Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London

Meander past the historic gunpowder store in London’s Hyde Park and you now come across a glass extension with sculptural tent roof. Opened in autumn 2013, the new structure houses a restaurant, the historic building accommodating the Serpentine Sackler Gallery as part of the Serpentine Gallery located seven minutes’ walk away. The painstaking renovation of the store and its extravagant extension was supervised by Zaha Hadid, who already designed the first pavilion of London’s gallery of contemporary art.

“Come and See”, the new show by Jake und Dinos Chapman which will be on display here in the first winter since opening, reveals once more the artists’ macabre British sense of humour. Life-size Ku Klux Klan figures are found standing around in the brightly lit room much like observing visitors, surreal installations with human organs on display alongside blood-drenched battlefields featuring plastic figurines. As a highly provocative show, it finds an optimal setting in the sober geometric rooms of the old neo-classical building, sensitively illuminated using a combination of daylight delivered through the skylights and ERCO lighting tools such as Opton. The seemingly floating glass fibre roof of the light and transparent extension is signature Hadid and complements the original building which hails from 1805 – as if to join the forward-looking approach of the gallery with history and the contemplative architecture of its interior with the lush garden.