The Ten Best Shows in the UK and Ireland of 2025

It became clear to me while compiling this list that in 2025 I was most compelled by exhibitions that leant into materiality. In a year marked by bafflement at the looming spectre of AI, the rise of far-right extremism, and deepening social and economic inequality in the British Isles, these works offer glimpses of the humility that might help us navigate the chaos: steadfast, rigorous practices that restore faith in art as a collegiate and transformative force. Many of these exhibitions engage with deeply human relationships (Peter Hujar and Kerry James Marshall), the body and its place in art (Ed Atkins, Lisa Brice, Huma Bhabha and Alberto Giacometti), collectivism (Kira Freije and EVA International) and histories of kinship (Santiago Yahuarcani). These big, binding narratives offer the most convincing response to an undeniably challenging year.

Huma Bhabha and Alberto Giacometti | Barbican, London, UK

Few works have lingered in my mind this year quite like Huma Bhabha’s enormous, rust-coloured skull, Untitled (2022). Resembling something unearthed from the ground, or an ancient effigy, it sat in quiet command, presiding over this spectacular exhibition – the first in a trilogy of collaborations between the Giacometti Foundation, Paris, and the Barbican, each of which pair the Swiss sculptor with a contemporary artist. Giacometti’s now iconic Walking Man I (1960), a motif conceived in the aftermath of World War II, was positioned in dialogue with Bhabha’s totemic cork sculpture Scout (2011). In May, Lara Alake reflected on the experience of seeing the show: ‘Standing amongst these fragmented bodies, it becomes apparent that we, too, belong amidst the devastation. We, too, are flawed yet resilient figures who have borne witness to the horrors of our age.’

Kira Freije | Hepworth Wakefield, UK

There is something almost biblical about a Kira Freije mise-en-scène: figures gathered in an ambiguous congregation, their expressions often profound, their gestures divine. Each element appears to be the outcome of a complex production process: blown glass, repurposed antique textiles, cast aluminium and ribbony, welded steel. I admire Freije’s commitment to handmaking at a moment when immaterial or found-object assemblage dominates much contemporary practice. When Melissa Baksh recently visited the artist’s first UK institutional show, she observed: ‘It is human nature to try to decipher cryptic clues, yet here the oracular, contorted expressions remain impossible to read. There is a fine line between a smile and a grimace, agony or ecstasy, with our sense of perception working overtime to make sense of it all.’ ‘Kira Freije: Unspeak the Chorus’ runs until 4 May 2026. 

Bob Thompson | Maximillian William, London, UK  

Amid this year’s mixed bag of Frieze Week exhibitions, it was a single room of paintings by the late Bob Thompson that resuscitated my belief in art’s capacity to express something exuberant and sincerely felt, rather than hastily conceived or duplicitous. As I wrote in my October Critic’s Guide: ‘‘Measure of My Song’ will be a delight for painters, uniting six energetic works: four on canvas, one on board, and another on a concertina of what appear to be cabinet doors. He was an exceptional colourist – look at the purple that seeps through the eyehole of the white, mask-like face of the dog-like creature in Inferno (1963). Even 60 years on, these exquisite works remain among the most thrilling things I’ve seen in weeks: refreshingly unbridled, uncalculated and impassioned.’

Lauren Gault | Dundee Contemporary Arts, UK

At the heart of Lauren Gault’s practice lies a commitment to sculpture – exploring its relationship with the body and its ability to reorientate our experience of space. While this might sound conventionally grounded, in the vein of Rosalind Krauss, the form her work takes is anything but. In Dundee, her low platforms, cloaked in rag blankets, host mechanical apparatuses drawn from local agriculture, while a wall of engraved sandstone resonates with the Iron Age and early medieval carvings found in the nearby Wemyss caves. Gault’s practice is considered, collaborative, local and – alongside Freije – certainly merits Turner Prize attention. Here, Lisette May Monroe wrote: ‘The exhibition suggests that through the land, and through sharing its stories, we can push back against enforced hierarchies of knowledge. Crucially, Gault does all this in a way that is so cleverly elegant that it is impossible not to become immersed in the delicacy of her world.’ ‘bone stone voice alone’ runs until 18 January 2026.

