Anish Kapoor Exhibition Announced for Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery, Summer 2026

12 November 2025

The Hayward Gallery has announced details of its landmark exhibition from Anish Kapoor, marking his highly-anticipated return to the space after it presented the first UK survey of his work in 1998. Anish Kapoor will span new and seminal works, offering a series of spectacular encounters with sculptures, paintings and immersive installations across the whole gallery and its terraces. Curated by Ralph Rugoff, the exhibition is a centrepiece of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme.

Three monumental works that defy the boundaries of conventional sculpture will be at the heart of the exhibition, each filling an entire section of the gallery. Visitors will first explore a gallery completely transformed by an atmospheric new commission: an inflatable installation that fills the six-metre-high space, challenging our sense of scale and self. A second new installation frames an intriguing empty space through a doorway-like structure that is set amidst a dramatic dark red landscape in the upper gallery. Overwhelming in size and emotional intensity, these monumental works elaborate on Kapoor’s fascination with the sublime.

The exhibition will also highlight the artist’s ongoing exploration of perceptual illusions, including seemingly depthless ‘void’ works and sculptures coated with Vantablack: a light-absorbing nanotechnology so black it makes three-dimensional forms appear entirely flat when seen head-on. Large-scale mirrored steel sculptures, placed on the Hayward’s outdoor terraces, will further engage visitors in a perceptual journey that combines discovery and disorientation.

Lastly, the exhibition will feature some of Kapoor’s strikingly visceral paintings and sculptures from the past decade. Created using silicone, resin, and pigment, these intense works conjure splayed-open bodies and internal organs. The paintings and sculptures challenge our psychological responses, asking us to reflect on what it means to exist in an age where violent images are pervasive.

Anish Kapoor says: “I am thrilled to be making an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery with Ralph Rugoff and to be returning to the Hayward after 28 years. The Southbank Centre has over the last 75 Years been central to London's cultural life and I am honoured to make an exhibition to celebrate this anniversary.”

Find out more via the Hayward Gallery.

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