Prada has form when it comes to taking over spaces in London during Frieze and making something simultaneously fun and thought-provoking. Carsten Höller’s ‘Double Club’, which opened in London in 2008, was so popular that its run was extended by two months – I hazily remember many a happy night dancing at the Victorian warehouse he’d repurposed on Torrens Street. This year Elmgreen & Dragset are presenting ‘The Audience’ (15–19 October) in the newly restored Town Hall in King’s Cross, which seeks to subvert the shared experience of watching something in an auditorium: a blurred film by the artists, in which a writer and artist discuss their practice, is screened amid hyper-realistic sculptures of spectators.
Awareness of Tanoa Sasraku has recently been growing. The work of the 30-year-old artist has appeared in exhibitions at Tate Liverpool, Spike Island, the Venice Architecture Biennale and now at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (until 11 January 2026). For ‘Morale Patch’ Sasraku has brought together acrylic paperweights made by oil companies. Each one contains a drop of crude oil. The irony-defying existence of these objects is remarkable enough, but Sasraku has laid them out on what looks like a reinvented chessboard for her work Watchlist. The presentation is undeniably striking. In another room, paperweights containing ink are adorned by flag motifs, forcefully reminding us of a series of military coffins.
Samuel Cooper is perhaps best known as the man who painted Oliver Cromwell’s miniature portrait ‘warts and all’. It is probably fair to say that he is not on the tip of every British art lover’s tongue, but in his lifetime he was at the heart of an artistic circle that included Peter Lely and Godfrey Kneller. This exhibition at the British Museum (until 25 January 2026) focuses on his drawings, reminding us of the skill that lay behind his painting while also presenting work by his peers and drawing out the personal connections between this community of artists. If this sounds dry, I defy you to look at Cooper’s drawing of his cousin’s dead child and not be moved.
Prada Mode (Town Hall, 15–19 Oct)
Tanoa Sasraku: Morale Patch (Institute of Contemporary Arts, until 11 January 2026)
In the company of friends: portrait drawing in 17th-century London (British Museum, until 25 Jan 2026)