Acclaimed American artist and activist Nan Goldin returns to the UK with her first institutional exhibition in more than two decades at the Hayward Gallery, marking the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year. Featuring the debut of a major new film alongside recent moving image works and photographs, the exhibition offers a powerful exploration of love, loss, resilience and human connection. Bringing together Goldin’s deeply personal practice, the presentation reaffirms her status as one of the most influential photographers of her generation, whose intimate portrayals of relationships, queer communities and lived experience continue to resonate with extraordinary emotional force.
Over the past five decades, Goldin has documented personal relationships, addiction and queer communities. Her unflinching images transformed photography by closing the distance between the observer and the observed, capturing the rawness of her own life. Comprising deeply intimate photographs and slideshows, her stories embrace the complexity of life as universal tales of love and loss.
Visitors will see new and recent films in spaces specially designed with architect Hala Wardé to convey the mood of each piece. Marking its public debut, You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part II(2026) will screen alongside You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part I (2024). Both films mark a striking new direction as Goldin shifts her focus away from humans and towards other species. Shot on 16mm film, Part I is centred around a solar eclipse. The film is inspired by an ancient myth of animals stealing the sun. Shifting into a world entirely without humans, the work shows the full range of animal consciousness. Featuring music by Valerij Fedorenko and an original score by Mica Levi, Part I is dedicated to Sulala Animal Rescue: the oldest animal rescue in the Gaza Strip whom Goldin has worked with closely.
artist and Gagosian.
Created in close collaboration with filmmaker David Sherman, Part II is an abstract film comprising found footage, damaged soundtracks from old films and a new score by Mica Levi. The source material is old 16mm films – mostly nature documentaries from the 1960s and 70s when Goldin was growing up – which reflect the ways we were taught to view other species. The film then expands into a lyrical ode to the land, the animals and the minutiae of the natural world, remaining abstract while imbued with a deep sense of impending extinction.
Goldin, courtesy the artist and Gagosian.
The exhibition will also mark the UK premiere of Stendhal Syndrome (2024), which contrasts photographs of Goldin’s friends and lovers with classical art from museums around the world, revealing uncanny resemblances in composition, colour and emotion. Accompanied by a score by Soundwalk Collective, the work, in Goldin’s words, “shows that my people have always been here”.Alongside it, Memory Lost (2019–2021) explores Goldin’s personal history with drugs and the darkness of addiction. Through slides capturing scenes from her own life and friendships, the film shows the ecstasy, mourning and pain of drug use. By connecting personal testimony with structural critique, Goldin advocates for harm reduction and the destigmatisation of drug use. The work is dedicated to P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), the activist group that Goldin started to combat the overdose crisis.
Nan Goldin, courtesy the artist and Gagosian.
Upstairs, the Hayward Gallery will present a selection of Goldin’s photographs, including a new body of photographic prints connected to the You Never Did Anything Wrong films.Altogether, You Never Did Anything Wrong celebrates Goldin’s enduring commitment to bearing witness: to intimacy, endurance, political struggle and the fragile conditions through which people, animals and the land must exist in the world.
Rachel Thomas, Roden Chief Curator, says: “We are incredibly proud to debut new work by Nan Goldin at the Hayward Gallery. This exhibition traces the evolution of her gaze through extraordinary new and recent moving image works, demonstrating how her lens operates on a wavelength of pure compassion. Shifting her focus from human relationships to animal consciousness and the natural world, Goldin brilliantly re-evaluates how we perceive other living beings. At a time of deep uncertainty, her work collapses the distance between the observer and the observed, urging us to look at our fragile world with a deeper sense of empathy, wonder and shared survival.’’
Mark Ball, Southbank Centre’s Artistic Director, says: “Nan Goldin has reshaped the language of photography, transforming the medium into a profound living record of human intimacy and resilience. At the Hayward Gallery, we are thrilled to host her first major UK exhibition for over two decades with work that captures the soul of her practice. To bring her radical vision to our Brutalist spaces in the culmination of our 75th anniversary programme is a moment of immense pride. Nan Goldin’s work offers our audiences an encounter with an artist who has never looked away.”
Tickets will go on sale to Southbank Centre Members on Wednesday 15 July 2026 and to the general public via our website on Friday 17 July 2026.
In celebration of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary, we are offering audiences a special £7.50 ticket offer for the opening two weeks of the exhibition’s run. Coinciding with the public on-sale date, young audiences can also benefit from the Southbank Centre Under-30s scheme, which invites subscribers to enjoy world class art for half the price by offering discounted tickets to Nan Goldin and all other Hayward Gallery exhibitions.
More information on how to register and the variety of discounts and special events on offer can be found here.
A fully illustrated catalogue focusing on the new work You Never Did Anything Wrong will accompany this exhibition, featuring a newly-commissioned essay and an in-depth interview with Goldin and writer Thora Siemsen.
Nan Goldin24 November 2026 – 7 March 2027
Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
Full price standard ticket: £19 Concessions available & Southbank Centre
Members go free
The Hayward Gallery opening times:
Tue – Fri, 10am – 6pm
Sat, 10am – 8pm
Sun, 10am – 6pm
Website: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk
