Jarvis Cocker and Kim Sion Will Curate a 2027 Exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield
The Hepworth Wakefield is turning to an unlikely pair of curators for a 2027 exhibition that promises to blur the line between art history, pop culture, and personal mythology. “The Hodge Podge,” organized by Jarvis Cocker and Kim Sion, will open on May 21, 2027, and remain on view through October 31 at the museum in Wakefield, U.K.
The exhibition will gather works by Peter Doig, Barbara Hepworth, Jeremy Deller, Klara Kristalova, Emma Kunz, Mark Leckey, and Agnes Pelton, bringing together artists whose practices span different periods, materials, and modes of thought. Rather than imposing a single theme, Cocker and Sion are framing the project around plurality itself — the idea that creative energy can emerge from collision, contradiction, and disorder.
That approach is spelled out in their Hodge Podge Manifesto, which notes that the phrase “hodge podge” dates to the 15th century, when it described a stew made of many ingredients. For the pair, the term becomes a curatorial principle: mixture is not a problem to solve, but a condition to value.
The exhibition will be bookended by an immersive Dreamachine, the light-based device created in 1959 by Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville. The stroboscopic instrument produces shifting visual patterns behind closed eyelids, and Cocker and Sion describe it as “a machine that shows us that our minds make art — without us even thinking about it.”
Cocker, who founded Pulp in 1978, is best known for songs including “Common People” and “Razzmatazz.” Sion is a London-based gallerist and the founder of Sion and Moore, as well as the online retailer A Bag Full of Kim. The couple married in 2024 and have said their shared fascination with Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” helped shape their outlook.
The project also extends Cocker’s earlier work in art and outsider culture, including his 1999 documentary series Jarvis Cocker’s Journeys Into The Outside and the 2022 “Good Pop, Bad Pop” exhibition, which filled a London gallery with ephemera recovered from an old loft. In a statement, Hepworth Wakefield artistic director Laura Smith said the exhibition will encourage “joy, marvel, and curiosity” while expanding “our audiences’ idea of creativity and community.”
Tickets for “The Hodge Podge: Jarvis Cocker & Kim Sion Curate The Hepworth Wakefield” will go on sale later in 2026. In a museum landscape often shaped by clear categories, the show is positioning itself as something looser, stranger, and more open-ended — a reminder that disorder can still be a form of structure.
TheHepworthWakefield JarvisCocker KimSion ContemporaryArt ArtExhibition Dreamachine
