The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary
art galleries
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...
in
Kensington Gardens
Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyde Pa ...
,
Westminster
Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...
,
Greater London
Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial count ...
. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, and Serpentine North, previously known as the Sackler Gallery. The gallery spaces are within five minutes' walk of each other, linked by the bridge over the
Serpentine Lake from which the galleries get their names. Their exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract up to 1.2 million visitors a year. Admission to both galleries is free. The CEO is
Bettina Korek, and the artistic director
Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Serpentine South
Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, was established in 1970 and is housed in a
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
former tea pavilion built in 1933–34 by the architect
James Grey West.
Notable artists whose works have been exhibited there include
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...
,
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...
,
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement.
Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti ...
,
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
,
Paula Rego
Dame Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego (: 26 January 1935 – 8 June 2022) was a Portuguese visual artist, widely considered the pre-eminent woman artist of the late 20th and early 21st century, known particularly for her paintings and prints based o ...
,
Sondra Perry,
Bridget Riley
Bridget Louise Riley (born 24 April 1931) is an English painter known for her op art paintings. She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France.
Early life and education
Riley was born on 24 April 1931 in West Norwood, No ...
,
Allan McCollum
Allan McCollum (born 4 August 1944) is a contemporary American artist who lives and works in New York City. In 1975, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and he moved to New York City the same year. In the late 1970s, he became especial ...
,
Anish Kapoor,
Christian Boltanski
Christian Liberté Boltanski (6 September 1944 – 14 July 2021) was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker. He is best known for his photography installations and contemporary French conceptual style.
Early life
Boltanski wa ...
,
Philippe Parreno,
Richard Prince
Richard Prince (born August 6, 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a photographic reproduction of a photograph ...
,
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German Fine-art photography, photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations.
Tillman ...
,
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced Abstract art, abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, photographs and Glass art, glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important con ...
,
Gustav Metzger
Gustav Metzger (10 April 1926, Nuremberg – 1 March 2017, London) was a statelessness, stateless artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike.
Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the ...
,
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and art collector. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest ...
,
Maria Lassnig,
Adrian Berg,
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish s ...
and
Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limit ...
. On the ground at the gallery's entrance is a permanent work made by
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay (28 October 1925 – 27 March 2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.
Life
Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas, to James Hamilton Finlay and his wife, Annie Pettigrew, both of Scots descent.
He was educa ...
in collaboration with Peter Coates, and dedicated to
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William, ...
, the gallery's former patron.
Serpentine North

In 2013,
Serpentine North was opened to the public named as the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, a name changed to Serpentine North in 2021. This gave new life to The Magazine, a
Grade II* listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
former gunpowder store built in 1805,
with the addition of an extension designed by
Zaha Hadid Architects
Zaha Hadid Architects is a British architecture and design firm founded by Zaha Hadid (1950–2016), with its main office situated in Clerkenwell, London. After the death of " starchitect" Hadid, Patrik Schumacher became head of the firm. At ...
. Located five minutes' walk from Serpentine South across the Serpentine Bridge, it comprises of gallery space, restaurant, shop and social space. The Magazine Restaurant adjoins the gallery space.
Pavilions
Every year since 2000, Serpentine has commissioned a temporary summer pavilion by a leading architect. The series presents the work of an international architect or design team who has not completed a building in England at the time of the Gallery's invitation. Each Pavilion is completed within six months and is situated on the Serpentine South's lawn for three months for the public to explore.
* 2000:
Zaha Hadid
Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-born British architect, artist, and designer. She is recognised as a key figure in the architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born ...
* 2001:
Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish–American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect.
He is known for the design a ...
* 2002:
Toyo Ito
is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated ...
* 2003:
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer (), was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was b ...
* 2005:
Álvaro Siza and
Eduardo Souto de Moura
* 2006:
Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theory, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Graduate School of ...
* 2007 pre-pavilion 'Lilias':
Zaha Hadid
Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-born British architect, artist, and designer. She is recognised as a key figure in the architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born ...
and Patrik Schumacher
* 2007:
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson (; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience.
In 1995, ...
and
Kjetil Thorsen
* 2008:
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry ( ; ; born February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become attractions.
