OCTOBER PLAYLIST
SP LIST: ART EXHIBITIONS & BOOKS
Irving Penn: Penn and Fashion at La MEP, Paris
from September 30, 2026 to January 17, 2027
Spanning a prolific career from 1947 to 2008, this exhibition charts Penn's six-decade collaboration with Vogue magazine through a meticulous, decade-by-decade chronological journey. It brings together prints from the MEP’s own extensive collection alongside major loans from The Irving Penn Foundation and the Miyake Issey Foundation.
From the golden age of 1950s haute couture highlighting the archival designs of Balenciaga and Dior (modelled by era icons like Lisa Fonssagrives, Penn's wife and muse), to the 1970s and 1980s where he captured the structural freedoms and theatrical mastery of iconic designers including Courrèges, Yves Saint Laurent and Lagerfeld.
Later in the 1990s and beyond, the focus is on boundary-pushing modernity and Penn’s avant-garde creative collaborations with Galliano, Lacroix and Issey Miyake.
Left Young Woman with Headdress, New York, 2005, Collection The Irving Penn Foundation, New York, © The Irving Penn Foundation
Right Red-Lacquered Lid, New York, 1994, Collection MEP, Paris. Acquisition supported by The Irving Penn Foundation in 2020, © The Irving Penn Foundation
Left Naomi Sims in Scarf, New York, circa 1969, Collection The Irving Penn Foundation, New York, © The Irving Penn Foundation
Right Issey Miyake Fashion: Face Covered with Hair, New York, 1991, Collection The Irving Penn Foundation, New York, © The Irving Penn Foundation
Viviane Sassen: Myriads at The Mass, Tokyo
from August 26 to November 8, 2026
This exhibition marks the Dutch photographer’s first solo show in Japan in two years.
Exploring a cross-section of Sassen's 30-year career, it juxtaposes previously unpublished works making their Japanese debut alongside pieces from Frau Holle, her ongoing multi-year series. Known for blurring the lines between fashion and fine art, Sassen's work utilises vivid primary colours, intense geometric shadows, and abstracted representations of the human body. This show will connect different bodies of work to create a poetic dialogue through texture, scale, and colour resonance.
Issy Wood: Fish, Fish, Duck at Kistefos Museum, Norway
from May 9 to October 11, 2026
This show marks the London-based painter’s first major presentation in the Nordic region and brings together a combination of new and earlier works that reflect Wood's unique associative logic and dark, understated humour. Conceptually described as a mix of a "teenage journal," "doomscrolling in bed," and a "psychoanalytic session, Wood is celebrated for her psychologically charged, atmospheric paintings, lifting inspiration directly from consumer and pop culture. Everything from auction catalogues to internet ads are up for inspection and alteration, as Wood explores intimacy, alienation, power, and objectification.
Left Your thinking, 2018. Oil on linen, 250 × 175.5 × 3.5 cm. © Issy Wood 2026. Courtesy of the artist; Christen Sveaas’ Art Collection; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and VeneKlasen, New York and London. Photographer: Stephen James
Right Self portrait 56, 2023. Oil on linen, 215.3 × 175 × 5 cm. © Issy Wood 2026. Courtesy of the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and VeneKlasen, New York and London. Photographer: Damian Griffiths
The 90s: Art and Fashion at Tate Britain, London
from October 8, 2026 to February 14, 2027
As a teen in the 1990s, I’m looking forward to seeing if this highly anticipated exhibition resonates with my own lived experience of the decade. Curated by Edward Enninful, the immersive seven-room layout will feature over 100 photographs, paintings, sculptures, films, and iconic designs by McQueen, Westwood and Galliano. Imagery from Juergen Teller, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Corinne Day visually transports you back to the decade where a raw, gritty, and unpolished aesthetic contrasted sharply with the heavily polished studio glamour of the 1980s; while definitive works by era-defining YBA artists like Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and Sarah Lucas remind us of shock tactics, conceptual approaches, and an "anything-goes" attitude to materials. Prepare to be immersed in the fluid creative boundaries of a decade defined by cultural rebellion, economic recovery, and a massive shift in music, art, and identity.
Left Naomi Campbell models in Vivienne Westwood AW94 'On Liberty’. Photo Guy Marineau, Vogue © Condé Nast
Right Wolfgang Tillmans, Concorde Grid, 1997 © Wolfgang Tillmans, courtesy Maureen Paley, London. Tate
Left Juergen Teller, Young Pink Kate London 1998 © Juergen Teller, All Rights Reserved
Right Alexander McQueen, AW98. Photo Guy Marineau, Vogue © Condé Nast
Aurélie Joly: Crumbs
In this debut photobook by the artist and photographer, an intimate, contemplative collection of photographs and poems weaves together several years in a mosaic of fleeting moments. The title reflects Joly's artistic process of collecting scattered images over time like keeping "crumbs in your pocket, exploring intimate fragments of family life, childhood innocence, maternal bonds, impermanence and the quiet poetry of everyday life.
