Contemporary Art Galleries in London

This modern, minimalist gallery is almost surreal. Its blank white walls and parquet floor lend each piece a three-dimensional frame, and it's eeriely quiet, aside from the occasional voice recording emanating from a few of the installations. The shows are mainly solo efforts depicting challenging sculpture and video. It heavily promotes young, upcoming artists which means it's popular with students and London's alternative/media crowd. In previous decades, British sculptors like Bill Woodrow and Julian Opie have exhibited, as have Turner Prize winners Richard Deacon and Anish Kapoor. The gallery is split into two sections on opposite sides of a non-descript road, but it shouldn't take more than an hour to get around both galleries. The Website is fairly comprehensive, so it's worth checking prior to your visit to see which artists are exhibiting and whether they're to your taste. Sadly, the surrounding area is nothing to rave about, so perhaps combine this with a visit to the Wallace Collection, which is only a 5-minute taxi ride away.

With rents in central London sky-rocketing, many commercial art galleries have moved to cheaper areas while maintaining their distinctive brand of creativity. Behold the Victoria Miro, once a resident of Mayfair, now housed in a converted, shabby-chic Victorian furniture factory in Hoxton. It's a bright and airy maze inside, with a large exhibition space spread over two floors. The addition of a sleek, minimalist extension has added to this feeling. In terms of art, for a contemporary gallery to be of any real worth these days it needs the ubiquitous Turner Prize stamped somewhere in its marketing blurb, and the Victoria Miro does just that with names of winners and nominees aplenty. Although fawning over established names, it also likes to represent young artists and usually has a sense of humor: a fake toilet cubicle is one of the eclectic artworks. You have been warned!

A bright, cavernous space that has a reputation for delivering high quality contemporary art. The catalogue of artists who've been previously represented at Gagosian reads like a ‘Best of' list, so whoever is exhibiting at the time is probably a good investment. Gagosian always seems to pull the big art names—Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Frank Stella, the Chapman brothers and Gilbert & George, to name a mere handful—and as such the Gagosian brand stretches as far afield as New York, Beverly Hills, Rome and Moscow. Basically, they know their stuff. Choose the Britannia Street residence over the Mayfair gallery as it's a lot bigger and has outstanding natural light to complement the works. The latter gallery is essentially to maintain the Gagosian name in London's West End; a show pony, if you will.

A neat little gallery in a delightful National Trust property. Up until the end of the 2008 season, this grand West London country house was home to two galleries: the Jersey and the Garden. Sadly, the former will be closing for commercial use—boo!—but the good news is the Garden Gallery will remain open. It will continue to exhibit a broad range of contemporary art mediums, so you'll see anything from pencil portraits to photography and video installations to abstract Lithuanian oil paintings. The one-room and aptly named Garden Gallery is located in an 18th century walled garden and the setting is charming. Solo artists—some professional, others amateur, many local to the area—usually exhibit for a week or two at a time. The mansion itself is neo-classical and looks out to a vast swathe of landscaped parklands and a lake; there's also a farm shop selling produce from the estate's own farmlands.

A treasure trove of 20th century art, Waddington Galleries comprises three separate venues in the same Mayfair street—incredible art AND real estate!—the largest of which is No.11, where works are focused on the art greats such as Giorgio de Chirico, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, and Donald Judd. The other galleries are predominantly reserved for young emerging artists from around the world, the major themes being sculpture and painting.

I always think the world appears more poignant when viewed in black-and-white pictures. That's what Michael Hoppen Galleries in Brompton aims to achieve by dealing only in photographic art. The gallery knows a thing or two about capturing images with clients ranging from British Airways to Citibank, as well as consulting to the Victoria & Albert Museum and The Guggenheim. This converted warehouse has three floors brimming with vintage and contemporary works. The variety is outstanding and so, too, is the subject matter, jumping from documentary to nudes to seascapes in the blink of an eye. There is a modicum of color photography, but it is sparse. The shows segue between mixed and solo offerings to maintain a freshness, and it's great they don't always favor the established photographers just because it might add star value. Having said that, there are occasional unexpected works by the likes of Annie Liebovitz and Hunter S. Thompson.

An obsession with blue (Louise Bourgeois); art inspired by architecture (Dan Graham); barren landscapes etched, drawn or made from unusual materials (Michael Raedecker)—it must said, Hauser & Wirth represents a wealth of diverse artists. The primary exhibition space is an elegant Edwardian building right on Piccadilly. This former bank is lined with oak panels which provide an eye-pleasing alternative to the typical stark white walls so synonymous with contemporary art galleries. Old meets new in great style. Hauser & Wirth also has a presence on Old Bond Street where it has joined forces with venerable art experts Colnaghi. That venue holds important annual exhibitions from 19th and 20th century artists, and the Red Room is especially geared towards an Old Masters set-up. Note that works on the upper floors can only be viewed by appointment.