The Hayward Gallery will present the first major UK exhibition by Nan Goldin in more than two decades this autumn, unveiling a significant body of new and recent work, including the world premiere of a new moving-image installation.
The exhibition marks a major moment in the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme, tracing the evolution of one of contemporary photography’s most influential artists as her practice expands from documenting human intimacy to exploring the relationship between animals, nature and survival.
At the heart of the exhibition is the public debut of You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part II (2026), presented alongside Part I (2024). Created in collaboration with filmmaker David Sherman, the films represent a striking new direction for Goldin. Drawing on 16mm footage, damaged film soundtracks and an original score by Mica Levi, the works shift attention away from people towards animal consciousness and the natural world, reflecting on extinction, coexistence and humanity’s relationship with other species.
The Hayward Gallery’s presentation has been designed in collaboration with architect Hala Wardé, creating immersive environments tailored to each moving-image work.
The exhibition will also introduce UK audiences to Stendhal Syndrome (2024), shown for the first time in Britain. Accompanied by a score from Soundwalk Collective, the film juxtaposes photographs of Goldin’s friends and lovers with masterpieces from museums around the world, revealing unexpected echoes between classical art and contemporary life.
Also on view is Memory Lost (2019–2021), Goldin’s deeply personal reflection on addiction, grief and survival. Combining photographs from her own archive with an uncompromising examination of the opioid crisis, the work is dedicated to P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), the activist organisation Goldin founded to challenge the Sackler family’s role in the epidemic and advocate for harm reduction.
Alongside the moving-image installations, visitors will encounter a new selection of photographs, including previously unseen works connected to the You Never Did Anything Wrong films.
For more than fifty years, Goldin has transformed contemporary photography through her uncompromising depictions of love, friendship, addiction and queer communities. Her work collapsed the traditional distance between photographer and subject, creating images rooted in lived experience rather than observation. This latest exhibition demonstrates how that same empathy now extends beyond human relationships to encompass the fragile connections between people, animals and the natural world.
Rachel Thomas, Roden Chief Curator at the Hayward Gallery, said: “We are incredibly proud to debut new work by Nan Goldin at the Hayward Gallery. This exhibition traces the evolution of her gaze through extraordinary new and recent moving image works… urging us to look at our fragile world with a deeper sense of empathy, wonder and shared survival.”
The exhibition concludes the Southbank Centre’s landmark 75th anniversary celebrations and marks Nan Goldin’s first institutional exhibition in the UK since 2002.
Nan Goldin, 24th November 2026 – 7th March 2027 Hayward Gallery
About the artist
Nan Goldin is an American photographer and artist. Since the 1970s her work has explored notions of gender and definitions of normality. By documenting her life and the lives of the friends who surround her, Goldin gives a voice and visibility to her communities especially the bohemian LGBT communities which were deeply impacted by the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s. These images of her “extended family” became the subject of her seminal slide show and first book The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Her retrospective This Will Not End Well, the first exhibition dedicated to her work as a filmmaker, traveled through Europe in 2022–2026 (Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan; and GrandPalaisRmn, Paris). She is the founding member of the advocacy group P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) which targeted the pharmaceutical companies responsible for the overdose epidemic. She has been an outspoken advocate for Palestine since the 1970s. She lives and works in New York City and Paris.
