London’s Hayward Gallery celebrates 50th birthday
The summer of 1968 had a very distinctive flavour. The Beatles had just submerged the nation in their seminal animation Yellow Submarine, Pink Floyd’s ethereal riffs intoxicated a thousand-strong Hyde Park crowd and the Hayward Gallery had just hit London’s Southbank, conceived from a crumbling shell between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridge, and transformed into a hub of ambitious cultural finesse.
During its lifespan, The Hayward has played host to some of the most thrilling, provocative and star-studded displays of the previous half-century. A major Matisse retrospective christened the gallery with an ambush of primitive forms on a base of rigorous discipline. Francis Bacon’s body and soul were laid bare in a 1998 retrospective, revealing the artist’s trials, torment and turbulent struggle for identity through his series of dismantled and dissected bodily forms. More recently, Martin Creed asked ‘What’s the Point of It?’ in his 2014 solo show, which dominated the Hayward’s spaces with a seminal spread of installation work teetering on the rickety boundary between provocation and profundity.
To kick off the semicentennial celebrations, the Thameside brutalist Kunsthalle underwent a major facelift in January, involving a deep external clean and the installation of 66 new skylights; the original vision of the architects and their creative righthand, Henri Matisse. And now, with the aid of Google Arts and Culture’s project, Hayward Gallery at 50, users will be able to dive into a virtual archive of 1,000 artifacts, architectural plans, films, installations, sketches, and photographs – plus snoop behind the curtain at previously uncharted exhibition material harvested over the last half century.
To toast the occasion, entry tickets for the current exhibition, ‘Lee Bul: Crashing’ – the eerily dystopian display of critically acclaimed work spanning 30 years – will be available for 50p per person on Wednesday 11 July (the Hayward’s official birthday) with extended opening hours.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Hayward Gallery website and the Google Arts and Culture website
ADDRESS
Southbank Centre
337-338 Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
Inside Valentino’s glamorous new Sloane Street store, inspired by the art of haute couture
The latest in Valentino’s ‘The New Maison’ store concept opens on London’s Sloane Street this week, offering an enveloping marble and carpet-clad space of ‘intimacy and uniqueness’
By Jack Moss Published
-
Aesop’s Salone del Mobile 2024 installations in Milan are multisensory experiences
Aesop has partnered with Salone del Mobile to launch a series of installations across Milan, tapping into sight, touch, taste, and scent
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Dial into the Boring Phone and more smartphone alternatives
From the deliberately dull new Boring Phone to Honor’s latest hook-up with Porsche, a host of new devices that do the phone thing slightly differently
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Yinka Shonibare considers the tangled relationship between Africa and Europe at Serpentine South
Yinka Shonibare‘s ‘Suspended States’ at Serpentine South, London, considers history, refuge and humanitarian support (until 1 September 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’
Gavin Turk considers wasteful consumer culture in ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
By Rowland Bagnall Published
-
Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: Bloomsbury’s untold story
‘Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story’ is a new exhibition at Charleston in Lewes, UK, that charts the duo's creative legacy
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Don’t miss: Thea Djordjadze’s site-specific sculptures in London
Thea Djordjadze’s ‘framing yours making mine’ at Sprüth Magers, London, is an exercise in restraint
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘Accordion Fields’ at Lisson Gallery unites painters inspired by London
‘Accordian Fields’ at Lisson Gallery is a group show looking at painting linked to London
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Fetishism, violence and desire: Alexis Hunter in London
‘Alexis Hunter: 10 Seconds’ at London's Richard Saltoun Gallery focuses on the artist’s work from the 1970s, disrupting sexual stereotypes
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Wayne McGregor’s new work merges genetic code, AI and choreography
Company Wayne McGregor has collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a series of works, ‘Autobiography (v95 and v96)’, at Sadler’s Wells (12 – 13 March 2024)
By Rachael Moloney Published
-
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley confronts gaming, VR and rebirth at Studio Voltaire
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley has opened her first institutional solo exhibition, ‘THE REBIRTHING ROOM’, at Studio Voltaire, London
By Hannah Silver Published