Ekow Eshun announced as curator of British Art Show 10

Hayward Gallery Touring announced Ekow Eshun as curator of British Art Show 10. Opening in Coventry in September 2026, British Art Show 10 will tour to Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield and Newcastle Gateshead. The tenth edition marks the first time the exhibition will travel to five cities across the UK in its most extensive presentation to date.

British Art Show is the largest and most significant recurring exhibition of contemporary art in the UK. It is developed and produced by Hayward Gallery Touring, the UK’s leading contemporary art organisation producing touring exhibitions, which is part of the Southbank Centre.

British Art Show 10 is part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations, which will take place across 2026 both at the Southbank Centre in London and in art galleries, concert halls and arts centres in towns and cities across all four nations of the UK.

British Art Show launched in 1979 and takes place every five years. Over the past four decades, the exhibition has reached over 2.3 million people, highlighted new trends in contemporary art and reflected a changing Britain. Themes explored have ranged from the geopolitical to the personal, the changing nature of British identity, popular culture, the impact of technology on human existence, and more.

The show is unmatched in its national scope and has introduced many of the UK’s most significant artists to millions of people across the country, including David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Lucian Freud, Frank Bowling, Paula Rego, Mary Kelly, Frank Auerbach, Mona Hatoum, Cornelia Parker, Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, Sonia Boyce, Sarah Lucas, Jeremy Deller, Tracey Emin, Hew Locke, John Akomfrah and Michael Armitage.

Under the vision of Ekow Eshun, British Art Show 10 will provide a vital overview of the most exciting art produced in the UK during the past five years. Eshun is renowned for his leading curation with critically acclaimed projects including: In the Black Fantastic (Hayward Gallery); The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure (National Portrait Gallery); and We Are History (Somerset House).

Ekow Eshun is a writer and curator. He is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth, overseeing Britain’s foremost public art programme, and the former Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. He has staged acclaimed exhibitions internationally and was awarded the Association for Art History’s Curatorial Prize for the landmark exhibition In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery in 2023. Eshun’s writing has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian and Vogue. He is the author of books including, most recently, The Strangers, published by Penguin in 2024 and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Jhalak Prize, and Black Earth Rising: Colonialism and Climate Change in Contemporary Art, published by Thames & Hudson in 2025. He was a judge for the Turner Prize 2024 and a member of the jury for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024.

Ekow Eshun. Credit: Zeinab Batchelor. Image courtesy Hayward Gallery Touring.