Jarvis Cocker Is Bringing His Eclectic Eye to the Hepworth Wakefield

In 2027, the Hepworth Wakefield in the U.K. will play host to a hodge podge of a show. Not any regular hodge podge, though, but one carefully assembled by Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and creative consultant Kim Sion.

Opening in May, the exhibition, titled “The Hodge Podge,” will gather artworks selected by the husband-and-wife duo, who are leaning toward pieces that challenge our understanding of art itself. These works span media and time periods, spotlighting outsiders and visionaries, including the likes of Peter Doig, Babara Hepworth, Jeremy Deller, Klara Kristalova, Emma Kunz, Mark Leckey, and Agnes Pelton.

Cocker and Sion’s approach to the show emerges from their shared fascination with alternative and diverse forms of expression—ones that defy contexts, structures, and traditions. That framework is set out in the couple’s Hodge Podge Manifesto. Besides reminding us that the phrase “hodge podge” was used all the way back in the 15th century to refer to “a stew made of many ingredients,” the text emphasizes there’s beauty to be found in such chaos or disorder.

“We want to bring that beauty to the Hepworth Wakefield in 2027,” they wrote. 

The show will be bookended by an immersive Dreamachine, a device created in 1959 by artist Brion Gysin and programmer Ian Sommerville. A work of light art, the stroboscopic instrument conjures in viewers unexpected visual patterns behind closed eyelids. Cocker and Sion describe it as “a machine that shows us that our minds make art—without us even thinking about it.”

The couple met 18 years ago and wed in 2024. According to their manifesto, they “sat on a bench in Madrid & looked at the central panel of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights & fell in love. With the painting. & with each other.” 

A seasoned agent, the London-born Sion is behind the contemporary London gallery Sion and Moore and the online retailer A Bag Full of Kim. Cocker, a Sheffield native, is best known for founding Pulp in 1978. The band came to the fore during the Britpop era for its enduring bangers like “Common People” and “Razzmatazz,” and still tours today. (The cover of Pulp’s 1998 album was designed by John Currin, who Cocker encountered when the painter staged his first show at Sadie Coles HQ in London in 1997; Coles and Cocker are long-time pals.)

“The Hodge Podge” follows Cocker’s earlier arty outings, including his 1999 documentary series Jarvis Cocker’s Journeys Into The Outside, which inspired a 2016 show on outsider art. In 2022, for the “Good Pop, Bad Pop” exhibition, he filled a London gallery with a host of ephemera he recovered from an old loft—a hodge podge, in other words.

“The art that he and Kim have gathered together in ‘The Hodge Podge’ will encourage the feelings of joy, marvel, and curiosity that great works of art can inspire and offer our audiences an expanded idea of creativity and community,” Hepworth Wakefield artistic director Laura Smith said in a statement.

“This is an opportunity to understand where that creative urge comes from & what it can do for you,” Cocker and Sion added. “You’d be a fool to miss it.”

“The  Hodge Podge: Jarvis  Cocker & Kim Sion Curate The Hepworth Wakefield” is on view at Hepworth Wakefield, Gallery Walk, Wakefield, the U.K., May 21–October 31, 2027. Tickets to the show will go on sale later this year.