LONDON.- The New Year sees the return of New Contemporaries to the South London Gallery (SLG) for the first time since 2022. Spanning both SLG sites, it will showcase 26 emerging and early-career artists living and working across the UK. In spring 2026, paintings by Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota, presentedagainst an expansive, site-specific wall painting, will create a new installation in the Main Gallery, while in the Fire Station galleries, British Nigerian artist Ranti Bam’s first solo institutional exhibition will include ceramic sculptures and a new sound installation. This will be followed by a major presentation of new and existing sculptural works by Polish artist, Monika Sosnowska. Opening in December will be the first solo exhibition in the UK by South Korean artist, Kang Seung Lee, curated by the third cohort of New Curators. New Curators is a paid year-long curatorial training programme for aspiring curators from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
Winter 2026
New Contemporaries
30 January – 12 April 2026
Main Gallery & Fire Station Galleries
Founded in 1949 by artists for artists, New Contemporaries has long platformed emerging and early career artists, many of whom have gone on to shape contemporary practice. Alumni include David Hockney, Mona Hatoum, and Chris Ofili, as well as Tacita Dean, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Mohammed Sami, and Jake Grewal.
Today, New Contemporaries remains a leading cultural organisation committed to supporting emerging talent through partnerships with major UK institutions. The 2026 exhibition will open at the South London Gallery from 30 January – 12 April 2026 and MIMA, Middlesbrough from 8 May – 23 August 2026. Selected by artists Pio Abad, Louise Giovanelli and Grace Ndiritu, it will showcase 26 emerging and early-career artists from across the UK.
The artists selected for the New Contemporaries exhibition are: Viviana Almas, Kat Anderson, Hadas Auerbach, Timon Benson, Lakshya Bhargava, William Braithwaite, River Yuhao Cao, Ali Cook, Shaun Doyle, Ally Fallon, Samantha Fellows, Alia Gargum, Oliver Getley, Makiko Harris, Manuel Alejandro Hernandez Rivera, Deborah Lerner, Gregor Petrikovič , Will Pham, Isobel Shore, Maya Silverberg, Aaron Alexander Smyth, Christopher Steenson, Varvara Uhlik, Eliza Wagener, Benjamin Waters, and Yimin Xiang.
Spring/Summer 2026
Paulo Nimer Pjota
1 May – 23 August 2026
Main Gallery
Paulo Nimer Pjota (b.1988, São José do Rio Preto) is a Brazilian artist who predominantly works in oil, tempera and acrylic on canvas. His paintings draw on art history, popular culture, mythology and folk tales, merging multiple and often contrasting references to create new, imaginary scenarios. His approach borrows from the sampling and remixing practices adopted in Brazilian hip-hop and rap music, and he often titles his work and exhibitions after songs.
At the SLG, Pjota will present a new series of paintings against an expansive mural painted directly onto the gallery walls to create a magical environment populated by mythical characters, dragons, crocodiles, monkeys and imaginary beasts. The sun, stars and moon are recurring motifs in Pjota’s cosmos, as are ancient and modern vases, shells and invented vessels, often brimming with fantastical flowers. Bringing together such disparate elements from the past, present and an imaginary world, Pjota introduces us to a new universe in which established hierarchies of value attributed to various objects, artefacts and cultures are dismantled, making way for an alternative future.
The exhibition at the SLG will be Pjota's first exhibition with a public gallery in the UK. It will also be his second institutional solo exhibition following his debut at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, in 2025.
Ranti Bam
1 May – 23 August 2026
Fire Station Galleries
In Summer 2026 the SLG will stage the first solo institutional exhibition by British Nigerian artist Ranti Bam (b.1982, Lagos), in the Fire Station galleries.
Bam works across clay, ceramics, performance, film and photography. Her practice unfolds in two connected bodies of work, the Ifas and Abstract Vessels. The Ifas are large scale stoneware forms, created by Bam's intimate gesture of embracing raw clay against her body before firing to create vessels that collapse and fold. In contrast, the terracotta Abstract Vessels unfold a world of colour, texture and pattern, which are inspired by Yoruba material and immaterial language. For the exhibition at SLG Bam explores spirituality, rest and communal gathering through a film installation, sound piece and new large scale clay sculptures.
Ranti Bam lives and works between Paris and Lagos. Bam has exhibited internationally including Anima, at James Cohan, New York (2024), Hard/Soft: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Museum of Applied Arts, Austria, (2023), and The Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2023). Bam is one of six artists invited to create permanent public art for the European Capital of Culture in Finland launching in June of 2026.
Autumn 2026
Monika Sosnowska
9 September - 22 November 2026
Main Gallery & Fire Station Galleries
In September 2026 the SLG presents a major solo exhibition of new and recent works by Monika Sosnowska (b. 1972, Ryki, Poland). Spanning the Main Gallery and two floors of the Fire Station, the exhibition will give an insight into the breadth of Sosnowska’s sculptural practice, which features deconstructed forms rendered in steel, concrete and other elements associated with modernist architecture.
Often in a state of collapse and imbued with a fragility at odds with the materials from which they’re made, Sosnowska’s works explore shifting social and political values, including the implosion of the Communist regime in Poland, and the legacy of modernism. A site-specific installation in the Main Gallery will feature monumental works, whilst in the Fire Station galleries, domestic scale pieces will be shown alongside Sosnowska’s intricate paper models, which reveal another aspect of her working practice.
Monika Sosnowska studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań and completed postgraduate training at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. She is now based in Warsaw. Recent solo exhibitions include Monika Sosnowska: An Order Apart at EMMA (Espoo Museum of Modern Art), Espoo, Finland (2024); Ghosts at Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, Germany (2024); and a major presentation at Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland (2023). Her work is currently on show at Saarlandmuseum-Moderne Galerie, Saarbrücken, Germany and the Princess Estelle Sculpture Park, Rosendal, Royal Djurgården, Stockholm.
Winter 2026
Kang Seung Lee
11 December 2026 – 11 April 2027
Main Gallery & Fire Station Galleries
Next winter, the South London Gallery will stage the first solo exhibition in the UK by Kang Seung Lee (b. 1978, Seoul), curated by the third cohort of New Curators.
Lee’s drawings, embroideries, assemblages, installations, and videos are marked by a precise, poetic approach to memory and history. Engaging with the legacy of transnational queer histories, particularly as they intersect with art history, his work often reimagines archival materials through acts of care and reinvention. For this exhibition, Lee will create new work responding to the site and honouring the expression and activism of his artistic predecessors.
Born in South Korea in 1978, Lee studied at the California Institute of the Arts and is now based in Los Angeles. He has exhibited internationally, including at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024), New Museum Triennial (2021), Gwangju Biennale (2021) and institutions such as the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Museu de Arte de São Paulo and National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul.
New Curators is a paid year-long curatorial training programme based in London for aspiring curators from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
