This autumn, the Serpentine South gallery will present House of Music, a major exhibition by the British artist Peter Doig. The project proposes a unique synthesis of painting and sound, transforming the gallery into a multi-sensory environment. It marks Doig’s first solo exhibition at the Serpentine since he was a finalist in the Barclays Young Artist Award there in 1991.
At the core of the exhibition is an immersive auditory experience. Music selected by the artist from his extensive personal archive of vinyl and cassettes will be broadcast through two distinct sets of restored vintage analogue speakers. One system features 1950s wooden Klangfilm Euronor speakers, noted for their high fidelity. The other is a rare Western Electric/Bell Labs sound system from the dawn of the sound-on-film era in the late 1920s. This historically significant equipment was salvaged from derelict cinemas and restored by Laurence Passera, a specialist in cinematic sound technology who collaborated closely with Doig on the project.
These soundscapes will provide a context for a selection of Doig’s recent paintings. The works on display explore the intersection of the visual and the auditory, with canvases such as Music of the Future (2002–2007) and Speaker/Girl (2015) directly addressing modes of musical experience. Many of the pieces were produced during the two decades Doig spent in Trinidad (2002–2021), a period that profoundly informed his engagement with the island’s vibrant sound system culture. A central feature will be three large-scale paintings depicting lions in Port of Spain, a motif that references the Lion of Judah, a recurring symbol in Rastafari iconography. The exhibition’s title itself is a reference to a lyric by the late Trinidadian calypsonian musician Shadow, who is the subject of a 2019 portrait by Doig also included in the show.
The exhibition’s exploration of shared listening will be extended through a live public programme. On Sundays, a series titled Sound Service will feature artists and musicians—including Ed Ruscha, Duval Timothy, Nihal El Aasar, and Olukemi Lijadu—playing selections from their personal collections. A series of evening events will also host acoustic exchanges between figures such as Dennis Bovell, Brian Eno, and Linton Kwesi Johnson.
A publication, designed to resemble a 12-inch record sleeve, will accompany the exhibition. It will include a new text by Michael Bracewell, a history of theatre sound systems by Laurence Passera, poetry by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Derek Walcott, and an interview between Doig and Serpentine’s Artistic Director, Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Peter Doig: House of Music is curated by a team including Natalia Grabowska, Lizzie Carey-Thomas, Alexa Chow, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, with the live programme co-curated by Kostas Stasinopoulos. The exhibition is scheduled to run from 10 October 2025 to 8 February 2026.
