From our point of view, 2026 was a good as it gets, with fabulous art exhibitions across Europe from Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris to London’s formidable art forums to Den Haag’s Mauritshuis to the galleries of Florence and Venice. Putting together our 2027 list got our hopes up that the run will continue. Our list includes solid shows to start the year including the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition in London of the Bayeux Tapestry.
This post will be updated throughout 2027, but there’s a lot already going on, so let’s get started.
The Way We Live Now
Now thru March 2027 at the The George Economou Collection in Athens
This retrospective show in Athens, which isn’t exactly a center of art, is getting noticed because it dares delve into how we got to 2026 and the velocity and madness of modern life. The concept takes its inspiration from Anthony Trollope’s 1875 novel about how society was rapidly moving away from the norms and standards of the Victorian era into a world drunk on greed, scams and the acquisition of material goods. (Sound familiar?)
From the museum website:
In this group exhibition, the artists invite us, with their unique sensibilities, to observe how they have been informed, if not shaped, by “the way we live now”—as political creatures, as humans longing for intimacy, as observers in and of the world that has made us.
The show is organized on three themed floors – ‘Intimacy’, ‘Politics’ and ‘Being.’ David Hockney, Jenny Saville, David Hammons and Louise Bourgeois are among the big names.
Entry is free, free!
Artists on the Move
Now through May 2027 at the Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE in Vilnius
Vilnius might not the be the first city that comes to mind when you think of art centers. But the Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE, holds one of Central Europe’s largest private art collections TARTLE just opened a new exhibition, “Artists on the Move.”
The show presents rarely exhibited works and the life stories of Lithuanian émigré artists who pursued paths of transatlantic and continental migration. The exhibition spans a period from studies at Parisian academies in the 1910s to the heights of modernism and the maturity of exile at the end of the century when Lithuania was under Russian dominatin,
“Artists on the Move” brings together more than 100 works and documents that illuminate the individual life stories. The exhibition presents not only works by Lithuania’s most celebrated artists – Pranas Domšaitis, Jacques Lipchitz, Jonas Mekas, Jonas Rimša, Kazys Varnelis, Viktoras Vizgirda, and Kęstutis Zapkus – but also those of lesser-known figures.
“This exhibition offers an opportunity to examine the phenomenon of migration from a broader perspective,” says curator Emilija Vanagaitė. “It would be no exaggeration to say that migration surrounds us every day, often with negative connotations. But this exhibition is not only about loss – it is also about searching, discovery, and the mark that Lithuanians have left on the world.
“Looking back at history, we can begin to appreciate the positive dimensions of such upheavals; and with that understanding, we may view the present with greater clarity.”
TARTLE’s collection comprises nearly 8,000 objects, including paintings, sculptures, graphic art, maps, books, examples of goldsmithing, photographs and historical artifacts.
Tickets to “Artists on the Move” are 15 euros and you can book yours in advance here.
Rock Bottom, Özgür Kar
Now thru 24 January 2027 at Kunsthalle Basel
We got a recommendation from Madi Schaaf that we take a look at young Turkish artist (34, so pretty young in the grand scheme of things) Özgür Kar and his solo show, “Rock Bottom,” at the Kunstalle Basel. Kar combines video, sculpture, animation, and sound into spatial installations
“I’m keen to put it on your radar, namely because Kar’s star is very much rising star,” Madi wrote in an email. “The work’s themes also feel especially pressing right now; doom-scrolling, bed-rotting and the hollowness of AI, vis-à-vis the mental purgatory and suffering seen in iconography from the Middle Ages.”
Sold!
Rock Bottom, Özgür is Kar’s largest institutional show to date. He takes inspiration from Middle Ages imagery of dance macabre, and the horrors of medieval European drawings. “Kar infuses his animated video-works with an unshakable sense of dread and despair, whilst also keeping the work firmly rooted in the irony-laden landscape of the modern world,” Madi states.
The exhibition spans five rooms, each holding a looping “theatre play” performed by figures on giant screens, four to five metres high, who never leave the screen. The sound of flies will buzz through the gallery, signalling decay, whilst an endlessly dying figure lies in the space itself – a nod to Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb – echoing the looping ‘resurrecting’ structure of the video works.
Kar has been building toward this scale for five or six years, treating each screen as a stage and each figure as an actor, according to Madi’s email. “In this work, Kar reaches to describe a very current kind of emptiness: bed-rotting, doomscrolling, and the strange loneliness of being ‘known’ by an algorithm.
“Using six-hundred-year-old allegories of plagues, torture, and mortality, it is a wry take on the numb suffering inherent to a 2 am doomscroll.”
Oh, yeah, we gotta see this one.
Admission to the Kunsthalle Basel is 12 Swiss francs.
The Bayeux Tapestry
Now through 11 July, 2027 at the British Museum in London
Yes, this is one of the most interesting pieces of historic art in the world and crowds are flocking to see it. But the backstory of shipping the Bayeux Tapestry from France to London is wild. Internal debates about whether it should even happen, incredibly expensive preparations once the move was on and, finally, a top-secret run across the Channel in an unmarked truck to the British Museum … top secret until French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that it was happening.
