Thursday 30th of May we were treated to The Goodwood Art Foundation 2026 summer season Press Day, running from 2 May to 1 November, it brings together more than 50 works by international artists across its galleries, restaurant and 70 acre landscape. The programme is presented in partnership with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. Launched in May 2025, the Goodwood Art Foundation hails itself as the “new destination for contemporary art.” This year’s artist include Polly Apfelbaum Nancy Holt Lee Ufan Yayoi Kusama Helio Oiticica and Eva Rothschild.
The season is led by MoonSunStarEarthSkyWater, the first major UK exhibition dedicated to Nancy Holt. Spanning over four decades of her practice, the exhibition includes photography, drawings, concrete poetry, film and installations.
It also presents material connected to Sun Tunnels (1978), alongside new realisations of her site responsive works developed in collaboration with the Holt Smithson Foundation. A posthumous installation of Hydra’s Head (1974) constructed in the Foundation’s chalk quarry, consisting of six water pools aligned with the Hydra constellation, which was originally built at Artpark along the Niagara River in Lewiston, New York, featuring six circular concrete culverts filled with water.
Eva Rothschild presents a new large scale tapestry commission in the Pigott Gallery, produced at West Dean College, alongside sculptures installed both indoors and across the landscape. Cosmos (2018) by Eva Rothschild is made up of three towering 3.5 metre slatted forms that lean into and support one another. The exterior is finished in a dark polished black, while the inner surfaces are sprayed with a gradient of colour. As light moves around the work, it reflects across these tones, with purples and reds shifting and changing from different angles across the metal frame.
The structure is deliberately imposing, encouraging both a physical and visual response. Rothschild describes the outer surface as guarded and severe, like a set of disruptive gates that both block and frame the space around them.
Works by Polly Apfelbaum shown in the Foundation’s restaurant, including glazed ceramics and works on paper that reflect her multidisciplinary approach to colour, pattern and material.
An outdoor sculpture by Yayoi Kusama presented in the South Downs, marking the first time her work has been shown in this setting.
A large scale sculpture from the Relatum series by Lee Ufan will be installed within the landscape, continuing his exploration of material relationships and spatial perception.
Magic Square #3 (1977 to 79 2025) by Hélio Oiticica will also be presented. This marks the first outdoor sculpture by the artist to be realised in Europe, constructed according to his original instructions as part of the UK Brazil Season of Culture 2025 to 2026.
Eating out the 24 restaurant does not disappoint, with a number of melt in your mouth dishes, with tastes that linger long long after the dish has been devoured.
Nestled in the trees with panoramic views towards the Sussex coastline, 24 offers a small plates menu inspired by the surrounding landscape. Starting with the Rosemary Focaccia, marmite butter, courtesy of 24 we had the crispy new potatoes, which was worth a conversation on how they were delicately cooked to perfection soft in a thin crispy skin flavoured with sea salt. And then there was the Goodwood Lamb followed by a crème brûlée……
Outdoor works across the Schwarzman Gardens, designed by Dan Pearson, include installations by Rachel Whiteread, Susan Philipsz, Rose Wylie and Isamu Noguchi, alongside relocated soapstone sculptures by Solange Pessoa.
Solange Pessoa is one of Brazil’s most celebrated living artists who, since the 1980s, has created dreamlike installations, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, and paintings that explore human entanglement with the natural earth.
Over 30 of Pessoa’s ‘pedra-sabão’ or ‘soapstones’ will be arranged across the floors of The Gallery, echoing our present moment of species and cultural depletion. Reminiscent of runes or cave paintings, these sculptures speak of histories of extraction and colonial resource exploitation associated with the mining region where she grew up.
The programme continues the Foundation’s focus on presenting contemporary art across both built and natural environments.
Where: https://www.goodwoodartfoundation.org/plan-your-visit/
