Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
By Maria Bregman, writer, literary and art critic
January is usually the time when the art world hides. The champagne from Basel Miami has worn off, the collectors are skiing, and the galleries in London are usually quietly repainting their walls white. But this year? 2026 decided to skip the hibernation.
I’ve spent the last three weeks trudging through the rain from Islington to Peckham, and what I found wasn’t the usual sleepy start. It was an industry trying to figure out what it stands for when the money gets tight and the world gets loud.
We saw two very different Londons this month. There was the polite, well-heeled London of the Art Fair, sipping coffee and discussing “Modern British” values. And then there was the scrappy, messy, brilliant London of Condo, where galleries literally opened their doors to let the rest of the world camp in their living rooms.
It was a month of friction. And honestly? It was exactly what we needed.
The Islington Bubble vs. The Global Squat
Let’s start with the big beast. The London Art Fair in Islington.
Walking into the Business Design Centre always feels a bit like entering a time capsule. It’s reliable. It’s solid. It smells of expensive carpet. This was the 38th edition, and it did exactly what it says on the tin. It sold reassuringly expensive paintings to people who have wall space in the Cotswolds.
But there was a pulse there, if you knew where to look. Dr. Ferren Gipson curated a section called “Platform,” and she managed to sneak in some genuine weirdness. I stood for a long time in front of James Lumsden’s work. It’s hard to describe – it’s paint, but it looks like skin, or light trapped in amber. It challenges you. It asks you why you think a painting has to be a picture of something.
That was the highlight. The rest? It was fine. It was safe.
Contrast that with Condo.
Condo is my favourite time of year because it feels like a heist. Twenty-three London galleries host fifty international ones. They share space. They share rent. It’s an anti-fair.
I went to Hollybush Gardens in Clerkenwell. They were hosting Galerie Tschudi from Switzerland. The clash of aesthetics – the gritty London space vs. the precise Swiss minimalism – was electric. It felt like a conversation, not a sales pitch.
Then over to Sadie Coles in Soho, who opened the door to sans titre from Paris. It was messy, it was loud, it was exciting. In a market where everyone is terrified of risk, Condo proves that collaboration is the only way to survive. You don’t build walls; you let the neighbours in.
The Museums: Looking Back to Look Forward
The institutional heavyweights played a different game. They went deep.
The British Museum opened “Hawaiʻi: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans.”
Now, the British Museum is always a complicated place to visit. You can’t walk through the doors without thinking about the repatriation debates. But this show? It felt like a step in the right direction.
It wasn’t just “look at these pretty things we took.” It was about the people. It traced the Hawaiian chiefs who came to London in the 1820s. It gave them agency.
The feathered cloaks – the ʻahu ʻula – were the stars. They weren’t displayed as costumes; they were displayed as power objects. You could feel the spiritual weight of them. It was a reminder that objects aren’t just stuff; they are diplomacy made solid.
Meanwhile, down south, the South London Gallery opened “New Contemporaries.”
This is always a gamble. It’s the degree show of the entire country. Sometimes it’s terrible. Sometimes it’s brilliant. This year, it felt angry. The students coming out of art school now aren’t interested in making pretty things for oligarchs. They are interested in politics, in identity, in the mess of the world. It was raw. It wasn’t polished. And that’s why you should go.
The Emotional Anchor
But the show that broke me? Nan Goldin at Gagosian.
“The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.” We’ve all seen the photos in books. We know the images – the bruised eyes, the drag queens, the lovers in bed. But seeing it as a slideshow, in the dark, with the soundtrack? It’s a different beast.
Viewing it in 2026 feels like watching a ghost story. It’s an elegy for a New York that doesn’t exist anymore – a New York that was dangerous and cheap and alive.
It was crowded when I went. People were silent. No phones. No selfies. Just people sitting in the dark, watching a community that lived and died with a ferocity we seem to have lost. It was the most powerful thing I saw all month, and it was made forty years ago.
The Ones That Got Away
I managed to catch the tail end of the Cecil Beaton show at the National Portrait Gallery before it closed on the 11th. It was pure sugar. Glamour, style, wit. A nice antidote to the grey weather, but ultimately, it felt like dessert.
And if you haven’t seen “Nigerian Modernism” at the Tate Modern, you are missing out. It closes soon. It’s dense. It’s academic. It’s difficult. It forces you to rewrite your internal map of art history. It proves that modernism wasn’t just a European invention; it was happening in Zaria, too.
So, what did January tell us?
It told us that the art world is splitting. On one side, you have the safe, commercial machinery of the Art Fair, ticking along, selling the hits. On the other, you have the scrappy, collaborative energy of Condo and the deep historical dives of the museums.
The middle ground is disappearing. You either have to be very safe or very brave.
If you want my advice for February? Go see the Nan Goldin. Go sit in the dark and feel something real. Because in a world of AI art and algorithmically generated content, the raw, messy reality of a human life is the most valuable thing we have left.
London is awake. And it’s looking for a fight.
