SEPTEMBER PLAYLIST
SP LIST: ART EXHIBITIONS & BOOKS
Chardchakaj Waikawee: Youth at Graces Mews, At Grace Mews, London
from July 31 to until September 18, 2026
This compelling solo photographic exhibition showcases handprinted analogue portraits captured across Bangkok between 2008 and 2020. Documenting underground music scenes, motorcycle subcultures, and punk communities, he masterfully projects an alternative archive of resilient youth culture. Using expired film and improvised cameras, he leans into raw imperfections as each image embodies its own restless, living energy.
The exhibition takes its title from the Thai phrase wai run, a term that extends beyond a simple description of age, evoking youth as a spirit, an attitude, a way of inhabiting the world.
Left Untitled (Boy with Coca-Cola Bag), 2008-2020, Hand printed C-Type
Right Untitled (Mohawk and Mercedes), 2008-2020, Hand printed C-Type
Left Untitled (Family Portrait), 2008-2020, Digital C-Type
Right Untitled (Boy with Mohawk Helmet), 2008-2020, Hand printed C-Type
Louis Fratino at David Zwirner, London
from September 18 to October 31, 2026
This is the artist's first and highly anticipated solo exhibition with the London gallery and features new paintings which focus on Fratino's intimate personal experiences, contemporary queer life, and the male body. Leaning heavily into an exuberant, bold palette of bold, high-contrast colours and expressive figuration, he draws from classical and modern Western art history and literature, with his work echoing the style of Picasso and Matisse. This exploration merges moments of public and private life, offering vulnerable, tender portraits of those within his immediate circles.
Left The green bath , 2026, Oil on canvas, © Louis Fratino, Courtesy David Zwirner, Photo by Kerry McFate
Right Self - portrait in studio (after F .N . Souza) , 2026, Oil on canvas, © Louis Fratino, Courtesy David Zwirner, Photo by Stephen Arnold
Left Frioul, 2026, Oil on canvas, © Louis Fratino, Courtesy David Zwirner, Photo by Kerry McFate
Right Summer in the city, 2026, Oil on canvas, © Louis Fratino, Courtesy David Zwirner, Photo by Kerry McFate
Mark Abegg de Boucherville: Out to Lunch, published by IDEA Books
This is the debut photography book by the Paris-based fashion photographer, offering a candid, unretouched look into the modelling industry by capturing models during their personal lunch breaks across Paris. Over a period of a year and a half, Abegg de Boucherville shared 88 lunches with 100 different models, ranging from high-end Parisian brasseries and traditional Korean barbecue to sitting on street curbs eating boxes of fried chicken. Speaking of food, the book is art directed by Riccardo Ruini, with its physical layout designed to mirror a classic French bistro menu.
Left Tea Grabic, Air de repos A6
Right Clea, Gare de Lyon
Left Blanca
Right Ansley, L’escale
Edith Dekyndt: Notes on What is What at Marian Goodman, New York
from September 10 to October 24, 2026
For the Belgian contemporary artist's first solo show, she draws inspiration from Aldous Huxley’s 1962 utopian novel Island, an insular society preserved from destructive external forces. Reimagining the relationship between living beings, resources, and habitats, through an experimental mix of film, gelatin silver prints, and mixed-media works, Dekyndt captures transitory elements of time, light, and space, observing the circulation of matter, narratives, and ecological practices highlighting the living quality of materials where everyday objects are subjected to time-based physical and chemical processes—such as entropy, decay, and environmental disruption—to mirror global ecological changes.
Left It Could Be Very Fresh and Clear, 2025, Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, Photo by Barthelemy Decobecq
Right Animal Methods, 2024, Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Sara Birns: Scene XIX ‘Corn Maze’ at Matt Carey-Williams, London
from September 3 to September 5, 2026
Birns' signature surrealist aesthetic is in full swing with this show which uses the corn maze as a structural and psychological metaphor. The twisting turns and paths of a cornfield reflect the maze of life in all its complexity, to memories lost and found, inspired by Birns' recollections of county fairs and the ocean, where the works explore the boundaries between isolation and collective connectivity. The show also expands on her vivid manipulation of form, blending oil paint, pastels, and coloured pencils to distort and explore human figures and emotion.
Left Eye of the Gathered Glob, 2026
Right Frosted Lips and Beard Burn, 2026
Arlene Shechet: She Said She Said at Pace Gallery
from September 11 to October 24, 2026
This is a new showcase of sculptures by the US artist which marks a significant focus on Shechet's evolution in scale and medium. She highlights monumental metal sculptures which push the boundaries of industrial materials, against intimately scaled works that mirror the power of her larger pieces, all in a continuation of her distinctive improvisational approach to form, balance and vibrant painted colour.
Arlene Shechet with Flo, 2026, Photography by Cole Wilson
Hailun Ma: Hometown at Foam, Amsterdam
from September 18to January 27, 2026
This marks Ma’s first major solo exhibition outside China and serves as a significant milestone for the 1992-born, Urumqi-raised photographer, whose vibrant portraiture effortlessly navigates between candid documentary moments and intentionally conceptualised setups. The show explores fashion as a social lens using style and everyday textiles to observe social relationships and generational evolution focusing closely on family dynamics, youth culture, and daily self-expression in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.
The imagery documents a distinct blend of Central Asian heritage, local traditions, ethnic minority identities, and modern global fashion trends—a phenomenon she affectionately describes as "Uruklyn" (a mix of Urumqi and Brooklyn).
Left Uruklyn, 2024
Right Hometown, 2025
Left Dawazi Girls, 2024
Right Kashi Youth, Uruklyn, 2023
Johan Creten: Les Chiens de Pavlov, at Perrotin, Paris
from September 5 to October 10, 2026
Les Chiens de Pavlov (Pavlov's Dogs) marks the tenth solo exhibition by Belgian sculptor Johan Creten. A pioneering revivalist of modern ceramics, this is a deeply personal show which will resonate familiarly and universally. Fusing history and raw materials, it's an immersive journey through what the artist describes as "technological archaeology," political allegory, and mythological imagination. Creten draws from past dreams to shape contemporary realities exploring social conditioning, transformation, human desire, and legacy, juxtaposing humour with tragedy in an unsettling, disorientating but engaging environment. On show are signature ceramics and clay, bronzes as monumental and detailed metal sculptures and Bas-reliefs & Drawings.
New Glory - Le Grand perpétuel , 2024 – 2025, Grès émaillé, lustre or, Photo by Tanguy Beurdeley, ©Johan Creten/ADAGP, Paris, 2026, Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin
Kristof Santy: Bolero at Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels
from September 10 to October 24, 2026
With the show's title directly referencing Maurice Ravel's iconic orchestral masterpiece, this second solo exhibition with the gallery, introduces a completely new body of work and mediums that highlight the evolution of Santy's vibrant style. New large-scale canvases and drawings continue his exploration of folklore, domestic interiors, and the mundane, as everyday objects are rendered with flat, geometric planes and highly saturated colours.
And for the first time in his practice, the artist is debuting three-dimensional works created on copper plates.
Left Bout, 2026, oil on engravedn, copper plate
Right Cours de Dessin #220, 2026, Pencil and wax on 130 gram simili japon paper
Left Cours de Dessin #215, 2025, Pencil and wax on 130 gram simili japon paper
Right Kristof Santy Taartje, 2025, oil on canvas
Text by Kate Lawson