18+ art exhibitions opening in London in June 2026
June in London traditionally marks the opening of the much-loved Serpentine Pavilion, and this year is no exception, with the 2026 edition celebrating the programme’s 25th anniversary and designed by LANZA atelier. June also sees the return of the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, one of the capital’s defining fixtures of the summer cultural calendar. Alongside these, several major exhibitions will open across the city, including a major survey of Anish Kapoor at the Hayward Gallery, Tate Modern’s highly anticipated exhibition on Frida Kahlo, and a landmark presentation at the National Portrait Gallery marking the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth. Here is our guide to the exhibitions opening across London in June 2026.
Serpentine Pavilion 2026: a serpentine by LANZA atelier
Serpentine Pavilion 2026 a serpentine, designed by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, LANZA atelier. Design render, aerial view. © LANZA atelier. Courtesy Serpentine.
#FLODown: The 2026 Serpentine Pavilion, titled a serpentine, will mark the 25th anniversary of the programme, which began in 2000 with the first pavilion designed by Zaha Hadid and established the series as a leading platform for experimental temporary architecture in London. For this milestone edition, the Pavilion will be designed by Mexican architecture studio LANZA atelier, led by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, continuing the tradition of inviting architects to create innovative, site-responsive structures in Kensington Gardens. Inspired by the English crinkle-crankle wall and the nearby Serpentine lake, the design will take the form of a flowing brick structure that guides movement, frames encounters, and creates moments of pause within the park, combining vernacular craftsmanship with a contemporary civic space for gathering and cultural programming.
Date: 6 June – 25 October 2026. Location: Serpentine South, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA. Price: Free. serpentinegalleries.org
Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition
Gallery view of the Summer Exhibition 2025, at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 17 June - 17 August 2025. Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry.
#FLODown: The annual Summer Exhibition returns to the Royal Academy of Arts, bringing together over 1,500 contemporary works across painting, sculpture, print, and architecture in its open-submission showcase. This year’s theme, “Interconnectedness”, is reflected in the hanging of the works, with pieces placed in dialogue across rooms along a unifying horizontal line, encouraging connections between different styles, media, and artists. The exhibition brings together emerging talent alongside established contemporary artists, featuring large-scale installations, bold sculpture, and experimental architectural works, many of which are available to buy. Purchasing works directly supports the participating artists, while also helping fund the Royal Academy of Arts’ charitable work, including the training of students at the Royal Academy Schools and the support of future generations of artists.
Date: 16 June – 23 August 2026. Location: Royal Academy of Arts, Main Galleries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. Price: From £23.50 (concessions available; under 16s free; Friends of the RA free). Book now.
Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait
Marilyn Monroe, by Cecil Beaton, gelatin silver print, 1956, Collection: National Portrait Gallery.
#FLODown: Marking what would have been her 100th birthday, the National Portrait Gallery’s Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait brings together images and objects that trace the construction of one of the most recognisable figures of the 20th century. Developed in collaboration with the Marilyn Monroe Estate, the exhibition includes works by artists and photographers such as Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, Cecil Beaton, Eve Arnold, and Richard Avedon. Alongside these are personal items, books, scripts, and clothing, that offer a more layered view of Monroe beyond her public image, following her trajectory from early modelling photographs to her final years.
Date: 4 June – 6 September 2026. Location: National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE. Price: £25–27 / £27.50–30 with donation. Concessions available. Book now
Hepworth in Colour
Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), Pelagos, 1946, Elm, painted pale blue, and strings on an oak base. Tate: Presented by the artist 1964. The Hepworth Estate. Barbara Hepworth © Bowness.
#FLODown: The first major exhibition dedicated to Barbara Hepworth’s use of colour will open at the Courtauld Gallery, exploring an often overlooked aspect of her practice. It brings together sculptures, drawings and paintings from the 1930s to the 1960s, showing how colour, paint and string were central to her exploration of form, landscape and emotion. Key works include her painted and stringed sculptures from the 1940s, alongside wartime drawings that developed ideas she later carried into her sculpture. The exhibition traces how her engagement with colour evolved throughout her career, from early experiments to later works in bronze and marble.
