Art news to be on your radar this week: 16 - 22 March 2026

This week in art, there’s a wide range of exhibition announcements, public art unveilings, and cultural events to be on your radar. From the unveiling of a new sculpture outside the soon-to-open V&A East Museum, to new exhibition details revealed at the Barbican and Goldsmiths CCA, the week also includes insights from the global art market, film premieres, and literary festivals.

V&A East Museum unveils Thomas J Price’s monumental sculpture ahead of 2026 opening

The V&A has revealed A Place Beyond, a monumental 18-foot sculpture by London-based artist Thomas J Price, outside the new V&A East Museum in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Unveiled ahead of the museum’s opening on 18 April 2026, the bronze artwork, the tallest Price has created, depicts a fictional young person in casual clothing holding a mobile phone and looking towards the horizon, symbolising possibility and change. The piece challenges traditional narratives of classical sculpture by representing everyday people often excluded from public monuments, while celebrating the diversity of East London. Its creation involved input from the V&A East Youth Collective. The sculpture also launches New Work, a new creative commissions programme featuring eight artworks across V&A East’s two sites under the theme Making East London. When it opens, V&A East Museum will showcase permanent galleries such as Why We Make, major exhibitions including The Music is Black: A British Story, and photography displays like Dispersal: Picturing Urban Change in East London, all highlighting creativity and culture in a changing world.

Click here to discover more public art to see in London in 2026.

Thomas J Price, A Place Beyond, V&A East Museum. Public Art in London. Image credit MTotoe/FLO London

Barbican reveals new details of major exhibition Project a Black Planet

The Barbican Art Gallery has just revealed full details of Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica, a landmark exhibition exploring how Pan-Africanism has shaped art and culture across Africa and its global diasporas. Featuring over 300 works, from painting and sculpture to film, photography, and archival materials, the exhibition highlights movements such as Garveyism, Quilombismo, and Négritude, alongside contemporary explorations of protest, memory, and identity. Artists include Simone Leigh, David Hammons, Chris Ofili, Wifredo Lam, Marlene Dumas, and Magdalene Odundo. The season also includes film programmes, live performances, workshops, and public events celebrating the enduring creativity and activism inspired by Pan-African ideas.

Click here to discover more.

Simone Leigh, Dunham, 2017. The Art Institute of Chicago © 2017 Simone Leigh, Photo Jonathan Mathias

Global art market surges 4% in 2025, sparking buzz following Art Basel and UBS Report

There was significant buzz within the art world following the release of The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, which highlighted a 4% growth in the global art market in 2025 to $59.6 billion. The report showed renewed confidence at the high end and a rebound in public auction sales, with dealer sales rising 2% to $34.8 billion and auctions up 9% to $20.7 billion, while private sales slipped 5% to just under $4.2 billion. The US retained its lead with 44% of total sales, followed by the UK at 18% and China at 14%, with France growing to 8% as the EU’s largest market. Authored by Dr. Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics, the report generated widespread attention for its comprehensive, data-driven analysis of dealers, auction houses, and art fairs, offering an essential benchmark for understanding the forces shaping today’s art market.

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ICA London hosts special preview and short film for Pompei: Below the Clouds

Award-winning Venice documentary Pompei: Below the Clouds will be celebrated with a special preview screening, Q&A, live performance, and a new short film, Making of the Score with Daniel Blumberg, at the ICA in London on Sunday 22 March. The documentary streams exclusively on MUBI from 27 March. Click here to read the full article.

Below the Clouds (Sotto le nuvole) Dir. Gianfranco Rosi

Goldsmiths CCA to present summer exhibition Flare-Up

Goldsmiths CCA will present Flare-Up, a summer exhibition bringing together UK-based and international artists whose work engages with illness, disability, neurodivergence, and Deafness across sculpture, installation, film, painting, poetry, music, and performance. Featuring seventeen artists, the exhibition will address care, survival, social and ecological crises, and the politics of access, while connecting contemporary practices with legacies from artists such as Derek Jarman and Félix González-Torres. Using light, sound, water, and language, the works will highlight vulnerability, resilience, and collective resistance, transforming the CCA’s historic tiled architecture into a space for reflection, experimentation, and political engagement.

