From the unveiling of the annual Serpentine Pavilion, a visual spectacle by Mexican studio Lanza Atelier, to London Gallery Weekend which returned for its sixth edition from 5-7 June, London’s art scene is thriving this June. If you missed this, do not fret, there are still plenty of exhibitions to sink your teeth into, especially now that the brief heatwave has dissipated and Londoners seek refuge from the rain. At Courtauld Gallery enjoy the sculptural pieces by Barbara Hepworth, an exhibition dedicated to her work in colour. Wrap your head around the optical illusions of Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher or play with light at Tate Modern’s Julio Le Parc showcase. The sun and the moon are at the centre of the universe at Saatchi Gallery, while the Barbican highlights the influence of Pan-Africanism on contemporary culture and art. From group shows to career retrospectives, plan your next visit with our frequently updated guide to the month’s best offerings.
Heading across the pond? Here are the best New York art exhibitions to see this month.
London art exhibitions: what to see in June 2026
Colour is the Place
Dirimart London until 18 July 2026
The works by four painters, Hashel Al Lamki, Çağla Ulusoy, Tala Worrell, and Berke Yazıcıoğlu, are united in this group exhibition, Colour is the Place, at Dirimart London. Each artist sees the canvas as a vessel for reflection, yet each offers a different perspective creating tension between the foreign and the familiar. The exhibition is layered in perception ,the subconscious, and challenges cultural expectations.
Project a Black Planet: A Season
Barbican Centre from June until September 2026
The influence of Pan-Africanism on modern arts and culture is explored and celebrated at the Barbican this summer season. The term ‘pan-africanism’ was coined in the early 20th century and is used as an umbrella term for political and philosophical movements advocating for self-determination, anti-colonial resistance, and transnational solidarity among peoples of African descent. Across the summer season, this is unwrapped across thirty events spanning art, cinema, music, performance, and talks.
Hepworth in Colour
The Courtauld Gallery 12 June until 6 September 2026
Barbara Hepworth is best known for her sculptural pieces inspired by organic forms and seaside landscapes of Cornwall, where she resided. Discussing her pioneering use of colour in sculpture with her son-in-law, the art historian Alan Bowness, Hepworth stated ‘In a way my colour has been accepted, but never understood’. This exhibition is dedicated to her work in colour, from her early sculptures from the 1940s to drawings, and more renowned pieces from the 1950s and 1960s.
The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial
Saatchi Gallery 5 June - 8 September 2026
Spanning across two floors of the gallery this celestial exhibition looks at both sun and moon and how it has inspired creativity across cultures and time. The group show, which is presented as a 24 hour cycle from dawn to dusk, showcases works from emerging and established artists who were invited to interpret the sun and moon.
M.C. Escher. The Exhibition
Somerset House 5 June 2026
Presented in London for the first time is a major retrospective dedicated to Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher (Maurits Cornelis Escher) From tricky visual puzzles to optical illusions, M.C.Escher’s works unite maths and art. The exhibition takes visitors through themes which brought the artist into view, from landscapes to metamorphoses, which highlights his intricate techniques and research.
Paulo Nimer Pjota: Encantados
South London Gallery 1 May until 23 Aug 2026
Working predominantly with oil and acrylic, Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota creates large canvas paintings which nod to art history and pop culture. Here, he recreates new and imaginary scenarios to conjure a new world that feels mythological. His pieces nod to music, such as a three-headed beast playing the trumpet, horn, drum and sax all at the same time. This reflects the artist’s approach to the sampling and remixing practices adopted in Brazilian hip-hop and rap music, as well as on his experience as a graffiti artist as a teenager.
Nhu Xuan Hua: Of Walking on Fire
Autograph 16 April - 19 September 2026
Rooted in language’s inability to fully convey complex family histories, Nhu Xuan Hua reimagines archival photographs from her family’s time in Vietnam and their early years in Europe. Her work, which sits between art and fashion photography, explores how stories are conveyed across generations, and how the memory and recollection of such can be fractured.
Julio Le Parc: Light. Colour. Action.
Tate Modern 11 June 2026 until 3 May 2027
Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc presents seven decades of works, which invites visitors to join in themselves. His kinetic sculptures uses light and movement across mirrored surfaces to create a mesmerising spectacle. The interactive nature of the installation allows for art to be enjoyed by all.
Delcy Morelos: Origo
Barbican, Sculpture Court until 31 July 2026
It's been a decade since there has been artwork in the Barbican’s Sculpture Court. Now, Colombian artist Delcy Morelos has broken the cycle with a new commission to create a multisensory environment. The artwork, composed of soil, aims to highlight the material's importance in sustaining the world's delicate ecosystem. The immersive installation, inspired by Andean and Amazonian architecture, offers shifting light and different smells across 24 metres, providing a soft, tactile contrast to the Barbican’s brutalist facade.
The Everythingists by Es Devlin
V&A East Storehouse until 18 October 2026
The work by the Russian artist Natalia Goncharova is the inspiration for Es Devlin’s exhibition at V&A East Storehouse. ‘Everythingism’, (Vsechestvo in Russian) was used to describe Goncharova’s work which spanned across painting, theatre design, fashion and performance art. Devlin, who is equally not enclosed to one medium, relates to this terminology. ‘The Everythingists’ showcases Devlin's sculptural drawings inspired by Goncharova’s painted backdrop made for 1926 Ballet Russes production of The Firebird.
T. Venkanna
Studio Voltaire until 23 August 2026
Indian artist T. Venkanna showcases a new series of paintings which question sexual imagination and how this is intertwined with societal norms, freedom and repression. His paintings are also inspired by his recent travels around Europe, nodding to the Early Renaissance devotional panel paintings. This exhibition is the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition.
Genuine Fake Premium Economy: Jenna Bliss, Buck Ellison & Jasmine Gregory
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London until 5 July 2026
In this joint exhibition American artists Jenna Bliss, Buck Ellison and Jasmine Gregory, look at the structure of class, labour and value. Being presented at a time of increasing wealth inequality, the artists reflect on their personal transition into adulthood during the 2008 financial crisis. Tearing apart the foundations of the American Dream, the artists raise a magnifying glass on the generation shaped by a fractured global economy.
Voice of the Street – Keith Haring’s Subway Drawings
MOCO Museum London until 18 June 2026
Moco Museum is transforming into a New York 1980s subway, with a focus on Keith Haring’s chalk drawings. 30 of his works, which he drew between 1980 and 1985, are recreated in a subway environment. These works were immediate, yet often erased within hours – his fast paced drawing was meant to be enjoyed by everyone, as the artist once said; ‘Art is for everybody.’
Donald Locke: Resistant Forms
Camden Art Centre until 30 August 2026
Camden Art Centre deep dives into the work of the late Guyanese-British artist Donald Locke. This exhibition is designed to showcase his significant contributions as a post-war artist of the Windrush Generation and 20th century British sculpture, which has been significantly overlooked. Expect to see his early biomorphic ceramics, large scale paintings, and mixed media.
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art
V&A from 28 March 2026
Designer Elsa Schiaparelli wearing black silk dress with crocheted collar of her own design and a turban, photograph by Fredrich Baker, Vogue, 1940
The V&A welcomes the UK’s first exhibition on fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, spanning her work from the 1920s, to the fashion house’s evolution today, under the creative director Daniel Roseberry. His contemporary designs have created conversation in recent years; including a dress with faux-taxidermy lion heads, to a delicate lung dress boasting a string of golden veins.
The Music is Black: A British Story
V&A East Museum from 18 April 2026
Also at the V&A is ‘The Music is Black: A British Story’, an exhibition charting 125 years of Black music-making in the UK. It is a deep dive into how this music shaped British culture.
Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations
Whitechapel Gallery until 14 June 2026
The exhibition showcases over 100 works across four decades from the Freelands Award and Turner Prize winning artist, Veronica Ryan. It highlights her expansive practice spanning sculpture, textiles, and works on paper. ‘Multiple Conversations’ also presents recently rediscovered works from the 1980s, which shows the artist's deep interest in psychology, and memory.
Racheal Crowther
Chisenhale Gallery until 14 June 2026
London-based artist Racheal Crowther’s exhibition with Chisenhale Gallery explores governance, surveillance, and institutional power, and how this is entangled with systems of care. Crowther investigates scent, which has been used as a tool of influence and social control, and traces the many roles of sensory manipulation across time.
The Coming of Age
Wellcome Collection from 25 March 2026
At the Wellcome Collection, ‘Coming of Age’ explores the perceptions of aging from adolescence to adulthood. Specifically it looks at how societies can adapt for us all to age better. The exhibition is rooted in the statistic that people are living longer. In the UK one in ten children are expected to live beyond the age of 100. The question the exhibition asks is ‘Who gets to live longer and “age well”?’ Bringing together different perspectives from art, science and popular culture, ‘Coming of Age’ explores the assumptions made about life stages and asks what greater longevity means for all of us.
David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting
Serpentine North until 23 August 2026
In his latest exhibition, and his first at Serpentine, David Hockney presents an exhibition inviting people to slow down and enjoy the beauty within the mundane. New works were created specifically for the showcase, rooted in his belief that beauty is worth celebrating.
Cecily Brown: Picture Making
Serpentine South Gallery until 6 September 2026
Inspired by Kensington Gardens, painter Cecily Brown presents her green compositions which dance with bold brushwork, and colour, resulting in dynamic movement within her pieces. Nature and park life are at the forefront of Brown’s work. Here you will see her exploring this theme through scale and colour, along with a sprinkling of romance from couples, woodland scenes and nature walks. It is a hopeful exhibition, which highlights the beauty within the English landscape, the nostalgia of children’s book illustrations, and has a hint of warning through cautionary tales, all of which are gestures to Brown’s own memories.
Tracey Emin: A Second Life
Tate Modern until 31 August
A much-anticipated landmark exhibition will open this month, tracing 40 years of Tracey Emin’s work, including painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation – and spanning unseen pieces as well as some of her most renowned works, such as the radical My Bed from 1998. The exhibition will explore her raw confessional work, which sparked widespread debate when she rose to prominence in the 1990s. Here, she explores themes of love, trauma, passion, pain and healing.
Wes Anderson: The Archives
Design Museum until 26 July 2026
The pastel-tinted world of Wes Anderson is celebrated in a retrospective coming to London’s Design Museum. This is the first exhibition dedicated to the director that looks at the evolution of his films. It will showcase over 600 models, props and costumes from Anderson’s films, from his first experiments in the 1990s right up to his most recent Oscar-winning The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Accompanying this, the exhibition will also feature his first drafts and work-in-progress material, including small-scale models such as the 3m wide model of The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The David Bowie Centre
V&A East Storehouse, permanent
Fashion, memorabilia and personal ephemera from David Bowie, now on view at the V&A East Storehouse in London, are as wondrous in their range as their creator. The pioneering musician's 90,000-item personal archive are equally accessible, and – like the artist at the heart of it – equally wondrous in their range. Bowie was an inveterate curator – you might say hoarder – of his own life, keeping every quicksilver fashion statement, every scrap of paper, every piece of memorabilia, amassing a deeply personal life-map that accompanies the Centre’s 70,000 photographs, negatives and colour transparencies. So, alongside the rejection letters are fan correspondence that he kept with equal assiduousness.
Writer Craig McLean
Read the full review of The David Bowie Centre