Date: 12 June – 6 September 2026. Location: Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN. Price: from £20. Concessions available. Book now
GENER8ION: VISIONS OF 2034
Image courtesy of 180 Studios
#FLODown: GENER8ION: VISIONS OF 2034 is a new exhibition by the audiovisual duo GENER8ION, filmmaker Romain Gavras and producer Surkin, opening at 180 Studios. The exhibition presents seven new short films and a large-scale installation created alongside GENER8ION’s new album, LOVE & TEARS. Set within a fragmented vision of the year 2034, the works explore how love, emotion and dance can challenge and reshape social systems in an increasingly technological world. The project features collaborations with artists including Yung Lean, 070 Shake, Yannis Philippakis and Charlize Theron, alongside choreographer Damien Jalet, creating a cinematic exploration of humanity, movement and future culture.
Date: 12 June – 31 July 2026. Location: 180 Studios, 180 The Strand, London WC2. Price: £15. Book now
Frida: The Making of an Icon
Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954), Untitled [Self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird], 1940. Oil on canvas mounted to board. Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art, 66.6. Harry Ransom Center.
#FLODown: Tate will open a major exhibition examining how Frida Kahlo deliberately shaped her public persona through painting, photography, dress, and personal objects, building an identity that has since become one of the most recognisable in modern art. Featuring over 130 works, the exhibition brings together Kahlo’s self-portraits alongside letters, garments, photographs, and archival material that reveal the constructed nature of her image as both artist and cultural symbol. Rather than treating her work purely chronologically, it situates her within the political and artistic climate of Mexico in the early 20th century, while also tracing how her legacy has expanded far beyond that context. Alongside Kahlo’s own output, the exhibition includes works by contemporary artists and artists from later generations who respond to and reinterpret her visual language.
Date: 25 June 2026 – 3 January 2027. Location: Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Price: £25. Concessions available. Book now
Anish Kapoor
Mount Moriah at the Gate of the Ghetto 2022 Mixed media 13.8x6.8x3.9 cm Photograph. Attilio Maranzano ©Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS, 2025.
#FLODown: The Hayward Gallery’s major survey of Anish Kapoor brings together key works from across his career alongside recent pieces, tracing a practice defined by its focus on perception, scale, and material transformation. From mirror-polished steel forms that distort reflection to dense pigment works and void-like sculptures, Kapoor’s work explores how surface and absence can alter spatial experience. Silicone, resin, and industrial materials appear throughout, reinforcing his ongoing interest in matter that feels unstable or absorbed. For those looking to explore more of Kapoor’s current work, he is also presenting a major exhibition in Venice at Palazzo Manfrin during the Venice Biennale, featuring major sculptural works and architectural models within a historic Venetian context.
Dates: 16 June – 18 October 2026. Location: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London. Price: from £22. Book now
Jonathan Kelly: 37 degrees / when the gods have left
Image credit: Jonathan Kelly, 37 degrees, 2026, © Jonathan Kelly, courtesy of IONE & MANN.
#FLODown: IONE & MANN will present Jonathan Kelly’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, 37 degrees / when the gods have left, opening to coincide with the 6th edition of London Gallery Weekend, featuring a new series of paintings. The works are made on shaped canvases, mainly crosses and circles, with interlocking arcs, semicircles and wave-like forms made from lines, and multiple layers of colour where the order is indistinguishable. Kelly’s practice focuses on abstraction and reduced, essential forms, with the line as a fundamental element. He connects abstraction, natural science and spirituality as ways of visualising the unseen. In this series, he also treats painting as a spatial structure linked to the geometric systems of the cosmos, moving away from earlier symbolic references towards a focus on form and structure.
Date: 5 June -18 July 2026. Location: I O N E & M A N N, 1st Floor, 6 Conduit Street, London W1S 2XE. Price: Free. ioneandmann.com
Julio Le Parc
Julio Le Parc, Blue Sphere 2013. Tate. Lent by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of the Latin American Acquisitions Committee 2023. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025. Photo © Museum of Art Pudong
#FLODown: Tate Modern’s exhibition of Julio Le Parc will trace more than seven decades of work by one of the defining figures of Kinetic and Op art, an artist who turned movement, light and the viewer’s own perception into the subject of the work itself. Using mirrors, suspended forms and shifting light sources, Le Parc created works that seem to flicker, pulse and transform as audiences move around them. Alongside these kinetic environments, geometric paintings and reliefs extend his fascination with colour and optical instability, producing subtle illusions of depth and motion across flat surfaces. Emerging from the experimental Paris art scene of the late 1950s and his involvement with the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), his practice also carries a collaborative and politically engaged edge, challenging traditional ideas of authorship and the passive viewer.
Date: 11 June 2026 – 3 May 2027. Location: Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Price: £15. Concessions available. Book now
Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica
Chris Ofili, Union Black, 2003 © Chris Ofili. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner and Victoria Miro
#FLODown: At the Barbican, Project a Black Planet will bring together more than a century of artistic and cultural production shaped by Pan-African thought, assembling over 300 works across painting, film, photography, posters, and archival material by artists from Africa and its global diasporas. Rather than framing Pan-Africanism as a single, fixed movement, the exhibition presents it as an evolving set of ideas centred on solidarity, resistance, and cultural exchange, revealing how these connections have developed across different countries, generations, and political moments.
Alongside the exhibition, the Barbican Art Gallery shop will stock FLO London products, with a selection of items, including aprons, scrunchies, napkins, tote bags, and beach bags, available to purchase.
Date: 11 June – 6 September 2026. Location: Barbican Art Gallery, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: from £19. Concessions available. Book now.
Frank Bowling: Driven to Draw
Frank Bowling working on Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, 1963Photo: Tony Evans © Estate of Tony Evans. Courtesy Frank Bowling Archive
#FLODown: The Royal Drawing School will present an exhibition exploring drawing as a core part of Frank Bowling’s artistic practice, showing how works on paper have consistently informed and shaped his painting over more than six decades. Organised in close collaboration with the artist, it brings together preparatory sketches, collages, completed drawings, and archival material alongside finished works, revealing how ideas evolve and transform across time. Structured across three sections, it begins with early student drawings from the 1950s and 1960s, moves into more experimental and expanded works from the mid-1960s onwards, and concludes with recent drawings that highlight how the medium has remained a key site of exploration and invention throughout his career.
Date: 25 June – 22 August 2026. Location: The Royal Drawing School, 19–22 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3SG. Price: Free (donations encouraged). royaldrawingschool.org
Japanese Women Photographers: From 1950s to Now
ISHIKAWA Mao. Kin, Koza (present-day Okinawa City), Okinawa Prefecture, 1975–77; from the series Akabanaa (Red flower). Courtesy Nap Gallery, Tokyo, and Aperture
#FLODown: For its summer exhibition programme, The Photographers’ Gallery will present a major exhibition celebrating the work of 27 Japanese women photographers who have shaped and redefined the history of photography in Japan. From the post-war period to the present day, the exhibition brings together more than 200 works, including photographs, video, installations, and rare photobooks, offering diverse perspectives on identity, gender, culture, and everyday life. It highlights both well-known and previously under-recognised artists, showing how women photographers have challenged conventions and expanded the language of the medium across generations.
Date: 24 June – 27 September 2026. Location: The Photographers’ Gallery, 16–18 Ramillies Street, London, W1F 7LW. Price: £12 / £9 concessions (members go free). Advance online booking: £10 / £7.50 concessions. Book now.
Mehmet Ali Uysal: Skin
© Pi Artworks/ Mehmet Ali Uysal
#FLODown: Pi Artworks London is opening its new gallery space at Perseverance Works in Shoreditch on 5 June 2026 with Skin, a solo exhibition by Mehmet Ali Uysal, marking the gallery’s move from its long-standing Eastcastle Street location in Fitzrovia. The relocation signals a shift towards a more expanded programme that combines exhibition and production across both gallery and project spaces within a former industrial complex in East London. The inaugural show presents key works from Uysal’s internationally recognised Skin series, which explores architectural space as a malleable “surface” that can be stretched, compressed, pierced, or displaced. Through sculpture and site-responsive installation, the artist subtly disrupts and reimagines built environments, encouraging viewers to reconsider how space is constructed and perceived.
Date: 5 June – 4 July 2026. Location: Pi Artworks London, Perseverance Works, 6 Perseverance Works, 25–27 Hackney Road, Shoreditch, London E2 7NX. Price: Free. piartworks.com
Armineh Negahdari: The Living River
Armineh Negahdari- 'Les mains volantes' 2026
#FLODown: Cell Project Space will open an exhibition by Armineh Negahdari, presenting new work across drawing and painting that continues her exploration of expressive figuration and material intensity, using oil, charcoal and pastel. The exhibition reflects her recent international trajectory, following solo presentations at Art Basel Statements and Marcelle Alix in Paris, as well as group exhibitions across Europe, and anticipates forthcoming institutional shows including the Louis Vuitton Foundation (2026) and SMAK (2027). Her practice is held in major public collections such as the Centre Pompidou, signalling her growing presence in contemporary European art.
