Across Europe, North America, and Australia, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of major institutional statements—exhibitions that celebrate singular artistic voices as well as reframe how we engage with memory, identity, performance, and materiality. From David Lynch’s haunting visual universe in Berlin to Tracey Emin’s most comprehensive exhibition to date at Tate Modern, and from Chiharu Shiota’s vast webs of thread in Montreal to Cartier’s dazzling Melbourne takeover, these shows represent the year’s most compelling reasons to travel, linger, and look closely.
Here, Whitewall highlights the exhibitions set to define the year ahead.
David Lynch
Pace Gallery
Schöneberg, Berlin
David Lynch, “untitled (Berlin 5364: 21),” 1999,© The David Lynch Estate, Courtesy Pace Gallery.
Pace Gallery’s Berlin presentation of David Lynch foregrounds the artist’s lifelong commitment to visual art, positioning painting, sculpture, photography, and film as the foundation of his creative universe. Uniting paintings, watercolors, early short films, photographs taken in Berlin, and sculptural lamps, the exhibition traces Lynch’s powerful engagement with material experimentation and subconscious imagery. His paintings, dense with text, narrative, and unease, invoke Surrealism while resisting interpretation, instead offering psychological states and interior worlds. The Berlin photographs—captured in abandoned industrial sites in 1999—underscore Lynch’s fascination with decay, atmosphere, and hidden beauty. Seen collectively, the works offer a rare opportunity to experience the full range of Lynch’s visual language outside his cinematic legacy.
What we love: The enveloping show reveals David Lynch as an artist who has always been thinking visually first.
David Lynch at Pace Gallery Berlin
January 29 – March 22, 2026
“Lorna Simpson: Third Person”
Pinault Collection, Punta della Dogana
Dorsoduro, Venice
Lorna Simpson, “Three Figures,” 2014, encre et sérigraphie sur plaque d’argile, 296,5 × 247,7 cm. Forman Family Collection. © Lorna Simpson. Courtesy de l’artiste et Hauser & Wirth. Photo : James Wang.
Lorna Simpson’s Venetian exhibition marks her first large-scale European survey dedicated to painting, presenting more than fifty works spanning two decades of practice. Organized in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition fuses painting, collage, sculpture, installation, and film to voyage through memory, representation, and the instability of narrative. Simpson’s Arctic landscapes, mysterious female figures, and layered collages create fictional yet politically charged worlds, hovering between history and imagination. New works conceived specifically for Punta della Dogana respond to the architecture and the surrounding lagoon, deepening the exhibition’s sense of fluid temporality. Across its galleries, “Third Person” affirms painting as a central, evolving force within Simpson’s multidisciplinary practice.
What we love: This special presentation reframes painting as an expansive, conceptual medium rooted in remembrance, erasure, and reinvention.
“Lorna Simpson: Third Person” at Pinault Collection, Punta della Dogana
March 29 – November 22, 2026
Tracey Emin: “A Second Life”
Tate Modern
Bankside, London
Tracey Emin, “Exorcism of the last painting I ever made,” 1996, © Tracey Emin.
Tate Modern presents the most wide-ranging exhibition ever staged of Tracey Emin’s work, embracing more than 40 years of determined artistic production. Featuring over 90 works across painting, sculpture, video, textile, neon, and installation, the show illuminates Emin’s life through themes of love, trauma, illness, and survival. Iconic works such as My Bed and Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made radiate alongside recent paintings and bronzes shown publicly for the first time. Emin’s personal experience with cancer, disability, and renewal forms the emotional core of the presentation, peaking in a tremendous outdoor sculpture. The result is a deeply intimate yet universal portrait of transformation and endurance.
What we love: It is a fearless, full-bodied account of an artist who has continually reshaped what honesty in art can be.
Tracey Emin: “A Second Life” at Tate Modern
February 27 – August 31, 2026
“Chiharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles”
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA)
Golden Square Mile, Montreal
Installation view of Chiharu Shiota’s “Uncertain Journey”(2016/2019) in the exhibition “Shiota Chiharu: The Soul Trembles,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2019. Photo Sunhi Mang, courtesy Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
The North American premiere of The Soul Trembles brings Chiharu Shiota’s wondrous thread installations to Montreal in her largest solo presentation thus far. Spanning over 25 years of work, the exhibition wraps visitors in vibrant environments woven from red, black, and white yarn—structures that echo emotional, spiritual, and existential pilgrimages. Shiota’s worlds investigate memory, absence, and the fragile connections between bodies and spaces, inviting viewers to move through suspended states of reflection. Skillfully resonant and physically overwhelming, the exhibition positions the body as both witness and participant within these poetic networks.
What we love: Few artists are able to create truly hypnotizing, once in a lifetime experiences such as this—both physically engulfing and emotionally transformative.
“Chiharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles” at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
September 26, 2026 – February 14, 2027
David Hockney
Serpentine North Gallery
Kensington Gardens, London
David Hockney,
“A Year in Normandie” 2020-2021 (detail)
Composite iPad painting
© David Hockney.
David Hockney’s exhibition at Serpentine North welcomes his legendary iPad frieze A Year in Normandy to London for the monumental first time. Energized by the Bayeux Tapestry, the ninety-meter-long work chronicles an entire year in the French countryside, beautifully capturing shifts in weather, light, and mood. Created during 2020 and 2021, the digital paintings rejoice in day to day beauty through luminous color and lyrical repetition. Installed in conversation with Kensington Gardens, the exhibition emphasizes Hockney’s longstanding belief in the act of looking—slowing down, noticing, and finding wonder in the familiar.
What we love: The ever-inspiring artist transforms digital technology into a deeply human, contemplative way of seeing the world.
David Hockney at Serpentine North Gallery
March 12 – August 23, 2026
“Samora Pinderhughes: Call and Response”
MoMA
Midtown Manhattan, New York
Samora Pinderhughes and Christian Padron. Still from “REAL TALK.” 2025. 35mm and Super 8mm film transferred to 4k video (color, sound). Courtesy the artist.
Samora Pinderhughes’s multidisciplinary project at MoMA blends performance, film, music, and community engagement into a powerful meditation on structural violence and healing. Centered around live performances and an installation of new film work, the exhibition activates sound as a collective, restorative force. Drawing from collaborations with those impacted by incarceration and systemic racism, Pinderhughes’s work unfolds as both artistic presentation and social practice. The show’s performances, sonic healing rooms, and communal programs position the museum as a space for listening, reflection, and shared responsibility.
What we love: “Samora Pinderhughes: Call and Response” reimagines the museum as a living site of care, alliance, and resistance.
“Samora Pinderhughes: Call and Response” at MoMA
January 24 – February 15, 2026
Cartier
NGV International
Southbank, Melbourne
Tiara, Cartier London, 1937. Aquamarine, diamonds and platinum. Vincent Wulveryck, Collection Cartier © Cartier.
The most expansive Cartier exhibition ever presented in Australia arrives at NGV International with more than 300 jewels, watches, and archival objects. Following the house’s journey from royal jeweler to global cultural icon, the shimmering exhibition features historic tiaras, decadent Tutti Frutti designs, and pieces elegantly worn by Elizabeth Taylor, Rihanna, Princess Margaret, and the Duchess of Windsor. Rare gemstones, design drawings, and timepieces raise the curtain on Cartier’s divine mastery of craftsmanship and innovation. A specially commissioned exhibition design amplifies brightness, hue, and materiality, creating a theatrical yet scholarly presentation of luxury history.
What we love: The must-see show balances spectacle with substance, unveiling the cultural power behind extraordinary craftsmanship.
Cartier at NGV International
June 12 – October 4, 2026
“From the Studio: Fifty-Eight Years of Artists in Residence”
The Studio Museum in Harlem
Harlem, New York
“From the Studio, Fifty-Eight Years of Artists in Residence” (installation view), 2025. Photo by Kris Graves. Courtesy of The Studio Museum in Harlem.
This exhibition celebrates the Studio Museum’s historic Artist-in-Residence program, which has championed generations of vivacious artists working across disciplines. Spanning nearly six decades, the exhibition brings together works that reflect experimentation, mentorship, and artistic freedom at the heart of the program. The presentation reiterates the museum’s role as an incubator for emerging voices and a vital cultural institution within Harlem and beyond. Through archival materials and artworks, the exhibition shares how the residency has shaped contemporary art practices and communities alike.
What we love: This awe-inspiring exhibition honors the infrastructure behind artistic innovation, not just the finished work.
“From the Studio: Fifty-Eight Years of Artists in Residence” at The Studio Museum in Harlem
Currently on view through February 28, 2026
“Costume Art”
The Met
Upper East Side, New York
Objects from The Anatomical Body (left) and The Mortal Body (right) on display at The
Met’s “Costume Art “press conference.
Image: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, BFA.com/Matteo Prandoni.
The Met’s “Costume Art” exhibition delves into fashion as an essential artistic language, considering garments as cultural, political, and sculptural forms. Pulling from the museum’s extensive collection, the riveting show situates costume design within broader histories of art, performance, and identity. Through proficient craftsmanship and conceptual storytelling, the exhibition challenges traditional hierarchies between fine art and fashion, spotlighting the revolutionary power of dress.
What we love: “Costume Art” treats fashion as a profound mode of artistic expression.
“Costume Art” at The Met
May 10, 2026–January 10, 2027
