Autumn is traditionally one of the most exciting seasons in the international art calendar, as museums and galleries unveil ambitious new exhibitions alongside the return of collectors, curators and artists from the summer break. Autumn/Winter 2026 is no exception, with major institutions and leading galleries across the world presenting landmark retrospectives, ambitious new commissions and exhibitions that challenge established narratives.
From London and Paris to New York, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Mexico City, the season brings together pioneering figures from modern and contemporary art, while Santander prepares to unveil an entirely new cultural destination in northern Spain.
For art lovers planning a city break, collectors following the international exhibition circuit or anyone looking for cultural highlights this autumn, Culturalee selects the best Autumn/Winter 2026 exhibitions across seven global art destinations.
© Nan Goldin, courtesy the artist and Gagosian
London: Nan Goldin, Amar Kanwar, Khalif Tahir Thompson & Cindy Sherman
London’s Autumn/Winter programme reflects the city’s enduring strength in contemporary art, photography and experimental visual culture, with major exhibitions spanning the South Bank, Hyde Park and Mayfair.
At the Hayward Gallery, Nan Goldin returns to London for her first UK institutional exhibition in more than two decades. Opening in November as part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations, the exhibition brings together photography, moving-image works and a major new film. Goldin’s deeply personal practice—rooted in love, friendship, grief, addiction, sexuality and queer identity—has transformed the possibilities of documentary photography, turning intimate experience into a powerful form of collective memory.
At Serpentine North, Indian artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar creates an immersive visual and sonic environment centred on the premiere of The Charcoal Man, a new seven-screen installation. Combining documentary, cinema, sound and installation, Kanwar’s poetic practice explores memory, political violence, justice and ecology, inviting audiences to consider how individual stories intersect with larger systems of power.
Meanwhile, Victoria Miro presents new paintings by Khalif Tahir Thompson, whose richly textured domestic scenes explore Black identity, intimacy and everyday experience. His paintings combine vibrant colour with an acute sensitivity to gesture, atmosphere and psychological presence.
Photography takes another intriguing turn at Hauser & Wirth London, where Cindy Sherman presents works from her new Fabric Matrons series. Continuing her decades-long investigation into constructed identity, Sherman examines ageing, femininity and visibility through elaborately staged images that blur the boundaries between portraiture, fashion photography and performance.
Cindy Sherman: Fabric Matrons, Hauser & Wirth London
13 October – 23 December 2026
Nan Goldin, Hayward Gallery
24 November 2026 – 7 March 2027
Amar Kanwar, Serpentine North
23 September 2026 – 31 January 2027
New York: Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York’s autumn programme is typically one of the most anticipated on the international art calendar, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art delivers a major reassessment of two defining figures of Abstract Expressionism with Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous.
Rather than perpetuating the familiar mythology surrounding Jackson Pollock, the exhibition places Lee Krasner firmly at the centre of the story. Bringing the two artists into dialogue, the exhibition examines how Krasner and Pollock influenced one another while developing radically individual approaches to painting.
The result promises a more complex understanding of one of the most consequential creative relationships in modern American art—and a timely reconsideration of Krasner’s contribution to the history of Abstract Expressionism.
Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock: Past Continuous, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
4 October 2026 – 31 January 2027
Paris: Alexander Calder at Hauser & Wirth and ‘Remember Me’ at the Bourse de Commerce
Silver-based print. 20.6 x 27.5cm. Copyright Man Ray 2015 Trust/ Adago, Paris, 2026. Pinault Collection
Paris delivers two of the season’s highlights, spanning modern sculpture and the history of photography.
At Hauser & Wirth Paris, Calder: François Premier revisits a pivotal period in the career of Alexander Calder, following his return to France during the early 1950s. Monumental mobiles, delicate gouaches and rarely exhibited sculptures reveal the extraordinary inventiveness of an artist who fundamentally transformed the relationship between sculpture, movement and space.
At the Bourse de Commerce, the Pinault Collection presents Remember Me: Masterpieces of Photography from the Pinault Collection, a major exhibition bringing together approximately 700 works by more than 70 artists.
Curated by Matthieu Humery, Advisor for Photography of the Pinault Collection, with Lola Regard, the exhibition takes its title from an original work by Barbara Kruger displayed in the museum’s Rotunda. The exhibition brings together major figures including Man Ray, Barbara Kruger, Annie Leibovitz and Claude Cahun, exploring photography’s evolving relationship with memory, identity, representation and contemporary art.
Opening during the bicentenary year of photography, Remember Me reinforces the Bourse de Commerce’s growing reputation for ambitious exhibitions that reconsider the medium and its place within contemporary artistic practice.