Date: 4 June – 9 August 2026. Location: Cell Project Space, Bethnal Green, London E2 9DA. Price: Free. cellprojects.org
The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial
Ellie Davies, Ebb and Flow 6, 2025. Courtesy of Crane Kalman Brighton copyright Ellie Davies
#FLODown: The Saatchi Gallery will open a major exhibition exploring how the Sun and Moon have influenced art, culture and human imagination across history. The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial brings together artworks, installations and archival material tracing their impact on belief systems, storytelling and creativity across cultures and centuries, with highlights including Luke Jerram’s large-scale installation Helios and immersive works by teamLab, Massless Suns and Dark Suns, alongside painting, sculpture, fashion, textiles, photography, film and installation by both established and emerging artists.
It follows FLOWERS – Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture (2025) as the second exhibition in Saatchi Gallery’s ongoing series exploring how natural themes, from plants and landscapes to celestial bodies, inspire contemporary artists across different mediums and cultural perspectives.
Date: 5 June – 8 September 2026. Location: Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London SW3 4RY. Price: General admission from £13. Concessions available. Book now
Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska: Zanzibar
Image courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery
#FLODown: Lubaina Himid, who is currently representing Great Britain at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, will present a new iteration of her long-term collaboration with Magda Stawarska in Zanzibar at Lisson Gallery. The exhibition revisits Zanzibar (1999–2023), combining nine diptychs by Himid with a 38-minute libretto by Stawarska. It reflects on memory and movement, loss and belonging, bringing together painting and sound with archival material, including music, voices, and radio excerpts, to trace personal and collective histories linked to Zanzibar.
Date: 4 June – 22 August 2026. Location: Lisson Gallery, 67 Lisson Street, London, NW1 5DA. lissongallery.com
Anne Imhof: Citizen
Anne Imhof, Grey Wave, 2025. Oil on canvas, 250 × 320 cm | 98 3/8 × 126 inches
#FLODown: Anne Imhof’s Citizen at Sprüth Magers London presents a multidisciplinary body of work across painting, film, sculpture, and drawing, continuing her exploration of the body in space, visibility, and collective behaviour. The exhibition will build on recent projects and bring together large-scale Wave paintings, a four-channel film, crowd barrier sculptures, and bronze reliefs, reflecting on movement, containment, and emotional intensity.
Date: 5 June – 1 August 2026. Location: Sprüth Magers, 7A Grafton Street, London W1S 4EJ. Price: Free. spruethmagers.com
Yinka Ilori: Joy Through Resistance, He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best
Yinka Ilori, 2026. Photo: Kane Hulse. Courtesy of the artist and Cristea Roberts Gallery © Yinka Ilori
#FLODown: Cristea Roberts Gallery will present the first London solo gallery exhibition by British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Ilori MBE, bringing together new paintings, prints, and sculpture alongside a sound installation created in collaboration with composers Peter Adjaye and James William Blades. The exhibition expands Ilori’s distinctive visual language across different forms, drawing on his Nigerian heritage and the spirit of communal gatherings. Through bold colour, floral motifs, patterned textiles, and references to music and lace, the works explore joy as a form of resistance, using optimism, rhythm, and storytelling to respond to social and cultural experience.
Date: 5 June – 11 July 2026. Location: Cristea Roberts Gallery, 43 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5JG. Price: Free.cristearoberts.com
Georg Baselitz: Back Again
Georg Baselitz, Sigmund fliegt mit Sex im Koffer, 2024, Oil and plastic on canvas
#FLODown: White Cube Bermondsey will present a major solo exhibition by Georg Baselitz that reflects on more than six decades of the artist’s practice, bringing together key motifs that defined his work until the end of his life. Taking its title from one of his final paintings, Back Again, the exhibition carries a reflective tone, presenting works centred on recurring subjects such as the eagle, the “Hero” figure, and portraits of his wife and long-term muse Elke Kretzschmar. Conceived by Baselitz shortly before his passing in May 2026, the presentation reads as a distillation of his lifelong artistic concerns, revisiting and reworking themes that shaped his distinctive visual language and inversion technique. It offers a final, focused look at an artist whose career consistently challenged traditional representation and painterly form.
Date: 10 June – 30 August 2026. Location: White Cube Bermondsey, 144–152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ. Price: Free. whitecube.com
