About
Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Jenny Saville. Migrants will be her first solo exhibition since her show at Gagosian in 1999. Saville has been recognized as one of the most thought-provoking and technically accomplished talents of her generation. She has become known for her monumental paintings of fleshy nudes. In this exhibition, developed over the last two years, Saville further explores the workings of the flesh.
Saville calls herself a “scavenger of images”; she prefers to work from photographs rather than living models. Her studio is a repository of images from old medical journals of bruises, scars, and images of deformities and disease. On a recent visit to her brother’s farm in England, she found and photographed the corpse of a dead pig. Reminiscent of the paintings of Chaim Soutine, the subsequent painting shows its distended stomach splayed across a huge canvas. Saville was drawn to this subject matter because of her interest in the medical world’s use of pig organs for human transplants as well as cloning. With her proficient handling, this potentially revolting subject is disturbing yet glorious.
Also included will be Saville’s first work depicting a subject outside the studio. In it, a half-naked woman, screaming, appears to be running from a building as the hands of an unseen figure restrain her. Horror and trauma blaze across her face. Realized with strong, urgent brushstrokes, this disturbing painting conveys how deeply the artist is influenced by current world events.
The four remaining works in the show include a beautiful, richly worked image of Saville’s head laid on its side. Unlike the previous exhibition, in which her layered palette was mostly pale, ethereal pinks and grays, this new body of work is dominated by bold, bloody colors such as reds, browns, and blues.
A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Linda Nochlin will accompany the exhibition.
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In Conversation
Jenny Saville and Martin Gayford
Gagosian hosted a conversation between Jenny Saville and Martin Gayford, art critic and author, in conjunction with the exhibition Friends and Relations: Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London. Gayford also spoke with the artist about her works in the exhibition Jenny Saville: Latent at Gagosian, rue de Castiglione, Paris.
Jenny Saville: Latent
In this video, Jenny Saville describes the evolution of her practice inside her latest exhibition, Latent, at Gagosian, Paris. She addresses the genesis of the title and reflects on the anatomy of a painting.
Jenny Saville: A cyclical rhythm of emergent forms
An exhibition curated by Sergio Risaliti, director of the Museo Novecento, Florence, pairs artworks by Jenny Saville with artists of the Italian Renaissance. On view across that city at the Museo Novecento, the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, the Museo degli Innocenti, and the Museo di Casa Buonarroti through February 20, 2022, the presentation features paintings and drawings by Saville from the 1990s through to work made especially for the occasion. Here, Risaliti reflects on the resonances and reverberations brought about by these pairings.
Jenny Saville: Painting the Self
Jenny Saville speaks with Nicholas Cullinan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, about her latest self-portrait, her studio practice, and the historical painters to whom she continually returns.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2020
The Winter 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Jenny Saville’s Prism (2020) on its cover.
Shortlist
Five Preoccupations: Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville shares a selection of the books, films, and more that have been her companions in the quiet of the shutdowns in recent months and as she looks ahead to a new exhibition next year.
News
Artist Spotlight
Jenny Saville
July 22–28, 2020
In her depictions of the human form, Jenny Saville transcends the boundaries of both classical figuration and modern abstraction. Oil paint, applied in heavy layers, becomes as visceral as flesh itself, each painted mark maintaining a supple, mobile life of its own. As Saville pushes, smears, and scrapes the pigment over her large-scale canvases, the distinctions between living, breathing bodies and their painted representations begin to collapse.
Photo: courtesy the artist
