Critic's choice: Top 5 exhibitions

A fresh generation of fashion designers steps into the limelight in New York Fashion Now, German artist Joachim Schmid's work is on show at The Photographers' Gallery and it's your last chance to catch the Hogarth exhibition...

New York Fashion Now
V&A, SW7
A fresh generation of New York fashion designers steps into the limelight in this zesty exhibition. It features around 60 outfits, the work of 20 fashionistas who have all launched independent labels between 1999 and 2004. The clothes range from glitzy frocks to sporty daywear that's almost as glam, along with new interpretations of old favourites and avant-garde collections by designers who favour miniature wind-up hula dolls over runway clothes horses. (020 7942 2000). Until 2 September.

Joachim Schmid: Selected Photoworks 1982-2007
The Photographers' Gallery, WC2
This German artist is less a photographer than an archivist, scavenging for humble workaday pictures like passport snaps and creating photocollages that make the viewer look again. Pictures from the Street is exactly that: a collection of discarded images. Ongoing since 1982, the project currently numbers 900 images, collected globally and ranging from crumpled photo-booth rejects to sun-faded family portraits. One hundred are on show here. (020 7831 1722). Until 17 June

The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings
Royal Academy, W1
Curators have trawled collections public and private in search of Monet's works on paper, surfacing with a haul that spans his early landscape studies, his luminous Views of the Thames series, and the drawings he made of his own paintings for reproduction in journals. As a student, Monet dropped out of life-drawing classes, and his caricatures are unremarkable. Initially, there's little to compel in the landscapes, either. It's when he switches from pencil and chalk to pastels that something glorious happens, and the light and colour and liquid movement for which he's so loved flood the paper. (020 7300 8000). Until 10 June.

Surreal Things
V&A, SW7
This sleekly produced exhibition traces Surrealism's influence on fashion and architecture, advertising and interior design. Though you'll find paintings by Magritte, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, it's objects that are its focus. Almost 300 in all, they take their cues from dreamscapes and subconscious fears and desires. There's a larky joyfulness to Salvador Dali's Lobster Telephone, for instance, while darker, fetishistic notes creep in via other exhibits - pieces like Elsa Schiaparelli's "Tear" Evening Dress, with its decorative motif of torn flesh. (020 7942 2000). Until 22 July.

LAST CHANCE: Hogarth
Tate Britain, SW1
We think of Hogarth as a deft satirist, scratching out scabrous, still-famous engravings such as Gin Lane and Beer Street. In fact, Hogarth was the nation's first truly modern artist - or so this dauntingly comprehensive exhibition seeks to persuade us. It makes an entertaining case, bringing together more than 200 works from sketches to society portraits, brothel scenes to those famous engravings. And you'll also find works by contemporary artists who've been inspired by him. (020 7887 8008). Until 29 April.