The Nan Goldin image above is taken from the V&A’s new exhibition Fragile Beauty, featuring incredible images from Sir Elton John and David Furnish’s covetable photography collection. It’s also the picture that represents our weekend spirit animal. 

Hit Man
Richard Linklater’s back catalogue includes classics like Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, Before Sunrise and School of Rock so it’s no surprise his latest blockbuster Hit Man has premiered to rave reviews. Arriving on Netflix this weekend, Glenn Powell portrays an unassuming professor posing as a contract killer on the hunt for would-be criminals who breaks protocol helping a woman trying to flee an abusive husband – soon finding himself in the uncharted territory of falling for a client. Oh-oh. Loosely based on a true story, this deceptively dark thriller is punctuated with pockets of humour in all the right places – it’s a true Linklater gem.

Hit Man is streaming on Netflix now. 

Revelations
For the past six decades, artist, activist, curator and feminist icon Judy Chicago has built a body of work underpinned by her ongoing determination to address the erasure of female voices in the art world. A prominent figure in furthering the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Chicago has become a pioneer for her contemporaries and future generations alike through her audacious approach to creating works of art.

The visionary artist’s first solo retrospective has just arrived at London’s Serpentine Galleries, charting the full arc of her career with a specific focus on drawing. Sparked by the publication of Revelations, a book uniting unseen archival pieces alongside newly created artworks, Chicago’s takeover of the Serpentine is a vivid and unmissable experience.

Revelations runs at Serpentines Galleries until September 1st, more info here.

‘Tis the season
Ah, the taste of warm beer and the sound of thumping techno, how we have missed you! Festival season is upon us and GALA is back for its ninth edition to kick off proceedings with a three-dayer in Peckham Rye Park. True to fashion, the festival has stages sponored by some of the best in the business, with NTS, Adonis, Nicholas Daley and Horse Meat Disco heading up sets across the weekend. Names to note include Folamour, Job Jobse, Interplanery Criminal, Josh Caffé and Moxie – meet us in the dance tent beneath the mirrorball.

GALA takes place at Peckham Rye Park from May 24th to 26th, more info here. 

Modern nightmare
Corbin Shaw’s latest exhibition meditates on William Morris’ infamous 1877 quote, “I do not want art for a few… no private dwelling will there be any signs of waste, pomp, or insolence, and every man will have his share of the best.” Believing we are living in an antithesis to Morris’ vision, Shaw has transformed Incubator’s gallery space into a domesticated room peppered with plastic goods and capitalist iconography, exploring the melancholia of youth and life in post-industrial Britain.

Little Dark Age by Corbin Shaw runs at Incubator, 2 Chiltern St, London W1U 7PR until May 26th, more info here. 

Because one festival isn’t enough
Following a sell-out edition last year, Wide Awake is back with another stellar line-up this Saturday – filling the (hopefully) blues skies with brilliant distorted fuzz. Billing itself as a ‘musical melting pot’, this year’s edition has a major line-up featuring King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard on headline duty alongside the likes of The Dare, Slowdive, Ben UFO, Alice Glass, HTRK and Bodega.

Wide Awake takes place at Brockwell Park on Saturday 25th May, more info here. 

Martin Scorsese’s English love affair
No one loves cinema quite like Martin Scorsese. In 1995, he gave us A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies and four years later explored his heritage through Italian cinema in My Voyage to Italy. Next up for the US auteur is a tale of his lifelong love of British film duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Turning his hand to narrating, Scorsese’s impassioned storytelling lies at the centre of David Hinton’s latest documentary.

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger is out in selected cinemas now. 

Elton John’s archive
Fragile Beauty opens at the V&A this weekend, displaying over 300 rare prints from the collection of Elton John and David Furnish (which consists of over 7,000 images!). The photographs (many of which will be on public display for the first time) are era-defining, exploring our inherent relationship between strength and vulnerability. Expect to see works from the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Sally Mann, Tyler Mitchell and David LaChapelle to name but a few.

Fragile Beauty runs at the V&A until January 5th 2025, more info here. 

The last one, we promise
It’s a big weekend for the parks of South London but if GALA and Wide Awake aren’t a bit of you, Cross The Tracks might be just the ticket. Tipped as the UK’s top soul and jazz festival, it’s a slightly more laid-back Sunday offering with a headline spot from Erykah Badu alongside hip-hop legend Eve and DJ sets from the likes of Madlib, Jitwam and Ella Knight.

Cross The Tracks takes place at Brockwell Park on May 26th, more info here. 

A very fancy new pub
The team behind Notting Hill’s Pelican are fostering a wave of fancy new boozers popping up across the capital, and are flinging open the doors of their second haunt, The Hero, this weekend. The pub itself has previously undergone various renovations over the years but this one retains the building’s amazing Victorian details, complete with winding staircases and heavy oak furnishings. The Hero’s ground floor is home to a cosy pub bar with cask ales on tap and a menu serving up British comfort food including cheese toasties, sausage and mash and shepherd’s pie. Upstairs offers a slightly more elevated dining experience with crisp white tablecloths and a candle-lit atmosphere offering speciality cuts of meat and fish cooked over an open fire.

The Hero is located at 55 Shirland Rd, W9 2JD, more info here.