Exhibitions in Manchester and the North

Maja Lorkowska, Exhibitions Editor

We can’t trust that the sun will be out but there are plenty of exciting new exhibitions to fill our diaries with this July!

What do lasers and Virginia Woolf have in common? Visit Brass Art: rock, quiver and bend at HOME to find out. Elsewhere in Manchester, the 40th anniversary celebrations continue at Castlefield Gallery with 40 Years of the Future: Where Should We Be Now?, which asks questions about the subjective nature of history.

Manchester Museum opens Wild, a brand new exhibition incorporating works from the museum collection as well as everyday objects and projects from all around the world, all of which reveal different approaches to the concept of wildness, particularly as a method of environmental recovery. 

Hannah Perry explores motherhood in her own unique way, using industrial materials and video for her show Manual Labour at Baltic in Newcastle.

On the topic of new technologies, Beyond Van Gogh has landed in Liverpool this summer: the truly immersive presentation of the colour master’s works is now on at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool. Down the road, at Open Eye Gallery, you’ll find the LOOK Photo Biennial, which this year focuses on the theme Beyond Sight.

Our top picks

Brass Art: rock, quiver and bend at HOME

Brass Art: rock, quiver and bend at HOME Manchester, Manchester, Until 1 September 2024, free entry - Visit now

HOME presents new work from artist trio Brass Art: partly inspired by the work of Virginia Woolf and her experimental writing methods, and partly using the artists’ existing fascinations with light, reflective material and the visual and metaphorical crossing of thresholds.

rock, quiver and bend
Brass Art

40 Years of the Future: Where Should We Be Now? at Castlefield Gallery

40 Years of the Future: Where Should We Be Now? at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, Until 6 October 2024, free entry - Visit now

The 40 Years of the Future programme continues with a new exhibition by three artists, exploring alternative histories and the subjectivity of experience in the context of remembering the past.

A collage of black and white photos depicting protests
Theo Simpson, Remainder III (2023). Image courtesy of the artist

Wild at Manchester Museum

Wild at Manchester Museum, Manchester, Until 1 June 2025, free entry - Visit now

Manchester Museum’s new exhibition focuses on all things wild or related to the concept of wildness. From environmental campaigns that lead to restoring ecosystems to romanticised landscape paintings, the show gathers different approaches and practices.

Wolf in Yellowstone
Jacob W. Frank

Hannah Perry: Manual Labour at Baltic

Hannah Perry: Manual Labour at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, North East, Until 15 March 2025, free entry - Visit now

Hannah Perry’s explorations of matrescence in combination with class, labour and industrial materials is a unique perspective on this still underexplored topic.

A pregnant woman standing in a mirror
Hannah Perry © Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

LOOK Photo Biennial 2024: Beyond Sight at Open Eye Gallery

LOOK Photo Biennial 2024: Beyond Sight at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, Liverpool, Until 1 September 2024, free entry - Visit now

LOOK Photo Biennial 2024  starting with a show of three photographic projects. This year’s edition presents work under the theme of ‘Beyond Sight’, realised by the artists in entirely different ways yet all focusing on the effect of human activity on the natural environment. 

Dark landscape photo with a tree outlined against pale starry sky. There are green traces of fireflies in the foreground.
Mattia Balsamini

John Lyons: Carnivalesque at The Whitworth

John Lyons at The Whitworth, Manchester, Until 25 August 2024, free entry - Visit now

John Lyons’ retrospective at The Whitworth honours the artist’s endless creativity and showcases six decades of painting and writing.

oil paining in a expressive style, three standing figues are the main focus with an owl flying above the central figure at the top of the image.
John Lyons, Mama Look a Mas Passin, detail, 1990. (Oil on canvas, 1270 x 1020mm) Courtesy of the artist © John Lyons. Photo: Anne-Katrin Purkiss

Harewood Biennial 2024: Create/Elevate at Harewood House

Harewood Biennial 2024: Create/Elevate at Harewood House, Leeds, Until 20 October 2024, from £14.00 - Book now

Visit the third edition of the Create/ Elevate, the craft biennial that connects generations and continents.

a large room filled with colourful artworks of all shapes and sizes
Image supplied by Leeds Inspired

Bharti Kher: Alchemies at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Bharti Kher: Alchemies at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire, Until 27 April 2025, from £0.00 - Book now

One of the world’s leading contemporary artists, Bharti Kher comes to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park with a body of work that focuses on the female experience and its shifting context in today’s world.

Sculpture of a nude woman with the head of a cow placed on top of the woman's head
Bharti Kher, Animus Mundi (detail), 2018. © Bharti Kher. Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte. Photo © Jeetin Sharma.

