric forms that destabilize our understanding of space, and subtle reflections on ecological fragility. Eliasson’s work is as philosophical as it is visually breathtaking, and in Basel, a hub of intellectual and cultural exchange, his exploration of climate and perception feels particularly urgent.
3. Edvard Munch at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris
While Edvard Munch will forever be associated with The Scream, the Musée d’Orsay’s new retrospective reveals the full depth of his artistry. Gathering more than 100 works, it explores his preoccupation with love, death, anxiety, and the natural world. Munch’s expressive brushwork and bold symbolism influenced an entire generation of modernists, and this exhibition places him in dialogue with the French avant-garde of his time. To see Munch in the heart of Paris is to rediscover his relevance: an artist who made raw emotion his subject long before psychology entered the modern lexicon.
4. Anselm Kiefer at Palazzo Ducale, Venice
Anselm Kiefer’s monumental canvases and sculptures find an almost uncanny resonance within the historic halls of the Palazzo Ducale. Known for layering materials like lead, ash, and clay, Kiefer’s works are dense with references to myth, poetry, and the traumas of history. In Venice, a city defined by memory and decay, his exploration of ruin and renewal becomes deeply poetic. This exhibition is a meditation on the persistence of culture, where every material surface seems to bear the weight of collective memory.
5. El Anatsui at Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
El Anatsui, one of Africa’s most celebrated contemporary artists, is known for transforming discarded bottle caps into shimmering, tapestry-like installations that drape across walls with monumental presence. His exhibition at Kunstmuseum Bern highlights the tension between tradition and global modernity, sustainability and consumption. Standing before Anatsui’s works, one feels the pull of history and the allure of beauty simultaneously, they are both sculptural and painterly, tactile and transcendent. This exhibition underscores Anatsui’s stature as a truly global artist whose work transcends borders and categories.
6. Tracey Emin at Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Tracey Emin remains one of the most confessional and raw voices in contemporary art, and her new exhibition at Moderna Museet presents a deeply personal selection of paintings, sculptures, and installations. Known for her fearless exploration of love, loss, and the female body, Emin’s recent works carry a vulnerability that feels both urgent and timeless. To see them in Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, a space synonymous with modern experimentation, offers a rare chance to reflect on the trajectory of an artist who continues to shape the conversation around gender and expression.
7. Joan Miró at Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid
The surreal genius of Joan Miró is reexamined at Madrid’s Reina Sofía, where his radical approach to color, form, and symbolism is celebrated anew. This exhibition focuses on Miró’s experimental spirit, his desire to break free from tradition and reinvent painting as an act of play and subversion. His works, with their whimsical yet profound visual language, remain as influential today as they were a century ago. In the Reina Sofía, where Miró’s pieces converse with Spain’s broader modernist legacy, the show feels both celebratory and instructive.
A Cultural Map for September
September is always a month of renewal in Europe’s cultural capitals, but this year’s line-up is particularly rich. Abramović and Eliasson challenge us to reconsider our relationship with the body and environment, Munch and Kiefer remind us of art’s capacity to wrestle with mortality and history, while Muholi, Anatsui, Emin, and Miró showcase the breadth of contemporary and modern voices shaping our understanding of identity and form. For those who travel for art, these exhibitions are not just events but essential destinations, each one a chapter in Europe’s ongoing cultural dialogue.
