Archives: Exhibitions

About

★★★★★

“One of the most expertly curated and deeply satisfying displays of contemporary art in London in recent memory.” – Time Out

★★★★

“Convinces you that contemporary art is alive and kicking hard” – The Standard

Celebrating four decades of ground-breaking contemporary art, The Long Now is an expansive group show presenting new works by iconic artists closely associated with the Gallery’s dynamic history, alongside fresh voices from a new generation.

Spanning two floors and nine major exhibition spaces, the exhibition features special commissions, installations, painting and sculpture, and culminates with Richard Wilson’s iconic 20:50. A landmark in Saatchi Gallery’s history, 20:50 has been shown at each of the Gallery’s past locations and now, for the first time, is presented on the top floor.

Filling the space with recycled engine oil, it creates a mirrored environment that both disorients and captivates. In the context of today’s climate crisis, the work takes on renewed resonance, inviting reflection on the fragility of our surroundings, community, and environmental uncertainty.

The Long Now takes its name from a concept of fostering long-term thinking and challenging throwaway culture. Newly created works appear alongside historic pieces that remain impactful and relevant, continuing Saatchi Gallery’s tradition of showing art of the present while giving artists the space to realise ambitious ideas.

The exhibition opens with works exploring process and mark-making – a fundamental human gesture reimagined by Alice Anderson, Rannva Kunoy and Carolina Mazzolari. This spirit of experimentation runs through works by Tim Noble, André Butzer, Dan Colen, Jake Chapman and Polly Morgan, who push subject, style and scale.

At the centre stands Jenny Saville’s monumental Passage (2004). Combining strength and beauty, it exemplifies her ambition to “be a painter of modern life, and modern bodies.” The work anchors the exhibition’s energy, inviting a powerful and intimate encounter with the human form.

Painting, a constant in Saatchi Gallery’s programme, is further represented by Alex Katz, Michael Raedecker, Ansel Krut, Martine Poppe and Jo Dennis, alongside new and emerging voices who continue to expand the medium’s possibilities.

Immersive installations shift the focus from viewing to participation. Allan Kaprow’s YARD, with its chaotic arrangement of tyres, encourages movement and play, while Conrad Shawcross’s suspended Golden Lotus (Inverted) transforms a vintage car into a kinetic sculpture, prompting reflection on transformation, agency and the role of the viewer.

The exhibition raises questions of technology and the future, with Chino Moya, Mat Collishaw and Tom Hunter reflecting on surveillance, automation and AI – considering how the digital world permeates contemporary life.

Themes of fragility and climate change weave throughout. Gavin Turk’s fractured Bardo suggests cultural decay and the precarious balance between permanence and collapse, while works by Olafur Eliasson, Chris Levine and Frankie Boyle use light to create moments of contemplation. Environmental concerns are explored by Edward Burtynsky, Steven Parrino, Peter Buggenhout, Ibrahim Mahama, Ximena Garrido Lecca and Christopher Le Brun, who address extraction, waste and renewal.

Curated by Philippa Adams (Senior Director, Saatchi Gallery 1999- 2020).

Featured artists: Alice Anderson, Olivia Bax, Frankie Boyle, Edward Burtynsky, Peter Buggenhout, André Butzer, Jake Chapman, Mat Collishaw, Dan Colen, John Currin, Jo Dennis, Zhivago Duncan, Olafur Eliasson, Rafael Gómezbarros, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Damien Hirst, Tom Hunter, Henry Hudson, Alex Katz, Allan Kaprow, Maria Kreyn, Ansel Krut, Rannva Kunoy, Christopher Le Brun, Chris Levine, Ibrahim Mahama, Carolina Mazzolari, Jeff McMillan, Misha Milovanovich, Polly Morgan, Ryan Mosley, Chino Moya, Tim Noble, Alejandro Ospina, Steven Parrino, Martine Poppe, Michael Raedecker, Sterling Ruby, Jenny Saville, Petroc Sesti, Conrad Shawcross, Soheila Sokhanvari, John Squire, Dima Srouji, Gavin Turk, Richard Wilson, Alexi Williams Wynn.

