Serpentine 2026: major solo exhibitions, landmark pavilion, and Zaha Hadid legacy talks

As 2026 approaches, the Serpentine Galleries in London prepare for a landmark year. Next year marks the 25th Serpentine Pavilion, a milestone in the gallery’s pioneering architectural commission series that began in 2000 with Dame Zaha Hadid. Alongside this, Serpentine will present major solo exhibitions by intergenerational artists exploring the intersections of technology, media, and contemporary visual culture. Here is your guide to what to expect at Serpentine in 2026, from David Hockney and Cecily Brown to the 25th Pavilion and talks celebrating Zaha Hadid’s legacy.

David Hockney

A Year in Normandie (detail), 2020-2021, composite iPad painting © David Hockney

#FLODown: Serpentine North will host David Hockney’s first exhibition at the gallery, featuring recent works presented in the UK for the first time. Hockney, celebrated for his digital and painterly explorations of light, time, and everyday life, will unveil a series of iPad paintings created during the pandemic, including the ambitious A Year in Normandy, a ninety-metre-long frieze inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry.

The exhibition also includes the Moon Room, reflecting Hockney’s fascination with light cycles, and his Sunrise series. This  display will offer audiences the chance to slow down and appreciate the rhythms of the natural world through Hockney’s lens.

Date: 12 March – 23 August 2026. Location: Serpentine North. Price: Free.

Cecily Brown

Cecily Brown, The Serpentine Picture, 2024, Oil on linen, 119.38 x 185.42 cm (47 x 73 in.), © Cecily Brown, 2025.

#FLODown: Serpentine South will showcase a major solo exhibition of Cecily Brown’s paintings, bringing together decades of her vigorous, colour-rich compositions. Brown’s works combine figurative and abstract elements, often drawing on nature, park life, and personal memory. The exhibition includes new paintings inspired by Kensington Gardens, alongside monotypes and drawings that reflect Brown’s engagement with the English landscape and narrative forms. Picture Makingmarks Brown’s first solo exhibition in the UK since 2005, offering a long-awaited homecoming for the New York-based British artist. A specially designed catalogue by Irma Boom will accompany the exhibition, featuring in-depth interviews and correspondences with fellow artists, providing fresh insights into Brown’s practice.

Date: 27 March – 6 September 2026. Location: Serpentine South. Price: Free.

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: In the autumn, Serpentine North presents the work of New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar. Known for his lyrical, multi-layered films and installations, Kanwar explores the legacies of partition, decolonisation, nationalism, and memory in the Indian subcontinent, while engaging with universal themes of displacement and power. This major solo exhibition, conceived in close collaboration with Kanwar, will transform Serpentine North into a meditative visual and sonic environment. Visitors can expect a combination of new and existing films, continuing the gallery’s long-term engagement with the artist, which began with Indian Highway in 2008. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring previously unpublished writing and an in-depth interview with Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Date: 23 September 2026 – January 2027. Location: Serpentine North. Price: Free.

The 25th Serpentine Pavilion

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2000 Designed by Zaha Hadid, Photograph © 2000 Hélène Binet

#FLODown: The 25th Serpentine Pavilion celebrates a quarter-century of one of the UK’s most influential architectural commissions. Launched in 2000 with Zaha Hadid, the Pavilion has consistently provided a platform for both emerging and established architects from around the world.

The 2026 Pavilion will include a programme of talks in collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation, reflecting on the commission’s history and future. Each year, the Pavilion becomes an activated space for live events and audience interaction, combining architectural innovation with cultural experience. Previous commissions have included Marina Tabassum (2025), Minsuk Cho (2024), Lina Ghotmeh (2023), and Theaster Gates (2022).

Further details on the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion are yet to be revealed.

Date: 6 June – 26 October 2026. Location: Serpentine South. Price: Free.

Zaha Hadid Foundation Talks: Commemorating Innovation

In 2026, the Serpentine and Zaha Hadid Foundation launch a dedicated programme of panel discussions and talks on architecture to commemorate Hadid’s legacy and mark the 25th Pavilion. The series brings together leading architects, thinkers, and cultural practitioners to reflect on the Pavilion’s history, explore questions at the forefront of architecture, and celebrate Hadid’s ethos: “There should be no end to experimentation.”

Head to serpentinegalleries.org for more on these exhibitions opening at the Serpentine in 2026.

Click here to discover more art exhibitions opening in London in 2026.