Installation Views

Works Exhibited

About

I have used the car not only as a sexual image, but as a total metaphor for man’s life in today’s society.
—JG Ballard

Gagosian London will present Crash, a major group exhibition that takes its title from the famous novel by JG Ballard.

Ballard’s novels stand among the most visionary, provocative literature of the twentieth century, with his ominous predictions regarding the fate of Western culture and his insights into the dark psychopathology of the human race. This exhibition is a response to the enormous impact and enduring cultural significance of his work, following his death in spring 2009. Highlighting Ballard’s great passion for the surreal and his engagement with the artists of his own generation, Crash includes examples of his specific inspirations as well as works by contemporary artists who have, in turn, been inspired by his vision.

Ballard’s first published short story, “Prima Belladonna,” appeared in 1956, the same year as the Independent Group’s celebrated exhibition This is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Gallery, which marked the birth of Pop art in Britain. It was here, and in the work of Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí and Paul Delvaux, that Ballard found the seeds of what he called a “fiction for the present day.” With its dystopian depictions of the present and future, its bleak, man-made landscapes, and the recounting of the psychological effects of technological, social and environmental developments on humans, his work has resonated strongly among other writers, filmmakers, and visual artists. The exhibition Crash brings together works by artists tuned to the Ballardian universe, from his contemporaries such as Ed Ruscha, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, and Helmut Newton, to younger artists such as Tacita Dean, Jenny Saville, Glenn Brown, and Mike Nelson.

The exhibition is organized in association with the Estate of JG Ballard.

List of artists: Richard Artschwager, Francis Bacon, JG Ballard, Hans Bellmer, Glenn Brown, Chris Burden, Jake & Dinos Chapman, John Currin, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Tacita Dean, Jeremy Deller, Paul Delvaux, Cyprien Gaillard, Douglas Gordon, Loris Gréaud, Richard Hamilton, John Hilliard and Jemima Stehli, Roger Hiorns, Damien Hirst, Dan Holdsworth, Carsten Höller, Edward Hopper, Allen Jones, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Vera Lutter, Florian Maier-Aichen, Paul McCarthy, Adam McEwen, Dan Mitchell, Malcolm Morley, Mike Nelson, Helmut Newton, Cady Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Eduardo Paolozzi, Steven Parrino, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Saville, George Shaw, Cindy Sherman, Piotr Uklański, Andy Warhol, Rachel Whiteread, Christopher Williams, Jane and Louise Wilson, Christopher Wool, and Cerith Wyn Evans.

Jenny Saville a Ca’ Pesaro

Jenny Saville a Ca’ Pesaro

In this video, Jenny Saville sits down inside her first major exhibition in Venice to discuss how the great Venetian artists of the past and the city’s heritage influence her work. The show brings together more than thirty canvases and works on paper from the 1990s to the present, tracing the development of her practice, which is deeply rooted in the history of painting.

Francis Bacon: Reinventing Realism

Francis Bacon: Reinventing Realism

Francis Bacon lived and worked in Paris for a decade starting in the mid-1970s. The city and the art he encountered there provided a profound backdrop for his austere late style, which often brings together smooth, colorful backgrounds, spare architectural signifiers, and sculptural human forms. Here, three striking paintings from that period are considered by Sebastian Smee.

Engaging with the Past: An Interview with Jenny Saville

Engaging with the Past: An Interview with Jenny Saville

On March 28, a major exhibition of Jenny Saville’s work opened at Ca’ Pesaro–Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna in Venice, bringing together nearly thirty paintings from the 1990s to the present. The exhibition is curated by Elisabetta Barisoni, head of the museums division at Venice’s Ca’ Pesaro, Museo Fortuny, and head of MUVE in Mestre. Saville’s monumental canvases are set in dialogue with the great Venetian artists of the past, creating a unique encounter between contemporary painting and the city’s artistic heritage. Here, the artist speaks with Stefania Ventra, professor with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, about her early trips to Venice, the radicality of Titian’s painting, and depicting emotional truth.

Helter Skelter: Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince

Helter Skelter: Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince

Helter Skelter—an exhibition at Fondazione Prada’s Venetian venue, Ca’ Corner della Regina—marks the first creative dialogue between two visionaries of American art, Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince. The show explores the grit, grift, violence, and ingenuity of American culture through more than fifty works, including photography, video, and large-scale installations that interrogate themes of race, gender, media, and politics. In the interview below, Nancy Spector, the exhibition’s curator, speaks about the shared motifs—from apocalyptic sunsets to a fascination with “monstrosity”—that led her to pair these artists for the first time.

Roy Lichtenstein’s New York Boyhood

Roy Lichtenstein’s New York Boyhood

Avis Berman’s biography of Roy Lichtenstein, Becoming Roy Lichtenstein: The Path to Pop, will be published this fall by Abbeville Press, aligning with a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in October. For the Quarterly she has adapted part of her text to focus on the artist’s formative experiences in New York in the 1920s and ’30s.

