The five best art events to see this month: June

Planning a day out with a focus on the arts? Here’s where we’ll be heading this month. 

A room with a view

A hidden attic in the rafters of Westminster Abbey has been transformed into a series of galleries that trace the history of the building through 300 treasures.

The medieval triforium, which had been gathering dust for centuries, looks down and along the nave of Westminster Abbey – ‘the best view in Europe’, according to John Betjeman, a man who knew his views.  The exquisite renovation has finally unlocked one of London’s best-kept secrets.
 
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, Westminster Abbey, London, open to the public on 11 June.
 
Photographer: Alan Williams. Image courtesy of Westminster Abbey

 Into the garden

Come into the garden this June, as Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery stages an exhibition exploring the magic, drama and mystery behind closed gates. The Enchanted Garden charts the arts’ relationship with gardens from Pre-Raphaelites and French Impressionists to the Bloomsbury Group and 20th-century abstraction.
 
This exhibition is a treasure trove: you’ll find works from Monet and Pissarro to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beatrix Potter and Francis Bacon among many more.
 
The Enchanted Garden, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne; 23 June–7 October
 
Image: Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene, 1864, by Simeon Solomon. © Tate, London 2018 (crop)

 A world stage

 Every two years, the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) transforms the capital into a stage: venues across the city open their doors to modern dance, world-class drama and, this time around, some rather game pigeons.
 
Embracing productions from every continent, the festival is a window on the world, and highlights this year include Troy by way of Korea, in Ong Keng Sen’s hotly tipped Trojan Women at the Southbank Centre, an immersive show for kids from the beloved Punchdrunk and 1,500 pigeons lighting up the sky.
 
 LIFT, London – various venues, 26 May–30 June
 
Image: Small Wonders at Bernie Grant Arts Centre © Punchdrunk

Music in the hills

Think of music in East Sussex and you’ll think of operatic swells at Glyndebourne – but every summer, something a little looser comes to the county’s rolling hills. The superb Love Supreme festival brings together some of the finest jazz musicians in the world for a weekend-long celebration.
 
This year you can catch the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire, Elvis Costello, Pharoah Sanders and our personal favourite, Nubya Garcia.
 
Love Supreme Festival, Glynde Place, East Sussex; 29 June–1 July
£174.90  (camping), £143 (without camping), £54 (day)

Image: Courtesy Love Supreme Festival 2018

Dream builder 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is one of Glasgow’s greatest sons, whose designs are famous the world over. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the architect and artist’s birth, Kelvingrove Art Gallery hosts a major exhibition chronicling Mackintosh’s life, times and contemporaries.
 
You’ll find sketches, stained glass, embroidery, furniture and metalwork, as well as delicate watercolours not seen for a generation. Dive into the mind of the man who shaped the ‘Glasgow Style’.
 
Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Making the Glasgow Style, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow; until 14 August
 
Image: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scotland St School N. elevation, 1904 @CSG CIC Glasgow Museums