Justin Caguiat’s Serpentine show has paintings that change when bells ring
The Tokyo-born artist is bringing heat-sensitive paintings, flower-shaped bronze bells and a 16mm film to Serpentine South this autumn.
Justin Caguiat is bringing paintings that change colour with heat and bells shaped like flowers to the Serpentine this autumn.
His first UK institutional exhibition, Change Ringing, will bring together painting, sculpture, printmaking, sound and film, with several works responding directly to the gallery and its surroundings.
The heat-responsive paintings use thermochromic pigments, which alter colour as temperature and light change. A new series of copper panels will be fitted with heating pads and microcontrollers that are triggered by the sound of bells elsewhere in the exhibition, causing the colours and forms on the panels to shift.
The bells themselves are cast in the shapes of flowers and plant seeds. A mechanical score by composer Lily Pickett takes its cue from English change ringing, with the sound travelling through and being amplified by the gallery’s architecture.
There will also be large-scale paintings that evoke murals or landscapes, alongside prints, sculptures and a 16mm film shown in a small cinema created in a rarely used space at the back of the gallery.
The exhibition continues Caguiat’s interest in architecture, spirituality and the symbolic qualities of buildings. It follows Zodiac Machine, his 2026 exhibition in Madrid, which was presented across a church, a market and surrounding public spaces.
Born in Tokyo in 1989, Caguiat has exhibited in the US, Europe and Japan. His work is held in collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Justin Caguiat: Change Ringing runs at Serpentine South from 8 October 2026 to 10 January 2027. Entry is free.
Elena Leo is the Culture & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
