Serpentine on view at their Spaces: View Cecily Brown~ Picture Making~ Catch David Hockney ~A year in Normandie and Some other Thoughts about Painting~

We have listed the multiple and diverse exhibition currently and up coming at Serpentine venues. See the list of displays below. 

ON VIEW AT SERPENTINE Serpentine presents a stellar programme of exhibitions and events. At Serpentine South, visitors can experience Cecily Brown: Picture Making, while at Serpentine North, there is still time to catch David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting before it closes. LANZA atelier’s Pavilion, a serpentine remains on view alongside public artworks by Jesús Rafael SOTO and Giuseppe Penone. Serpentine’s Education Space has been transformed into an active Arts Technologies archive, listening room, and research space, offering new ways to explore the intersections of art, technology, and learning. The programme also continues with Park Nights, Serpentine’s experimental, interdisciplinary live programme, staged within the 25th Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo of LANZA atelier. Our autumn programme is announced below.  EXHIBITIONS LAST CHANCE TO SEE DAVID HOCKNEY A YEAR IN NORMANDIE AND SOME OTHER THOUGHTS ABOUT PAINTING SERPENTINE NORTH 12 MARCH - 23 AUGUST 2026 Serpentine presents an exhibition of new and recent works by the late David Hockney. Marking the artist's first presentation at Serpentine, the exhibition showcases a series of new paintings for Serpentine alongside the artist’s monumental frieze A Year in Normandie (2020-2021), on view in London for the first time.  The exhibition unveils a new body of work by the celebrated British artist, comprising five still lifes alongside five portraits that depict members of the artist’s close circle, including his family and carers. These paintings are united by their frontal composition and by the recurring motif of a gingham tablecloth that provides the setting for each composition. In these new works Hockney combines abstract and figurative modes of representation. For the artist, all figurative painting was inherently abstract, so long as it exists upon a flat surface. Accompanying the exhibition, Serpentine presents a large-scale printed mural by David Hockney in the garden at Serpentine North, echoing the artist's own garden in Normandy. The work highlights a scene from A Year in Normandie’s spring cycle depicting a tree house.  David Hockney said: “I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure...There is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering, but I believe that my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair... New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling... I do believe that painting can change the world.” *In the final week of the exhibition, Serpentine will extend opening hours on Fridays and Saturdays to provide more time for visitors to experience the exhibition and the large scale mural in the garden at Serpentine North. On Friday 21 and Saturday 22 August, the exhibition will remain open until 9pm offering a unique chance to explore the exhibition as dusk falls in the park. Free tickets for these evening slots are available online now with walk-ups welcome.   MORE INFORMATION HERE CECILY BROWN PICTURE MAKING SERPENTINE SOUTH 27 MARCH - 6 SEPTEMBER 2026 Serpentine presents Picture Making, an exhibition featuring new and recent works by Cecily Brown, one of the most important painters working today. Running until 6 September 2026 at Serpentine South, the exhibition marks a homecoming for the British artist who has lived and worked in New York for the past thirty years.   Over three decades Brown has gained a reputation for her unique approach to painting, characterised by vigorous brushwork, a vivid sense of colour and dynamic all-over compositions that hold the viewer in an active space of looking.   Picture Making brings together works inspired by Serpentine’s unique location in Kensington Gardens, a site of personal significance to the artist. Themes of nature and park life have long shaped Brown’s formal explorations and, for her exhibition at Serpentine, the artist revisits familiar subjects such as amorous couples, woodland settings and uncanny nature walks. Cecily Brown said: “The Serpentine holds such an important place in the hearts of the public and that's what makes it so exciting to be showing my work here. As a young art student in London I loved to visit, and saw exhibitions there that influenced me enormously. It's a huge honour to be having my first institutional show in London at a site so full of memories but that is still so exciting and unique today.” New works made specifically for the exhibition are shown alongside a selection of key paintings dating back to 2001 to contextualise the continuities and evolutions that have taken place in Brown’s approach to painting over the past 25 years. In turn, recent monotypes and drawings offer insight into Brown’s broader practice, touching upon her early memories of the English landscape, her interest in children's book illustrations, and the darker sides of nursery rhymes and cautionary tales.   