WORKPLACE

Workplace is delighted to announce that Simeon Barclay has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2026.   Barclay is nominated for ‘The Ruin’, performed at ICA, London and The Hepworth, Wakefield in 2025. Commissioned and first presented by the Roberts Institute of Art, The Ruin is Barclay’s first live performance, bringing together spoken word and percussion by James Larter and horn by Isaac Shieh. The Turner Prize will be hosted at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) in Autumn 2026.   Simeon Barclay was born in Huddersfield, UK in 1975 and lives and works in West Yorkshire. He completed his BA at Leeds Metropolitan University in 2010 and his MFA at Goldsmiths College, London in 2014.   Barclay’s work draws on popular culture, bringing together contemporary and historical references from television, comics, theatre, modernist art, literature, sport and film. He reshapes and collides these references, often with humour, to explore the complex and contradictory narratives that shape the modern British experience, including ideas of memory, class, inheritance and masculinity.   ‘The Ruin’ reflects on Britishness through the lens of Barclay’s upbringing in 1980s Huddersfield as the son of Caribbean parents. The soundscape combines early modern music, pop culture references and industrial sounds connected to Barclay’s youth and personal history. These sounds are layered with visual elements including lighting, fog and monochrome costumes worn by the performers, evoking the industrial landscapes of Northern England in ‘80s and ‘90s Britain. The piece is a dynamic and theatrical meditation on self-image, memory and the evolving myth of Britain.   —   Portrait of Simeon Barclay 2026; ‘The Ruin’, 2025, ICA London. Photo: Anne Tetzlaff; Simeon Barclay, ‘Pop Pose’, 2023. Photo: Tom Carter; Simeon Barclay, ‘Portrait in a Landscape (The Yorkshire Rose (Side Elevation)’, Oil on canvas, 2022. Photo: Matt Denham; Simeon Barclay, ‘Pittu Pithu Pitoo’, 2022. Photo: Nick Turpin. Commissioned by South London Gallery, London.   #workplacegallery #simeonbarclay #turnerprize #turnerprize2026 #art @mimauseful @tate @therobertsinstituteofart @hepworthwakefield

Last chance to view | Ki Yoong is presenting work with Margot Samel at Esther III, New York alongside Olivia Jia and August Krogan Roley. Open today Saturday 16 May, 11 am – 5 pm Estonian House, New York — Ki Yoong, ‘Hard Softness’, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace UK. #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Sertraline’, presents a new body of paintings by Wang Pei that explore how emotion and identity are shaped under pressure. Borrowing its title from a widely prescribed antidepressant, the exhibition reflects on what happens when feelings are named, managed, and standardised. Rather than directly referring to medicine, the works ask how we experience emotion in a world where it is increasingly regulated. 🔗 Link in bio to explore — Installation view of Wang Pei: ‘Sertraline’, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Raymond Pettibon is included in the current group exhibition ‘From the other end of the hallway’ at Workplace | London Pettibon’s influential oeuvre engages a wide spectrum of American iconography variously pulled from literature, art history, philosophy, religion, politics, sports, and alternative youth culture, among other sources. Intermixing image and text, his drawings engage the visual rhetorics of pop and commercial culture while incorporating language from mass media as well as classic texts by writers such as William Blake, Marcel Proust, John Ruskin, and Walt Whitman. Through his exploration of the visual and critical potential of drawing, Pettibon’s practice harkens back to the traditions of satire and social critique in the work of eighteenth and nineteenth-century artists and caricaturists such as William Hogarth, Gustave Doré, and Honoré Daumier, while reinforcing the importance of the medium within contemporary art and culture today. 🔗 Link in bio to learn more — Raymond Pettibon, ‘No Title (We would just as soon look...), 2000. Courtesy the Artist and David Zwirner. Portrait of Raymond Pettibon, 2016. Photo by George Etheredge for The New York Times. #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Now open | ‘From the other end of the hallway’ at Workplace | London. ‘From the other end of the hallway’ is a group exhibition including works by Jimmy DeSana, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, William Etty, George Grosz, Maria Lassnig, Tony Morgan, Raymond Pettibon, Thomas Ruff, and Patti Smith. The exhibition unfolds as a sequence of charged encounters: bodies held in suspension, bodies giving way. Weight depicted and felt through posture, pause and the strain between figures. “the boy looked at Johnny”... — 
Installation view of ‘From the other end of the hallway’, 2026. Workplace | London. Courtesy the Artists and Workplace, UK. #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Opening today | Ki Yoong is presenting new work with Margot Samel at Esther III, New York alongside Olivia Jia and August Krogan Roley. 12 - 16 May 2026 Estonian House, New York — Ki Yoong, ‘All That’s Left Behind’, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace UK. #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Opening today | Wang Pei: ‘Sertraline’ and ‘From the other end of the hallway’ at Workplace | London Join us tonight, Thursday 7 May from 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of Wang Pei’s new solo exhibition ‘Sertraline’, and ‘From the other end of the hallway’ a group exhibition including works by Jimmy DeSana, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, William Etty, George Grosz, Maria Lassnig, Tony Morgan, Raymond Pettibon, Thomas Ruff, and Patti Smith. 🔗 Link in bio to explore — Wang Pei, ‘Iridescent’ (detail), 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK. Patti Smith, ‘Patti Rides her Coney Island Pony’ (detail). Courtesy of the Artist and Robert Miller Gallery. #workplacegallery #london #painting #sculpture #contemporaryart art

