Renée Levi to Unveil First U.K. Large-Scale Commission on the Hayward Gallery Façade
A new work by Istanbul-born, Berlin-based artist Renée Levi (b. 1960) will soon wrap the exterior of London’s Hayward Gallery in painting that is built for weather, distance, and architecture. The two-panel commission, co-created by the Hayward Gallery and Audemars Piguet Contemporary, will be on view from September 23 to November 15, 2026, and marks both Levi’s first large-scale commission in the U.K. and the first painting commission for Audemars Piguet Contemporary.
Levi’s practice moves between painting, drawing, installation, and site-responsive interventions, often using aerosol and cleaning rags to produce broad gestures that feel immediate rather than carefully resolved. Her work treats painting less as a fixed image than as an active surface — something that can conceal, reveal, filter, and reconfigure the space it occupies. That approach is central to the Hayward project, which takes its cues from the gallery’s Brutalist façade, including its protrusions and windows.
The new work will be realized with an industrial mesh support designed to withstand the outdoor environment. In a press statement, Audrey Teichmann, curator of Audemars Piguet Contemporary, said the commission “expands the possibilities of painting” and that Levi approaches the Hayward not as a backdrop, but as “a surface to engage,” responding to its rhythm, materiality, and scale.
The commission follows Levi’s 2025 installation “LA ELLE” at the Palais de Tokyo, which featured mural paintings and window drawings. That project, like the Hayward work, underscores her interest in how painting can spill beyond the canvas and into architecture itself. As museums and galleries continue to rethink their façades as active sites for contemporary art, Levi’s commission offers a particularly lucid example of painting meeting public space on its own terms.
