The top five events to enjoy this July

Whether you want to enjoy art online or visit a newly reopened museum, here are our picks of the best events around.

Revisit masterworks at The Wallace Collection

Jean-Honore Fragonard, Les hasards heureux de l'escarpolette (The Swing),  c1767-8 © Trustees of The Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection will open its doors once more this month, as it celebrates 120 years since it first opened to the public. The museum will be offering socially distanced, ticketed entry and a prescribed route. It is a wonderful chance to explore treasures that span 19th-century French art, medieval and Renaissance works, including paintings by Rembrandt and Rubens, and Fragonard’s Rococo masterpiece The Swing.If you can’t visit in person, there are plenty of excellent resources online, including talks and courses, ‘treasures of the month’ and works arranged by themes such as family, animals and royalty. 

wallacecollection.org

Get lost in National Trust properties

Penrhyn Castle (Creative Commons)

Listen in to National Trust free podcasts in this, its 125th anniversary year. Discover the darktale of Penrhyn Castle in Wales or ‘head’ to Cornwall, to mine the past of the tin coast. Tune in as Kirsty Wark explores suffrage histories of Trust sites, while Clare Balding reveals lost and hidden LGBTQ stories. Or take an aural stroll through some of the Trust’s stunning gardens (seen here, Thomas Hardy’s Dorset cottage garden in summer). We especially liked the episode on how gardens heal, with music journalist Alice Vincent, in which she reveals how the most unlikely spaces can be transformed into beautiful, restorative micro-gardens.

nationaltrust.org.uk/features/listen-to-podcasts-from-the-national-trust

Explore humanity and ecological change

Alan Hunt, Grouse, 2020. Western Red Cedar, acrylic, feathers and found materials. Installation view, Pine's Eye, 2020. Image courtesy Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh.

Pine’s Eye at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh explores what it means to be human in times of ecological change, featuring work from contemporary artists and indigenous groups. While you might not be able to visit the show in person at present, you can virtually experience the Dance of the Forest Spirits ceremonyperformed by Kwakwaka’wakw people from Canada, and view profiles of various works with curator James Clegg. So far he has spotlighted the likes of Kevin Mooney, Taryn Simon and Haegue Yang.

trg.ed.ac.uk/exhibition/pines-eye

Discover radical figures

Dana Schutz, Imagine You and Me, 2018. Courtesy of the artist; Petzel, New York; Thomas Dane, London; Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin

As the Whitechapel Gallery reopens on 14 July (with timed, advance bookings only), visitors will have the chance to experience the acclaimed exhibition Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium, which will now remain open until the end of August. It features work by Michael Armitage, Christina Quarles and Tschabalala Self, all of whom question the accepted narratives we place on the human body. 

whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/radical-figures

Enjoy concerts fron the comfort of your home

© Stephen Frak

While the Royal Albert Hall’s grand interiors remain closed, it is offering exclusive ‘Royal Albert Home’ sessions broadcasts from artists’ houses, featuring live and on-demand lockdown concerts, all for free. Upcoming events include songwriter Guy Chambers (2 July, 7.30pm) and Grammy Award-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti (4 July, 7.30pm). Our top picks from the archive include shows by Martha Wainwright and LA-based singer-songwriter Azniv Korkejian, better known as Bedouine.

royalalberthall.com/tickets/series/royal-albert-home

Holly Black is The Art Society's Digital Editor