What Will You See in Doris Salcedo’s House and Grains of Sorrow at White Cube?

Short answer

Doris Salcedo opens at White Cube New York, 1002 Madison Avenue, on November 13, 2026, and runs through January 16, 2027. It is the Colombian artist’s first major New York exhibition since her 2015 retrospective, and it presents two new bodies of work made from human hair and rice: the monumental structure House (2023–26) and the floor installation Grains of Sorrow (2023–26).

Key facts

• Who: Doris Salcedo, born 1958 in Bogotá, Colombia, a sculptor whose work bears witness to the victims of political violence.
• What: Two new bodies of work, House (2023–26) and Grains of Sorrow (2023–26), both three years in the making.
• Where: White Cube New York, 1002 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10075.
• When: November 13, 2026 – January 16, 2027.
• Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM. Admission is free.

What will you see?

A house built from human hair. At the center of the exhibition stands House, a monumental yet ethereal structure fabricated by knotting and weaving individual strands of hair over three years. Salcedo continues the themes of her prize-winning installation Uprooted (2020–22), shown at the 2023 Sharjah Biennial, which addressed climate-crisis migration. “The loss of a home is more than simply losing a structure or a roof; it is the catastrophic loss of a central pillar of our life,” the artist says.

On the gallery’s other level, Grains of Sorrow spreads 47 small vessels across the floor, each made exclusively of rice and human hair. The installation responds to forced starvation, still used today as a weapon of war, and the small scale of the vessels is deliberate: a counter to the dehumanization of those it commemorates.

Why does this exhibition matter?

Salcedo has described her work as “a topology of mourning,” and this is her first major New York presentation since the retrospective that opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2015 and traveled to the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Both new works were made by many hands, in a meticulous collective process the artist connects to the intensive labor of the Global South that drives the modern economy yet too often goes unrecognized. “A collective statement is far more powerful than a lonely solo voice,” she says. “It becomes like a chorus, and a really potent one.”

How do you visit?

White Cube New York is at 1002 Madison Avenue, on the Upper East Side. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM, and admission is free. White Cube is a commercial contemporary art gallery, so you can simply walk in during opening hours; our guide to cultural mediation can help you approach work that carries this much grief.

FAQ

When does the Doris Salcedo exhibition open at White Cube New York?

The exhibition opens November 13, 2026, and runs through January 16, 2027.

Does it cost anything?

No. Admission to White Cube New York is free.

What are the hours?

Tuesday to Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM.

What is House made of?

House (2023–26) is a monumental structure knotted and woven from individual strands of human hair, a three-year process. The second work, Grains of Sorrow (2023–26), comprises 47 vessels made of rice and human hair.

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Sources

• White Cube, exhibition page for Doris Salcedo, New York: dates, address, works, quotes and background.
• White Cube, New York location page: opening hours and admission.

More context: our guides to Kehinde Wiley’s new portraits at Sean Kelly and Yoshitomo Nara’s first show with David Zwirner.