This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte opens at Gagosian on Grosvenor Hill on 24 September, with Magritte paintings, drawings and sculpture borrowed from public and private collections and set against new work by more than forty contemporary artists. It runs until 12 December and it costs nothing to walk in.
That last part is the bit worth underlining. A show on this scale, with this list of names, would be a ticketed blockbuster in a museum. Because it is happening in a commercial gallery, entry is free, there is no booking, and you can be in and out in half an hour if you want to be.
What is in it
It is organised with the Fondation Magritte, which is how a private gallery gets loans like these. The Magritte side runs across his whole career and includes La Lampe philosophique (1936), which Gagosian describes as effectively a conceptual self-portrait and which is the painting you can see above: the sitter’s nose curling down into the bowl of his own pipe. Also confirmed are La Clef des songes (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1935) and L’Ombre céleste (The Celestial Shade, 1927), along with the greatest hits of his vocabulary, the apples, the pipes, the bowler hats and the cotton-wool skies.
Against that sit works by over forty living and recent artists, many made for this exhibition. The list includes Jeff Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, Yoko Ono, Ed Ruscha, Sarah Lucas, Glenn Ligon, David Hammons, Mona Hatoum, Robert Gober, George Condo, Michael Craig-Martin, Betye Saar, Charles Ray, Vija Celmins, Matthew Barney, Laura Owens, Jordan Wolfson, Anna Weyant and Issy Wood. The gallery is also building a specially designed installation around the paradoxes in Magritte’s work rather than hanging it in a line.
The Frieze question
It has been timed to Frieze London, which is at the Regent’s Park from 14 to 18 October. Useful to know, but you do not have to play along: the show has nearly three months on it, and Frieze week is precisely when every Mayfair gallery is full of people looking at each other rather than the art.
Our take: commercial galleries are the most underused free art in London, and this is the clearest case for that we have seen this year. Grosvenor Hill is the quieter of Gagosian’s two London spaces, tucked behind Bourdon Street four minutes from Bond Street station, and the room is big enough to hold a show this size without it feeling crammed. Go on a weekday morning, when you will have it close to yourself, and skip the 14 to 18 October window entirely. One thing to be clear about: this is a shop as well as a gallery, the works are for sale, and nobody will mind you not buying one.
Need to know
- What: This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte, Magritte loans shown with new work by over forty contemporary artists
- Where: Gagosian, 20 Grosvenor Hill, London W1K 3QD
- When: 24 September to 12 December 2026, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm
- Price: free, no booking
- Avoid: 14 to 18 October, when Frieze London fills Mayfair
- Nearest station: Bond Street
More free art in our guide to London’s free museums, the rest of the neighbourhood in our Mayfair guide, and everything else on this autumn in our London exhibitions guide.
