Works Exhibited
About
What haunts the digital cul-de-sacs of the twenty-first century is not so much the past as all the lost futures that the twentieth century taught us to anticipate.
—Mark Fisher
Gagosian is pleased to present Haunted Realism, a group exhibition featuring the work of more than thirty artists including Meleko Mokgosi, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Saville, and Tatiana Trouvé. Haunted Realism takes its title in part from hauntology, a term coined by Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book Specters of Marx to characterize what he considered the tendency of Marxism to “haunt Western society from beyond the grave.” Derrida’s concept has been explored in a broader cultural context, denoting a state of historical overlap and disjunction—“the past inside the present”—that resonates through fields ranging from anthropology and philosophy to film, electronic music, and visual art. The idea is notably explored by cultural critic Mark Fisher in his books Capitalist Realism (2009) and The Weird and the Eerie (2016).
Haunted Realism’s specific focus is a sense that the aspirations of modernity are now “lost futures”—perceptible only as ghostlike traces of their original formulations. It examines some of the ways in which artists have approached this condition by confronting the accelerated flow of images in contemporary media culture, and the proliferation of “non-places” that we increasingly inhabit. These artists’ work also conveys a feeling that the apparent documentary “truths” of realism can no longer be believed, even as wild conspiracy theories gain influential traction. Our conception of the future is now haunted, even revoked, by a volatile present. Haunted Realism situates these visions within a historical context, showing how our strange present was anticipated by earlier projects.
#HauntedRealism
Artists
Richard Artschwager
Hans Bellmer
Louise Bonnet
Glenn Brown
Chris Burden
Dan Colen
Colin Crumplin
John Currin
Urs Fischer
Llyn Foulkes
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Art&Newport
Writers and curators Dodie Kazanjian and Alison Gingeras spoke with the Quarterly’s Alison McDonald about the arts organization Art&Newport and the possibilities the historic Rhode Island town offers contemporary artists. Their current exhibition, Games, Gamblers & Cartomancers: The New Cardsharps, on view through October 1, 2023, examines the varied custom of card play and includes artists such as John Currin, Hadi Falapishi, and Katie Stout.
Tetsuya Ishida: My Weak Self, My Pitiful Self, My Anxious Self
The largest exhibition of the Japanese artist Tetsuya Ishida’s work ever mounted in the United States will open at Gagosian, New York, in September 2023. Curated by Cecilia Alemani, the show tracks the full scope of Ishida’s career. In this excerpt from Alemani’s essay in the exhibition catalogue, she contextualizes Ishida’s paintings against the background of a fraught era in Japan’s history and investigates the work’s enduring relevance in our own time.
Douglas Gordon: if when why what
Douglas Gordon took over the Piccadilly Lights advertising screen in London’s Piccadilly Circus, as well as a global network of screens in cities including Berlin, Melbourne, Milan, New York, and Seoul, nightly for three minutes at 20:22 (8:22pm) throughout December 2022, with his new film, if when why what (2018–22). The project was presented by the Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Art (CIRCA) in conjunction with the exhibition Douglas Gordon: Neon Ark at Gagosian, Davies Street, London.
Body Horror: Louise Bonnet and Naomi Fry
Cultural critic Naomi Fry joined Louise Bonnet for a conversation on the occasion of Louise Bonnet Selects, a film program curated by the artist as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph. The pair discussed how the protagonists of the seven selected films are ruled, betrayed, changed, or unsettled by their bodies, focusing on David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979).
In Conversation
Jenny Saville and Martin Gayford
Gagosian hosted a conversation between Jenny Saville and Martin Gayford, art critic and author, in conjunction with the exhibition Friends and Relations: Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London. Gayford also spoke with the artist about her works in the exhibition Jenny Saville: Latent at Gagosian, rue de Castiglione, Paris.
Back to the Cave
Dorothy Spears writes on mountains and caves in the work of Mark Tansey, exploring themes of perception and process.
News
Program
On Land/On Vanishing Land
A Day of Music in “Haunted Realism”
Tuesday, July 19, 2022, 10:30am–6:15pm
Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London
Join Gagosian for a daylong music program played on Brian Eno’s Turntable (2021), an acrylic record player fitted with LED lights that cycle through different color combinations, inside the exhibition Haunted Realism at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London. Taking the show as a departure point, the lineup will feature twelve recordings, including Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land (1982) and On Vanishing Land (2013), an audio essay assembled by the late Mark Fisher and writer Justin Barton. The program, which also includes musical selections by artists in the exhibition, evokes the lost futures of Marxist ideology by exploring the uncanny “non-places” of late capitalism, a strategy that Fisher also applied in his critical writing. The event is free and open to the public.
Brian Eno’s Turntable (2021) playing his album Ambient 4: On Land (1982). Artwork © Brian Eno, courtesy Paul Stolper, London. Photo: Angela Moore
