Art After Dark: Friday Night Lates

Art After Dark is the new seasonal arts programme from Art of London, which brings two nights of arts and culture to the capital. Independent art houses host the West End Gallery HOP! on the Thursday night, whereas Friday night is reserved for the acclaimed West End art institutions, the Royal Academy of Arts and The National Gallery.

RA Lates: Fridays at the Royal Academy of Arts

Image Credit: Royal Academy of Arts, Fraser Marr©

Inject arts and culture into the end of your week as the Royal Academy of Arts keeps its doors open until 9pm.

With riveting exhibitions including Spain and the Hispanic a collective treasure-trove of art and culture from the ancient world to the 20th century. Showcasing over 150 works including the famous World Map of 1526 by Giovanni Vespucci.

In celebration of the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts, explore a new display in the the RA Collection Gallery, Image of the Artist. The exhibition plays with what Reynolds advocated in terms of artistic identity, hanging this self-portrait alongside those by contemporary Royal Academicians.

Another must-see stop at the RA is the highly anticipated exhibition, Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers will also be available to see as part of Art After Dark. Showcasing masterful works from Black artists from the Southeastern United States who created some of the most spectacular and ingenious works of the last century.

Exploring exquisite art can be thirsty work, so a stop at the Poster Bar by Jose Pizarro at the RA is the perfect pit-stop ahead of your journey onwards to the National Gallery.

Image Credits L-R:
Jose Pizarro Poster Bar at the Royal Academy of Arts shot by Petar Semerdzhiev©
Poster Bar at Royal Academy of Arts shot by David Parry©

Pintxo Fridays at The Poster Bar by José Pizarro at The Royal Academy of Arts.

Pintxos are popular all across Spain but these delectable morsels are particularly famous throughout the Basque region- most notably, in San Sebastian. Similar to tapas, it refers to a meal in miniature, usually placed on a piece of bread typically skewered with a toothpick.

On Friday nights enjoy a complimentary pintxo with any drink purchased from the bar. Available every Friday from 5.30 to 8.30pm. No need to book, just show up!

Friday Lates at The National Gallery

© The National Gallery, London.

Explore paintings from Van Gogh to Vermeer and from Le Brun to Bonheur after sundown as the doors of The National Gallery remain open for Art After Dark.

Exhibition highlights include the new opening from Nalini Malani: My Reality is Different. Malani is the first contemporary fellow of the National Gallery and presents new ways of seeing well-known works of art.

Through animations, hand-drawn using an iPad and taking inspiration from paintings in the National Gallery and Bath’s Holburne Museum, Malani has created striking video animations which reveal and conceal different aspects of the paintings in both collections, including works by Caravaggio and Bronzino in the Gallery’s collection.

The 25 new animations immerse the viewer in a panorama of nine large video projections, played in a continuous loop. Animations of different lengths overlap creating endlessly changing juxtapositions and interaction of images, allowing the spectator to co-create their own meanings. The exhibition also has fictitious portraits of the marginalised in society that appear in between the animations; a reference to people whose work underpins the economies that connect us across the globe.

Malani’s project is the culmination of her selection in 2020 as the first artist to receive the National Gallery’s Contemporary Fellowship, supported by Art Fund.

National Portrait Gallery

Leading the way in portraiture and capturing the essence of figures from the historic to the contemporary, London's National Portrait Gallery is set to re-open on 22 June 2023. For those eager to set foot inside the soon-to-reopen art institute, you can be safe in the knowledge that that National Portrait Gallery will be taking part in the summer edition of Art After Dark.

Exhibitions launch with Yevonde: Life in Colour, showcasing an exploration of the life of innovative London photographer who pioneered the use of colour photography in the 1930s. Then showing life through the lens of Paul McCartney at the start of 'Beatlemania' this unprecedented exhibition is set to showcase shots captured on McCartney's own camera for Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64 Eyes of the Storm.

Booking is open for these exhibitions set to open at the National Portrait Gallery in June and keep an eye on @theartofldn social channels for the Art After Dark summer dates.