You’ve really gotta hand it to Tate. The UK’s largest gallery conglomerate is in a league of its own when it comes to programming season after season of blockbuster exhibitions. Hot on the heels of the institution’s widely lauded Tracey Emin retrospective, in the brief lull before its next major opening – Tate Britain’s Hurvin Anderson exhibition arrives at the end of the month – the institution has announced its full programme for 2027, and there are plenty of bangers to get excited about.
From 18th century landscapes and 20th century ink painting to giants of impressionism and post-impressionism, here’s everything to look forward to next year at two of London’s biggest and best art galleries.
Tate Modern
Tate kicks off 2027 with a huge exhibition examining Claude Monet’s relationship with time at Tate Modern. The gallery’s first ever exhibition to focus exclusively on the works of Impressionism’s founding father, Monet: Painting Time (Feb 25-Jun 27) promises to bring together loans from across the globe to examine how he evoked the rapid pace of modern life through fleeting, transient moments in time.
Spring will see the arrival of the gallery’s inaugural exhibition focusing on the practice of ink painting. Focusing on 20th century artists in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, Ink (Apr 22-Aug 20) will examine this ‘enduring and profoundly philosophical’ discipline through 80 works, elucidating its relationship to natural world and challenging Western narratives on modern art.
Summer will see Tate Modern’s iconic Turbine Hall play host to a major multimedia installation by David Hockney to coincide with the legendary British artist’s 90th birthday in July. A huge fan of opera, Hockney has created sets and costumes for the likes of the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne Festival, and NYC’s Met Opera, and these will be brought to life as large scale projections around the cavernous space at the centre of the gallery.
Next up is the UK’s first ever solo exhibition on Baya (Jun 10-Oct 17), a groundbreaking 20th century Algerian artist known for vibrantly colourful, geometric paintings rooted in her homeland’s creative and natural surroundings. Through more than 100 watercolours and ceramic sculptures, Tate Modern’s landmark exhibition will bring to light her genre-defying but distinctly modernist oeuvre, and its impact on artists and thinkers including Pablo Picasso and André Breton.
Tate will simultaneously spotlight the career of another groundbreaking female artist with the largest exhibition to date on multidisciplinary Indian artist Nalini Malani (Jul 1-Jan 3 2028), whose monumental multimedia installations have achieved global recognition, rewriting Western and Eastern history while evoking both beauty and discomfort.
In the autumn, Tate Modern will turn its attention to contemporary American artist Lynda Benglis (Sep 30-Mar 5 2028). Best known for her wax paintings and the painterly sculptures or ‘pours’ that she made in the 1960s using liquid latex mixed with colourful paints, the multidisciplinary artist has worked with materials ranging from bronze and ceramic to polyurethane foam and glitter over her convention-challenging five-decade career.
Tate Modern closes out the 2027 season with a compelling new exhibition on ‘The Scream’ painter Edvard Munch (Nov 11-Apr 23 2028), examining the Expressionist’s powerful, cinematic images through the lens of cinema and visual storytelling. Featuring Munch’s experimental films and rare archival material alongside key works from his major series The Frieze of Life, the exhibition will feature unique insights from filmmakers and academics to explore why the Norwegian artist’s enduring relevance.
The 2027 season will also see the return of Tate Modern’s three major annual commissions. the cutting-edge Infinities Commission in the Tanks, the participatory summer commission for Uniqlo Tate Play, and the world-renowned Hyundai Commission in the Turbine Hall in the autumn.
Tate Britain
Tate Britain starts the year with a retrospective on British and Afro-Caribbean artist Sonia Boyce (Mar 24-Aug 22). Beginning with her emergence as part of the Black British Arts Movement of the 1980s, the exhibition will delve into the major moments in Boyce’s fiercely experimental 40-year career, bringing together large-scale installations, photography, collage, drawing, film and sculpture, including key works such as her Devotional series and early pastel drawings and collages.
In the spring, Tate Britain will present a landmark exhibition marking the 300th birthday of one of the nation’s greatest portraitists, Thomas Gainsborough (May 20-Oct 10). The first major survey of his work in over 20 years will bring together 120 paintings and drawings to examine the Georgian painter’s considerable influence on British art history.
David Hockney exhibitions always go down well in London, and as part of the gallery conglomerate’s wider celebrations of his 90th birthday, Tate Britain will host its second exhibition on the the totemic artist in twelve years (following its acclaimed exhibition in 2017). Spanning the entirety of the painter’s prolific seven-decade career, David Hockney (Oct 7-Feb 20 2028) will focus on the key role that friends, family and lovers have played in Hockney’s exploration of intimacy, vulnerability and human connection.
Autumn will also see the gallery delving into the opulent world of Tudor England with Tate’s first major presentation of Tudor artwork in three decades. Featuring key works by leading artists including Hans Holbein, Nicholas Hilliard, and Isaac Oliver, and iconic portraits of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, The Tudors (Nov 18-Apr 23 2028) promises to ‘cast a whole new light on our understanding of art from this time’ with brand new scientific and technical research.
And as always, Tate Britain’s Art Now programme of free exhibitions will continue to showcase emerging artistic talent.
More details on all of the newly announced exhibitions can be found here. And if you’ve let your Tate membership lapse, you might want to renew it now. That’s a hell of a lot of brilliant art to get through.
You can find a guide to 2027 exhibitions at Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives here.
Also just announced: the big Christmas show at London’s National Theatre will be a brand new adaptation of ‘The Jungle Book’.
And a new £15 million music venue will open in a legendary old east London theatre.
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Art doesn’t have to shock
Art doesn’t have to shock
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