International Women’s Day 2026: art exhibitions celebrating women artists in London
International Women’s Day, on 8 March, celebrates women’s achievements and promotes gender equality. Several London galleries and museums are currently presenting a range of shows across different mediums, celebrating the work of women artists. At Tate Modern there’s an exhibition by Tracey Emin, bringing together over 90 works across painting, sculpture, neon, textiles, video and installation as the largest survey of her career to date. Rose Wylie, now 91, is the first British woman painter to have a solo exhibition in the main galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts, showing a large selection of her expressive paintings. Colombian artist Beatriz González has her first UK solo show at the Barbican Centre, with more than 150 works that rework found images from newspapers to postcards. Here is our guide to art exhibitions in London right now to visit celebrating International Women’s Day 2026.
Tracey Emin: A Second Life
Tracey Emin My Bed 1998 Tate Lent by The Duerckheim Collection 2015, On long term loan. © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage
#FLODown: The largest survey exhibition of Dame Tracey Emin’s career, A Second Life spans more than 40 years of her practice and features over 90 works across painting, video, neon, textiles, sculpture and installation. Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition traces Emin’s deeply confessional exploration of trauma, identity, the female body and resilience, from early autobiographical works to iconic installations such as My Bed (1998), alongside recent works made in the wake of illness. The exhibition reflects on Emin’s “first life” while celebrating her “second life” as an act of survival, creativity and renewal.
Date: 26 February – 31 August 2026. Location: Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Price: from £20 / Free for members. Concessions available. £5 for Tate Collective. Book now.
Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First
Installation view of “Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Yellow Strip, 2006. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry. © Rose Wylie
#FLODown: Rose Wylie OBE RA takes over the Main Galleries at the Royal Academy of Arts in her largest UK survey to date. Known for her figurative paintings and character-driven narratives, Wylie draws inspiration from art history, classical literature, celebrity culture, and current affairs. The exhibition captures modern life with energy and wit, reflecting on events from the Blitz to football matches and gallery openings, and features both iconic works and previously unseen, newly created pieces.
Click here to read our review of Rose Wylie’s The Picture Comes First.
Date: 28 February – 19 April 2026. Location: Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. Price: £21–£23. Concessions available. Book now
Beatriz González
Installation view, Beatriz González . Decoración de interiores (Interior Decoration), 1981. Image credit Barbican Art Gallery, David Parry © Beatriz González.
#FLODown: A major retrospective of Beatriz González at the Barbican Centre, marks the Colombian artist’s first UK solo show and largest European presentation. Spanning six decades and over 150 works, the exhibition highlights her distinctive practice across painting, sculpture, and installation. Known as “la maestra,” González transforms found images, from Old Master paintings to newspaper photos of political violence, into a visual language exploring power, memory, and the legacies of colonialism, from Los suicidas del Sisga (1965) to A Posteriori (2022).
Date: 25 February – 10 May 2026. Location: Barbican Art Gallery, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS. Price: from £19 + £1.50 BF. Concessions available. Book now
Encounters: Giacometti x Lynda Benglis
Encounters: Giacometti x Lynda’s Benglis at Barbican Centre. © Jonathan Pow
#FLODown: The third exhibition in the Barbican’s Encounters series, brings together works by contemporary American artist Lynda Benglis and 20th-century Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti for the first time. Benglis presents a new body of previously unseen works alongside her own selection of Giacometti’s sculptures, creating a dialogue across generations. Since the 1960s, Benglis has been celebrated for her playful yet visceral forms that are simultaneously organic and abstract, while Giacometti is renowned for his elongated figures and existential approach to the human form. The exhibition highlights the connections between their practices, offering a conversation between past and present sculptural languages.
Date: 5 February – 24 May 2026. Location: Barbican Art Gallery, Barbican Centre, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: From £8. Concessions available. Book now
Aki Sasamoto: Grilled Diagrams
Aki Sasamoto, Grilled Diagrams, 2026. Installation view, Studio Voltaire, 2026. Commissioned and produced by Studio Voltaire. Image courtesy of the artist, Bortolami Gallery, Take Ninagawa and Studio Voltaire. The film Do Nut Diagram is courtesy Akeroyd Collection, the Time-Based media facet of the Shane Akeroyd Collection. Image credit Sarah Rainer.
#FLODown: Aki Sasamoto’s Grilled Diagrams marks her first solo institutional exhibition in the UK, featuring a site-specific installation that functions as both a sculptural environment and performance set. The work includes a custom-built, oversized griddle, inspired by cooking shows and street food, which Sasamoto activates in live performances during the opening and closing weeks. The installation explores the tension between disorder and control, using common place objects and improvised interactions to probe the relationships between people, objects, and their surroundings. Through this work, Sasamoto invites audiences to reconsider the poetics of daily life and the participatory possibilities of sculpture.