Alexander Calder, Hauser & Wirth Paris
19 October – 19 December 2026
‘Remember Me’: Masterpieces of Photography from the Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce
7 October – 31 December 2026
Amsterdam: Robert Zandvliet at GRIMM
The opening of GRIMM’s new Amsterdam gallery is marked by a solo exhibition from Dutch painter Robert Zandvliet.
His Paradaidha series transforms the garden into a space between observation and abstraction. Drawing inspiration from Claude Monet’s Nymphéas, Zandvliet constructs expansive landscapes from layered greens and shifting fields of colour.
His paintings appear at once recognisable and elusive, moving beyond conventional landscape painting towards a more meditative investigation of perception. The garden becomes less a literal subject than a framework through which Zandvliet explores colour, space, memory and the act of looking itself.
Robert Zandvliet, GRIMM Amsterdam
5 September – 3 October 2026
Hong Kong: Lucio Fontana at Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Daniele De Lonti
At Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong, one of the season’s most significant historical surveys focuses on Lucio Fontana, the Italian-Argentine artist whose radical approach to the canvas helped redefine post-war art.
Spatialism: Pioneering the Contemporary, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero in collaboration with the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, centres on Fontana’s revolutionary Buchi (Holes) and Tagli (Cuts).
Fontana rejected the traditional picture plane, physically puncturing and slicing the canvas to transform painting into an object that engages with light, space and movement. More than half a century after their creation, these iconic works retain their radical force, making the exhibition particularly resonant within Hong Kong’s dynamic contemporary art landscape.
Lucio Fontana: Spatialism. Pioneering the Contemporary, Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong
17 September – 19 December 2026
Mexico City: Richard Prince, Álvaro Urbano and Raúl Silva at Museo Jumex
Museo Jumex presents a major Autumn/Winter programme bringing together an influential American contemporary artist with two distinctive voices from a younger generation.
Richard Prince: Tell Me Everything is the first major survey of Richard Prince in Latin America, offering an opportunity to reconsider one of contemporary art’s most provocative and influential figures. Known for his investigations into appropriation, authorship, consumer culture and the circulation of images, Prince has continually challenged assumptions about originality and artistic ownership.
Alongside the retrospective, Museo Jumex presents an immersive installation by Álvaro Urbano, created specifically for the museum, while Raúl Silva receives his first solo exhibition in Mexico. Together, the three exhibitions demonstrate the institution’s commitment to placing internationally established practices in dialogue with new artistic approaches.
Richard Prince: Tell Me Everything
26 September 2026 – 7 February 2027
Álvaro Urbano: Helen
16 October 2026 – 7 February 2027
Raúl Silva: Gateway
16 October 2026 – 7 February 2027
Santander: Faro Santander Opens a New Cultural Chapter in Spain
© 2026 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust
Perhaps the season’s most significant new cultural opening takes place in Santander, where Faro Santander is set to transform the former Banco Santander headquarters into a major new arts and cultural destination.
Its inaugural programme brings together works spanning five centuries and several artistic traditions. Masterpieces from the Banco Santander Collection features works by artists including Titian, Rubens, Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Miró and Antoni Tàpies, creating a sweeping survey of European and Spanish art.
The programme extends across the Atlantic with Modern Mexico in the Gelman Santander Collection, featuring major works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo and Leonora Carrington.
The opening programme is completed by The Symptomatic Surreal: Leonora Carrington, exploring Carrington’s formative period in Santander during the Second World War and adding a more intimate local dimension to the wider story of her extraordinary career.
Taken together, these exhibitions position Faro Santander as more than a new museum: they establish a significant cultural destination that connects European art history, Mexican modernism and the legacy of Surrealism with a forward-looking vision for contemporary culture.
Faro Santander: Masterpieces from the Banco Santander Collection
8 September 2026 – February 2027
Modern Mexico in the Gelman Santander Collection
8 September 2026 – 10 January 2027
The Symptomatic Surreal: Leonora Carrington
8 September 2026 – 10 January 2027
The Best of Autumn/Winter 2026
Across continents, the strongest exhibitions of Autumn/Winter 2026 share a common thread: they encourage us to reconsider both art history and the world around us.
From Nan Goldin’s intimate chronicles of lived experience and Amar Kanwar’s poetic political installations to the reassessment of Lee Krasner, Lucio Fontana’s radical spatial experiments and Richard Prince’s interrogation of images and authorship, this season offers a rich dialogue between historical figures and contemporary concerns.
What makes the autumn programme particularly compelling is its capacity to make familiar artists appear newly relevant. These exhibitions do more than celebrate established reputations; they reopen questions about identity, memory, representation, politics, gender, authorship and perception.
For anyone planning an international gallery itinerary—or simply looking for a cultural escape this autumn—the Autumn/Winter 2026 exhibition season offers an exceptional global circuit, connecting London, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Mexico City and Santander through some of the most ambitious exhibitions and new cultural openings of the year.
