LONDON.- As a centrepiece of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme, the Hayward Gallery presents a landmark exhibition from Anish Kapoor (16 June - 18 October 2026), marking his highly-anticipated return to the space after it was the first public gallery in the UK to host a major survey of his work in 1998. Curated by Ralph Rugoff, the show spans new and seminal works, offering a series of spectacular encounters with Kapoor’s sculptures and paintings across the entire gallery and its terraces.
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Anish Kapoor: Unseen
By Sarah Fredholm
A striking contemporary art volume exploring Anish Kapoor’s sculptural language, material intensity, and powerful investigations of space, perception, and the unseen.
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Anish Kapoor is internationally renowned for making art that provokes the senses and the mind. Over the last four decades, he has relentlessly experimented with a wide range of materials to create evocative sculptures and paintings that spark a deep sense of mystery. From black holes to boundless mirrors, Kapoor’s work interrogates what he calls ‘the space of the object’, inviting us to look twice and question how we experience our environment.
At the heart of the exhibition are three monumental works that defy the boundaries of conventional sculpture, each filling an entire section of the Hayward. Visitors can first explore a gallery completely transformed by a colossal and imposing new work: an inflated PVC membrane that fills the six-metre-high space, challenging our sense of scale and self.
In a second new work, a dark mountainous threshold looms down amid a sprawling red landscape contained within the upper gallery. In a third section, Mount Moriah at the Gate of the Ghetto (2022) defies gravity as it descends from the ceiling, hovering inches above the gallery’s floor tiles. Overwhelming in size and emotional intensity, these monumental works elaborate on Kapoor’s fascination with the sublime.
The exhibition also highlights the artist’s ongoing exploration of perceptual illusions, including seemingly depthless ‘void’ works and sculptures coated with Vantablack: a light-absorbing nanotechnology so black it makes three-dimensional forms appear entirely flat when seen head-on. Large-scale mirrored steel sculptures, placed on the Hayward’s outdoor terraces, further immerse visitors in a perceptual journey that combines discovery and disorientation.
Lastly, the exhibition features some of Kapoor’s strikingly visceral paintings and sculptures from the past decade. Created using silicone, resin, and pigment, these intense works conjure splayed-open bodies and internal organs. The paintings and sculptures challenge our psychological responses, asking us to reflect on what it means to exist in an age where violent images are pervasive.
Taken altogether, the artworks in the exhibition ask audiences to shift their attention away from the surface, inviting them to imagine what lies beyond.
Ralph Rugoff, Curator of Anish Kapoor, says: “Anish Kapoor has been globally celebrated for making art that is both sensorially engaging and deeply thought-provoking, and we’re delighted to welcome him back to the Hayward 28 years after his first UK retrospective here. Utilising a wide range of scales and adventurously experimenting with different materials, Kapoor takes us on an exhilarating perceptual journey that plumbs existential questions, illuminating surprising links between our experiences of the sublime and extreme abjection, the spiritual and the physical.”
Anish Kapoor says: “I am thrilled to be making an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery with Ralph Rugoff and to be returning to the Hayward after 28 years. The Southbank Centre has over the last 75 Years been central to London's cultural life and I am honoured to make an exhibition to celebrate this anniversary.”
Mark Ball, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, says: “We are thrilled to welcome Anish Kapoor back to the Hayward Gallery for what promises to be a truly unforgettable experience at the heart of Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year. The exhibition also provides a moment to celebrate the inspirational curatorial leadership and legacy of the Hayward’s departing Director, Ralph Rugoff. His vision has shaped the Gallery into the iconic space that it is today, with two decades of innovation and the introduction of countless boundary-pushing artists. I want to thank Ralph for his tenure, with this exhibition a fitting finale for his time at the Hayward Gallery.”
A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, including insights from psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, art historians Nancy Spector and Sandhini Poddar, and an extensive interview with exhibition curator Ralph Rugoff. Please note, this item is pre-order only and will be available for delivery in July.
A Limited Edition hand-signed giclée print commissioned for the exhibition is also available. Taken from one of Kapoor’s recent gouache drawings, The Dark (2026) depicts his iconic motif – the void, as soft, sensual and iridescent opening. The Dark is an edition of 250 and sales support the Southbank Centre's pioneering programme of events. More information can be found HERE.
Taking place across four Saturdays, visitors can experience Touching the Quick, a series of musical performances in response to specific sculptures in the show, composed by Brian Elias and performed live by horn player Ben Goldscheider.
