The Barbican has announced its 2027 art programme with a high fashion takeover
by Amy Houghton · Time Out London2026 has been a spectacular year for exhibitions in London. We’ve had major shows of Tracey Emin, Frida Kahlo, Georges Seurat and Schiaparelli, and the Bayeux Tapestry is now at the British Museum after more than 900 years in France. The art agenda for 2027 is looking just as stacked, with exhibitions of huge names like Paula Rego and Georgia O’Keeffe at the Courtauld, Claude Monet and David Hockney at Tate, and Frank Auerbach and Mary Cassatt at the National Portrait Gallery. Now, even more have been added to the slate.
The Barbican’s art programme encompasses the Barbican Art Gallery, The Curve gallery, the Sculpture Court and the Barbican Lakeside Gallery. The current programme runs until February 2027 and concludes with Robert Ryman: The Real Thing. This week, the brutalist icon’s exciting exhibitions for 2027/28 have been revealed.
First, the Curve will host a solo exhibition of Dayanita Singh’s work (March 10-May 23). The show will feature several of the New Delhi-born artist’s ‘portable museums’ alongside new pieces that reflect the impact of Indian classical music on her practice.
The Barbican Art Gallery’s 2027 programme kicks off with Characters of Fashion (April 15-August 29), which charts the relationship between fashion and literature. It’ll showcase how authors from Jane Austen to Toni Morrison have used clothing as a means of character development and a tool for fashioning their own image, as well as how fashion collections have been inspired by literary characters from Orlando, Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland and Dracula. Expect to see designs from Alexander McQueen, Erdem, Dries Van Noten, Duro Olowu, Simone Rocha and more, combined with the words of Zadie Smith, James Baldwin, Arundhati Roy and Joan Didion.
From May 6 to August 1, a major new public commission by Peruvian artist Ximena Garrido-Lecca will stand in the Sculpture Court. The huge installation will play on the dual meaning of ‘plant’ as a botanical organism and as an industrial facility, exploring the colonial legacies and contemporary impact of extraction.
Over in the Barbican Lakeside Gallery, there’ll be an exhibition of Kenyan artist Magdalene Odundo (September 2-January 9 2028). Her ceramic vessels take inspiration from a wide range of sources, including ancient Egyptian and Aztec sculpture, Kenyan and Nigerian burial rites, Greek and Japanese pottery, Elizabethan fashion and European modernism. It will be Odundo’s first solo institutional presentation in London in over 30 years.
Another public commission will take over the Barbican foyer in the autumn (September 23-January 30). Designed by Sicilian artist Rosa Barba, it will be a sprawling suspended installation made up of cinematic and kinetic sculptural works and will see a newly commissioned 35mm film projected onto the Barbican’s brutal architecture.
Finally, the Barbican Art Gallery will host Alice Adams (October 7-February 6 2028). Adams was born in New York in 1930 and made a name for herself creating experimental tapestries and wood and nail sculptural installations. Aged 95, she’s still making work today. The Barbican has been given unprecedented access to Adams’ archive of sculpture, textiles, photographs, drawings, prints and film, and this exhibition will span all 70 years of her remarkable career.
More details on the Barbican’s art lineup can be found here. Tickets will go on sale closer to the exhibition dates.
The 10 London art exhibitions we’re most excited about in autumn 2026.
More art news: The UK’s biggest Monet exhibition in a decade will open at Tate Modern next year.
Plus: The Courtauld Gallery also announced its 2027 exhibition programme, and it features some huge names.
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