Gehry rose to prominence in th ...
* 2009:
SANAA
Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...
* 2010:
Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...
* 2011:
Peter Zumthor
Peter Zumthor (; born 26 April 1943) is a Swiss architect whose work is frequently described as uncompromising and minimalist. Though managing a relatively small firm and not being a prolific architect, he is the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Pri ...
with Piet Oudolf
* 2012:
Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...
and
Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. is an international architecture firm headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, with additional offices in Berlin, Hong Kong, London, Munich, New York City, Paris, and San Francisco. Founded in 1978 by Jacques Herzog and ...
* 2013:
Sou Fujimoto
is a Japanese architect.
Born in Hokkaido in 1971, he graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1994, and established his own office, Sou Fujimoto Architects, in 2000. Noted for delicate light structures and permeable enclosures, Fujimoto desig ...
* 2014:
Smiljan Radic
* 2015:
Selgas Cano
* 2016:
Bjarke Ingels
Bjarke Bundgaard Ingels (; born 2 October 1974) is a Danish architect, founder and creative partner of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).
In Denmark, Ingels became well known after designing two housing complexes in Ørestad: VM Houses and Mountain Dwe ...
* 2017:
Diébédo Francis Kéré
* 2018:
Frida Escobedo
* 2019:
Junya Ishigami
* 2021:
Sumayya Vally, Counterspace
* 2022:
Theaster Gates
* 2023:
Lina Ghotmeh
* 2024:
Minsuk Cho and his firm Mass Studies
* 2025:
Marina Tabassum
Gallery of temporary pavilions
Serpentine Pavillion 2002.jpg, Toyo Ito
is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated ...
(2002)
Serpentinegallerywithdome.jpg, Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theory, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Graduate School of ...
with Cecil Balmond (2006)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007 - geograph.org.uk - 657048.jpg, Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson (; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience.
In 1995, ...
and Kjetil Thorsen (2007)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 by Frank Gehry - geograph.org.uk - 890803.jpg, Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry ( ; ; born February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become attractions.
Gehry rose to prominence in th ...
(2008)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2009.JPG, SANAA
Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...
(2009)
SerpentineGalleryPavilion2010.jpg, Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...
(2010)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011.jpg, Peter Zumthor
Peter Zumthor (; born 26 April 1943) is a Swiss architect whose work is frequently described as uncompromising and minimalist. Though managing a relatively small firm and not being a prolific architect, he is the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Pri ...
, with a garden by Piet Oudolf (2011)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012 overview.jpg, Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...
and Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. is an international architecture firm headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, with additional offices in Berlin, Hong Kong, London, Munich, New York City, Paris, and San Francisco. Founded in 1978 by Jacques Herzog and ...
(2012)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013.jpg, Sou Fujimoto
is a Japanese architect.
Born in Hokkaido in 1971, he graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1994, and established his own office, Sou Fujimoto Architects, in 2000. Noted for delicate light structures and permeable enclosures, Fujimoto desig ...
(2013)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, July 2014 (10).JPG, Smiljan Radic (2014)
Serpentine Pavilion 2015.jpg, SelgasCano (2015)
Serpentine Pavilion 2016 I (27776972542).jpg, Bjarke Ingels
Bjarke Bundgaard Ingels (; born 2 October 1974) is a Danish architect, founder and creative partner of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).
In Denmark, Ingels became well known after designing two housing complexes in Ørestad: VM Houses and Mountain Dwe ...
(2016)
Serpentine Pavilion 2017 II (35856682722).jpg, Diébédo Francis Kéré (2017)
Serpentine Pavilion 2018 VII (43037972402).jpg, Frida Escobedo (2018)
Serpentine Pavilion 2019 V (48179721942).jpg, Junya Ishigami (2019)
See also
References
External links
*
Collection of articles about the Serpentine Pavilionsat ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''
{{Authority control
1970 establishments in England
Art museums and galleries established in 1970
Buildings and structures in Hyde Park, London
Contemporary art galleries in London
Grade II* listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Grade II listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Kensington Gardens
Modern architecture in the United Kingdom
Museums in the City of Westminster
SANAA buildings
Ai Weiwei buildings