Art exhibitions opening in London in September 2026
Following a quieter August, London’s autumn art season gets underway in September with an exciting and inventive mix of exhibitions, from major surveys and new commissions to ambitious presentations by some of the most influential artists working today. Hospital Rooms will mark its 10th anniversary with Host/Guest at Victoria Miro, while Liz Larner’s first UK exhibition at Camden Art Centre will explore sculpture, ecology and the material world. At the Serpentine, Amar Kanwar will present a major exhibition of films and installations examining displacement, memory and nationalism, while Es Devlin’s 30-year career will be celebrated at the Design Museum. The month will also see the long-awaited return of the Bayeux Tapestry to England, alongside exhibitions by René Magritte, Gabriel Orozco and Autumn Knight. Below is our guide to the art exhibitions opening in London to see this September.
Hospital Rooms: Host/Guest
Joy Labinjo, Untitled, Sunflowers Court, Goodmayes Hospital, North East London NHS Foundation Trust, 2026. Photo © Hospital Rooms (Studio Damian Griffiths)
#FLODown: Hospital Rooms marks its 10th anniversary with Host/Guest, a major exhibition at Victoria Miro featuring artists from across the charity’s decade-long programme. The exhibition presents re-creations of monumental artworks created for NHS mental health hospitals in 2026, alongside artists who have collaborated with Hospital Rooms over the past ten years. It reflects on the role of art in transforming clinical environments and improving experiences of mental healthcare, while looking ahead to expanding access to creative programmes across the UK.
Date: 3 – 12 September 2026. Location: Victoria Miro, 14 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW. Price: Free. victoria-miro.com
Liz Larner: A hard line to bend
Liz Larner, Asteroid (Ida), 2021 © Liz Larner
#FLODown: The first UK exhibition of influential American sculptor Liz Larner will open at Camden Art Centre, focusing on works made primarily over the past decade and Larner’s ongoing interest in ecology, material and form. Working across clay, metal, wood and discarded plastic, Larner draws on ancient mythology and cosmology to consider resource extraction and the cycles of matter. The exhibition will include ceramic tablets, ceramic ‘asteroids’ named after female mythological figures and a new sculpture inspired by Lilith, while asking how we might rethink our relationship with the material world and find more organic, nurturing ways of living with our environment.
Date: 11 September 2026 – 17 January 2027. Location: Camden Art Centre, Arkwright Road, London NW3 6DG. Price: Free. camdenartcentre.org
Listening to the earth
Mohammad Alfaraj. I dream of storms that we will survive, 2025. Palm charcoal on paper with palm wood artist frame. Image courtesy of the artist, Athr gallery and Mennour.
#FLODown: What can we learn by listening to the earth? Listening to the earth will consider this question through the work of 10 intergenerational artists engaging with landscapes, extraction, memory, healing and connection. Drawing will be treated as a form of listening, with works made using dust, natural pigments, ash and slate shown alongside photography and field recordings responding to places including the Saudi desert, rural Punjab, South London, North Wales and Cornwall. Artists will include David Alesworth, Mohammad Alfaraj, Emii Alrai, Ali Kazim, Mary Lemley, David Nash, Abigail Reynolds, Ro Robertson, Tanoa Sasraku and Anwar Jalal Shemza.
Date: 24 September – 13 December 2026. Location: The Drawing Room, 12 Rich Estate, Crimscott Street, London SE1 5TE. Price: Free. drawingroom.org.uk
This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte
René Magritte La Lampe philosophique (The Philosopher's Lamp), 1936. Oil on canvas, 19 ¾ × 26 inches (50 × 66 cm). © 2026 C. Herscovici/Artists Rights Society. (ARS), New York. Image courtesy Private Collection, Brussels, Kingdom of Belgium
#FLODown: René Magritte’s pipes, apples, bowler hats and cotton-cloud skies return to London this autumn in This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte, opening at Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill gallery. The exhibition sets paintings, works on paper, sculpture and photography from across the Belgian Surrealist’s career against works by contemporary artists responding to his influence, including a number made especially for the show. It also marks the anniversaries of two defining moments in Magritte’s history: the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London and the 2006–07 exhibition Magritte and Contemporary Art at LACMA.
