A Leisurely Art Saturday: Lisson → Royal Academy → White Cube (with a Ding Yi bonus)

If you want the thrill of London’s autumn art season without the stopwatch, this three-stop loop keeps things close, slow, and satisfying: start at Lisson Gallery, settle into a proper lunch before a museum-scale centrepiece at the Royal Academy, and close with a meditative burst at White Cube. We’ve added a bonus inside the first stop so you can catch two shows in one go.

Lisson Gallery (late morning)
Hugh Hayden, Hughmanity
At Bell Street, Hayden’s new sculptures turn familiar forms, tables, vessels, garments, into bristling social metaphors. A dining table appears to flare; a lifeboat is lined with thorns. The joke is serious: “home” and “safety” are complicated architectures, especially when power and belonging are in the room. A concise, readable show that rewards close looking. (27 Sept–1 Nov 2025.)

Bonus: Lisson — just around the corner
Ding Yi, The Road to Heaven
Walk a few minutes to Lisson’s other Marylebone space to see Shanghai abstractionist Ding Yi rewire his signature cross-grid language through Naxi/Dongba cosmology . After research trips to Yunnan, Ding translates the Road to Heaven manuscript, a pictographic guide to the soul’s journey, into dense fields of crosses drawn and painted on rough Dongba paper . The result is a lucid fusion of ritual image and contemporary abstraction: cosmology, but with the cool pulse of a city grid. (27 Sept–1 Nov 2025.)

Lunch: Royal Academy (José Pizarro)
Stroll to Piccadilly and take a proper pause at José Pizarro in the Senate Room (or Poster Bar downstairs). Order shareable plates, talk about Hayden vs. Ding Yi, and book your timed ticket window for the show upstairs.

Royal Academy of Arts (early afternoon)
Kerry James Marshall, The Histories
Marshall’s survey is the day’s anchor: a panoramic re-centering of Black life within the grand genres of Western painting. Expect crystalline colour, densely choreographed scenes, and new canvases that press into under-told African histories. It’s as thought-through as it is beautiful. Its an argument for what painting can still do in public. (20 Sept 2025–18 Jan 2026.) Make sure to book tickets.

White Cube Bermondsey (late afternoon)
Cai Guo-Qiang, Gunpowder and Abstraction 2015–2025
Finish spacious: over 30 works chart a decade of Cai’s combustion-based mark-making. The pleasure is in paradox - control and chance, drawing and detonation - leaving velvety burns and vaporous edges that read like weather fronts on paper. Seen after Marshall’s chromatic orchestration, Cai lands as an echo in another register: quieter than fireworks, deeper than a stunt. (26 Sept–9 Nov 2025.)

A glass to close — 40 Maltby Street
You’re a short wander from one of London’s most beloved natural-wine bars. No bookings; slide in for a pour and something seasonal from the chalkboard (open Saturdays lunch and dinner).

Materials shift from carved and prickly (Hayden), to lush and narrative (Marshall), to alchemical and volatile (Cai). Adding Ding Yi at Lisson turns your start into a mini-diptych: two artists, two moods, one neighbourhood. It’s compact, unhurried, and you’ll still feel like you’ve crossed three different art worlds in a day.

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