The Southbank Centre has announced today that Ralph Rugoff OBE, Director of the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery, will step down in Spring 2026 after 20 years in post.
Ralph was appointed Director of the Hayward Gallery in May 2006. Throughout his tenure, he has driven a rich and inspiring programme featuring diverse artists from across the global diaspora, working in and around complex themes in captivating and engaging ways and making them accessible to a wider public.
Group shows such as Kiss My Genders, Dear Earth, and IIn the Black Fantastic engagingly explored key concerns of contemporary life with ‘alternative blockbusters’ such as Walking In My Mind and Light Show drawing broad audiences with experiential installations. Ralph has also championed some of the greatest living British artists – from Bridget Riley and Antony Gormley to Jeremy Deller, Tracey Emin and Mike Nelson – and opened up the Hayward Gallery and wider Southbank Centre site with programmes of free exhibitions and playful public art.
In parallel to putting together an admired and respected programme, Ralph also developed the international touring of Hayward Gallery exhibitions, which in the past two decades have travelled to cities around the world, including Berlin, Beijing, Sydney, Sharjah, New York and Stockholm.
Ralph personally curated 23 major exhibitions for the Hayward Gallery over the past 20 years, including medium-specific group shows such as The Painting of Modern Life (2007), Psycho Buildings: Artists Take On Architecture (2008), Invisible: Art About the Unseen, 1957–2012, Mixing It Up (2016) and When Forms Come Alive (2023) and major survey solo artist exhibitions of artists such as Ed Ruscha, Jeremy Deller, Tracey Emin, George Condo, Carsten Holler, Andreas Gursky, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Kader Attia and Tavares Strachan.
In 2008, Ralph initiated a new programme of free exhibitions in what is now the Hayward Gallery’s HENI Project Space. Focusing on early career artists with little institutional exposure in the UK, the HENI Project Space has since showcased artists from over 40 different countries including Dineo Seshee Bopape, Cyprien Gaillard, Victor Man, Kate Cooper, Hicham Berrada, Nevin Aladag and Amol K. Patil.
Beginning in 2006 with the installation of Jeppe Hein’s ever-popular Appearing Rooms fountain sculpture in front of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Ralph created an ongoing programme of accessible, free public artworks across the Southbank Centre site. Artists have included Phyllida Barlow, Tracey Emin, Yinka Shonibare, Klaus Weber, Bharti Kher, John Gerrard, Anthea Hamilton, Slavs and Tatars, Asim Waqif and Jyll Bradley.