GLOBAL CULTURAL BULLETIN | HAPPENINGS | WORLD OF CABANA

 

A monthly guide to the events and exhibitions on Cabana's Radar: a global cultural bulletin and a must-read for anyone looking to keep their finger on the pulse of art and design. Read on to discover our September highlights.

 

CURATED BY TEAM CABANA | HAPPENINGS | 1 SEPTEMBER 2025

 

 

As the days grow shorter and we part with summer, the excitement that goes with seasonal renewal is felt across galleries, museums and creative locations worldwide. From institutional giants to niche galleries worth your attention—with a particularly strong Events section—we've curated a program of delicious exhibitions and events that feel anything but back-to-school dull.  

 

 

EXHIBITIONS 

 

LONDON, UK

Marie Antoinette Style

One slipper belonging to Marie Antoinette beaded pink silk. Photo CC0 Paris Musées, Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris

 

The V&A's highly anticipated Marie Antoinette Style exhibition opens this September—the first UK exhibition dedicated to fashion’s most enigmatic and controversial queen. The show brings together over 250 objects—including treasures never before seen outside of Versailles—to trace the life, legend, and enduring influence of Marie Antoinette. Expect couture by Dior, Chanel, and Westwood, scented rooms, and a lavish, immersive journey through 250 years of excess, elegance, and reinvention. 

September 20, 2025 - March 22, 2026, The V&A, LONDON, UK

 

MILAN, ITALY

Man Ray: Forme di Luce

Glass tears, Les Larmes, 1932, © Man Ray 2015 Trust, by SIAE 2025

 

Palazzo Reale presents a major retrospective of Man Ray, tracing the life and work of one of the 20th century’s most visionary artists. Featuring rare vintage prints, negatives, and documents, the exhibition explores his evolution from the New York avant-garde to the surrealist circles of Paris, showcasing iconic works that redefined photography as an art form.

September 24, 2025 - January 11, 2026, Palazzo Reale, MILAN, ITALY

 

NEW YORK, USA

Man Ray: When Objects Dream

Man Ray (American, 1890 – 1976) Rayograph, 1922 Gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (84.XM.1000.173) © The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles © Man Ray 2015 Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2025

 

West from Italy and across the Atlantic, the Met’s upcoming exhibition Man Ray: When Objects Dream casts new light on the artist’s radical, cross-media practice through his groundbreaking rayographs—photographs made without a camera. Featuring over 60 pieces alongside 100 works in other media, the show reveals how this surreal, camera-less technique became central to Man Ray’s inventive, dreamlike world.

September 14, 2025 - February 1, 2026, The Met, NEW YORK, USA

 

LONDON, UK

Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World

Jean Rhys, 1977 © Paul Joyce / National Portrait Gallery, London. Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery.

 

Conceptualized by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Hilton Als, Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World is a collective tribute to the Dominican-born British author, whose lyrical prose laid bare the tensions of exile, race, and femininity. 

September 12, 2025 - November 22, 2025, Michael Werner Gallery, LONDON, UK

 

BATH, UK

Illustrating Austen

Alone (Marianne Dashwood), William Cubitt Cooke, wash drawing, 1892 © The Holburne Museum, Jo Hounsome Photography

 

To mark the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, and coinciding with Bath's annual Jane Austen Festival (September 12 - 21, 2025), this autumn’s display at the Holburne invites visitors to discover the artwork that has brought her beloved novels to life. Focusing on Austen’s stories and the characters at their heart, Illustrating Austen traces how these iconic figures have been imagined over time, offering a glimpse into shifting styles and interpretations across generations.

September 11, 2025 - January 11, 2026, The Holburne Museum, BATH, UK

 

PARIS, FRANCE

Soulages, Another Light

Guy Bourdin Pierre Soulages dans son atelier, 11bis rue Schœlcher Paris, 1953 Photographie 21 x 14,8 cm Collection particulière © The Guy Bourdin Estate

 

Pierre Soulages’ works on paper take center stage in this rare and revealing exhibition. Spanning from his early experiments with walnut stain in 1946 to luminous compositions in ink and gouache, the show brings together 130 pieces—including 25 never-before-seen works—highlighting the artist’s fascination with contrast and the expressive force of black.

Through January 11, 2026, Musée du Luxembourg, PARIS, FRANCE

 

LONDON, UK

Hilary Lloyd, Very High Frequency

Dennis Potter, The Singing Detective, 1986, film still. Image credit © BBC Archive.

 

Hilary Lloyd conjures a bold new commission shaped by the visionary and volatile world of Dennis Potter. Blending film, performance, and archival material, the installation offers a portrait of Britain’s most daring television dramatist, tracing his surreal, taboo-breaking legacy in theater, media, and beyond.