Date: 4 February – 19 April 2026. Location: Studio Voltaire, 1A Nelsons Row, London SW4 7JR. Price: Free. studiovoltaire.org
Laura Lima: The Drawing Drawing
Laura Lima, Parasol Deux, 2023/2026. Red parasol, metal, motors, electrical components, wheels, sound. Audio composition by Laura Lima and Ricardo Siri.
#FLODown: The first solo exhibition by Brazilian artist Laura Lima in London is on show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and showcases her multidisciplinary practice that includes sculpture, performance, and living bodies. The show features a new commission that reimagines the traditional life drawing class, alongside earlier works such as Ascenseur (2013), where a performer is partially visible through architectural barriers. Across the Upper and Lower Galleries, Lima’s installations explore movement, playfulness, and the boundaries between audience and artwork, creating an unpredictable yet poetic experience.
Date: 27 January – 29 March 2026. Location: Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH. Price: from £7.50. Concessions available. Book now
Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life
Installation view of Chiharu Shiota, Threads of Life. During Sleep (2026) Image credit Mark Blower. Courtesy of the Hayward Gallery. © DACS, London, 2026 and Chiharu Shiota.
#FLODown: Threads of Life features large-scale installations by Chiharu Shiota, filling the Hayward Gallery with intricate, web-like structures made from woollen thread. Enveloping everyday objects such as shoes, keys, beds, and dresses, the works explore the body, memory, consciousness, and the fragility of existence. Drawing on personal experiences while addressing universal themes of life, death, and relationships, the exhibition also includes new sculptures, drawings, early performance videos, and photographs. Shiota’s installations engage directly with the Hayward Gallery’s brutalist architecture, creating a striking, atmospheric environment that features new iterations of her monumental works, some of which will be brought to life through live performances during the exhibition.
Date: 17 February – 3 May 2026. Location: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Price: £19 / Members free. Concessions available. Book now
Catherine Opie: To Be Seen
Pig Pen, 1993 © Catherine Opie, courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul; Thomas Dane Gallery
#FLODown: To Be Seen is the first major UK museum exhibition of American artist Catherine Opie’s photographic portraits, opening at the National Portrait Gallery in March. Covering more than 30 years of work, it redefines who is seen, represented, and valued in art. From her early series Being and Having (1991) to later, beautifully composed portraits, the exhibition addresses questions of home, intimacy, identity, and power on both personal and political levels. Opie’s conceptually rigorous photographs give visibility to queer communities, collaborators, families, political gatherings, and the artist herself. Curated in close collaboration with Opie, the exhibition also places her work in conversation with the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection, inviting reflection on those historically centred in portraiture and those who have remained unseen.
Date: 5 March – 31 May 2026. Location: National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE. Price:£19.50 / £21.50 with donation. Free for members. Book now
Nan Goldin – The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
Installation view with Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1973-86). Artwork © Nan Goldin. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
#FLODown: Gagosian is showing The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, an exhibition by Nan Goldin that presents all 126 photographs from her landmark photobook. The work, created between 1973 and 1986, offers an intimate chronicle of relationships, gender, intimacy, and power, capturing the vibrancy and struggles of downtown New York life. Described by Goldin as “the diary I let people read,” the photographs draw directly from her own experiences and friendships, documenting a generation often absent from mainstream history. The Ballad, originally conceived as a slideshow accompanied by a soundtrack, influences decades of visual culture and continues to resonate with audiences today.
Date: 13 January – 21 March 2026. Location: Gagosian, Davies Street, London W1K 3DE. Price: Free. gagosian.com
Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov
Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov at Raven Row, 2025. Image credit MTotoe/ FLO London
#FLODown: Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov examines the influential yet often overlooked contribution of Christine Kozlov to the development of Conceptual Art from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. Focusing on her objects, ideas, and collaborative practices, the exhibition situates Kozlov within a radical artistic movement that rejected dominant trends such as Minimalism, Pop Art, and high modernism in favour of politically engaged, dematerialised approaches to art-making. Featuring works made with everyday materials and documentary formats, alongside pieces by key peers and collaborators including On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, and Art & Language, the exhibition highlights Kozlov’s role within an international network of artists and traces her practice through her move to the UK and her later responses to global political events.
Date: 19 February–26 April 2026. Location: Raven Row, 56 Artillery Lane, London E1 7LS. Price: Free. ravenrow.org
Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart
Installation view of Yin Xiuzhen, Heart to Heart. Image credit Mark Blower. Image courtesy of the Hayward Gallery.
#FLODown: The first major UK survey of leading Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen is on show at the Hayward Gallery, taking over the lower-level galleries. Heart to Heart showcases three decades of her work, including seminal projects, new commissions, and historic pieces reimagined for the space. Made from everyday objects, industrial materials, and used clothing, the exhibition encourages visitors to see familiar items in new ways, revealing the personal and collective stories they carry. The opening of Heart to Heart coincides with the launch of Threads of Life by Chiharu Shiota.
