How Do We Find Love?

How Do We Find Love? is the Sainsbury Centre's autumn 2026 season, exploring the profound complexities of human relationships, desire and intimacy.

Love has always been one of art's great subjects but is rarely its most seriously examined. This season moves beyond romantic clichés to explore love through encounters which are sexy and seductive; bodily and emotional; symbolic and intellectual. Spanning painting, sculpture, photography, textiles, moving image and sound, the exhibitions continually return to the same unresolved questions: what does it mean to be loved, and to love well?

Together, the exhibitions propose that art is the sharpest tool we have for thinking about intimacy. At a moment when human connection is increasingly mediated by screens, How Do We Find Love? asks audiences to sit with love's complexities and contradictions: as wound and remedy, as sacred and profane, as private and political.

The season comprises three exhibitions:

The Last Human Kiss (13 November 2026 - 11 April 2027) explores how the kiss has shaped human ideas of love, intimacy, devotion, betrayal and belonging, and traces how artists have returned to the kiss as a way of thinking about human connection and the human condition, from historical representations of the kiss between two people to its digital and beyond-human expressions in the 21st century. 'The First Kiss' lingers in the fragile space where attraction becomes attachment and strangers become companions; 'The Divine Kiss' explores the Baroque fascination with love's power to disrupt; in 'The Social Kiss' intimacy reflects political or collective dynamics; 'The Romantic Kiss' explores desire's euphoric charge, while 'The Trickster Kiss' brings us to the present, where kissing takes on mediated, digital and post-human forms, at once everywhere and strangely absent. Spanning painting, sculpture, photography and film, it features work by Anthony Van Dyck, Auguste Rodin, William Blake, Tracey Emin, Wolfgang Tillmans, Shilpa Gupta, Sophie Barber, Patty Chang and Dorothy Cross. Curated by John Kenneth Paranada, formerly Curator of Art and Climate Change at the Sainsbury Centre.

Ecstasy and the Aftermath (13 November 2026 - 11 April 2027) asks what it means to love and be loved in return. Reflecting on how deep connections are formed, broken, remembered and mourned, it asks whether love ever truly ends, and reframes love as a subversive force for change and a way of building the world anew. Works by such artists as Jonathan Baldock, Bex Wade, Somaya Critchlow, Vanessa Raw, Dyana Gravina, Judy Chicago, Marina Abramović and Ulay, and Phoebe Boswell give voice and visibility to LGBTQIA+ communities and trans care networks, and engage intersectional feminist politics. Curated by guest curator Huma Kabakci, in collaboration with Vanessa Tothill, Curator of Transhistorical Narratives at the Sainsbury Centre.

Love Stories (19 December 2026 - 30 May 2027) is an exhibition of photography that explores love as it shapes our everyday lives. Bringing together the work of ten internationally acclaimed photographers, it moves beyond traditional romantic narratives to reveal intimate stories of friendship, family, partnership, community and selfhood. Works range from Richard Billingham's series documenting the lives of his parents, Ray and Liz, to Martin Parr's sardonic Bored Couples; Akihito Yoshida's tender series, shown for the first time in the UK; self-portraits by Zanele Muholi; and Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh's Lovers Revisited. The exhibition also includes work by Masahisa Fukase, Ollie Adegboye, Isabel Okoro and Carol Allen-Storey. Curated by Tafadzwa Makwabarara, Curator of Cultural Empowerment at the Sainsbury Centre.

The season is accompanied by a book published by the Sainsbury Centre with Artworld Projects.