Date: 21 May – 16 August 2026. Location: Goldsmiths CCA, New Cross, London SE14 6AD. goldsmithscca.art

Racheal Crowther, Qualified to Care, 2022. Double-sided LED hijacked pharmacy sign, 6:47min video loop

Broken English Marianne Faithfull Documentary Launches in the UK This Week

A new documentary celebrating the life and legacy of Marianne Faithfull launches in the UK this week with a special preview event and nationwide cinema screenings. Broken English, directed by BAFTA-nominated filmmakers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, premieres at the Barbican Hall in London on Wednesday 18 March, where a special screening will be followed by a live tribute concert featuring artists including Jarvis Cocker, Anna Calvi, Rufus Wainwright and Beth Orton. The event will also be livestreamed to cinemas across the UK ahead of the film’s general release on Friday 20 March. Named after Faithfull’s groundbreaking 1979 album, the documentary revisits her extraordinary six-decade career through interviews, archival footage and performances of her songs by contemporary artists. Click here to discover more.

© Gered Mankowitz / Iconic Images

Poetry International Festival 2026 to celebrate Benjamin Zephaniah at Southbank Centre

The Poetry International Festival will return to the Southbank Centre, celebrating the life and work of the ‘people’s poet’ Benjamin Zephaniah with an evening of music, readings, and recollections hosted by Lemn Sissay and Pauline Black, alongside contributions from Jackie Kay, Michael Rosen, and others. Festival programming will also include Imagine the Future, a national poetry project engaging schoolchildren whose creative work will be displayed in a site-wide installation, and A Poet in Every Port, the National Poetry Library’s touring initiative, which will arrive in London for workshops, readings, and public events. Additional highlights will celebrate Allen Ginsberg at 100 and feature poets including Raymond Antrobus, Ilya Kaminsky, Kim Hyseon, Paul Muldoon, and Denise Riley.

Date: 10–12 July 2026. Location: Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. southbankcentre.co.uk

Image courtesy of Benjamin Zephaniah Estate

Broadwick Live Launches Magazine Open–Air on Greenwich Peninsula

Broadwick Live is launching Magazine Open–Air, a new outdoor music series on Greenwich Peninsula this August 2026, bringing a festival-scale experience to London’s riverside. Across select weekends, the series will host performances including Our House with Meduza & James Hype, Josh Baker b2b Max Dean, 15 Years: The Soulection Experience, Amelie Lens b2b Sara Landry, and Purple Disco Machine, with additional acts to be announced. Each event is designed as a standalone experience, combining industry-leading sound, innovative production, and the city skyline as a backdrop, redefining outdoor music in the capital. Open–Air promises immersive, high-energy sets that fuse sound, space, and setting, from peak-summer daytime to illuminated night performances, culminating in a finale later in August.

Location: Magazine London, 11 Ordnance Crescent, SE10 0JH. Click here to discover more.

Broadwick Live Magazine London – Image credit: Henry Woide

Deptford Literature Festival returns to celebrate Local Stories

The Deptford Literature Festival returns for its fifth edition, showcasing the creativity and diversity of Deptford and Lewisham through over 30 events on Saturday 28 March 2026. The festival features interactive talks, workshops, readings, and spoken word performances by established and emerging writers including Sarah Howe, Jimi Famurewa, Leone Ross, and Francis Spufford. Highlights include South London in Fiction, Navigating Culture: Black Male Writers on Britain Today, and family-focused sessions like Putting it in a Letter and The Marvellous Myth Hunter. Special programmes support local writers and young people, while inclusive sessions, some with BSL interpretation, ensure accessibility. Produced by London Writers Centre and creative producer Tom MacAndrew, the festival fosters connection, discovery, and celebration of local literary talent.

Deptford Literature Festival takes place all day on Saturday, 28 March. To find out more and book events, visit londonwriterscentre.org.uk. Tickets are free for some events or £3.

South London Gallery Reveals Details About Their Upcoming Summer Exhibition

This summer, the South London Gallery (SLG) will present two major solo exhibitions from 1 May 2026. In the Fire Station Galleries, British Nigerian artist Ranti Bam (b.1982, Lagos) will showcase Sacred Groves, featuring her largest stoneware sculptures to date, alongside a debut film made at Ọṣun-Ọṣogbo, a Yoruba sacred site. Bam’s practice combines sculpture, performance, film, and photography, exploring clay as a spiritual and ancestral medium, with her vessels and films reflecting ritual, intimacy, and the connection between body and landscape. Meanwhile, in the Main Gallery, Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota (b.1988, São José do Rio Preto) will present a new series of paintings alongside a large-scale gallery-wall mural, creating a fantastical world populated by mythical creatures inspired by art history, popular culture, and folklore. This will be Pjota’s first UK public gallery exhibition. southlondongallery.org