Works Exhibited
About
Gagosian is pleased to present Close at Hand, an exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture.
Focusing on intimate gesture and free experimentation, Close at Hand reveals a breadth of formal, conceptual, and material approaches to sculpture, including assemblages, ceramics, and found objects. The exhibition presents varied embodiments of energy, motion, and time—both material and immaterial—within the purview of the human body.
Formalist oppositions between art and object are played out in sculptures by Anthony Caro and Tony Smith. In Table Piece Z-82 ‘Clarinet’ (1982), Caro orchestrates rusted and varnished metal components into a greater abstract whole, while in Mistake (1963), Smith proposes a singular geometric form, which abandons representational clues in order to consider the classic minimalist construct of spectacle and viewer.
Exploration of new materials can be seen in the making strange of common objects through a shift in their perceived properties. With Corner (1992), Richard Artschwager creates a cartoonish illusion that three planks of wood-patterned Formica, cinched tightly with a metal bracket, are exploding from a corner of the room. Rachel Whiteread’s Untitled (On / Off) (2001) a cast light-switch bank in stainless steel, further blurs the line between reality and representation, while Tatiana Trouvé’s Equivalences (2014), bronze cast refuse such as water bottles, cans, and scraps of cardboard are suspended in perfect balance from thin wire cables.
Gestural aspects of the sculptural process are captured in the surfaces of works by John Chamberlain and Franz West. Lucio Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale Cratere (1968) is a hand-formed porcelain sculpture with a jagged aperture that reveals its white interior, as if it has been shot through by one of Chris Burden’s Gold Bullets (2003), taxonomically arranged in two vitrines nearby.
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.
The Art History of Presidential Campaign Posters
Against the backdrop of the 2020 US presidential election, historian Hal Wert takes us through the artistic and political evolution of American campaign posters, from their origin in 1844 to the present. In an interview with Quarterly editor Gillian Jakab, Wert highlights an array of landmark posters and the artists who made them.
In Conversation
Tom Eccles and Kiki Smith on Rachel Whiteread
On the occasion of Artist Spotlight: Rachel Whiteread, curator Tom Eccles and artist Kiki Smith speak about the work of Rachel Whiteread through the lens of their personal friendships with her. They discuss her public projects from the early 1990s to the present, the relationship between drawing and sculpture in her practice, and the way her works reveal the memories embedded in familiar everyday objects.
In Conversation
Rachel Whiteread and Ann Gallagher
Rachel Whiteread speaks to Ann Gallagher about a new group of resin sculptures for an upcoming exhibition at Gagosian in London. They discuss the works’ emphasis on surface texture, light, and reflection.
Artists’ Magazines
Gwen Allen recounts her discovery of cutting-edge artists’ magazines from the 1960s and 1970s and explores the roots and implications of these singular publications.
An Alphabetical Guide to Calder and Dance
Jed Perl takes a look at Alexander Calder’s lifelong fascination with dance and its relationship to his reimagining of sculpture.