MORE INFORMATION HERE PROCESSING... ARCHIVE DISPLAY EDUCATION SPACE, SERPENTINE SOUTH 20 JULY – 6 SEPTEMBER 2026 Serpentine presents processing… an open-access archive display, sharing the experimental methodologies and creative research and development (R&D) that has shaped its pioneering work at the intersection of art and advanced technologies. The display is presented in the Education Space, Serpentine South, from 20 July to 6 September 2026. This summer, Serpentine’s Education Space has been transformed into an active archive, listening room and research space. This display marks a significant moment in the preservation and activation of Serpentine’s pioneering work with art and advanced technologies, which today includes artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and game engines. processing… takes its name from the familiar message shown during an in-progress computation, evoking a state of continual activity and change. Bringing together audio recordings, photographs, publications, digital commissions and other materials from across Serpentine’s art and advanced technologies programming, the display reflects ongoing processes of exchange and experimentation. The display references early exhibitions such as The Video Show (1975), a festival of independent video, and Take Me [I’m Yours] (1995), featuring Absolut Access, an early internet-based installation, alongside selected editions of the multi-disciplinary Serpentine Marathons (89Plus (2013), GUEST, GHOST, HOST: MACHINE! (2017) and Work (2018), which explored and anticipated timely questions such as the impact of networked society, AI, and automation, and share Serpentine’s initial forays and dialogue with technology.   MORE INFORMATION HERE PAVILION 2026 SERPENTINE PAVILION 2026 A SERPENTINE DESIGNED BY LANZA ATELIER SERPENTINE SOUTH LAWN The 2026 Serpentine Pavilion designed by Mexican architecture studio LANZA atelier, founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo is on view until 25 October 2026. Goldman Sachs will support the annual project for the 12th consecutive year,  with Rolex as the Official Timepiece of the Serpentine Pavilions as of this year. This pioneering and prestigious commission, which began in 2000 with Dame Zaha Hadid, has presented the first completed UK structures by some of the biggest names and emerging talents in international architecture. The Pavilion has evolved over the years as a participatory public and artistic platform for the Serpentine’s innovative, experimental, interdisciplinary, community and family programmes. As the Pavilion reaches its 25th edition, Serpentine will celebrate this landmark anniversary and the legacy of inaugural Pavilion architect, Zaha Hadid, through a special collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation and the Architectural Association. LANZA atelier, founded in 2015 by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, is a Mexico City-based architecture studio. Their collaborative practice reinterprets familiar materials and forms by paying close attention to craftmanship, technology and spatial design traditions. Their work proposes ways of building that foreground dialogue and collective experience. For this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, LANZA atelier took its inspiration from the architecture feature known as a serpentine or crinkle-crankle wall which forms one side of the pavilion.  The wall derives its stability from its curving form, requiring fewer bricks than a straight wall. The name of the Pavilion, a serpentine, is inspired by this feature, which makes up the Pavilion’s south wall and subtly references the nearby Serpentine Lake, whose gentle curve evokes the form of a serpent. The north wall of the structure is in dialogue with the surrounding landscape, curving around the nearby tree canopy. A translucent roof allows light and air to permeate the space, softening the boundary between enclosure and openness. The roof rests lightly on brick columns which evoke a grove of trees. LANZA atelier chose brick as the primary material to celebrate the distinctly English garden tradition and establish a conversation with the existing brick façade of the Serpentine South Gallery, which was originally built as a tea pavilion. The Pavilion is constructed from a rhythmic repetition of brick columns that transform the wall from opaque to permeable.   MORE INFORMATION HERE PARK NIGHTS SERPENTINE PAVILION 2026 SERPENTINE SOUTH LAWN Park Nights is Serpentine’s experimental, interdisciplinary, live platform sited within the Galleries’ annual architectural commission, the Serpentine Pavilion Since 2002, Park Nights has presented new works across art, music, film, theatre, dance, literature, philosophy, fashion and technology. Each year’s commissions are conceived in response to the Pavilion and offer audiences unique ways to experience architecture and performance. The programme has supported many artists in the early stages of their careers as well as pioneering writers and thinkers from around the world. o Ebun Sodipo on 25 September 2026, 8pm o Shala Miller on 2 & 3 October 2026, 8pm   MORE INFORMATION HERE PUBLIC ART JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO PÉNÉTRABLE BBL JAUNE (1999;2023 EDITION). SERPENTINE SOUTH UNTIL 25 OCTOBER 2026 Serpentine features a public sculpture by Jesús Rafael SOTO, the first outdoor presentation of the artist’s work in the UK. Situated in the vicinity of Serpentine South, Pénétrable BBL Jaune (1999; 2023 Edition) is on show until 25 October 2026.  Art situated in the park has become central to Serpentine’s year-round activities, extending its exhibitions beyond the gallery walls and into the surrounding landscape. Pénétrable BBL Jaune (1999; 2023 Edition) exemplifies the artist’s lifelong interest in movement, space and tactility. Born in Venezuela in 1923, SOTO became one of the leading exponents of kinetic art and created more than seventy Pénétrable sculptures of various sizes and colours throughout his seven-decade long career: works composed of metal rods and nylon strands suspended in space through which viewers are invited to enter.  