Exhibitions to enjoy in Liverpool over 2026

The New Year brings a host of new and fascinating exhibitions to Liverpool’s many galleries and museums.

And while the Tate, Maritime Museum and International Slavery Museum are all currently closed for multi-million pound renovations, there are still plenty of venues open for people to visit and exhibitions to enjoy.

From shows which were launched in 2025 and are now continuing into 2026 to new exhibitions, and covering a wide sweep of media from painting to prints to photography, sketches to sculptures, ceramics to crafts, and rare historical treasures to cutting edge multimedia displays, there really is the proverbial ‘something for everyone’.

And this being Liverpool, a lot of what is on offer is free to access. Aren’t we a lucky lot?

Here’s what’s happening in the city (and across the water at Port Sunlight) over the next 12 months.

Continuing from 2025

Home Ground: The Architecture of Football – Tate Liverpool + RIBA until January 25

Inspired by Everton’s opening of the new Hill Dickinson stadium, Home Ground highlights the history of football stadium design from the 1890s to the present day, exploring some of the game’s most iconic grounds around the world through architectural models, photographs and archive material.

Lou Miller: We Dream of Our Freedom – Bluecoat until February 8

Manchester-based artist and activist Lou Miller collaborated with children from Liverpool’s St Vincent de Paul Catholic Primary School in L1 to explore their vision of freedom.

The resulting exhibition (see image below) has transformed the voices of the children, aged eight to 11, into a series of textile banners, clay, and print works for adults and children alike.

Just Browsing – Bluecoat until February 8

This group exhibition borrows from the retail area around Bluecoat’s gallery to offer an experience of art that can be touched, worn and bought to take home. Artists in the exhibition use textiles, ceramics, and scent to connect with audiences in a variety of ways.

It features works and products from artists Bruce Asbestos, Ffion Evans, Garth Gratrix, Ivy Kalungi, Lou Miller, Sufea Mohamad Noor, Lewis Prosser, Ben Saunders, Daniel Sean Kelly, Chester Tenneson, and Carla Wright.

Bassam Issa Al-Sabah/Nina Davies – FACT until February 22

Bassam Issa Al-Sabah works across digital animation, painting, sculpture, and textiles.

At the centre of his work is an interest in how digital culture influences our response to trauma, displacement and loss. His imagined worlds offer room to reconsider personal and collective existences - places where fantasy becomes both a shelter and a site of reckoning.

In this new immersive work The Mission is the End, The End is all I Want, he explores the dreamlike quality of digital media, from its glossy surface to its seductive imagery.

Meanwhile Nina Davies blends fiction and non-fiction in her work to help us see the world in new ways.

For her project Meet Me in the Digital Twin, she worked with Eve, Luke, and Mel - three young people from the Liverpool City Region who attend the Teenage and Young Adult Unit at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust. Over the past year, they have created an artwork based on their experiences of living with and beyond cancer. 

Turner: Always Contemporary – Walker Art Gallery until February 22

Marking the 250^th anniversary of the artist’s birth, this ticketed exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery explores both Turner’s own work and his impact on successive generations of artists.

It features around 120 artworks including National Museums Liverpool’s own collection of Turner’s paintings, works on paper and prints, exhibited alongside modern and contemporary artworks which consider themes like travel, tourism, landscape, climate change and artistic experimentation.

Curly Blows, Cuts and Curlers – Museum of Liverpool until March 8

From mop tops to modern-day rollers and curly blows, explore hair, hairstyles, and hairdressers in the city over time in this photographic display featuring images from the Museum of Liverpool’s collections.

The photos reveal the social and cultural impact of hair on local identity, showcases how salons and barbers are vital local community spaces, and celebrates everyday style queens who epitomise the power of hair.

Treasure: History Unearthed – Museum of Liverpool until March 29

A gold cape, Viking silver, finely fashioned Bronze Age axe and spear heads and hoards full of Roman and Tudor coins are among the treasures on show in this captivating exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool.

The ground floor exhibition - curated by National Museums Liverpool’s expert archaeology team - brings together rare and fascinating archaeological artefacts from the North West and North Wales in a display which is the most extensive of its kind ever to be staged in the region.

Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe – VG&M until August 1

Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe features new images of key figures from the 1950s and 60s Liverpool music scene take by photographer Ean Flanders, telling the story of a generation whose talent and innovation helped shape the sound of modern British music.

It was due to close in April but the run has since be extended to give more people the chance to catch it.

New for 2026

Look Climate Lab 2026 – Open Eye Gallery

January 23 to March 29

LOOK Climate Lab is a biennial programme exploring how photography can be a relevant and powerful medium for talking about climate change, with this year’s programme focusing on gardens and how people connect with green spaces. 

Open Eye will transform its Mann Island gallery into a lab, bringing together researchers, activists and artists to test their ideas, and encouraging audiences to discuss systematic changes needed for dealing with the climate crisis.

More details HERE

Can Meeple Escape the Neurophobia? – FACT

February 6 to April 26

Curated by FACT’s 2025 Curator-in-Residence, Milia Xin Bi, and drawing inspiration from tabletop games where every player’s decision rewrites the story, Can Meeple Escape the Neurophoria? examines how our relationship with intelligent technologies, such as AI, is changing.

It explores how this shift shapes our sense of self, our ability to make choices, and our connection to machines as we develop alongside them.

The show features interactive works by artists Vytas Jankauskas, Jan Zuiderveld and Joseph Wilk.

More details HERE

Artist Rooms: Ed Ruscha – Tate Liverpool + RIBA

February 12 to June 14

The first new exhibition of 2026 from Tate Liverpool and RIBA North features the work of influential contemporary American artist Ed Ruscha including books, photographs, paintings, drawings and lithographs.

Ruscha is widely regarded as one of the world’s most important artists with a career spanning seven decades from the 1960s onwards.

The free exhibition follows a drive Ruscha took through the vast open space and urban landscape of the USA and invites visitors to join the artist in looking at his surroundings.

More details HERE

May Morris: Crafting a Legacy – Lady Lever Art Gallery

April 25 to November 1

She may be overshadowed by her more famous father William, but May Morris was herself a pioneering figure in the British Arts and Crafts movement.

And in 2026 the spotlight is being shone on her work at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

A talented designer and needleworker, May Morris elevated the embroiderer’s craft from a trivial hobby to a serious art form worthy of recognition.

Along with being a designer, maker, embroidery tutor, lecturer, editor and writer, she was also an advocate for women artists, and in 1907 co-founded the Women’s Guild of Arts.

This exhibition will feature a vibrant display of embroideries, wallpapers, watercolour designs, costume and jewellery.

More details HERE

Gender Stories – Walker Art Gallery

May 16 to August 31

Through a diverse collection of fine and decorative art, personal stories and objects, Gender Stories traces the spectrum of ‘genders’ and their expression across time and place, examining how ‘gender’ intersects with sex, class, sexuality and heritage to shape who we are.

The exhibition features works by David Hockney, Catherine Opie, Grayson Perry, Rene Matić, Zanele Muholi and Del LaGrace Volcano.

More details HERE

John Akomfrah: Listening All Night to the Rain – Walker Art Gallery

May 16 to August 31

A new work by Sir John Akomfrah goes on display at Walker Art Gallery in May.

The work continues the artist and filmmaker’s investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on the act of listening and the sonic.

Listening All Night to the Rain was commissioned by the British Council for the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2024. Co-commissioner Lisson Gallery, Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Smoking Dogs Films. The Commission and UK Tour of Listening All Night to The Rain is supported by Art Fund.

More details HERE