Having safely exited 2025, we now look ahead toward the cultural highlights of 2026 – marked by that particular early-in-the-year enthusiasm for what will unfold next. However illusory, it’s a time of reset, where it’s easy to feel a sense of anticipation and possibility; within the context of the art scene, that means a longing for exhibitions that deliver beauty and provocation and reflection. Art can, of course, subtly or explicitly draw our attention to social problems, shifts, and triumphs, or provide a much-needed escape from the headaches of the everyday hellscape with alternative worlds and improbable visions.

The exhibitions below offer us something in the way of meaning, affirmation, enigma, wonder, spectacle, surprise, and more. Here are a few shows in the UK and beyond to mark your calendars for during the year ahead...

WOLFGANG TILLMANS, KEEP MOVIN’

Following Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us, the ambitious institutional presentation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris last year, Wolfgang Tillmans latest exhibition highlights photographs (some taken at a metalworking factory in Remscheid, the West German city where he was born), cameraless ‘light contaminations’ of photographic paper exposed to bright light sources in the darkroom, and two 2025 video works that premiered at the Centre Pompidou (one revolving around flora and the sounds of the kalimba, the other resembling a drone flight over a dense urban landscape). Visitors will also be treated to a new iteration of Truth Study Centre, the artist’s ongoing table arrangement in which he distils contemporary discourse by way of texts, ephemera, images, and personal work. 

Wolfgang Tillmans, Keep Movin’ is running from 15 January until 1 March at Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

DAVID LYNCH

This gallery exhibition will bring together David Lynch’s Surrealism-inspired paintings placed in frames designed by Lynch himself, three upright lamp sculptures (made of steel, resin, plexiglass, plaster, and wood), watercolours, and early short films. In a pointed connection with the city, there will also be a series of factory photographs Lynch took in Berlin at abandoned industrial sites in 1999, showcasing his fascination with decaying urban landscape (here articulated in smokestacks, chimneys, broken windows, and heavy machinery). The show precedes a major exhibition of Lynch’s work in fall 2026 at Pace’s gallery in Los Angeles, a city whose mythology he heightened in so many disquieting and perplexing films.

David Lynch is running from 29 January until 22 March at Pace Gallery Die Tankstelle Berlin.

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, HEADSTRONG: BASQUIAT ON PAPER

Featuring 45 artworks by the late artist, Headstrong: Basquiat on Paper is dedicated to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s depictions of the human head: a frequent motif, be it anatomical or caricatural; these were all produced during a prolific and experimental stretch of the early 1980s. Works on paper played a dominant role in Basquiat’s work, and these drawings, almost all carried out with colourful oil stick, have a gripping immediacy – many of them were made on the floor. Basquiat kept most of them to himself during his lifetime, similarly to Lucian Freud…

Headstrong: Basquiat on Paper is running from 30 January until 17 May at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.

LUCIAN FREUD, DRAWING INTO PAINTING

Lucian Freud tacitly relied on drawing throughout his practice. Unsurprisingly, he drew from an early age. From the mid-1950s to the 1970s, painting was Freud’s main preoccupation and drawing became relegated to sketchbooks, but he returned to drawing with more dedication in the mid-1970s. This exhibition encompasses childhood sketches, preparatory studies, and unfinished paintings – some on display for the first time – reflecting how drawing was central to Freud’s creative process. Visually in the mix: errant telephone numbers and betting tips, as well as drafts of love letters.

Lucian Freud, Drawing Into Painting is running from 12 February until 4 May at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

KYOTOGRAPHIE

Bringing together 13 artists for its 14th edition, themed around the concept of ‘Edge’ (think: marginal! tipping point! instability!), the Japanese festival offers its signature array of talks, a book fair, and masterclass workshops in addition to city-wide exhibitions. At the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, you’ll find a comprehensive survey of Daido Moriyama’s work by way of magazines and photobooks; at the Museum of Kyoto Annex, you’ll find Dazed favourite Linder Sterling. Also expect indelible portraits by Pieter Hugo and Anton Corbijn, whose work is never to be missed.

Kyotographie International Photography Festival runs from 18 April to 17 May in Kyoto, Japan.

ARTHUR JAFA AND RICHARD PRINCE, HELTER SKELTER

Presented during the Biennale, this dialogue between major artists Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince is sure to be a huge draw between pavilions. As the introductory text puts it, the two “share an ethos of lawlessness when it comes to the appropriation and manipulation of images siphoned from movies, pulp novels, comic books, YouTube videos, sci-fi stories, album covers, record sleeves, rock ‘n’ roll posters, first-edition Beat volumes, news reels, celebrity memorabilia, and social-media posts”. Indeed! The installation will unfold through a series of thematic juxtapositions that highlight their respective practices and joint Americana obsessions. As the original boisterous 1968 Helter Skelter lyric says: “Look out!”

Helter Skelter will run from 9 May until 23 November at Fondazione Prada, Venice.

ANA MENDIETA

Cuban-American Ana Mendieta was active in the 1970s and early 80s before her untimely and abrupt death. This show presents many of her iconic multimedia creations – earthworks, body art, and performance art – alongside newly remastered films, early paintings, and late sculptural pieces, many of which have never been seen in the UK before. Mendieta is best known for her Super 8 Silueta Series, exploring and recording presence and absence via ephemeral works animated by fire, water, and flowers. Her work is often ethereal (featuring limestone grottos, references to ancient goddesses, pre-Columbian totems), but it is also unshy about addressing violence (restaged rape, murder scenes). With its themes of displacement, fragile embodiment, and longing to connect to nature, her work remains incredibly resonant with our times

Ana Mendieta runs from 9 July 226 until 10 January 2027 at Tate Modern, London.

THE 90s

Curated by Edward Enninful OBE, The 90s examines a decade we simply can’t stop looking back at. Enninful himself was just 18 years old in 1990, when he became an unfathomably young magazine fashion director. As Britain began to emerge from recession, it bred a wave of creative freedom and a fancifully rebellious spirit. The exhibition explores how high art and pop culture crossed over, celebrating the artists who emerged from this time: photographers including Juergen Teller, Nick Knight, David Sims and Corrine Day; designers including Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, and Hussein Chalayan; and artists including Damien Hirst, Gillian Wearing, and Yinka Shonibare. In a recent New York Times interview, the latter has reminisced: “Rather than artists waiting for galleries to pick them up, it was all about us organising our own shows. Because of the economic downturn, there were a lot of empty buildings in London. There was this whole warehouse thing that happened.” Long live the legacy of 90s DIY.

The 90s runs from 8 October 2026 until 14 February 2027 at Tate Britain, London.