Art and history collide at the British Museum with the return of the Bayeux Tapestry to its country of origin from the Bayeux Museum in Normandy. The 70-meter-long tapestry depicts (from a particular viewpoint) the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the victory of the Normans in their conquest of the Anglo-Saxons and the British Isles.
Five times since 1931, British have asked to display it including for the for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 and the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1966. Five times, its French said no … until 2026.
National Geographic and the BBC have the best background posts about this whole epic effort.
Though billed as a “tapestry,” which is a weaving technique like a kilim, the Bayeux Tapestry is actually an embroidered piece, with wool patterns sewn into linen fabric. The huge work was likely commissioned to mark the opening of Notre-Dame cathedral in 1077, according to the sources we found. The work depicts more than just a battle … it shows life 900 years ago, at the moment what became Britain was born. And as with most historical documents, there are a lot of historical inconsistencies. (See the video above.) Which makes the Bayeux Tapestry even more interesting.
The tapestry is on loan until 11 July, 2027.
As you might imagine with a defining national treasure, this is more than an art show. It is a moment in history, complete with Bayeux Mania and a scramble for tickets and hotel rooms near London. Tickets are on sale now … though there’s currently a pause due to demand. You can see details here.
The 90s: Art and Fashion
Now thru 14 February 2027 at the Tate Briton in London
Arguably the most anticipated show of the year because who isn’t nostalgic for the ’90s? The music, the clothes, the music, the wretched excess … and the glamorous artists who made the covers of Vanity Fair and Interview every month. In the UK, this was a time the country – and the cultural scene – was emerging from the dreary Thatcher years. This show at the Tate has a lot of those artists including Damien Hurst of diamond-studded skulls fame and Steve McQueen and his minimalist art on a massive scale. And there’s more: fashion, art and design, as well as fashion film and music culture with big names such as Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, and John Galliano. Tickets are on sale and already selling out. Entry is 22 pounds, and the show is another 5 pounds. You can get yours here.
21 November 2026 to 11 April 2027 at the National Gallery in London
This epic exhibition will for the first time bring all of the Flemish painter’s portraits are together in one place. Or as the Tate’s American-style summary states, “For the first time in history, see all of Jan van Eyck’s portraits together. Only once, only at the National Gallery.” All is only nine, about half the surviving paintings. But hey, just deciphering that one might take the better part of a morning. The critics marvel over Rembrandt and Vermeer. But is there really a more skilled, innovative and influential artist than Van Eyck?
I remember as a college student from hillbilly Kentucky seeing Van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Portrait” in the National Gallery and standing transfixed for what seemed like hours. I couldn’t stop puzzling through this painting, one of rare pieces universally recognized as a “masterpiece.” How did Jan Van Eyck paint the convex mirror? Does the painting celebrate a marriage? Is the woman pregnant? And what’s up with that scruffy little dog?
See more here about the mysteries of the Arnolfini painting here before you go.
Magnifico 1492
30 November thru 1 March 2027 at the Uffizi in Florence
When he wasn’t plotting, scheming and guiding the Florintine Republic, Lorenzo de’ Medici – known as “the Magnificent” – spent his life collecting fabulous paintings and objects d’art. We’ve been reading about the Uffizi’s “Magnifico 1492” show for months now, and just now are there more details.
“Magnifico 1492” brings together more than 100 works: paintings, sculptures, gems, coins and codices, drawn from museums worldwide, all of it once housed in the family palace just as it was at the time of his death. It’s billed as “the most ambitious reconstruction of the Medici collection ever attempted.” Weirdly, we still can’t find anything on the official Uffizi website including a link to buy tickets for this particular show. All we know is that regular admission is 25 euros and you can get those tickets here.
By the way, the Uffizi is at the beginning of a 50 million euro, two-year renovation.
Later in 2027:
Monet, painting time
25 February 2027 – 27 June 2027, Tate Modern
Used to be that you had to cross the Channel over to Paris and the Marmottan to see the best Monets. But for five months this year, Monet comes to London at “Monet, painting time.” Though the Tate website doesn’t have a lot of info, we think this is the same show that was just at L’Orangerie in Paris, and included 40 works illustrating how Monet’s work evolved as society changed during the19th century into the early 20th century.
Tickets for the show are 25 pound, and you can select your date and time here.
And apropos of nothing, this is the first time we’ve seen an AI company sponsor an exhibition, in this case Anthropic, whose Claude LLM has conquered the world. But you have to wonder what this might mean for the art world ….
Basquiat in Italian
25 September 2027 to 23 January 2028 at Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi
When you think of Jean-Michel Basquiat, you tend to think of New York’s downtown club scene, the artist hanging with Kieth Haring, Andy Warhol and all the 1980s celebs. We missed that part of his very brief life when the member of the 27 Club went to Italy in 1981,with one-man show in the Ferrari town of Modena. But it was a crucial moment in his development.
All these years later, “Basquiat in Italy” brings together 60 works from international public and private collections. It highlights “Basquiat’s connection with Italy in particular, understood both as a source of cultural and iconographic influences and as a destination he visited several times during his life,” according to the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi website.
An open ticket – good for any time and date – is 20 euros, while tickets for specific dates are 15 euros. You can get yours here.
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
