The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University is presenting “Hew Locke: Passages,” the most comprehensive exhibition to date of work by the Guyanese British artist, through May 24, 2026. Organized by the Yale Center for British Art and curated by Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director of the YCBA, the show marks its Midwest debut at the Columbus venue.

The exhibition spans Locke’s career from the 1990s to the present across nearly 50 works, encompassing installation, photography, sculpture, and works on paper. Among the pieces on view are Locke’s reworked historic share certificates—direct interventions into the documents underpinning modern global capitalism—along with sculptural ships, works from his series Natives and Colonials, and two of his Black equestrian Ambassador statues, which critique public commemoration. Locke’s work addresses colonialism, trade routes, diasporas, and the formation of hybrid identities in the Caribbean and their subsequent migration to the United Kingdom.

In the artist’s words, the exhibition is “a meeting of personal and global histories” and draws from the logic of the Baroque in its formal and conceptual complexity. A fully illustrated catalogue co-edited by Droth and Allie Biswas accompanies the show. After Columbus, the exhibition travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where it will be on view June 21 through September 13, 2026. The Wexner Center is located at 1871 North High Street on the Ohio State University campus.

Source: Wexner Center for the Arts