Last updated: 11 October 2026
By Tristan · Arts, exhibitions and creative culture
This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author's own and do not constitute professional advice.
Cool Factor: 3/5
Khalif Tahir Thompson brings eight new paintings of Brooklyn to Victoria Miro for Send in the Clowns. It is his first show with the gallery since it took him on in spring 2026. I went on Sunday 11 October, when the gallery opened specially for Frieze East End Day. So here is my honest Khalif Tahir Thompson review.
What's on: Khalif Tahir Thompson at Victoria Miro
Send in the Clowns runs in London Gallery II at Victoria Miro on Wharf Road until 7 November 2026. Entry is free and there is no booking. There are eight paintings, all made in 2026.
Every canvas mixes oil and acrylic with handmade paper. One, Two Brothers, adds pleather to the mix. The biggest pieces, Playground and Lambent, measure 240 by 180 centimetres. Meanwhile the two smallest, Glenwood Houses and Shawn, are on linen rather than canvas.
The title comes from the 1973 Stephen Sondheim song. Thompson explains on the exhibition page that he reads the phrase as humour deployed when things go wrong. He also calls the show "a love letter to my younger self, my journey as an artist, and Brooklyn". In other words, this is a memory show, and it wears that openly.
Who is Khalif Tahir Thompson?
Khalif Tahir Thompson was born in Brooklyn in 1995 and still works there. According to his Victoria Miro artist page, he took a BFA at Purchase College. He then took an MFA in painting and printmaking at the Yale School of Art. He has also held residencies at Kehinde Wiley's Black Rock Senegal and at Yaddo in upstate New York.
His recent solo shows include Cherry at the Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2025. Zidoun-Bossuyt has shown him in Dubai, Luxembourg and Paris since 2022. Victoria Miro announced representation on 30 April 2026, in partnership with Zidoun-Bossuyt.
Museums are already buying, too. His work sits in the Rubell Museum and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture holds his work as well. That is quick going for a painter barely past thirty.
The biography matters for this show in particular. As Galerie Magazine reports, he grew up in public housing in Canarsie. He works from his late grandmother's photo albums and from trips back to the old neighbourhood. So the eight paintings here are drawn from a very specific map.
The setting: Gallery II on Frieze East End Day
Victoria Miro is usually closed on Sundays. However, for Frieze East End Day it opened from 11am to 6pm. That is how I came to be on Wharf Road on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
Gallery II has a lift, but I took the many, many flights of stairs up to it. On the ground floor is a solo show by Hernan Bas, TIME TO SHINE! (the salesmen), which I saw on the same trip and will come back to separately.
Thompson's show fills the large upper gallery. I spent about 20 minutes going round it with my friend Denise.
First impressions: tidy and familiar
Eight paintings is a modest offer for a debut with a gallery of this size, but the pacing works across the large expanse of the room. Several canvases share a formula that gets a little tired as you go round. There are one or two figures, a Brooklyn backdrop and painted letters floating on the surface.
That is not the same as saying the work is weak. In fact, the larger canvases are bold and generous with colour. Still, first impressions count, and mine was of a tidy, pleasant show rather than a surprising one.
The street pictures: Playground, Glenwood Houses and Lambent
Playground opens the list of works, and it is the clearest statement of what Thompson does. A young man in a green T-shirt pushes a buggy past a primary-coloured climbing frame. He has a backpack slung over one shoulder. Behind him rise brick apartment blocks and bare winter trees. Painted numbers and letters, an 8, a 3, a P and an h, hang in the air like graffiti nobody wrote.
In her catalogue essay, the critic Jessica Lynne reads him as possibly an older brother, a cousin or a young father. For me, though, there is a naivety to the work that tips away from a charming outsider take and towards a knowing ham-fistedness.
Lambent shows the shopfront of a braiding salon, its windows covered in faces modelling different styles. A free-standing sign on the pavement repeats the hairstyles, the door carries the number 250, and Lynne notes that even the pigeons seem to linger. This is the most worked piece in the show. However, its almost cartoon-like handling doesn't feel much like painting; it is closer to image-making.
Glenwood Houses is one of the two smaller works on linen. It takes its name from a public housing development in Brooklyn, and it is the only work here with nobody in it. There is just a brick block, a strip of hedge, a red cross and the letters R and b.
Together, these three make Lynne's point well. As she puts it in her essay for the show, "the built environment is as much a protagonist" as the people.
Two Brothers: where the collage earns its scale
For me, Two Brothers is where the show works best. Two young men stand on the Brooklyn waterfront with the bridge behind them. They are dressed up for a night out in early-2000s clothes. One wears a tie and a flat cap. The other wears a blue shirt.
That blue shirt is the detail to look for. Thompson builds it from torn sheets of handmade paper, so it creases and folds like real cotton. At 180 centimetres tall, the collage stops being a texture trick and becomes the fabric itself. Up close, the edges where one sheet meets the next stay visible.