This exhibition contains depictions of nudity and mature themes. Viewer/parental discretion is advised.

Supported by

With thanks to our collaborators: Artvisor, Morra Foundation and MONA Tasmania, EFG Private Bank Ltd, Sweet Harmony, Cauldwell Collection and the Fine Art Group.

About

Gesture and Being brings together new work from six recent graduates of Royal College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art: Anna Curzon Price, Gala Hills, Katja Farin, Mia Wilkinson, Poppy Critchlow and Qian Zhong. All working within the realms of figurative painting, these artists use their practice to challenge inherited narratives and expectations ascribed to gender, the body and the self. Together, they champion a self-expression that is free and fluid, presenting figures that are unstable, performative, dreamlike, or defiantly unruly. 

These artists reflect on how our personal narratives are often in flux with our internal dialogues, external interactions and our environment. Exploring interior worlds – psychological, emotional or symbolic – as much as physical ones, they consider how we are seen, staged and felt within both private and public realms. Domestic interiors, mythical spaces, imagined utopias and everyday moments become sites where tension and connection coexist, and where the body becomes an active, renewed force.  

Despite the playful and vivid use of colour, undertones are often unsettling. These paintings are layered with complex feeling, exploring themes of anxiety, vulnerability and discomfort. The environments presented here are both tender and confrontational, humorous and uneasy, where representation is not fixed but continually negotiated, and where the figure emerges as something porous, potent, and profoundly alive. 

Participating artists: Anna Curzon Price, Gala Hills, Katja Farin, Mia Wilkinson, Poppy Critchlow, Qian Zhong

About

Domestic Relics gathers eight artists whose work excavates the tender, unstable terrain of memory as it is held within the spaces, gestures, and objects of daily life. In this exhibition, the home becomes both setting and metaphor: a site where the past lingers in fabric folds, handwritten fragments, staged poses, and the quiet rituals that scaffold identity.

Across painting, sculpture, and hybrid forms, each artist offers a way of seeing the domestic not as ordinary, but as a living archive, one that preserves, distorts, conceals, and sometimes invents the stories we inherit. Together, these artists form a dialogue about what remains: the residues of physical experience, the subtle reorganising of the past through the present, and the uneasy- but-beautiful ways in which personal history becomes myth.

Participating artists: Theo Bardsley, Lee Cameron, Luna Sue Huang, Jennifer Jones, Matt Macken, Yejin Oh, George Richardson, Justin Tsui. 

Curated by Nick JS Thompson & Benjamin Murphy of Delphian Gallery, the artist-run, nomadic gallery and arts platform. 

About

Good Eye Projects returns to the Gallery with a group exhibition of artists from their Autumn 2024, Spring 2025 and Summer 2025 residency iterations. 

GEP is an artist residency programme founded in 2022. Embodying the artist-led ethos and community orientation of London’s vibrant emerging and early-career art scene, GEP hosts three residency iterations per year at their West London location, providing six artists per edition with free studio space in which to create. Since launching, GEP has supported 60 artists, and has presented off-site collaborations with Christie’s, Collective Ending HQ and Saatchi Gallery.

The exhibition will feature works by participating residency artists: 

Autumn 2024: DaddyBears, Lily Bunney, Harriet Gillett, Freya Fang Wang, Derrelle Elijah, Amelie Peace

Spring 2025: Mark Burch, Sofia Clausse, Roudhah Al Mazrouei, Sonya Derviz, Parham Ghalamdar, Amelie Mckee

Summer 2025: Rachel Mortlock, Leon Scott-Engel, Xinyu Han, Elleanna Chapman, Lulu Wang, Lau Yee Vanessa Fong

About

Beat the winter blues with boredom-busting art and activities inspired by our current major exhibition, The Long Now. Explore the exhibition, and then let your creative juices flow with this series of accompanying workshops. Suitable for children of all ages and led by Saatchi Gallery’s Learning team.

Register for a 30-minute slot between 11am – 3pm by clicking ‘Book Now’.

Build abstract sculptures using balloons, cardboard, tape, and bendable wire, before coating them in colourful paper mâché, inspired by Olivia Bax’s vibrant, playful creations. 

