JUSTIN CAGUIAT

Through a use of heat-responsive pigment, works on view at Serpentine will constantly change in color and reveal different shapes as they react to environmental factors such as temperature and light. Though they resist fixed narratives, the paintings are reminiscent of fresco painting.

Alongside canvases, sculptures and prints, Caguiat will also show a series of bronze bells cast in the shapes of various flowers and plant seeds varying in size. A score composed by Lily Pickett riffs on the logic of English change ringing, playing mechanically in a continuous loop as pistons fire in sequential code. Like the concrete acoustic mirrors built along Britain’s coastline to detect warships, or Le Corbusier’s conception of a building as an acoustic receiver, the gallery’s walls gather and amplify the bells’ chimes, transforming architecture into a listening instrument.

An evolution of Zodiac Machine (4 March – 1 April 2026; Madrid), the exhibition organized by Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid, across the Santa Ana y la Esperanza Church, the nearby Moratalaz Market, and surrounding public spaces, the Serpentine show will continue Caguiat’s longstanding exploration of the architecture, spiritual resonance, and symbolic qualities of sacred spaces, alongside the structures and rhythms of everyday urban infrastructure. Devised as a project in two parts taking place in the two institutions, Caguiat’s new body of works was influenced by the Spanish architect Justo Gallego Martínez, specifically his Catedral de Justo, which he designed and built single-handedly using only recycled and found materials.

Change Ringing will also include a new site-specific installation of thermochromic paintings. Painted with heat-responsive pigments on copper, rudimentary heating pads and microcontrollers occupy various areas of the exhibition space and are triggered by the chimes of the bells. Once triggered, the copper panels are heated, shifting the colors and forms visible. These system-based works react to the ambient temperature in the room, which influences their transition from reactive to stable. Installed throughout the galleries will also be a series of paintings, monumental in scale, evoking murals or expansive landscapes.

A seldomly used space in the back of the gallery will be transformed into a small cinema featuring a 16mm film by Caguiat.

Justin Caguiat: Change Ringing is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director and Natalia Grabowska, Curator at Large, Architecture and Site-specific Projects, with Alexa Chow, Assistant Exhibitions Curator. Zodiac Machine, organized by La Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Madrid, was curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and produced by Isabela Mora.

To learn more, visit Serpentine’s website.

Courtesy Greene Naftali.