September 10, 2025 - January 11, 2026, Studio Voltaire, LONDON, UK

 

BASEL, SWITZERLAND

Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act I, Scene IV, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Maler, nach / after, 1796, © Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, Photo: Jonas Hänggi

 

Exploring the poetic mystery and unsettling power of ghostly apparitions, Ghosts reveals how artists across centuries have channeled the supernatural to probe our deepest fears and desires. From William Blake to Leonora Carrington and Paul Klee to Edvard Munch, the exhibition features over 80 artists who have summoned spirits, given form to literary phantoms, and made the uncanny tangible.

September 20, 2025 - March 8, 2026, Kunstmuseum, BASEL, SWITZERLAND

 

BATH, UK

Sculpting the Earth

Installation View, Ann Stokes, 'Ann Stokes', at Camden Art Centre, 2009. Courtesy of Camden Art Centre.

 

Sculpting the Earth brings together the witty, figurative ceramic works of Natalie Bevan, Psiche Hughes, and Ann Stokes. Moving beyond the confines of utility or mainstream art, their vibrant creations echo the playful elegance of 18th-century porcelain, while quietly challenging the boundaries between art, craft, and life itself.

September 19, 2025 - January 4, 2026, The Holburne Museum, BATH, UK

 

LUXEMBOURG

Eleanor Antin: A Retrospective

Eleanor Antin; Eleanore, 1954 Courtesy of the artist.

MUDAM presents the first major European survey of the groundbreaking American master of disguise; Eleanor Antin. Spanning over five decades, the exhibition charts Antin’s genre-defying practice across performance, photography, film, and sculpture. With humor and critical insight, Antin unravels the artifice of identity, laying bare the fragile architectures of power, gender, and history.

September 26, 2025 - February 8, 2026, MUDAM, LUXEMBOURG

 

LONDON, UK

SICKERT Love, Death & Ennui

Walter Sickert, Ennui, 1913-14 framed

Piano Nobile presents SICKERT: Love, Death & Ennui, a landmark exhibition of more than 80 rarely seen paintings, drawings, and prints by Walter Sickert (1860–1942) from the private collection of Herbert and Ann Lucas. Many of the works, assembled over three decades and unseen for over 20 years, will be shown alongside loans from private collections. Celebrating both Sickert’s enduring influence and the Lucases’ legacy as collectors, the exhibition offers a rare chance to encounter one of Britain’s greatest modern artists anew.

September 26, 2025 - December 19, 2025, Piano Nobile, LONDON, UK

 

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

YSE x Chapo

YSE x Chapo at The Edit, photographed by Laora Queyras.

 

Including selected Chapo 2024 pieces reinterpreted by Yves Salomon Editions, this exhibition hosted at The Edit Gallery forms part of a broader retrospective on French designer and master craftsman, Pierre Chapo. 

September 10 - 13, 2025,  The Edit Gallery, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

 

SLANE, IRELAND

CAIM at Slane Castle

© Slane Castle

This September, Slane Castle - the iconic 18th-century estate in Ireland’s Boyne Valley - will launch CAIM, a new art programme dedicated to exploring nature and sanctuary through contemporary art. Curated by Jenn Ellis and Matilda Liu, the inaugural exhibition invites 19 Irish and international artists across multiple mediums to create dialogue with Ireland’s cultural heritage. Named after the Celtic word for ‘sanctuary’, CAIM reflects Slane Castle’s motto, ‘Nurture and Share’ and transforms the historic estate by engaging with its history, interiors and surrounding natural landscape.

September 13 - 30, 2025, Slane Castle, SLANE, IRELAND

 

 

Last Chance...

 

GEONA, ITALY

Life in Transit by James Hawke

Villa delle Peschiere, facade, Courtesy of Palazzo Foundation.

 

The Palazzo Foundation presents Life in Transit, the first solo exhibition in its public program showcasing over two decades of work by British painter James Hawke. Curated by James Marshall, the exhibition is set within the Villa delle Peschiere's frescoed interiors and Renaissance architecture—rarely open to the public until the Foundation’s launch in 2024.

Through September 21, 2025, Villa Delle Peschiere, GENOA, ITALY

 

LONDON, UK

De Gournay x Oak Spring Garden Foundation | Bunny Mellon: A Life in Bloom

(Left) Rachel "Bunny" Mellon archives, (Right) Potting shed © de Gournay

 

De Gournay x Oak Spring Garden Foundation present Bunny Mellon: A Life in Bloom, a special pop-up exhibition at the Garden Museum, honoring the legacy of celebrated garden designer and philanthropist Rachel “Bunny” Mellon. Featuring rare artworks, manuscripts, and botanical illustrations, the exhibition highlights Mellon’s profound influence on 20th-century horticulture. Presented against immersive de Gournay hand-painted wallpaper and porcelain, inspired by her world, the showcase captures Mellon’s lifelong devotion to gardens, craftsmanship, and the beauty of the natural world.

Through September 7, 2025, Garden Museum, LONDON, UK

 

LONDON, UK

Colour and Line: Watteau drawings

Antoine Watteau, Four studies of a woman's head, one lightly sketched, ca. 1716-1717 © The Trustees of the British Museum

 

The British Museum presents a rare display of Antoine Watteau’s masterful drawings. Celebrated as one of the 18th century’s most inventive draughtsmen, this exhibition reveals the depth of his creativity and the enduring appeal of his graphic works.

