We love a bit of quirky art here at House of Coco. So we are delighted that there are plenty of wacky and wonderful art exhibitions on in London during the last few weeks of summer. From lilting Scandi music played in each room of an old house to the iconic outfits worn by the Rolling Stones, we’ve picked out the quirkiest of them all…

Ragnar Kjartansson at the Barbican

‘Art is a slippery devilish thing’ – Ragnar Kjartansson

Performance artist, musician, painter and film maker, Kjartansson’s talents are brought together in this emotional and ironic exhibition. You can wander through the rooms and bump into young men lounging around on sofas, drinking beers and playing slow love songs whilst in another room, nine videos of musicians play simultaneously, all filmed over an hour in a gloriously ancient house in New York State.

If you decide to go along at the weekend, look out for two women in Edwardian costume enjoying a live four-hour kiss on a rowing boat. Yes this exhibition might take the biscuit as the maddest in town…

The Ragnar Kjartansson exhibition runs at the Barbican until 4 September 2016. Entry costs £12 for adults.

Exhibitionism at The Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea

‘We came up with the perfect tongue, I think’ – Mick Jagger

Exhibitionism is a bonanza of music, clothes, videos and paraphernalia related to the Rolling Stones. In fact it is the largest exhibition of Stones memorabilia ever put together.

It focuses hugely on the great people who have collaborated with the band from Delia Smith to Andy Warhol and there is a whole room dedicated to the development of the iconic lip and tongue logo. Anyone in need of a reminder of the squalor of student life will enjoy the re-creation of the band’s shared house from 1962 complete with discarded custard creams, overflowing ashtrays and piles of dirty plates. From humble beginnings to the ruffled velvet and striped lycra (among other choice outfits) of their days of success, this exhibition is a fitting tribute to one of the greatest bands on earth.

Exhibitionism runs at the Saatchi Gallery until 4 September 2016. Entry costs from £19 to £25 for adults.

Mark Grotjahn: Pink Cosco at the Gagosian Gallery, Mayfair

‘I call my sculptures masks, but they are not masks’ – Mark Grotjahn

Pink Cosco is made up of nine huge, brightly painted bronze ‘masks’. Influenced by pop art and abstract expressionism, each ‘mask’ is immense and garish with a long tube nose and a childishly scrawled name and date.

Formed from leftover cardboard boxes cast in bronze, the leering 3D faces seem to stand like an army in the blank space of the Gagosian Gallery. They remind us of tribal masks and lurid graffiti, an unsettling and very human combination that makes it difficult not to stare.

Mark Grotjahn: Pink Cosco runs at the Gagosian Gallery in Mayfair until 17 September 2016. Entry is free.

Raqib Shaw: Self Portraits at the While Cube Gallery, Bermondsey

‘(Art) extracts every bit of existence from you – that’s the promise of the divine’ – Raqib Shaw

One of the most flamboyant, eccentric and fantastical artists of our time, Raqib Shaw is known for his paintings of opulent paradise and disturbing hell. This exhibition differs from these only in that the artist himself is the protagonist of such scenes, always with his trusty pet Jack Russell.

Each work bursts with detail and has a ridiculously fanciful name like ‘Last Rite of the Artists Ego at Shankryacharya Temple’ or ‘Self Portrait with Fireflies at the Oracle of Ridicule and Truth’. An Indian-born London-based artist, Shaw’s paintings are influenced by the Kashmiri landscapes of his childhood and the religious scenes of the Old Masters. At first glance they seem like the grandest paintings imaginable but, when you look more carefully, you begin to ask yourself whether Shaw is poking fun at the very grandeur he paints…

Raqib Shaw: Self Portraits runs at the White Cube in Bermondsey until 11 September 2016. Entry is free.

Comments are closed.