Lisa Brice | Sadie Coles HQ, London, UK

‘Keep Your Powder Dry’, the title of Lisa Brice’s exhibition of paintings at Sadie Coles’s new townhouse space on Savile Row, feels as much a threat as it does a word of advice: stay alert here; don’t mess around. Rendered in blood-red washes, horizontal jabs, and muted umber and grey, her women occupy smoke-laden bars and the periphery of boxing rings, encircled by shrill cats and hemmed in by beer bottles. In November, Emily Steer observed the story of empowerment implicit in Brice’s depictions: ‘To protect themselves, many women who have experienced trauma feel compelled to moderate how they act in the world, avoiding that which might invite further pain. Brice offers a cathartic fantasy. She allows her women to be everything, meeting violence not with recoil but with untamed, hot aggression.’

Ed Atkins | Tate Britain, London, UK 

In the April issue of frieze, the celebrated artist Ed Atkins sat down with Hans Ulrich Obrist to discuss how writing remains central to his practice, as well as his use of recurring avatars. His survey exhibition at Tate Britain traced a prolific career in which he has mastered a signature form of computer-rendered filmmaking, alongside a particular propensity for restaging the tensions and insularity of everyday life. Obrist recounts a story from their friendship: ‘One unforgettable moment: we were at a restaurant and, after ordering toast and butter, you wrote a poem, made an incredible drawing on a Post-it, placed it on the toast, and I took a photo. Before I realised what was happening, you ate the whole thing – the drawing included. I’ve always loved that story.’

Kerry James Marshall | Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK 

One of the most talked-about exhibitions of the year, this vast survey by American artist Kerry James Marshall reaffirmed his place at the forefront of figurative painting. In the October issue of frieze, Bryn Evans explored the sensual play of intimacy and light in Marshall’s Untitled (Blanket Couple) (2014), writing: ‘It is the paradox of a scene that appears so familiar: viewers are led to linger on a moment distinguished not by its appearance but by its feeling, a hallmark of Marshall’s style. The artist does not attempt to produce a visual prototype of Black love or being; rather, he renders the sensorial nature of Black intimacy through its felt memory.’ ‘Kerry James Marshall: The Histories’ runs until 8 January 2026. 

EVA International | Limerick, Ireland

EVA International, the multi-venue biennial, returned to Limerick this year with a curatorial team led by Eszter Szakács as Guest Programme Curator, alongside selectors Iarlaith Ní Fheorais and Roy Claire Potter for the Platform Commissions, an initiative supporting the development of new work, all operating under director Matt Packer. The curatorial philosophy centred on collectivism and collaboration, with highlights including Ana Bravo-Pérez’s multi-part installation, If We Remain Silent (2023), at Limerick City Gallery of Art, and Carceral Jigs (2025), a new video installation by Irish artist Eoghan Ryan. Earlier in the year, Diana Bamimeke observed how the ethos at the heart of the event had contributed to its success: ‘A robust, cooperative network of local and global communities, artists and arts workers forged this edition – testament to the notion that it takes a village to nurture a biennial.’

Santiago Yahuarcani | Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK 

In July, I had the privilege of hearing Santiago Yahuarcani speak about his rich, layered and accomplished exhibition, ‘The Beginning of Knowledge’, at Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery. The show brought together works from across his career, alongside a beautiful and heartening film showing the artist at home in Pebas, Peru, teaching his children about their ancestral past and the practice of image-making. Yahuarcani explained that his art is rooted in the knowledge of ancestors who revered the living land – a core understanding lost through colonisation – and that he uses traditional bark (llachama) and natural pigments to bring these urgent stories of survival and interconnectedness to life. ‘The Beginning of Knowledge’ runs until 4 January 2026. 

Peter Hujar | Raven Row, London, UK 

Earlier in the year, Alastair Curtis interviewed Gary Schneider, the photographer and printer of Peter Hujar’s photographs, who has recently found himself in the spotlight amid a flurry of renewed attention in the artist. This exhibition at London’s characteristically consistent Raven Row brought together works from across Hujar’s career, revealing the breadth of his subject matter and the profound empathy and deftness of his gaze – directed at everything from dead birds and irreverent queens to deceased friends. Organised across the floors of the Georgian townhouse, it was a humane fragment of a bygone time and its people, staged in an increasingly corporate and overwrought city. Here’s Schneider: ‘I was young, and I was in awe of him. I thought he was a truly brilliant artist. In the studio session, you can see that, at first, I was trying to make ‘Peter Hujar’ images for him. He didn’t direct. He just waited. He allowed you to come to him.’

^{Main image: Kira Freije, ‘Unspeak the Chorus’, 2025, installation view. Courtesy: the artist, The Approach, London, and The Hepworth Wakefield; photograph: Lewis Ronald}