An Exhibition for Notre-Dame

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.

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.

Deborah McLeod, senior director at Gagosian, Beverly Hills, reflects on the generous and innovative vision of Frank Gehry. Having worked with the architect and artist for more than a decade, McLeod addresses his outsize impact on the city of Los Angeles and the world beyond.

In this video, musical ensemble Sō Percussion performs Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood” inside the exhibition Richard Serra: Running Arcs (For John Cage), 1992, at Gagosian, New York.

For Art Basel 2025, the fair has commissioned Katharina Grosse to create CHOIR, a large-scale, site-responsive painting for the Messeplatz Project. The curator for the project, Natalia Grabowska, met with Grosse in her studio in Berlin ahead of the work’s creation to talk through the process; Grosse’s approach to the specifics of the Messeplatz’s architecture; and the importance of unscripted encounters.

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.

Last fall, Taryn Simon debuted an interactive sculpture entitled Kleroterion (2024). Based on a device from the beginnings of democracy in Athens, the work was installed at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York. As part of that presentation, Simon participated in a panel discussion with Nora Lawrence, Tomás González Olavarría, and Philip Lindsay about democracy, sortition, and art’s place in politics.

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.

Ed Schad, curator and publications manager at the Broad, Los Angeles, examines Takashi Murakami’s prolonged engagement with the practice and concept of the copy. An exhibition of new paintings by the artist, Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami, opened at Gagosian, London, on December 10, 2024; Schad reflects on Murakami’s recent works in the wake of his visit to the artist’s 2024 exhibition at Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art.

Gagosian and Sadie Coles HQ hosted a conversation between Urs Fischer and film curator and writer Róisín Tapponi about fearless creativity and the artist’s most recent monograph, Urs Fischer: Monumental Sculpture.