The book leans heavily into the quiet, ordinary beauty hidden within everyday gestures, solitude, nature, and light – “Crumbs of light, crumbs of childhood, crumbs of us. Nothing stays whole. But everything that falls can still be gathered into a poem to outlive the chaos.”
All pictures from the book Crumbs by Aurélie Joly
All pictures from the book Crumbs by Aurélie Joly
Noé Znidarsic - Togetherness at Chez Stephy, Brussels
from September 17 to November 15, 2026
The Belgian visual artist and photographer intimately navigates human connection, youth, and severe illness in this exhibition, drawn from Znidarsic’s deeply personal archival photography project with his friend Héloïse, who suffers from anorexia.
Over several years, while they both stayed at a specialised facility for individuals battling eating disorders, Znidarsic captured the "ups and downs" and the physical ways a loved one’s presence changes through the illness – while also documenting the intense emotional transition from adolescence to adulthood.
The exhibition stands as a testament to how a profound emotional bond can evolve, survive, and serve as a space of resilience through a shared experience of trauma and recovery.
Left and Right Togetherness by Noé Znidarsic
Cecily Brown: A sunset, a ruin, a crowd, and a battle at Thomas Dane Gallery, Napoli
from September 29 to December 19, 2026
This show brings together 30 brand-new paintings and drawings that explore the sweltering sunrays, history, and tourist chaos of European summers. Key works include A sunset, a ruin, a crowd, and a battle (2025), Sorrento Sunset (2025–26), and Tequila Sunrise and Tequila Sunset (2026), all vividly capturing the intensity that descends across hotspots every summer. Brown brilliantly merges ancient mythology and archaeology with the modern, frantic clamour of holidaymakers jostling for snapshots and cocktails.
The works on show also capture her visceral abstraction of colour in the energy of the ocean, the feverish summer rush and the explosive heat. Look closely enough into the paintings, and you’ll feel like you’re on holiday all over again.
Left The new lagoon (both ways up) , 2024-25, oil on linen, © Cecily Brown. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, picture by Genevieve Hanson
Right A sunset, a ruin, a crowd, and a battle , 2025, oil on linen, in two parts, © Cecily Brown. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, picture by Genevieve Hanson
Arthur Samier: Choose Love, published by Patrick Rémy Studio
Arthur Samier wants us to know he chooses love. In his 2026 debut photography book, the Paris-based fashion journalist and photographer beautifully serves up his response to the digital generation’s disconnect with physical intimacy, in a visual homage to Parisian nightlife and human connection. Calling out the "resisters of love"— the book compiles three years of candid 35mm photographs capturing shifting spaces from bourgeois townhouses, swanky hotels and fabled bars to voguish nightclubs and Fashion Week afterparties, where strangers briefly become presences in suspended moments. Rather than documenting an absence of intimacy, the 168-page book acts as a vibrant time capsule celebrating the raw, essential desire and joy that still circulates when people meet face-to-face in the dark.
All pictures from the book Choose Love by Arthur Samier
All pictures from the book Choose Love by Arthur Samier
Martine Syms: Knot Eye at Sadie Coles, London
from September 17 to to November 7, 2026
In a multi-layered presentation that collapses the boundaries between cinema, physical gallery space, and a commercial storefront, the core of the exhibition is the premiere of a 22-minute docu-fantasy. Set in New Orleans in the year 2000, it blends home videos and fictional reenactments exploring reality television, memory, and early-2000s celebrity culture centred around MTV's The Real World. Yes, the early beginnings of reality TV that we were all obsessed with! The exhibition also premieres Syms’ film Ex Voto, 2026, and right at the gallery entrance, is the latest iteration of Dominica Publishing – Syms overarching conceptual endeavour – a practice of making ideas public and making publics around those ideas. It’s a way to play with form, format, desire, magic, mystery, and pop. As Syms notes, ‘I was a shop girl. Some people were servers. These jobs teach you everything there is to know about humanity.’
Left Dominica Publishing, 2026, concept store, installation view at Sadie Coles
Right Installation view at Sadie Coles
Left and Right, Stills from RW-LO, 2026, © Martine Syms. Courtesy the Artist, Sadie Coles HQ, Hoffman Donahue and Sprüth Magers.
RW-LO is commissioned by The Vega Foundation with additional production support from The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles
Text by Kate Lawson