Date: 17 February – 3 May 2026. Location: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London , SE1 8XZ. Price: £19. Concessions available. Book now
Klára Hosnedlová: Echo
Installation view, Klára Hosnedlová, Echo, White Cube, London (11 February-29 March 2026). Image courtesy White Cube.
#FLODown: Klára Hosnedlová’s solo exhibition Echo, on view at White Cube Bermondsey, marks the artist’s debut with the gallery and showcases her distinctive, multidisciplinary practice, which combines sculpture, performance, architecture, and intricate embroidery to create immersive, otherworldly environments. Drawing on historical narratives, utopian design, and Central-Eastern European architectural forms, Hosnedlová transforms spaces into tactile compositions that suggest futuristic archaeological worlds.
Date: 11 February – 29 March 2026. Location: White Cube Bermondsey, 144–152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ. Price: Free. Book now
We Others: Donna Gottschalk and Hélène Giannecchini
Oah, Robin, Binky, Chris et moi, Bébés Gouines, E. 9th Street, New York, 1969
#FLODown: The exhibition We Others at The Photographers’ Gallery will bring together Donna Gottschalk’s intimate photographs of queer life and texts by Hélène Giannecchini, creating a dialogue across generations about visibility, memory, and the courage to be seen. Gottschalk (b. 1949, New York) grew up on the streets of the Lower East Side, and her work documents the daily lives of her chosen family, friends, lovers, and fellow activists, capturing moments of tenderness and resilience amid violence and homophobia. Her photographs, taken during the early years of the lesbian, trans, and gay rights movements, celebrate those she describes as “brave and defiant warriors.” Paired with Giannecchini’s texts, written after they met in 2023, the exhibition reflects on lives often obscured in mainstream history, connecting past and present through shared experiences of marginalisation and the desire to be remembered.
Date: 6 March – 7 June 2026. Location: The Photographers’ Gallery, 16–18 Ramillies Street, London W1F 7LW. Price: £10 (£7 concession). Advance: £8.50 (£6 concession). Members go free. Book advance tickets online for 15% off the full admission price. Book now
Karimah Ashadu: Tendered
Karimah Ashadu, 'Pure Rugged Water', 'Cotch I' & 'Cotch II', installation view Tendered, Camden Art Centre, 2025. Courtesy the artist, Fondazione In Between Art Film, Sadie Coles HQ, London and Camden Art Centre. Image credit Andrea Rossetti.
#FLODown: Tendered is the first UK institutional solo exhibition by UK/Nigerian artist and filmmaker Karimah Ashadu (b. 1985), presented by Camden Art Centre in partnership with Fondazione In Between Art Film. Curated by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi, the exhibition centres on the premiere of MUSCLE (2025), a newly commissioned moving-image installation that explores hyper-masculinity and socio-economic struggle in the slums of Lagos. Accompanied by a suite of sculptures referencing the film’s visual language, the show also includes earlier works such as King of Boys (2015) and Cowboy (2022), that expand on themes of labour, masculinity, and urban subculture in West Africa. Ashadu, who grew up between Nigeria and the UK, employs a cinematic style rooted in painting and a critical lens that challenges colonial documentary tropes. Her work navigates the interplay between masculinity, economic survival, and postcolonial legacy.
Date: 10 October - 22 March 2026. Location: Camden Art Centre, Arkwright Road, London NW3 6DG. Price: Free. camdenartcentre.org
Julia Phillips: Inside, Before They Speak
Installation view. Inside, Before They Speak, Julia Phillips. Image credit Thomas Adank. Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery
#FLODown: Inside, Before They Speak by Julia Phillips at the Barbican presents newly commissioned sculptures and drawings that give form to psychological states and biological processes. Using cast and glazed ceramics pressed from her own body alongside metal structures, Phillips explores the human body, attachment, and the mechanics of conception. The works, including large hanging sculptures and detailed drawings, engage with the Curve’s architecture, creating a tactile and reflective environment that highlights the intersection of the organic and the industrial.
Date: 30 January – 19 April 2026. Location: The Curve, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: Free. barbican.org.uk
Christina Mackie: Material Reality
Christina Mackie, Material Reality, installation view, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London, 30 January –19 April 2026. Image courtesy Goldsmiths CCA. Image credit Rob Harris.
#FLODown: Christina Mackie’s first UK institutional solo exhibition in over a decade, Material Reality, is on show at Goldsmiths CCA. The exhibition brings together new commissions and key works from the past 15 years, celebrating Mackie’s distinctive approach to sculpture, painting, and installation, and highlighting her investigations into materiality, process, and perception. Across the show, natural and manufactured materials are used to address geological, environmental, digital, and scientific ways of seeing, reflecting Mackie’s major contribution to British contemporary art.
Date: 30 January –19 April 2026. Location: Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, St James’s, New Cross, London SE14 6AD. Price: Free. goldsmithscca.art
