LONDON.- Celebrating four decades of ground-breaking contemporary art, Saatchi Gallery opened landmark exhibition, The Long Now on 5 November 2025. This expansive group show showcases new works by iconic artists closely associated with the Gallery’s dynamic history, alongside fresh voices from a new generation.
Spanning two floors and nine major exhibition spaces, the exhibition features special commissions, installations, painting and sculpture. It also includes Richard Wilson’s seminal installation, 20:50, a defining piece of British contemporary art originally presented in 1987.
Curated by Philippa Adams (Senior Director, Saatchi Gallery 1999- 2020), the exhibition reflects on key themes that have underpinned exhibitions throughout Saatchi Gallery’s 40-year journey, an ongoing commitment to championing new talent.
The Long Now takes its title from a concept focused on fostering long-term thinking. It challenges today’s throwaway culture. The exhibition arches back to past exhibitions consistent with Saatchi Gallery’s focus on the present, to give artists the opportunity to showcase their most ambitious ideas. Showcasing newly created works alongside a selection of historic works, as unquestionably impactful and relevant today.
Since its inception, Saatchi Gallery has stood at the forefront of contemporary art, sparking cultural conversations, and inspiring millions. As a registered charity since 2019, it continues to champion emerging voices and bring creativity to the widest possible audience.
The exhibition begins with a focus on process and mark-making in the physical, a fundamental human gesture. That drive to leave or weave an imprint reverberates today through contemporary practices by artists such as Alice Anderson, Rannva Kunoy, and Carolina Mazzolari, who reinterpret this language in materially inventive ways.
Artists including Tim Noble, André Butzer, Dan Colen, Jake Chapman and Polly Morgan exemplify this same spirit of risk and innovation, pushing the limits of subject, style, and scale.
At the centre of this energy stands Jenny Saville’s powerful painting Passage, 2004, a work that holds both strength and beauty, and paradigmatically realises the artist’s ambition to “be a painter of modern life, and modern bodies” (Saville, quoted in Rachel Cooke, The Observer, 9 June 2012).
Alongside, painting remains a medium central to the Gallery’s programme since its inception. Works by Alex Katz, Michael Raedecker, Ansel Krut, Martine Poppe and Jo Dennis demonstrate its ongoing adaptability and versatility. Emerging voices are woven throughout the exhibition, reflecting Saatchi Gallery’s commitment to championing new talent and their power to shift perspectives within longstanding conversations in art.
This tension between provocation and engagement continues in two large-scale installations that invite viewers into physical and conceptual interaction: Allan Kaprow’s YARD, with its chaotic arrangement of car tyres, encourages movement and participation, while, suspended above hangs Conrad Shawcross’s Golden Lotus (Inverted), a vintage Lotus car reimagined as a kinetic sculpture, first presented at the Gallery for the 2019 exhibition, Sweet Harmony: Rave Today. Together, they prompt reflection on transformation, agency and the viewer’s role in completing the work.
The exhibition also considers our complex relationship with new tools in technology, an unknown future landscape, utopian ideas, a new conception of home. Artists including Chino Moya and Mat Collishaw reflect on surveillance, automation and the ethics of artificial intelligence, reflecting on how deeply the digital permeates contemporary society.
Interwoven with The Long Now is a meditation on fragility and climate change with Gavin Turk’s Bardo. Its fragmented panels of glass evokes a reflection on cultural decay and the precarious balance between permanence and collapse. Light artists bring contemplation with Olafur Eliasson, Chris Levine and Frankie Boyle.
While broader reflections on the impact of industry on environment surface in works by Edward Burtynsky, Steven Parrino, Peter Buggenhout, Ibrahim Mahama, Ximena Garrido-Lecca and Christopher Le Brun, who address extraction, waste and renewal through a range of mediums and perspectives.
Concluding the exhibition, Richard Wilson’s 20:50 takes on renewed significance in the context of today’s climate crisis. A defining work in Saatchi Gallery’s history, this installation has been shown at each of the Gallery’s three locations – Boundary Road (1991), County Hall (2003), and most recently in the basement of the Duke of York’s HǪ (2015). Now, for the first time, it is being presented on the top floor of the building, creating a disorienting and stimulating experience for returning visitors.
The installation fills the room to waist height with recycled engine oil, from which it takes its name. A narrow walkway leads viewers into the space, immersing them in a mirrored environment where oil reflects the architecture with perfect symmetry. 20:50 invites reflection, the fragility of our surroundings, community and environmental uncertainty.
Phillipa Adams, Curator comments, “At its heart, The Long Now reaffirms the Gallery’s role as a platform for artists to challenge conventions and shape conversations that extend beyond the walls. It is both a celebration and a provocation, a reminder that art has always been a mirror of its time but also anticipates and interprets the future.”
Paul Foster, Saatchi Gallery Director adds, “2025 is a momentous year for the Gallery. It marks 40 years of showcasing contemporary art to a wide audience and renews our pledge as a charity to make contemporary art and creativity as accessible as possible. The Long Now demonstrates how art is relevant today.”
Henry Liu, SVP of Marketing and Communications, De Beers London comments, “We are delighted to partner with Saatchi Gallery for this special anniversary milestone. The Gallery serves as a beacon of creativity and innovation, and as these serve as central to the jewellery design philosophy at De Beers London, this is a natural brand commitment to this important cultural moment in the city.”
Saatchi Gallery Lates takes place on 7 November, 21 November, 5 December, 23 January
Featured artists include: Alice Anderson, Olivia Bax, Frankie Boyle, Edward Burtynsky, Peter Buggenhout, André Butzer, Jake Chapman, Mat Collishaw, Dan Colen, John Currin, Jo Dennis, Zhivago Duncan, Olafur Eliasson, Rafael Gómezbarros, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Damien Hirst, Tom Hunter, Henry Hudson, Alex Katz, Allan Kaprow, Maria Kreyn, Ansel Krut, Rannva Kunoy, Christopher Le Brun, Chris Levine, Ibrahim Mahama, Carolina Mazzolari, Jeff McMillan, Misha Milovanovich, Polly Morgan, Ryan Mosley, Chino Moya, Tim Noble, Alejandro Ospina, Steven Parrino, Martine Poppe, Michael Raedecker, Sterling Ruby, Jenny Saville, Petroc Sesti, Conrad Shawcross, Soheila Sokhanvari, John Squire, Dima Srouji, Gavin Turk, Richard Wilson, Alexi Williams Wynn.
