Taking a city break without going to an art exhibition is like eating a meal without salt, and going to one without spending £15 on a branded tote bag in the gallery gift shop is a crime against culture. There’s no better feeling than spreading your wings and embracing the culture vulture you truly are – but where to begin? Finding your favourites in the glut of art exhibitions located in cities all over the globe is overwhelming, but we’re here to separate the Monet from the Manet and the Van Gogh from the Van Eyck.
Pretty much every city on earth has some kind of gallery or museum – grandiose or modest, mammoth or minuscule, coated in dust or brand-spanking new.
But what colours your canvas? Maybe you’ve got a penchant for the Pre-Raphaelite ladies? Perhaps you’re a sucker for Salvador Dalí? Or possibly your knees get weak at neo-Impressionism? We’ve searched far and wide to collate our pick of the best exhibitions happening in galleries and museums in cities worldwide throughout 2025. We’ve got Klimt, we’ve got Bonnard, heck, we’ve even got the world’s first museum of barbecue.
The best art exhibitions to catch in cities across the world in 2025
Gustav Klimt: Pigment & Pixel
20 February – 7 September 2025 at Belvedere Museum, Vienna
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt
Art might be subjective, but we’ve yet to meet someone who isn’t captivated by Klimt’s gilded works. But how on earth did he paint them? Based on recent technical analysis, this exhibit at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna dives into Klimt’s creative process, particularly how he made his famous gold paintings, including his iconic work Judith. You’ll also see hypothetical reconstructions of Klimt’s Faculty Paintings, thanks to Google Arts & Culture and artificial intelligence, which were originally commissioned for the ceiling of the Great Hall at the University of Vienna but were unfortunately destroyed in a fire in the final days of WWII.
Yayoi Kusama
15 December 2024 – 21 April 2025 at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Kusama’s first iconic pumpkin sculptures appeared in the late 1990s
Look, we’ll always be admirers of Da Vinci and Degas, but it’s a treat to enjoy an exhibition by an artist who still has a pulse. Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s most celebrated living artists – her iconic polka-dot pumpkins and flower sculptures are instantly recognisable, and her infinity mirror rooms have been pivotal to the 21st-century zeitgeist towards art as an immersive experience. If you happen to be Down Under (or fancy a 21-hour flight), almost 200 of Kusama’s works are being exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. This mammoth exhibition surveys Kusama’s extraordinary career, from her experimental years in postwar Japan to her contributions to New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1960s, through to her return to Japan in 1973 and subsequent re-emergence as an artist of international renown. Phew!
Museum of BBQ
Permanent exhibition in Kansas City
Museum of BBQ in Kansas City
Sick to death of canvas, Rubenesque bosoms and turpentine? Sounds like it’s time to check out the world’s first barbecue museum. Undoubtedly an art form to many, few foods stir more debate and regional disputes than barbecue. March 2025 marks the opening of the Museum of BBQ, looking to educate the eager grill-seeker in all aspects of barbecue culture. Located in Kansas City, famous for its thick, sweet-and-spicy sauce and burnt ends… a city that already plays home to over 100 barbecue restaurants, the World Series of Barbecue competition and the Barbecue Hall of Fame, this exhibit explores the different regions and styles of barbecue from Texas, North and South Carolina, Memphis and Tennessee, giving you the lowdown on everything from smoking to grilling. Be sure to hit up the gift shop before you leave and stuff your case with as many rubs and sauces as your luggage allowance permits.
SOIL: The World at Our Feet
23 January – 13 April 2025 at Somerset House, London
‘SOIL: The World at Our Feet’ celebrates soil’s unbreakable bond to life
Seeking out an exhibition that’s, ahem, down to earth? SOIL: The World at Our Feet exhibiting at Somerset House might just be the ticket. Coinciding with Somerset House’s milestone 25th birthday, this exhibition celebrates the wonder of soil and its unbreakable bond to all life on earth. Featuring over 50 works in a range of media, this multifaceted exhibition digs beneath the surface of three themes: life below ground, life above it, and hope – ploughing through the transformational marks that geopolitical, economic and social histories leave on the skin of our planet. Groundbreaking.
The Craft of Carpentry: Drawing Life from Japan’s Forests
12 March – 6 July 2025 at Japan House, London
Structural model of the Sa-an Teahouse shown at the Japan House exhibition
Set your coordinates for London to be transported to, er, Japan for this upcoming exhibition at Japan House, which explores the country’s highly developed carpentry culture. With forests covering two-thirds of the Japanese archipelago, Japan’s celebrated carpentry culture is rooted in a profound respect for nature and trees. The exhibition focuses on three core aspects of Japanese carpentry – temples and shrines, teahouses and wood joinery, unearthing over 1,000 years of the woodworking techniques that have enabled temples and shrines to withstand centuries of wind, snow and earthquakes. Expect to lay your eyes on full-scale teahouses and discover the ingenuity of its design, dive into the history of wood construction ceremonies little known outside of Japan, and get a hands-on experience of kigumi – wood-joining without the need for nails. If this exhibition doesn’t make you want to burn your MDF bookshelves and build a shrine in the back garden, we don’t know what will.
Bonnard and the Nordic Countries
20 February – 18 May 2025 at The National Museum, Stockholm
‘Stairs in the Artist’s Garden’ painted by Pierre Bonnard from 1942-44
Hit the aquavit a little too hard in Stockholm last night and require a soothing art exhibition to ease the mind? Pierre Bonnard will remedy all. Displaying at The National Museum in Stockholm, this exhibition of the French post-impressionist painter is chock full of his iconic works, bursting with light, colour and emotion. Many artists have been influenced by Bonnard, including in Scandinavia, so the exhibition also displays work by notable Nordic artists alongside the Frenchmen. An international collaboration, this project exhibits paintings on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington – so it’s sure to be an absolute corker.
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style
10 May – 26 October 2025 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Unknown (American) taken in the 1940s–50s
Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton SS25 menswear
Head to the Big Apple for The Costume Institute’s spring exhibition, which will present a cultural and historical examination of the Black dandy, from the figure’s emergence in Enlightenment Europe during the 18th century to today’s incarnations in cities worldwide. The exhibition explores the importance of sartorial style in forming Black identities in the Atlantic diaspora. Historically, the term dandy was used to describe someone, often a man, who is extremely devoted to style and approaches it as a discipline. Dandyism was initially imposed on Black men in 18th-century Europe as the Atlantic slave trade and an emerging culture of consumerism created a trend of fashionably dressed, or dandified, servants. Dandyism offered Black people an opportunity to use clothing, gesture, irony and wit to transform their given identities and imagine new ways of embodying political and social possibilities.
Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years
26 July – 2 Nov 2025 at the National Galleries of Scotland: National, Edinburgh
‘Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years’ will take over the upper and lower galleries in the Royal Scottish Academy
Feeling disconnected from Mama Earth? There’s nothing like a hearty dose of Andy Goldsworthy’s sculptures to ignite that primal love within for twigs, stones and mud. Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years will take over the upper and lower galleries in the Royal Scottish Academy building for the 2025 summer. Based in Scotland, Goldsworthy is internationally famous for his captivating work with natural materials. The exhibition showcases over 200 pieces, including photographs, sculptures and new installations built in situ. But it doesn’t stop there – Goldsworthy will also create several major new works onsite at the Royal Scottish Academy building, especially for the show. It’s sure to be one of the most hyped exhibitions showing this year, and it’s only showing in Edinburgh.
