Hayward Gallery

Built in the brutalist style as part of the Southbank Centre, a cultural hub on the river Thames with its roots in the 1951 Festival of Britain, the Hayward Gallery is among the U.K.’s most important temporary exhibition spaces. It opened in 1968 and has no permanent collection. The programing largely showcases international contemporary work across solo presentations – in the past, for artists including Tracey Emin, Jeremy Deller and Martin Creed – and thematic group shows, and frequently combines the unorthodox with the accessible. Exhibits have reached beyond the building itself: Antony Gormley installed 31 life-sized figures on rooftops along the Thames in 2007, the Austrian collective Gelitin created a boating lake on the roof in 2008 and Carsten Höller installed giant slides on the exterior in 2015. The Hayward also produces a strong program of touring exhibitions designed for varied venues around the U.K. and, every five years, the British Art Show surveys the latest in contemporary art. The celebrated American curator Ralph Rugoff, artistic director of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, began his directorship of the Hayward in 2006.