Sally Tallant appointed Director of the Hayward Gallery
The Southbank Centre announced that Sally Tallant has been appointed Director of the Hayward Gallery and Visual Arts.
Sally will take up the role from July 2026 and will lead a programme of work that includes directing and curating exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery, the Southbank Centre’s contemporary art space. Sally will also organise visual arts installations across the whole Southbank Centre site and will oversee a national programme of work through Hayward Gallery Touring which reaches hundreds of thousands of people across the UK every year.
Sally Tallant, says: “I am delighted to be returning to London as Director of the Hayward Gallery and Visual Arts, Southbank Centre. It is an honour to join Mark Ball and Elaine Bedell, and to build on the outstanding legacy of Ralph Rugoff, shaping the next chapter of this vital cultural destination and civic institution.”
Sally is currently Director of the Queens Museum in New York, where she has overseen over 30 major exhibitions, including Fia Backstrom, A Billion Dollar Dream, Suzanne Lacy, Tracey Rose, Christine Sun Kim, Aliza Nisenbaum, Aki Sasamoto, Lyle Ashton Harris, Stephanie Dinkins, Charisse Pearlina Weston, Emilie Gossiaux, Caroline Kent, Pia Camil and Mierle Laderman Ukeles as well as wide-reaching education, public programmes and community events in one of the most diverse communities in the US.
In her role as Director of the Queens Museum, she has also commissioned six permanent public artworks for Delta Airlines Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport by Rashid Johnson, Fred Wilson, Ronny Quevedo, Aliza Nisenbaum, Mariam Ghani and Virginia Overton.
Under her leadership, the Queens Museum received the prestigious CIMAM Outstanding Museum Practice Award in 2021 for Cultural Food Pantry and Year of Uncertainty, highlighting the institution’s radical recalibration of its mission during the Covid pandemic.
Formerly Artistic Director and CEO of the Liverpool Biennial, from 2011–2019, Sally directed the UK’s largest international festival of contemporary art, commissioning over 120 artists across four Biennial editions and pioneering a biennial model grounded in research, education, partnership and civic engagement.
Main Image: Sally Tallant by Thierry Bal