Stella McCartney and Jeff Koons

Stella McCartney and Jeff Koons

Stella McCartney’s new limited-edition capsule collection made in collaboration with Jeff Koons launched in January 2026. Blending the two creators’ singular visions, the collection, which was first seen in McCartney’s Winter 2025 runway show, features a wide array of garments and accessories printed with artworks by Koons and slogans by McCartney. The collaboration continues the pair’s long-standing creative partnership, which has previously included jewelry, prints, and charitable initiatives. At the unveiling in New York, Koons met with Derek C. Blasberg to reflect on the collaboration, the importance of caring and community, and meeting Salvador Dalí when he was nineteen years old.

Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2025

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2025

The Winter 2025 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Jeff Koons’s Kissing Lovers (2016–25) on the cover.

Christopher Wool: See Stop Run

Christopher Wool: See Stop Run

Jonathan Griffin traveled to Marfa to see the second iteration of Christopher Wool’s See Stop Run exhibition and to talk with the artist about his latest work, and about the photography series and sculptures that grew from his time in the Texas town.

Jeff Koons: The Porcelain Series

Jeff Koons: The Porcelain Series

With an exhibition of all-new work at Gagosian, New York, in November, Jeff Koons met with Alison McDonald at his New York studio to discuss the processes, inspirations, and metaphysical underpinnings of his latest sculptures and paintings.

Glenn Brown: Time Machine

Glenn Brown: Time Machine

Join Glenn Brown in his London studio as he discusses his presentation for the Studio section of Frieze Masters 2025, which explores the idea of the artist’s studio as a time machine: a space in which historical memory fuels creativity, manifesting in artworks that look to the future. Brown speaks about the featured works, which range from new paintings, drawings, and a sculpture to historic works on paper from the Brown Collection.

The Dark Sides of Light and Space

The Dark Sides of Light and Space

Tracking works by Chris Burden, Bruce Nauman, Maria Nordman, and Eric Orr as outliers and outcroppings of the California Light and Space movement, Michael Auping argues that darkness—the absence of light and space—is a key element of the aesthetic.

Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2025

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2025

The Fall 2025 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Andy Warhol’s Blue Liz as Cleopatra (1962) on the cover.

Jenny Saville and Douglas Stuart

In Conversation
Jenny Saville and Douglas Stuart

Ahead of her exhibition over the summer at the National Portrait Gallery, London, Jenny Saville met with the novelist Douglas Stuart to discuss Glasgow, the beauty and blemishes of bodies, and their respective creative processes.

At the Movies with Andy Warhol

At the Movies with Andy Warhol

Carlos Valladares tracks the artist’s engagements with Hollywood glamour, thinking through the ways in which the star system and its marketing engine informed his work.

Rollin’ High and Mighty Traps: Richard Prince

Rollin’ High and Mighty Traps: Richard Prince

Sydney Stutterheim traces the linkages and affinities between the work of Richard Prince and that of Bob Dylan. Using Prince’s Untitled (Dylan) as a starting point, she considers the artist’s enduring interest in questions of originality and authorship, as well as his sustained relationship with the worlds of American music and counterculture.

Rachel Whiteread: Casting History

Rachel Whiteread: Casting History

From her Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna to her casting of George Orwell’s World War II office at the BBC, Rachel Whiteread has long engaged with the emotional and historical complexities of addressing deeply troubling moments in human history through art. This month, Whiteread will debut a new work for the inaugural exhibition at the Goodwood Art Foundation in Sussex, England.

Cy Twombly by Jenny Saville: To Lift the Veil

Cy Twombly by Jenny Saville: To Lift the Veil

Jenny Saville reflects on Cy Twombly’s poetic engagement with the world, with time and tension, and with growth in this excerpt from her Marion Barthelme Lecture, presented at the Menil Collection, Houston, in 2024.

Carsten Höller: Giant Triple Mushroom

Carsten Höller: Giant Triple Mushroom

As part of Art Basel Paris’s public programming, Gagosian presented a new large-scale sculpture by Carsten Höller at Place Vendôme. In this video, the artist sits down to discuss the genesis of the work, Giant Triple Mushroom (2024).

A Living Symbol

A Living Symbol

As American identity once again comes into question during a politically charged election cycle, the Quarterly revisits the motif of the American flag in art. Here, John B. Ravenal contextualizes Robert Lazzarini’s new wall-based flag sculptures and elucidates the tensions they lay bare in the symbol of our nation.

On Surrealism: Glenn Brown & Alexandria Smith

On Surrealism: Glenn Brown & Alexandria Smith

This year marks the centennial of André Breton’s “Surrealist Manifesto.” In its honor, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, in close collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, Paris, staged the exhibition IMAGINE! 100 Years of International Surrealism, which will be traveling to the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany, and Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, before closing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. To mark the occasion and the exhibition, artists Glenn Brown and Alexandria Smith met to discuss the influence of the movement on their own practices.