Installation Views

Works Exhibited

About

Et in Arcadia ego: Even in Arcadia, there am I.
—Nicolas Poussin

Gagosian is pleased to present Arcadia, an exhibition of landscapes, both real and imagined, by modern and contemporary gallery artists.

The term “Arcadia” originated in ancient Greece, referring to the inland reaches of the Peloponnese where shepherds lived, far from the sea. The term took on a symbolic meaning during the Hellenistic era, invoking rural life as an escape from the moral corruption of the dense, bustling metropolis. Subsequently, this pastoral paradise became an artistic preoccupation for the ages. Idyllic “Arcadian” landscapes were described by Virgil, in his Eclogues, and Cy Twombly scratched the word into his paintings. The sixteenth-century Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano applied the name “Arcadia” to the entire North American Atlantic coast north of Virginia, Twombly’s birthplace. Photographs of Twombly’s daily life, included in this exhibition, range from his time as a student at Black Mountain College in the early 1950s until his death in 2011, and record the verdant landscapes of Virginia and coastal Italy, close-up details of ancient buildings and sculptures, studio interiors, and still lifes of objects and flowers. The entire frame of Andreas Gursky’s Krefeld (1989) is filled with sylvan detail; and Jeff Koons’s Gazing Ball (Titian Pastoral Concert) (2016), in dialogue with the Italian Renaissance master, reflects the viewer, the painting, and its surroundings in a blue glass gazing ball. In a more dystopic vein, Gregory Crewdson’s cinematic stagings present cold and deserted landscapes with traces of human life; while Zeng Fanzhi’s darkly serene vista is enlivened by calligraphic strokes and splatters.

The Arcadian theme is explored further in works by Balthus, Joe Bradley, Cecily Brown, Damien Hirst, Albert Oehlen, Nam June Paik, Giuseppe Penone, Edward Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Richard Wright. Despite their formal and conceptual differences, all reveal a profound fascination with the natural world, its correspondence to an interior world, and the artistic compulsion to depict it, whether via figuration or abstraction, narrative unity or fragmentation. Arcadia traces the persistence of the theme in recent years, uniting many significant modern and contemporary iterations of a timeless artistic discourse.

Between Shadow and Light

Between Shadow and Light

Scholar and researcher Yves Guignard, who is working on Balthus’s archives for a revision of the Balthus catalogue raisonné, examines the artist’s engagement with drawing, arguing for a more concerted attention to these works than scholarship has paid them.

Christopher Makos and Jessica Beck

In Conversation
Christopher Makos and Jessica Beck

Andy Warhol’s Insiders at the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade is a group exhibition and shop takeover that feature works by Warhol and portraits of the artist by friends and collaborators including photographers Ronnie Cutrone, Michael Halsband, Christopher Makos, and Billy Name. To celebrate the occasion, Makos met with Gagosian director Jessica Beck to speak about his friendship with Warhol and the joy of the unexpected.

Andy Warhol: Silver Screen

Andy Warhol: Silver Screen

In this video, Jessica Beck, director at Gagosian, Beverly Hills, sits down to discuss the three early paintings by Andy Warhol from 1963 featured in the exhibition Andy Warhol: Silver Screen, at Gagosian in Paris.

Richard Wright and Martin Clark

In Conversation
Richard Wright and Martin Clark

Richard Wright and Martin Clark, director of Camden Art Centre, London, discuss Wright’s latest body of work, recent commissions, and new monograph, which provides a comprehensive overview of his practice between 2010 and 2020.

No Title

No Title

In an excerpt from his forthcoming monograph, Richard Wright pens a personal and philosophical text about painting.

Truth Revealed: Damien Hirst and James Fox on Ashley Bickerton

Truth Revealed: Damien Hirst and James Fox on Ashley Bickerton

In conversation with James Fox, Damien Hirst reflects on the artwork of his longtime friend.

Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2022

The Fall 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Jordan Wolfson’s House with Face (2017) on its cover.

Cy Twombly: Imperfect Paradise

Cy Twombly: Imperfect Paradise

Eleonora Di Erasmo, cocurator of Un/veiled: Cy Twombly, Music, Inspirations, a program of concerts, video screenings, and works by Cy Twombly at the Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome, reflects on the resonances and networks of inspiration between the artist and music. The program was the result of an extensive three-year study, done at the behest of Nicola Del Roscio in the Rome and Gaeta offices of the Cy Twombly Foundation, intended to collect, document, and preserve compositions by musicians around the world who have been inspired by Twombly’s work, or to establish an artistic dialogue with them.

Giuseppe Penone À La Tourette

Giuseppe Penone À La Tourette

Le Couvent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, in Éveux, France, is both an active Dominican priory and the last building designed by Le Corbusier. As a result, the priory, completed in 1961, is a center both religious and architectural, a site of spiritual significance and a magnetic draw for artists, writers, architects, and others. This fall, at the invitation of Frère Marc Chauveau, Giuseppe Penone will be exhibiting a selection of existing sculptures at La Tourette alongside new work directly inspired by the context and materials of the building. Here, Penone and Frère Chauveau discuss the power and peculiarities of the space, as well as the artwork that will be exhibited there.

Flags

Flags

Gillian Pistell writes on the loaded symbol of the American flag in the work of postwar and contemporary artists.

Cy Twombly: Making Past Present

Cy Twombly: Making Past Present

In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, announced their plan for a survey of Cy Twombly’s artwork alongside selections from their permanent ancient Greek and Roman collection. The survey was postponed due to the lockdowns necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, but was revived in 2022 with a presentation at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from August 2 through October 30. In 2023, the exhibition will arrive at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The curator for the exhibition, Christine Kondoleon, and Kate Nesin, author of Cy Twombly’s Things (2014) and advisor for the show, speak with Gagosian director Mark Francis about the origin of the exhibition and the aesthetic and poetic resonances that give the show its title: Making Past Present.

Nam June Paik: Art in Process: Part One

Nam June Paik: Art in Process: Part One

On the occasion of Nam June Paik: Art in Process: Part One, curator John G. Hanhardt and Nam June Paik Estate curator Jon Huffman discuss the survey of works spanning the artist’s career.

Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky

On the occasion of an exhibition at Gagosian, New York, Max Dax met with Andreas Gursky to speak with the photographer about his new work. Here, they discuss the consequences of the pandemic on certain works, the roles of techno music and art history in Gursky’s art process, and the necessary balance of beauty and honesty in the contemporary.

Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2022

The Summer 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, with two different covers—featuring Takashi Murakami’s 108 Bonnō MURAKAMI.FLOWERS (2022) and Andreas Gursky’s V & R II (2022).

Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor

Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor

Thierry Greub tracks the literary references in Cy Twomblys epic painting of 1994.

Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2021

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2021

The Fall 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Damien Hirst’s Reclining Woman (2011) on its cover.

Ive by Gursky: A Meeting of Minds

Ive by Gursky: A Meeting of Minds

By exploring the conventions of past portraits of industrial designers and architects, Maria Morris Hambourg unpacks Andreas Gursky’s ingenious recent portrait of Apple designer Jony Ive to reveal its layered meanings.

Albert Oehlen: Terrifying Sunset

Albert Oehlen: Terrifying Sunset

The artist speaks with Mark Godfrey about his new paintings, touching on the works’ relationship to John Graham, the Rothko Chapel, and Leigh Bowery.

Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2021

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2021

The Summer 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006) on its cover.

Donald Marron

Donald Marron

Jacoba Urist profiles the legendary collector.