The best cultural events to enjoy this August

From performance in palace gardens to sculpture in a cemetery, experience incredible art indoors and out

Tino Sehgal in the Rose Garden at Blenheim. Photo by Edd Horder Courtesy of Blenheim Art Foundation

Come across unexpected art at Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace’s art foundation has been inviting renowned contemporary artists to stage exhibitions in its stately surroundings for several years now, but there has never been something quite like this. Performance artist Tino Sehgal, who is known for creating deeply moving and ephemeral pieces that must not be recorded or actively documented, worked with local people to create a series of ‘interventions’ that occur throughout the grounds. With no set schedule, visitors might stumble across a couple mimicking the shapes made by sculptural fountains, or encounter an individual singing in a secret garden or sharing a real story of their lives. It is all rather magical.

Tino Sehgal at Blenheim Park & Gardens, until 15 August

blenheimpalace.com

Sekai Machache, from the series The Divine Sky, 2020

Have fun at the Fringe in Edinburgh

Visitors will once again descend on the Scottish capital this August – although online events are also included in the programme – for the huge range of cultural activity that makes up the Fringe and Art Festival. Highlights include Swallow the Sea Caravan Theatre (performing outside), Penny Chivas’s spoken word piece Burnt Out, and a new multimedia installation by artist Sekai Machache, presented at Stills photography centre.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 6–30 August, edfringe.com; Edinburgh Art Festival, until 29 August, edinburghartfestival.com

Atta Kwami, Atsiaƒu ƒe agbo nu (Gateways of the Sea), Commissioned for Creative Folkestone Triennial 2021. Photo by Thierry Bal

See art by the seaside

The fifth edition of the Creative Folkestone Triennial features 23 major new works, all of which are on show until November. Joyful colour seems to be a prevailing theme, with a bold and bright typographic sculpture by Morag Myerscough, an abstracted ‘gateway’ by Atta Kwami, a series of candy-pink architectural sculptures by genuinefake, and a unifying geometric treatment along a row of beach huts by Rana Begum. 

Creative Folkestone Triennial, until 2 November

creativefolkestone.org.uk

Phyllida Barlow, act, 2021. Installation view at Highgate Cemetery, London. A Studio Voltaire commission. Image courtesy of the artist, Studio Voltaire and Hauser & Wirth, Photo: Benedict Johnson

Find a new addition in Highgate Cemetery

In Highgate’s West Cemetery, a new kind of monument has landed. Phyllida Barlow’s site-specific installation, act, is five metres tall and consists of a series of fabric-wrapped poles housed within a specially constructed alcove that appears not unlike a stage set. According to the artist, the work does indeed reference ideas of staging and ceremony, which makes sense considering the displays of wealth, power and status that are evident in the many headstones, crypts and statues.

Phyllida Barlow, act, at Highgate Cemetery, until 30 August

highgatecemetery.org