Please note, the works you create in this session will take a while to dry – we recommend bringing a carrier bag to take it home. 

Design and decorate handmade Valentine cards using collage and drawing. Notes can be made for loved ones, friends, or a special message for yourself!

You do not need a ticket to The Long Now to attend, however you can visit the exhibition on the same day by booking a ticket in advance here. 

These workshops are free of charge, with a suggested donation amount of £5. If you wish to support our charity, we would greatly appreciate a donation so we can continue to make art accessible to all. Select the donation price when booking, or donate in person at the Gallery. 

About

The Artist of the Future Prize 2025 launches its inaugural edition with an exhibition showcasing digital art by 10 artists from across the UK and Europe shortlisted for the prize. 

Launched as part of Peugeot’s Principal Patronage of Saatchi Gallery, the Prize showcases shortlisted works chosen by a distinguished panel of judges and an overall winner, who receives the accolade of Artist of the Future 2025 and a prize worth £10,000 (£5,000 in money and a media package valued at a further £5,000).

With Innovation as its theme, this first edition highlights artists who push the possibilities of digital art, challenge convention, and invite audiences to see creativity through fresh perspectives. For Peugeot, innovation defines its commitment to pioneering electric mobility and visionary design, while for Saatchi Gallery it underpins a mission to support artists who spark dialogue and expand how we think about art and society.

The work has been selected by a judging panel spanning the worlds of art, culture, and design, including Matthias Hossann (Design Director, Peugeot), Dominic Harris (British artist exploring humanity’s relationship with nature), Darren Styles OBE (Publisher of Attitude Magazine and Rolling Stone UK), Paul Foster (Director, Saatchi Gallery) and Katherine Benson (Exhibition Programming Manager, Saatchi Gallery). 

Winner of the Artist of the Future Prize 2025
DYSPLA

Shortlisted Artists
Edd Carr
Filip Haglund
Sally Smoker
Lenar Singatullov
Patchworks Collective – Charlotte Foster, Rehan Moazzam Khan, Yujia Cai, Karstin Naes Hoydal & Matthew Chan
AMIANGELIKA
James David Freeman
Isolda Milenkovic
Lucy Ellis

Powered by Peugeot.

About

PAPER CUT turns the gallery into a giant children’s art table, scattered with crayons, glue sticks, and bright, fragile creations. Among the mess are an abandoned popsicle-stick house, a life size diorama, macaroni paintings, and pipe-cleaner figures caught mid-gesture. Created by PRIEST, the installation reimagines childhood play as social archaeology, exposing the city’s hidden layers of class, chaos, and imitation. Beneath the colour lies London itself: the housing crisis, youth violence, influencer culture, and the weary humour of modern life. 

PAPER CUT questions what’s left of art once it grows up, when spontaneity hardens into strategy, and honesty becomes a pose, wondering if the child who first picked up the crayon might have understood it better right from the start.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” – Picasso

About

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants II: A Unique Dialogue Between Past and Present is a collaboration between artist-curator Louise te Poele, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Saatchi Gallery. The V&A has granted access to its historic collection of works by female creators, which has inspired a new body of work by contemporary artists.

Following the success of the first edition, this exhibition explores the historical and ongoing invisibility of female artists. Ten Dutch female artists have created new works in direct response to pieces by women in the V&A’s collection — works that have served as essential sources of inspiration. The result is a powerful visual dialogue spanning generations.

Why do we so often recall only male names when we think of great artists? This exhibition challenges that imbalance by bringing visibility to both contemporary Dutch female artists and their often-overlooked historical counterparts. Through this unique partnership between leading cultural institutions, the project creates space, recognition, and momentum — by and for women.

Participating artists: Lily de Bont, Margriet van Breevoort, Bobbi Essers, Larissa Esvelt, Anya Janssen, Audrey Large, Femmy Otten, Louise te Poele, Saar Scheerlings, Bregje Slipenbeek

We’d like to thank Mondriaan Fund, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Kingdom, and Sorba for their ongoing support of this project.