The collage works here because the scale is big enough to carry it. At this size, it builds the whole figure rather than decorating it. Lynne calls the rendering tender and finds a nobility in the two men.
"Build a moment rather than plan a moment."
Khalif Tahir Thompson, Galerie Magazine
Pearl and the quieter interiors
Pearl is a family portrait in all but name. A woman in a sheer white dress stands in front of a cream dressing table. Beside her are an oval mirror and a mannequin head. The mannequin wears a gold nameplate necklace reading "Pearl".
According to Lynne, the woman is Thompson's elder sister, and the dressing table copies one that belonged to his grandmother. So the painting folds two generations into one bedroom.
Shawn is the other small linen work and, as its title suggests, a single portrait.
Weather and night: The Rain and Arch Diner
Arch Diner shows a now-closed Canarsie diner at night. A lone figure in a checked shirt walks up the entrance ramp under the green neon sign, while traffic slides past. It is the only night scene on the list.
The Rain, by comparison, is one of only two landscape-format canvases, at 150 by 210 centimetres.
Honest critical observations
Two things held this show back for me.
First, it is familiar. The figures, the Brooklyn settings and the floating letters repeat from canvas to canvas. There is an all-overness to them, which some of the paper inclusions redeem, but it feels a tad lazy. There are few varied or enjoyable passages across the works.
Second, the subject matter does a lot of the work. The stories behind these paintings, a sister, a grandmother's dressing table, a diner that has closed, are specific and personal. However, the painting itself is less sure than the stories it tells. Lambent shows this most, where the handling tips over into image-making.
None of this is fatal. Instead, it explains why the show lands at Cool rather than Stone cold.
Why Khalif Tahir Thompson matters now
Timing explains part of the interest. Khalif Tahir Thompson joined Victoria Miro in April, and the show opened on 8 October, the week before Frieze London. Then Artsy put it on its list of shows to see during Frieze, and he spoke to The New York Times the following day.
In short, this is a debut with a lot of attention on it. For collectors and curators, it is a first proper London look at a painter museums have already bought. For everyone else, it is a free chance to judge the fuss for yourself.
Value for money
It costs nothing, so value is easy. You spend a short visit and a bus fare. In addition, Hernan Bas is on the ground floor, which doubles what you get for the trip.
In town for the fair? Our Frieze London 2026 guide covers tickets, timings and the free art around Regent's Park. A Khalif Tahir Thompson visit fits easily into the same week.
Practical info
- Where: Victoria Miro, Wharf Road, London N1 7RW (London Gallery II)
- When: until 7 November 2026
- Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sunday, Monday and public holidays, per the gallery's visit page
- Price: free, no booking needed
- Getting there: Angel or Old Street on the Northern line; buses 43, 214 and 394 stop on City Road
- Access: a lift reaches every exhibition space in Gallery II
- Also on: Hernan Bas, TIME TO SHINE! (the salesmen), Gallery I, until 14 November 2026
The verdict
This Khalif Tahir Thompson show is warm, personal and worth a short detour. Two Brothers is the work to see. Its collage makes the case for his method at full size. Elsewhere, the stories do more work than the paint. Cool Factor: 3/5.
Cool Factor
★★★☆☆
3 out of 5
Overall, a solid 3/5 Cool. Khalif Tahir Thompson earns it with a clear, affectionate picture of Brooklyn. He also earns it with Two Brothers, where handmade paper becomes a creased blue shirt. It did not reach Stone cold because the repeating formula starts to feel a bit tired. The subject matter also often carries paintings that are less sure than their stories. It is free and on at the same time as Hernan Bas, which is most of the argument for going during Frieze week.
Khalif Tahir Thompson FAQs
Is Send in the Clowns at Victoria Miro worth visiting?
Yes, if you are nearby or already seeing Hernan Bas downstairs. It is free, it is quick to see, and Two Brothers rewards a close look. It is not a show to cross London for on its own.
How much does the Khalif Tahir Thompson exhibition cost?
Nothing. Entry to Victoria Miro is free and you do not need to book.
When does Send in the Clowns close?
It runs until 7 November 2026, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm.
How many works are in the show?
Eight paintings, all from 2026, in oil, acrylic and handmade paper. Two Brothers also uses pleather.
Who is Khalif Tahir Thompson?
A Brooklyn painter, born in 1995, with a Yale MFA. Victoria Miro has represented him since April 2026, alongside Zidoun-Bossuyt.
Where does the title come from?
From Stephen Sondheim's 1973 song. Thompson links it to using humour to cope when things go wrong.
More from CoolCuration
- Hurvin Anderson at Tate Britain: another painter of memory and place, on a much bigger stage.
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- National Art Pass: cheaper entry to paid exhibitions across the UK.
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