Heat of the Moment: Ocula’s Pick of August’s Exhibitions

August has arrived, and with it a run of exhibitions across the art world have proven to be as intriguing as they are varied. From opportunities to catch works from legends like Nan Goldin and Derek Jarman to art from Syria and the India-Bangladesh border—patrons across the globe are well served this summer. Here’s a round-up of ten shows from Ocula’s member galleries that are worth checking out, according to our team.

1. Prabhakar Kamble and Akshay Mahajan, Roots of the Earth (10 July–16 August 2025) at Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai

Two vital Indian artists have taken over Jhaveri Contemporary with a bold array of pieces tackling their home country’s historical wounds around colonisation, class, and caste systems.

Mumbai-based Prabhakar Kamble has created a hanging forest of colourful chandeliers from multicoloured nylon and cowbells that echo through the gallery, recycling materials used by daily-wage labourers.

Meanwhile, Akshay Mahajan has assembled striking mixed-media collages which provide an ‘emotional cartography’ of Goalpara, a district divided to this day along borders determined by distant colonial overlords.

2. Tokyo (22 July–22 August 2025) at Each Modern, Taipei

Taipei gallery Each Modern opened its annual photographic exhibit on 22 July, so for the next month or so visitors will have the chance to catch works by artists like Chen Cheng-Po, Inoue Yuichi, William Klein, and Nishimura Yu, as they capture the radical transformations the city of Tokyo has undergone over the last century.

Taiwanese pioneer artist Chen Cheng-Po’s oil renderings of the Tokyo National Museum, created almost a century ago, sit alongside Nishino Sohei’s mapping of the metropolis’ future to create a holistic snapshot of one of the world’s greatest cities.

3. Pictures of You (5 July–23 August 2025) at Kerlin Gallery, Dublin

At Dublin’s Kerlin Gallery, guest curator Miles Thurlow has brought together 16 distinctive artists that play with time through what appears to be a particularly post-industrial filter. There’s Hannah Perry’s Rage Fluids, which features enormous slices of metal reverberating echoing rumbles, and Ryan Gander’s sculptures composed of overturned chairs by iconic designers, as well as work from luminaries like William McKeown and Nan Goldin. Catch it before it leaves on 23 August.

4. Abraham Cruzvillegas, Splitogetherness: Another Groove (28 June–30 August 2025) at Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin

Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas brings his ongoing playful explorations of autoconstrucción, or ‘self-construction’, to Galerie Thomas Schulte in Berlin this summer. Inspired by the never-completed family homes of his own Colonia Ajusco in Mexico City, where residents would add to their own houses in an almost improvisational manner, Cruzvillegas has created a series of works specifically for the Berlin show. These range from improvised systems of inky pathways on handmade paper to striking assemblages of materials that recall DIY construction projects.

5. Xue Mu, There is a garden (10 July–30 August 2025) at ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai

Art enthusiasts in Shanghai can step into Xue Mu’s ‘garden of perception’ over the next month at ShanghART Gallery, which hosts a selection of the Nanjing-born artist’s work. Mu’s work seeks to take in ambient energy and frequencies and release them back out into the world as challenging expressions. Here this comes in the form of immense free-drawn charcoal waves on paper alongside hanging prints with moon-like images that situate the gallery space somewhere between the botanical and the celestial.

6. Elisabeth Schrader, Lieber Woanders (19 July–30 August 2025) at Esther Schipper Gallery, Berlin

In the drawings of Elisabeth Schrader, dense patterns of India ink portray domestic spaces that are at once familiar and disquieting. Until 30 August, Berlin’s Esther Schipper Gallery is showing a range of her work from 2005 to 2013, which artfully captures snapshots of home life from a time when many women artists were forced to pause their work and put their roles as wives and mothers first.

7. Woo Kukwon, Universe’s Universe (26 July–30 August 2025) at Tang Contemporary Art, Singapore

Woo Kukwon’s new show at Singapore’s Tang Contemporary contains work with a heady mix of apparent influences, from medieval tapestry to modern literature. Named in part after his daughter Woojoo—‘universe’ in Korean—Universe’s Universe was inspired by her fascination with a unicorn, which led Woo to begin exploring a path of wonder that leaves behind language and logic. The result is a varied display of oil paintings that provide some insight into a once-in-a-generation mind. Kukwon’s psychedelic reimagining of the Hunt for the Unicorn tapestries is not to be missed.

8. Summer Collective: Wavering Hope (18 June–5 September 2025) at Ayyam Gallery, Dubai

This summer, Ayyam Gallery in Dubai plays host to a group of Syrian artists reacting to decades of conflict in their homeland and the flickering and sometimes wavering nature of hope. The lineup features artists including Kais Salman, Tammam Azzam, Abdalla Al Omari, Safwan Dahoul, Thaier Helal, Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik, Nihad Al-Turk, and Yasmine Al Awa—some of whom have been forced into exile, and some of whom have stayed on to keep creating in the uncertain environment of modern Syria. The show is a singular opportunity to witness the creative spirit flourishing amid the terrors of conflict and displacement.

9. Derek Jarman, The Black Paintings: A Chronology Part Two (17 July–20 September 2025) at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London

Legendary multidisciplinary artist Derek Jarman is being remembered this summer at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery in Farringdon, London, with a focus on the ‘Black Paintings’ he made at the seaside cottage in Dungeness that was his home from 1987 until his death in 1994. Don’t miss this chance to catch some of this icon’s work in person.

10. Luca Pancrazzi, Cabin Fever (25 July–5 October 2025) at TOTAH, Scauri, Pantelleria

Luca Pancrazzi’s acrylic paintings—which he idiosyncratically calls ‘cards’—are like candid snapshots of the urban landscapes we pass through each day, rendered in negative or colour palettes that transform them into alien landscapes. This recently opened exhibition of the Florentine artist’s work at TOTAH’s space on the Italian island of Pantelleria is the perfect opportunity to experience the uncanny wonder of Pancrazzi’s work in the flesh. —[O]

Main image: Daido Moriyama, Hunter (1971) (detail). Gelatin silver print, printed later. 21.2 x 32.2 cm. © Daido Moriyama. Courtesy Each Modern.