Date: 24 September – 12 December 2026. Location: Gagosian, 20 Grosvenor Hill
London W1K 3QD. gagosian.com
Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Repercussions
Zifzafa, 2024, videogame still. Earshot Photography Hafid Lhachmi
#FLODown: Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s Repercussions will open at The Pit at the Barbican Centre, presenting two video works examining the impact of a planned wind turbine development on the Jawlani community in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Zifzafa: Livestream Audio Essay (2025) uses a video-game simulation to recreate the region, where recordings of weddings, water pumps and other sounds of daily life are drowned out by the roar of simulated turbines. Wind Ensemble (2024) follows Jawlani saxophonist Amr Mdah performing from a home balcony near the proposed site, turning music into an act of sonic resistance.
Date: 23 – 26 September 2026. Location: The Pit, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: Free. barbican.org.uk
Amar Kanwar
Amar Kanwar, Such a Morning, 2017. (Film still). Digital video, 4K, colour, sound, 85 min. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery.
#FLODown: Serpentine North will devote its galleries to the New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar , whose hypnotic films explore the histories and political realities of the Indian subcontinent. Drawing on the legacies of Partition and decolonisation, Kanwar’s work considers displacement, power, memory and nationalism through a distinctive blend of film, sound and installation. Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition brings together new and existing works, including the premiere of The Charcoal Man (2026), a seven-screen installation, alongside Such a Morning (2017) and The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023). It continues Serpentine’s long-standing engagement with Kanwar, which began with Indian Highway in 2008.
Date: 23 September 2026 – 31 January 2027. Location: Serpentine North, West Carriage Drive, Kensington Gardens, London W2 2AR. Price: Free. serpentinegalleries.org
Es Devlin: Other Worlds
Portrait of Es Devlin at the Design Museum, 2026. Image credit David Parry for the Design Museum
#FLODown: An Es Devlin exhibition is coming to the Design Museum, celebrating the artist and designer’s 30-year career across sculpture, performance, language and light. The exhibition will explore her work, from theatrical and musical stage designs to Olympic ceremonies and large-scale public installations, while also showcasing rare sketches, models, texts and behind-the-scenes materials.
Date: 18 September 2026 – 11 April 2027. Location: Design Museum, 224–238 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6AG. Price: £21. Concessions available. Book now.
Gabriel Orozco: Chronotopic
Image courtesy of Gabriel Orozco.
#FLODown: Chronotopic will bring more than 100 new and existing works by Gabriel Orozco to White Cube Bermondsey, including sculpture, painting, photography, assemblage and works on paper. Curated by Briony Fer, the exhibition is structured as a ‘chrono-nautical log’ – a record of observations, associations and historical contingencies – examining how Orozco’s works change in meaning across different sites, contexts and histories. The exhibition will also mark the 10th anniversary of his permanent commission at South London Gallery, 20 years since his first exhibition with White Cube and 30 years since his solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Date: 16 September – 8 November 2026. Location: White Cube Bermondsey, 144–152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ. whitecube.com.
Autumn Knight: I Can’t Complain
Autumn Knight, NOTHING #59: Biennales, 2022. Photo: Laylah Amatullah Barrayn.
#FLODown: Asolo exhibition by New York-based artist Autumn Knight, I Can’t Complain will open at ICA London, presenting a new commission alongside recent installations, video and performance work. Marking Knight’s first major presentation in the UK, the exhibition will explore complaint, disappointment and its political potential, considering how everyday frustrations can reveal wider questions around power, voice, authority and participation. Drawing on theatre, psychology, improvisation and social exchange, Knight will transform the Lower Galleries through an audio and spatial installation featuring a canopy of balloons, recorded conversations and video works, alongside live performances and collaborations with artists including Samra Mayanja, Michelangelo Miccolis and Nick von Kleist.
Date: 29 September – 29 November 2026. Location: Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH. General booking will be on sale from 15 September. ica.art
The Bayeux Tapestry
Bayeux Tapestry Cliffs of Dover thank you © The Trustees of the British Museum.
#FLODown: The highly anticipated return of the Bayeux Tapestry to England has already sparked extraordinary public interest. For the first time since it was made nearly 1,000 years ago, the 70-metre-long embroidery will be displayed at the British Museum from September 2026 to July 2027, following a historic loan agreement between the UK and France. Depicting the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Tapestry offers a unique insight into medieval life, from warfare and ships to clothing, food and architecture. Interest in the exhibition has been unprecedented, with tickets for the initial September–December 2026 release selling out within days, following what the British Museum described as the biggest ticketing day for an exhibition in its history.
Date: 10 September 2026 – 11 July 2027. Location: The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, Room 30, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG. Price: from £25, with standard tickets at £33; under-16s go free with a paying adult.
September–December 2026 tickets have sold out. Tickets for January–March 2027 are due to be released in October 2026, followed by April–July 2027 tickets in January 2027. britishmuseum.org
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