Now open | Rachel Lancaster and Ki Yoong and are included in the group exhibition ‘Image World’ at Hypha Gallery 1 curated by Alexander Harding. We live in an image world. Pictures circulate at the speed of thought, shaping not only what we see, but how we understand time, value, and presence. The exhibition brings together artists who use photographic imagery and its mediated aesthetics to explore how visual culture registers the contemporary moment Hypha Gallery 1 / No. 1 Poultry, London EC2R 8EN 24th April – 30th May 2026 — Rachel Lancaster, ‘All That’s Left Behind’, 2024. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace UK. #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Opening this week | Wang Pei: ‘Sertraline’ at Workplace (8 May – 4 July 2026) Please join us on Thursday 7 May from 6-8pm to celebrate Pei’s solo exhibition. The exhibition presents a new body of paintings by Wang Pei that explore how emotion and identity are shaped under pressure. 🔗 Link in bio to learn more — Wang Pei, ‘La Chair’, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Opening next week | ‘From the other end of the hallway’ at Workplace (8 May – 6 June 2026) Workplace is pleased to present ‘From the other end of the hallway’ a group exhibition including works by Jimmy DeSana, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, William Etty, George Grosz, Maria Lassnig, Tony Morgan, Raymond Pettibon, Thomas Ruff, and Patti Smith. Please join us on Thursday 7 May from 6-8pm to celebrate the opening reception. 🔗 Link in bio to learn more — Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, ‘Gerald Hughes (a.k.a. Savage Fantasy), about 25 years old, Southern California, $50’, 1990-1992. Courtesy the Artist and David Zwirner. #workplacegallery #london #painting #sculpture #contemporaryart art

Opening tomorrow | Ki Yoong and Rachel Lancaster are included in the group exhibition ‘Image World’ at Hypha Gallery 1. We live in an image world. Pictures circulate at the speed of thought, shaping not only what we see, but how we understand time, value, and presence. The exhibition brings together artists who use photographic imagery and its mediated aesthetics to explore how visual culture registers the contemporary moment Hypha Gallery 1 / No. 1 Poultry, London EC2R 8EN Preview: Thursday, 23th April 2026, 6 – 9pm 24th April – 30th May 2026 — Ki Yoong, ‘You Are What I Wanted To See’, 2025. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace UK. #workplacegallery #london #painting #contemporaryart #art

Now open | Simeon Barclay is included in the group exhibition ‘Curtain Up’ at The Lowry, Manchester. ‘Curtain Up’ is a group exhibition that explores how visual artists have sought to capture the shared anticipation, heightened emotions, and communal energy of being in an audience. Featuring works by Simeon Barclay, Denzil Forrester, Joy Labinjo, Ryan Mosley, Abigail Reynolds, Bridget Smith, and major new commissions by Rowland Hill, Chris Paul Daniels and Ulla von Brandenburg. — Simeon Barclay, ‘Look No Hands’ 2018; Simeon Barclay ‘A track with no name’, 2018. Photos: Michael Pollard. Courtesy the Artist and The Lowry Manchester. #workplacegallery #simeonbarclay #neon #contemporaryart #art