Works Exhibited

Thumbnail - Piotr Uklański Untitled (Better than Truth), 2011. Pottery, mortar on masonry board and aluminum, 28 × 41 inches (71.1 × 104.1 cm)
Thumbnail - Piotr Uklański Untitled (We All Make the Flowers Grow), 2011. Pottery, mortar on masonry board and aluminum, 29 × 41 × 22 inches (73.7 × 104.1 × 55.9 cm)
Thumbnail - Piotr Uklański Untitled (Midnight Creeper), 2011. Pottery, mortar on masonry board and aluminum, 27 × 28 × 17 ½ inches (68.6 × 71.1 × 44.4 cm)
Thumbnail - Piotr Uklański Untitled (The Catalogue of Cruelty), 2011. Pottery, mortar on masonry board and aluminum, 26 ½ × 20 ½ × 13 inches (67.3 × 52.1 × 33 cm)
Thumbnail - Piotr Uklański Untitled (Tragic Magic), 2011. Pottery, mortar on masonry board and aluminum, 60 × 43 ½ × 23 inches (152.4 × 110.5 × 58.4 cm)
Thumbnail - Piotr Uklański Fragment of Fear, 2011. Pottery, mortar on masonry board and aluminum, 36 × 25 × 20 inches (68.6 × 76.2 × 45.7 cm)

About

My grandmother did hard labor in a ceramic factory in Communist Poland. This St. Barts exhibition would be her Midsummer Night’s Dream.
—Piotr Uklański

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of new pottery paintings by Piotr Uklański.

Uklański created his first ceramic mosaic in 1999 as a commission for the DT Symk department store in Warsaw—a monumental outdoor installation on three exterior walls of the building, which he covered with an abstract pattern constructed using commercially manufactured ceramic tableware and cement. The resulting mural evoked the aesthetics of Brutalist art and architecture. Uklański’s interest in ceramic mosaics was inspired by the use of vernacular pottery for house decoration and public art that was common in post-war Poland. His appropriation of this populist medium is consistent with his ongoing interest in exploring Modernist abstraction through more banal and quotidian materials and gestures. Since then, he has created numerous large-scale ceramic installations-including a thirty-meter long outdoor mural at the Kunsthalle Basel (2004) and a permanent mosaic installation in the tropical gardens surrounding the Museo do Açude in Rio de Janeiro.

In Midsummer Night’s Dream Uklański has developed these ideas further to produce autonomous “paintings.” Each individual ceramic vessel-with the varied styles of glaze, texture, and geometric form-provides him with a “palette” from which he composes his (unpainted) paintings. His sources for the ceramics are deliberately wide-ranging-from unique ceramic sculptures signed by other artists and iconic examples of modernist studio pottery to cheaper, mass-produced tableware and vases. He utilizes recognizable ceramic surfaces such as Pigeon Forge, raku or West German volcanic glazes as painterly tropes in his compositions, relishing the equivalences that are subsequently produced between the craft-based vocabularies and high art clichés of painterly gesture and formalism.

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From the Quarterly

Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2026

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2026

The Summer 2026 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Ellen Gallagher’s Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish (2026) on the cover.

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.

The Reflection of Bronze: Giuseppe Penone and Adam D. Weinberg

The Reflection of Bronze: Giuseppe Penone and Adam D. Weinberg

On the occasion of his exhibition The Reflection of Bronze at Gagosian, New York, Giuseppe Penone and curator Adam D. Weinberg sit down to discuss the genesis of, and their collaboration on, the show.

Alex Israel: Upside Down

Alex Israel: Upside Down

Ahead of Alex Israel’s exhibition of four new Fin sculptures at Gagosian, London, the artist spoke with Susan Casey, author of The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean (2010), about the ocean, surfing, and Los Angeles.

Simon Hantaï: The Paradox of the “last studio”

Simon Hantaï: The Paradox of the “last studio”

On July 9, Simon Hantaï: the last studio opens at Gagosian, Gstaad. Curated by Anne Baldassari, the show comprises sixteen of the artist’s dernier atelier (last studio) paintings of 1982–85. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, copublished by Gagosian and Skira, which features an essay by Baldassari and an extensive portfolio of previously unpublished photographs by Édouard Boubat. Here, we share the introductory chapter from the publication.

James Turrell: Lifting the Veil

James Turrell: Lifting the Veil

An exhibition at Gagosian, Hong Kong, brings together three of James Turrell’s Glasswork pieces along with site plans, photographs, and models of his Skyspaces and Roden Crater. Here, Alice Godwin explores the history of the Glassworks and their relationship to the artist’s wider practice.

Derrick Adams: View Master

Derrick Adams: View Master

On April 16, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, opened the first midcareer survey of Derrick Adams’s multidisciplinary practice. Covering over twenty years of work, the exhibition, titled View Master, brings together the artist’s painting, sculpture, collage, performance, and video, as well as a vibrant new commission created for the museum’s façade. Ahead of the opening, Adams met with Tessa Bachi Haas, cocurator of the survey, to discuss his formative experiences with television, the impact of his work in arts education on his practice, and the importance of taking a more complex, more joyful, and more expansive approach to Black American life and culture.

Giuseppe Penone: The Reflection of Bronze

Giuseppe Penone: The Reflection of Bronze

Adam D. Weinberg has been working with Giuseppe Penone on an exhibition of the artist’s new sculptures, The Reflection of Bronze, that opens at Gagosian, New York, on April 22. The works explore the character and possibilities of bronze. Here, Weinberg considers Penone’s enduring engagement with the alloy and addresses the conceptual underpinnings of the exhibition’s three-room structure.

A Tremendous Generosity: Jeff Koons on Marcel Duchamp

A Tremendous Generosity: Jeff Koons on Marcel Duchamp

Jeff Koons tells Alison McDonald about his appreciation for the pioneering artist and thinker Marcel Duchamp.

On Walter De Maria: Donna De Salvo and Lucy Raven

On Walter De Maria: Donna De Salvo and Lucy Raven

The Singular Experience at Gagosian’s Le Bourget gallery is the largest exhibition of Walter De Maria’s work in France in several decades. Organized by Donna De Salvo, senior adjunct curator at Dia Art Foundation, the exhibition marks the first time De Maria’s final sculpture, Truck Trilogy (2011–17), is being shown outside of the United States. Here, De Salvo speaks with artist Lucy Raven about her evolving kinship with De Maria and more.

Henry Moore: Monumental Nature

Henry Moore: Monumental Nature

Laura Bruni writes about a major exhibition celebrating the work of the British sculptor Henry Moore at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.

A Revolution in Jewels: Pomellato at Palais de Tokyo

A Revolution in Jewels: Pomellato at Palais de Tokyo

The exhibition Pomellato, Le Joaillier Révolutionnaire opened at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, on June 24. The Italian jewelry house’s trailblazing advertising campaigns—created by some of the most consequential names in photography—act as the narrative arc of the exhibition, curated by Alba Cappellieri. Here, Sarah Godfrey tracks Pomellato’s history, speaks with Cappellieri about what drew her to this project, and examines some of the key photographs from the show.

Related Exhibitions

Piotr Uklański

Piotr Uklański
Floored

November 6, 2013–January 10, 2014

Geneva