In 2026, Serpentine will present landmark solo exhibitions by David Hockney, Cecily Brown, and Amar Kanwar, and unveil its 25th Pavilion.
These presentations will highlight intergenerational artists whose practices challenge and expand the definitions of media by responding to technological innovation and fostering new connections between artists and audiences.
Coming in 2026
David Hockney – Serpentine North
Opening in March 2025, Serpentine will present an exhibition of recent works by David Hockney. On view in Serpentine North from 12 March to 23 August 2026, the exhibition will showcase pioneering works, many shown in the UK for the first time.
David Hockney is interested in how art and technology can come together in new ways. Recommending that people slow down and notice the beauty of the world around them, he believes that simple, everyday cycles, like a sunrise, is worth celebrating.
This exhibition will include Hockney’s recent works: the celebrated Moon Room which reflects his lifelong interest in the cycle of light and time passing, as well as digital paintings from his Sunrise body of work. A Year in Normandy, a ninety-metre-long frieze, inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, showing the change of seasons at the artist’s former studio in Normandy, will also feature in the show.
Cecily Brown – Serpentine South
A major solo exhibition by painter Cecily Brown will open in March 2026. Known for her vigorous brushwork, vivid colour and dynamic compositions, Brown presents new paintings inspired by Kensington Gardens, a site of personal significance to the artist.
Themes of nature and park life have long shaped her formal explorations, and here she revisits familiar motifs: amorous couples, woodland scenes, and uncanny nature walks. Shown alongside her paintings, a selection of monotypes and drawings reflects Brown’s early memories of the English landscape, her fascination with children’s book illustrations, and the darker implications of cautionary tales.
This exhibition marks Brown’s first solo presentation of paintings in a UK institution since her exhibition at Modern Art Oxford in 2005 – a homecoming for the British artist who has been based in New York for the past thirty years.
Amar Kanwar – Serpentine North
From September 2026 to January 2027, Serpentine will stage a major solo exhibition by New-Delhi based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar. 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 several films and multi-video installations, Kanwar’s works frequently trace the legacies of decolonialisation and the partition of India and Pakistan. Whilst charged with a regional specificity, Kanwar’s work grapples with broader themes such as displacement, nationalism, violence, power, censorship and memory, ultimately revealing what unites us rather than differentiates us regardless of context. This exhibition, conceived in close collaboration with the artist, is a site-specific installation centred on new and existing films that will transform Serpentine North into a meditative visual and sonic environment.
25th Serpentine Pavilion
2026 marks the unveiling of the 25th Serpentine Pavilion and a programme of talks in conjunction with the commission, its history and its future in collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation.
This groundbreaking commission first launched in 2000 with Dame Zaha Hadid and has introduced the UK’s first structures by many of the most influential figures in international architecture.
Art in the Park
Esther Mahlangu Mural – Serpentine North Garden
Celebrated for her brightly coloured geometric paintings rooted in South African Ndebele culture, Dr Esther Mahlangu has been creating large-scale and site-specific works for over eight decades. She began painting at the age of ten, learning the matrilineal Ndebele techniques and visual language of covering houses in bold patterns from her mother and grandmother.
Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, presented in the garden at Serpentine North, is the artist’s first public mural in the UK. Painted over sixteen wooden panels, the work depicts Ndebele shapes and patterns outlined with a black borders. The title of the work translates directly from Ndebele as ‘I am because you are’, emphasising the importance of communities and unity among humans and other living species.
