What to see in '23
Plus: museum directors and more tell me their plans for the year ahead
Yes, it’s a Wednesday. And yes, I am landing in your inbox. If you read my final newsletter of 2022 you’ll know I confessed to having not sent as many of my fortnightly interviews and features as I should have done (which are meant to be in addition to the weekly news round up). So I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re surprised to see me here not on a day that isn’t a Friday.
But my new year’s resolution is to make these regular once again. So I’m starting as I mean to go on!
I kick off with a classic of the January genre: what exhibitions do I most recommend you see in 2023. But I’ve also asked four leading voices from the worlds of museums and art to tell me what they are most excited for in the coming 12 months.
So read on to get some great tips to make your year even more museum-filled. And keep reading all future editions for insightful interviews with movers and shakers, plus much, much more.
Enjoy!
Maxwell
What to see, in ‘23
From fine art to fashion, the year ahead is packed with exciting shows at museums and galleries across the UK. To help you know which exhibitions you need to mark in your diaries, I’ve picked some of my highlights. Here are four favourites, with four more available to see here.
Golden Mummies of Egypt
After a hugely successful tour across the USA and China, this stunning exhibition offers unparalleled access to the Egypt and Sudan collections of Manchester Museum. And to make it extra special, it’s the very first show after the museum’s £15 million revamp. Featuring more than 100 objects and eight mummies, it will present a rich perspective on beliefs about the afterlife in ancient Egypt. The latest cutting edge science will use non-intrusive techniques to explore mummified bodies and their elaborate wrappings. Opens 18 February at Manchester Museum
DIVA
Was Mariah Carey’s refusal to 'do stairs' the ultimate diva behaviour? Maybe we’ll find out in the V&A’s major exhibition celebrating the power and creativity of iconic divas. From the Opera goddesses of the Victorian era to today’s global megastars, it'll explore and redefine what it means to be a diva and how this has been subverted or embraced over time. On display will be objects from fashion, design, photography, music, costumes and live performance, brought together from the V&A collection and loans from across the world. Opens 24 June at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Luxury and power: Persia to Greece
Travel back 2,500 years to see how bling was used to wield power in one of the world's most influential ancient empires. This exhibition promises to display a "dazzaling array" of objects of exquisite luxury, highlighting how the First Persian Empire used them as markers of authority. A highlight will be the Panagyurishte Treasure, on a rare loan from Bulgaria. Accidentally discovered by three brothers in 1949, these precious items are outstanding examples of ancient metalworking and consist of nine richly decorated gold vessels used for pouring and drinking wine. Opens 4 May at the British Museum
The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Frans Hals
The first major retrospective of Frans Hals in more than thirty years will let a new generation discover the brilliant work of one the greatest ever European artists. Some fifty of Hals’s finest works will be brought together, including the exceptional, first-ever loan of his most famous picture, The Laughing Cavalier (1624), from the Wallace Collection. From small works to large group portraits, genre scenes, and marriage portraits reunited for the first time from international collections, visitors will see the very best of this rich, earthy, yet comic artist. It’s a mirror of humanity on canvas. Opens 30 September at the National Gallery
Discover my full list of 8 must-see shows here
2023 look ahead
What is everyone else looking forward to this year? I asked four leading voices to tell me what they are most excited for in the next 12 months.
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Dr. Helen Charman, Director of Young V&A
What are you looking forward to most in 2023?
The opening of Young V&A in Bethnal Green, London will be a milestone event for the V&A. This project is the first of its kind: a full-scale transformation of the former V&A Museum of Childhood, from its prior incarnation as a museum of the social and material history of childhood to a completely refurbished and reimagined museum of creativity designed with, and for, children. The museum fit out is well underway and over 250 creative activities have already taken place across East London, ahead of opening in Summer 2023.
What from the wider cultural scene are you most excited for in 2023?
The Association of Children’s Museums’ annual conference in New Orleans, April 2023; the largest gathering of Children’s Museum professionals in the world and this year hosted by Louisiana Children’s Museum.
Young V&A will open in summer 2023
Adam Nathaniel Furman, artist and designer
What are you looking forward to most in 2023?
Definitely the Croydon Colonnade (aka Coruscation), an eight-metre-high new public thoroughfare in Croydon that will eventually connect the station to the new town centre, which I have designed for the quotidian life of the street. 16 porcelain-clad columns and two long walls of the same will create a cathedral of colour and craft for everyone passing through here every day on the way to school, to get their shopping, or heading to their commute. It is a bit of a dream for me to be able to create high quality, exquisitely made, permanent artworks that sit quietly in the background of everyday life, because that, I believe, is a vital part of imbuing dignity, pride, diversity and substance into our cities.
What from the wider cultural scene are you most excited for in 2023?
Perhaps a strange answer, but I adore Groupwork's architecture, Amin Taha's brilliant practice with whom I have always wanted to collaborate, and they are building a new landmark (structurally stone-supported) project on the Finchley Road near where I live. I don't believe it will be totally complete in 2023, but it will be substantially finished on the exterior, and it is already looking totally intriguing, dominating the road in its strange, angled skeletal form, so I look forward to seeing that being slowly put together, and I shall hold out hope that I can wangle a guided visit with Amin to see it being made.
Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places and Stories by RIBA Publishing is available now
Leonie Bell, Director of V&A Dundee
What are you looking forward to most in 2023?
In April, we will open the first major exhibition in Scotland in 30 years to focus on tartan, taking a radical new look at one of the world’s best-known patterns. The show features over 300 incredible objects from over 70 lenders worldwide that will tell the rich and diverse stories of this amazing fabric from the historic to the contemporary. It includes ‘The People’s Tartan’ – tartan objects crowdsourced from members of the public. This will be a must-see exhibition from the V&A family for 2023, there is no better way for us to mark marking V&A Dundee’s 5th birthday.
What from the wider cultural scene are you most excited for in 2023?
This year’s International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale under the vision of curator Lesley Lokko, where the African continent is examined as the Laboratory of the Future; and the Scotland + Venice commission being developed in partnership with the Architecture Fringe, ism, and /other.
Tartan opens at V&A Dundee on 1 April 2023
Rebecca Hossain, Director of Commercial and Operations at Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
What are you looking forward to most in 2023?
In early 2023 we will complete work on restoring Soane’s Drawing Office - the oldest surviving example of an architectural drawing office of its kind, made possible by a successful fundraising campaign. Visitors to the Soane will be able to explore the Office for the first time and new virtual tours and interpretation will be introduced. Managing demand will be interesting as no more than eight people can be in the space at a time. Starting in the Spring of 2023 this launch brings with it a brilliant artist in residence opportunity - artists and makers will be able to take inspiration from working in the Drawing Office, just as Soane’s pupils once did.
What from the wider cultural scene are you most excited for in 2023?
The reopening of the National Portrait Gallery – my former ‘home’ for five years. The project was in planning stages in 2013 and having been part of the major capital project to relocate the Design Museum to Kensington in 2016, I know the dedication, energy, and planning that goes into these ambitious museum redevelopments!
Find out more about the restoration of Sir John Soane’s Museum Drawing Office here
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