Matthew Bamber: Dream Home at HOME

Matthew Bamber: Dream Home at HOME Manchester, Manchester, Until 1 September 2024, free entry - Visit now

Matthew Bamber explores themes of queerness, domesticity and power in this new show of digital collages.

Matthew Bamber, Dream Home (Sleep), 2023
Matthew Bamber, Dream Home (Sleep), 2023

Bees: A Story of Survival at World Museum Liverpool

Bees: A Story of Survival at World Museum Liverpool, Liverpool, Until 5 May 2025, from £0.00 - Book now

Take a closer look at the lives of bees and their vital role in human existence, in this immersive exhibition created in partnership with artist Wolfgang Buttress.

Bees: A Story of Survival at World Museum Liverpool
© Photo by Pete Carr - Render by Battlecat and Wolfgang Buttress Studios

The Vasseur Baltic Artists’ Award – Joanne Coates: Middle of Somewhere at Baltic

Joanne Coates | The Vasseur Baltic Artists' Award | Middle of Somewhere at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, North East, Until 17 November 2024, free entry - Visit now

The photographer celebrates the people who live and work in the countryside (with a special focus on women) in her keenly observed portraits.

A woman sits on a rock in the countryside. There are green hills and landscape in the back ground.
Aisling on her home croft, Hoy before having to move to the nearby town of Stromness. Middle of Somewhere. Joanne Coates. 2023.

Sylvia Snowden: Painting Humanity at the Hepworth Wakefield

Sylvia Snowden: Painting Humanity at The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Until 3 November 2024, from £0.00 - Book now

Experience paint in its purest form through Sylvia Snowden’s impasto canvases using both abstraction and figuration to explore what it means to be human.

Installation image of Sylvia Snowden: Painting Humanity, March 2024
Anya Fiáine-Fox

Claude Cahun: Beneath this Mask at Abbot Hall Art Gallery

Claude Cahun: Beneath this Mask at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Cumbria, Until 3 August 2024, from £0.00 - Book now

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Cahun’s photographs gathered here depict different people. They are, in fact, performative self-portraits, veiling the artist/ model with props, compositions and photography techniques to create new personas.

Claude Cahun mirrored self portrait
Jersey Heritage

Leilah Babirye: Obumu (Unity) at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Leilah Babirye: Obumu (Unity) at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire, Until 8 September 2024, free entry - Visit now

Babirye’s transformative process turns other people’s rubbish into her beautifully bold sculptures. The show gathers a new body of work created during a residency at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Unity Sculptures
Yorkshire Sculpture Park

More exhibitions events

Until
ExhibitionsManchester
Sweet Dreams at Aviva Studios

Multi-sensory and surreal, Sweet Dreams is a brand-new storytelling experience that takes audiences on a journey through food, appetite and desire.

from £7.50
Wolf in Yellowstone
Until
ExhibitionsManchester
Wild at Manchester Museum

Manchester Museum explores the concept of ‘wild’ nature as a means of tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis in a new exhibition.

free entry
Pillock at Contact
Spotlight on

Fringe Theatre in Manchester and the North

Check out our top picks of shows previewing in the North West before heading to Edinburgh Fringe Festival later in the summer.

Take me there

Exhibitions in Manchester and the North

HOME Manchester
Manchester
Theatre
HOME Manchester

Offering a packed schedule of events and things to do, HOME Manchester is one of the city’s leading hubs for arts and culture.

The Hepworth Wakefield
Wakefield
Gallery
The Hepworth Wakefield

Winner of the 2017 Art Fund Museum of the Year Award, The Hepworth in Wakefield is easily one of the leading cultural highlights of the North.

The Whitworth
Manchester
Gallery
The Whitworth

This much-loved gallery-in-a-park is open for business, showcasing some of the city’s finest contemporary and historic exhibitions.

Waterfront
Museum
The British Music Experience

It’s a discotheque for the senses, an incredible collection of artefacts and memorabilia, audio guides, music and stories. There are iconic costumes worn by David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Dusty Springfield, the Spice Girls and Adam Ant, and musical instruments played by some of the world’s most renowned artists from Noel Gallagher to the Sex Pistols.

Leeds
Gallery
Leeds Art Gallery

The city centre Leeds Art Gallery is blessed with a fine historic collection and a changing series of contemporary exhibitions.

Culture Guides

Rebecca Watson author photo
Literature Events in Manchester and the North

In between working out, then working through, your holiday reading pile this summer, find inspiration for your next bookish acquisitions from our selection of live events and exhibitions.