Through September 14, 2025, The British Museum, LONDON, UK

 

NEW YORK, USA

Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers

Hilma af Klint. Prunus padus (European Bird Cherry), Prunus avium (Sweet Cherry), Prunus cerasus (Sour Cherry), Prunus domestica (European Plum). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Committee on Drawings and Prints Fund and gift of Jack Shear, 2022

 

Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind Flowers, on view at MoMA unveils the museum’s recent acquisition of Nature Studies—a remarkable portfolio of 46 botanical drawings never before exhibited. Created between 1919 and 1920, these works blend the Swedish artist's mystical abstraction with scientific observation, revealing her belief that close study of nature unlocks deeper truths about the human condition.

Through September 27, 2025, MoMA, NEW YORK, USA 

 

 

EVENTS 

 

LONDON, UK

London Design Festival 2025

'Orsini Glass & Shell Mosaic' Live artisan demonstrations, September 18, 2025 at Armani/Casa, 37-42 Sloane Street, London © Armani/Casa

 

The 23rd edition of the London Design Festival returns to celebrate the city as a global hub of creativity and innovation. With exhibitions, installations, collaborations and workshops (from shell mosaic Orsini glass demos with Armani/Casa’s master artisans, to masterclasses in interiors with Rose Uniacke), the Festival highlights London’s role as a powerhouse for the creative industries and a key destination on the international cultural calendar. 

September 13 - 21, 2025, LONDON, UK

 

PARIS, FRANCE

Paris Design Week 2025

Pictos Secteurs © Paris Design Week, 2025

 

The international design showcase returns to Paris for a ten-day celebration, spotlighting both emerging talents and established names in the world of design. Across four Parisian districts, more than 375 influential venues and flagship locations will open their doors, transforming the City of Lights into a stage for creativity.

September 4 - 13, 2025, PARIS, FRANCE

 

PARIS, FRANCE

Maison&Objet

J25, H6 Today Seletti 1 FA © Maison & Objet, 2025

 

Alongside Paris Design Week, Maison&Objet returns with its September 'renewal' edition under the artistic direction of Amélie Pichard. Known for spotlighting lifestyle trends and young creativity, the fair reimagines interiors as spaces of experimentation and dialogue.

September 4 - 8, 2025,  PARIS, FRANCE

 

NEWBURY, UK

Temple of Taste: Veere Grenney's Personal Collection

Veere Grenney at the Temple. © Dreweatts

 

On 3 September, Dreweatts will present the first-ever auction of acclaimed interior designer Veere Grenney’s personal collection, drawn from his beloved Suffolk retreat, The Temple—an iconic Palladian fishing lodge of great sentiment. This unique opportunity will offer collectors and admirers a rare chance to acquire pieces that reflect Grenney's impeccable taste and timeless aesthetic.

September 3, 2025, Dreweatts, NEWBURY, UK

 

NEW YORK, USA

The Armory Show

Photographer, Jonah Rosenberg © The Armory Show 

 

The Armory Show returns with leading contemporary and modern art galleries from around the globe. Through curatorial rigor, institutional partnerships, and engaging public programming—including talks, performances, and installations across the city—the fair continues to reinforce New York’s status as a global cultural capital.

September 5 - 7, 2025, Javits Center, NEW YORK, USA

 

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

Design.Miami InSitu.

© Dahyeon Yoo

 

Design Miami needs little introduction. This autumn, its largest In Situ activation of the year turns the spotlight on South Korean artistry and collectible design. Held within Zaha Hadid’s iconic Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, the 14-day exhibition brings together master artisans and visionary creatives—including our Atlas of Craftsmanship maker, Dahyeon Yoo.

Stay in Seoul for its edition of Frieze, taking place September 3 - 6, 2025 at the COEX centre.

September 1 - 14, 2025, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

 

LONDON, UK

Indigo Journeys Q&A 

Jenny Balfour-Paul © Joss Graham

 

Textile expert Joss Graham and renowned indigo scholar Jenny Balfour-Paul host an intimate evening at the Grosvenor Auditorium, tracing the rich, cross-cultural journey of indigo through stories, objects, and hands-on insights. A private view of the gallery’s indigo collection from 5pm and a Q&A with tales of travel and practice.

September 9, 2025, 5-8PM, The Grosvenor Auditorium, LONDON, UK

 

SÃO PAULO, BRASIL

36th Bienal de São Paulo

Song Dong, A Quarter, 2021-2024

 

The 36th edition of the Bienal de SÃO PAULO—the largest contemporary art biennial after Venice Biennale—returns with a call to humanity. Curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and team, this four-month exhibition gathers over 120 artists from across the globe into a fluid scenography at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion. 

September 6, 2025 - January 11, 2026, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, SÃO PAULO, BRASIL