London Sculpture Week returns this September with citywide exhibitions, tours, talks and performances across five major public art programmes.
London’s annual festival of public sculpture returns this autumn for its fourth edition, running from 20 to 28 September 2025.
Across the week, visitors will be able to see works by contemporary artists in parks, squares and riverside settings, as well as take part in talks, tours and performances that give context to the art. The programme brings together five initiatives — Frieze Sculpture, Sculpture in the City, The Line, the Fourth Plinth and East Bank — and remains the capital’s only citywide event dedicated to public sculpture.
Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery, London
The schedule includes both free and ticketed events. Alongside major installations, audiences will hear directly from artists and curators.
Highlights include Untitled The Line, a new commission at Bromley-by-Bow by Rasheed Araeen, a leading figure in British minimalism. The Line will also present Araeen’s Reading Room, with publications from his six-decade career, including issues of Third Text and catalogues of his curatorial work. Youth Guides will introduce visitors to the material.
At Trafalgar Square, a talk at the Fourth Plinth will examine the history of this long-running public art commission, currently featuring Teresa Margolles’s Mil Veces Un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant), which recognises trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming communities in the UK and Mexico.
Courtesy of Maureen Paley, London and 303 Gallery New York. Photo © Nick Turpin
In Regent’s Park, Frieze Sculpture will host two day-long performances by Simon Hitchens, tracing the shifting shadows of a rock found on site. The exhibition itself, open from 17 September to 2 November, is curated by Fatoş Üstek around the theme In the Shadows, with works considering darkness as a space for imagination and memory.
Sculpture in the City’s 14th edition will present works by Ai Weiwei, Andrew Sabin and Jane and Louise Wilson across the Square Mile. Tours will explore themes ranging from the autumn solstice to the relationship between archaeology, mythology and contemporary practice. One collaboration will allow visitors to receive free permanent tattoos based on works in the exhibition.
Copyright Maya Rose Edwards. Photo © Nick Turpin
The Sculpture Switch, linking Frieze Sculpture and Sculpture in the City, will feature artists Lucía Pizzani and Vanessa da Silva leading tours across both programmes. The Line will also offer a tour of Madge Gill: Nature in Mind with curator Sophie Dutton, presented with the Wallace Collection’s Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur exhibition and Newham Heritage Month, and including rarely seen works from the Newham Council archive.
On 26 September, the London Sculpture Week Symposium returns to the Warburg Institute to continue discussions about the future of public art in the city.
The participating initiatives highlight the breadth of public art across London. The Line, which marks its 10th anniversary in 2025, follows the Greenwich Meridian through East London, linking Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with The O2 and featuring works by Antony Gormley, Helen Cammock, Yinka Ilori and others. At East Bank, new commissions will be presented by Michael Landy, Lubna Chowdhary and A.A. Murakami.
Elsewhere, Margolles’s installation of plaster casts at the Fourth Plinth continues to draw attention in Trafalgar Square, Frieze Sculpture will again transform Regent’s Park, and Sculpture in the City will introduce site-specific works across the financial district.
Together, these projects show how sculpture can shape public life, encouraging reflection on shared spaces and collective experience.
The full programme is available on Bloomberg Connects, the festival’s official digital guide. Explore now on Bloomberg Connects: Here
©2025 London Sculpture Week
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