Whilst summer for most of us is predominantly spent sprawled on a beach somewhere, it’s also arguably the best time to visit museums in major cities.
With the locals out of town, gallery spaces are often quieter, offering a unique opportunity to immerse in exhibitions free of crowds. So here’s a few exhibitions we highly recommend checking should you find yourself in some of Europe’s major cities in the coming weeks.
1) Garrett Bradley – Revolutions
Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam. 14th June – 7th September 2025
Louisiana based artist Garrett Bradley is renowned for her narrative, documentary, and experimental forms of filmmaking. Revolutions is her first European solo museum exhibition in what is a highly immersive body of work that reflects the artist’s turn towards abstraction and the increasingly sculptural nature of her work. Often exploring America’s visual representation, Revolutions explores how images help shape our view of the world, particularly black culture in the context of America’s history and the change that small acts of resistance can bring about. With multiple video installations showcasing several of Garrett’s films, Revolutions makes the viewer aware of the pitfalls of representation and unpacks the mechanisms that influence how we perceive ourselves and others.
2) Julian Rosefeldt – Nothing is Original
CO Berlin, 24th May – 16th September 2025
Julian Rosefeldt has been one of the leading contemporary artists and filmmakers for the past thirty years. Nothing is Original provides a comprehensive insight into Rosefeldt’s film oeuvre; which often oscillates between narrative film and video art. His works are elaborately staged installations, usually arranged as multichannel projections that are characterised by a complex interweaving of different dimensions of reality.
Visit CO Berlin for more info.
3) Barbara Kruger: Another day. Another night.
Guggenheim, Bilbao, 24th June – 11th September 2025
Known for challenging how language functions in the media, in politics, and in our own inner dialogues, Barbara Kruger has spent the best part of five decades producing work that harnesses the power of words and images to question the structures that shape our daily lives—identity, desire, truth, and control. Another day, Another night, brings together works from across her career—early paste-ups, large-scale vinyl texts, video installations, audio interventions, and site-specific pieces created especially for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. As one moves through the galleries, Kruger’s art unfolds across floors, walls, and screens, immersing visitors in a charged visual and sonic environment. Her work is not just something to look at—it is something to experience, to question, and to confront.
Visit Guggenheim Bilbao for more info.
4) Wolfgang Tillmans – Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us
Centre Pompidou, Paris, 13th June – 22nd September 2025
With the iconic Parisian building due to close for renovation works this fall until 2030, the museum have given German artist Wolfgang Tillmans carte blanche to take over the 6,000 m² of Level 2 of the Bibliothèque publique d’information (Bpi). The retrospective exhibition explores over thirty-five years of artistic practice across various photographic genres, including portraiture, still life, architecture, documentary images and abstraction. His work is displayed in a wide variety of ways, playing on the verticality of the walls and the horizontality of the tables in a manner which defies any attempt at categorisation. In addition to his photographic work, Tillmans has incorporated moving images, music, sound and words into this extensive installation, together with contributions from performance artists.
Visit Centre Pompidou for more info.
5) Bouchra Khalili – In Search of a Better Future
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, 25th June – 30th November 2025
One of our favourite museums, just a short train ride from Denmark’s capital, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an absolute must visit should you ever find yourself in Copenhagen. In Search of a Better Future presents a selection of works by Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili, whose multidisciplinary practice develops collaborative strategies of storytelling with members of communities excluded from citizen membership. The exhibition is structured around The Mapping Journey Project, 2008-2011, a large-scale video installation that details the stories of eight individuals who have been forced by political and economic circumstances to travel illegally and whose covert journeys have taken them throughout the Mediterranean basin.