The work on view in Kensington Gardens is based on the Pénétrable BBL Jaune conceived and executed by SOTO in 1999 and relaunched in 2023 by the artist’s estate to mark the centenary of his birth. Spanning 10 meters in length, the work consists of 4000 identical PVC strands suspended from a rectangular steel framework. Each strand is hung with a slight gap between each other, creating a ‘moiré’ effect in which the vertical lines seem to move and flicker when viewed from afar.   MORE INFORMATION HERE DAVID HOCKNEY A YEAR IN NORMANDIE MURAL SERPENTINE NORTH GARDEN UNTIL 20 SEPTEMBER 2026 Composed of over a hundred iPad paintings created near the artist’s studio in the countryside of northern France during the 2020 COVID lockdown, A Year in Normandie captures the changing seasons over the course of twelve months. The enlarged detail presented here marks the beginning of spring and places Hockney’s impressions of the Normandy countryside, created en plein air, in dialogue with the landscape of Kensington Gardens. It remains on view until 20 September.   MORE INFORMATION HERE GIUSEPPE PENONE ALBERO FOLGORATO (THUNDERSTRUCK TREE, 2012) SERPENTINE SOUTH UNTIL MARCH 2027 Expanding on the significance of trees as a recurring motif throughout Giuseppe Penone’s work and enabling the artist to “perceive the space of Serpentine as a continuum with the nature of the park that surrounds it”, an outdoor monumental sculpture is presented on the plinth opposite the gallery.  Albero folgorato (Thunderstruck Tree, 2012) is based on a hundred-year-old willow that grew in Belgium, the sculpture depicts a willow tree struck by lightning with its wounds decorated with gold. Penone cast the tree in bronze and lined its pulp with gold leaf, capturing the invisible force of nature that sculpts its splintered shape and complex internal structure. Last year, Serpentine presented Thoughts in the Roots, the most comprehensive institutional exhibition of Giuseppe Penone in London (3 April – 7 September 2025).   MORE INFORMATION HERE UPCOMING AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS AMAR KANWAR SERPENTINE NORTH 23 SEPTEMBER 2026 – 31 JANUARY 2027 Serpentine will host a major solo exhibition of New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar (b. 1964, New Delhi, India), one of the most prominent artists working in moving image today.  For over two decades, Kanwar has developed a distinctive body of lyrical films that move between documentary, travelogue and visual essay to explore the specific conditions of the Indian subcontinent. Having produced and directed numerous films and multi-video installations, Kanwar’s poetic and contemplative works are frequently marked by the history of his country, tracing the legacies of decolonialisation and the Partition of India and Pakistan. Whilst charged with a regional specificity and deeply personal histories, Kanwar’s work grapples with some of the most pressing issues of our time. Reckoning with the past as a means to better comprehend the present, Kanwar bears witness to social upheaval, displacement, power, violence, justice and memory, ultimately revealing what unites – rather than differentiates – us, regardless of geography or context. Within the darkened galleries, visitors will encounter a trilogy of transfixing films by Kanwar: the feature-length Such a Morning (2017), the multi-screen installation The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023), and a new multi-screen installation titled The Charcoal Man (2026), which will premiere at Serpentine.   MORE INFORMATION HERE JUSTIN CAGUIAT CHANGE RINGING SERPENTINE SOUTH 8 OCTOBER 2026 – 10 JANUARY 2027 Serpentine will present the first UK institutional exhibition of new and recent works by Justin Caguiat, on view at Serpentine South from 8 October 2026 to 10 January 2027.   Change Ringing will bring together painting, sculpture, printmaking, sound and film. Justin Caguiat engages with the gallery beyond its interiority, using the architecture and infrastructure of the Serpentine South building to frame and display his artworks.   Through a use of heat-responsive pigment, works on view at Serpentine will constantly change in colour and reveal different shapes as they react to environmental factors such as temperature and light. Though they resist fixed narratives, the paintings are reminiscent of fresco painting.   Alongside canvases, sculptures and prints, Caguiat will also show a series of bronze bells cast in the shapes of various flowers and plant seeds varying in size. A score composed by Lily Pickett riffs on the logic of English change ringing, playing mechanically in a continuous loop as pistons fire in sequential code. Like the concrete acoustic mirrors built along Britain's coastline to detect warships, or Le Corbusier's conception of a building as an acoustic receiver, the gallery’s walls gather and amplify the bells’ chimes, transforming architecture into a listening instrument.   An evolution of Zodiac Machine (4 March – 1 April 2026; Madrid), the exhibition organised by Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid, across the Santa Ana y la Esperanza Church, the nearby Moratalaz Market, and surrounding public spaces, the Serpentine show will continue Caguiat’s longstanding exploration of the architecture, spiritual resonance, and symbolic qualities of sacred spaces, alongside the structures and rhythms of everyday urban infrastructure. Devised as a project in two parts taking place in the two institutions, Caguiat’s new body of works was influenced by the Spanish architect Justo Gallego Martínez, specifically his Catedral de Justo, which he designed and built single-handedly using only recycled and found materials.   MORE INFORMATION HERE

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT Nicolas Smirnoff, Head of Communications, nicolass@serpentinegalleries.org #serpentinevenues#fineartmagazineblog.blogspot.com#artfundisplay #sunstormfineartmagazine.com#artfunview#artfunnowartfunvisit,