Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2024
The Fall 2024 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Andy Warhol’s Mao (1972) on the cover.
Installation Views
Installation video
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view with Amoako Boafo, One on One (2023)
Artwork © Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Works Exhibited
Amoako Boafo
Gold Daytona, 2023
Oil on canvas, 83 ⅛ × 70 inches (211.1 × 177.8 cm)
© Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Amoako Boafo
Purple Single Sofa, 2023
Oil on canvas, 83 ½ × 89 ¼ inches (212.1 × 226.7 cm)
© Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
Amoako Boafo
Mesh Bodysuit, 2022
Oil on canvas, 81 ⅝ × 70 inches (207.3 × 177.6 cm)
© Amoako Boafo. Photo: Rob McKeever
About
When I’m making paintings, I want the characters to be strong, I want them to be free, I want them to be independent, I want them to be unapologetic.
—Amoako Boafo
Gagosian is pleased to announce Amoako Boafo: what could possibly go wrong, if we tell it like it is, the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery. Opening on March 16 at 980 Madison Avenue, the solo exhibition of new paintings will also be Boafo’s first in New York. A selection of the exhibited works will travel to Accra, Ghana, and be presented at dot.ateliers in May 2023.
Boafo’s large-scale portraits portray his friends and those he admires with candor, joy, and individuality. Focused on Black identity, his monumental paintings have already become key works in the representation of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora.
Boafo paints the faces and bodies of his subjects with his fingertips rather than a brush, the directness of his touch enhancing their expressive qualities. The works’ surfaces feature a gestural facture which the artist uses to model the figures’ anatomy. Making eye contact, Boafo’s subjects return the gaze of the viewer in an assertion of presence and identity, reflecting the artist’s interest in conveying charisma and individuality. The characters occupy domestic interiors, their casual grace reinforced by the familiarity of these settings.
Now available
Fashion and Art: Grace Coddington
Grace Coddington, fashion editor and former creative-director-at-large for American Vogue, meets with the Quarterly’s Derek C. Blasberg to reminisce on some of her most iconic collaborations with photographers and artists.
Jayden Ali: Beyond the Building
Architect and designer Jayden Ali joins Gagosian associate director Péjú Oshin for a conversation about false notions of failure, four-day workweeks, and the connective power of building together.
The Bold Stroke: Spencer Sweeney & Lizzi Bougatsos
Old friends chat about their love of music, nightclub paintings, life lessons from aikido, and Spencer Sweeney’s upcoming exhibition The Painted Bride, at Gagosian, New York.
“I Can’t Accept to Act Like a Zombie”: Enzo Mari and Design’s Utopian Impulse
The exhibition Enzo Mari, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Francesca Giacomelli at the Design Museum, London, runs through September 8. Taking a cue from this major retrospective, Bartolomeo Sala delves into Mari’s practice and convictions.
Honoring Aegean Memories: Ekaterina Juskowski and Salomé Gómez-Upegui
The Warp of Time celebrates a hundred years of shared history between the Old Carpet Factory, a historical mansion located on the Greek island of Hydra, and Soutzoglou Carpets. Here, Salomé Gómez-Upegui interviews curator Ekaterina Juskowski about Helen Marden’s woven works within the context of the exhibition, touching upon themes of history, memory, and creative expression.
Picture by Picture: Revisiting Frankenthaler
John Elderfield and Lauren Mahony of Gagosian speak with the National Gallery of Art’s Harry Cooper about the new and expanded version of Elderfield’s 1989 monograph on Helen Frankenthaler that Gagosian, in collaboration with the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, will publish this summer. The conversation traces Elderfield’s long interest in Frankenthaler’s work—from his time as a young curator at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to the present—and reveals some of the new perspectives and discoveries awaiting readers.
Remembering Brice Marden
In conjunction with the memorial service for Brice Marden held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mirabelle and Melia Marden produced a short film directed by Chiara Clemente to honor the late artist. Featuring interviews, archival photographs, and family videos, this film captures Marden’s vibrant life and enduring cultural impact.
Artist, Audience, Accomplice
Sydney Stutterheim has published Artist, Audience, Accomplice: Ethics and Authorship in Art of the 1970s and 1980s (Duke University Press, 2024), a survey of performance art and related practices that involve, in various manners, the figure of the accomplice. To celebrate the publication, the Quarterly is publishing an excerpt that examines Chris Burden’s Deadman (1972).
Roy
Michael Ovitz, cofounder of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), looks back to 1989, the year he and the architect I. M. Pei commissioned Roy Lichtenstein to create the Bauhaus Stairway Mural for the then new CAA Building in Los Angeles. Through the experience of working with Lichtenstein, Ovitz formed a meaningful friendship with the artist.
In Conversation
Sophia Heriveaux and Roger Guenveur Smith on Jean-Michel Basquiat
Join Gagosian for a conversation between director, producer, and writer Sophia Heriveaux and actor, director, and writer Roger Guenveur Smith inside the exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: Made on Market Street, at Gagosian, Beverly Hills. Heriveaux and Guenveur Smith both share a personal connection to Basquiat: Heriveaux is the artist’s niece and Guenveur Smith was one of his friends and collaborators. The pair discuss Basquiat’s work and legacy, as well as his lasting impact on contemporary art and culture.
On Anselm Kiefer’s Photography
Sébastien Delot is director of conservation and collections at the Musée national Picasso–Paris and the organizer of the first retrospective to focus on Anselm Kiefer’s use of photography, which was held at Lille Métropole Musée d’art moderne, d’art contemporain et d’art brut (Musée LaM) in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France. He recently sat down with Gagosian director of photography Joshua Chuang to discuss the exhibition Anselm Kiefer: Punctum at Gagosian, New York. Their conversation touched on Kiefer’s exploration of photography’s materials, processes, and expressive potentials, and on the alchemy of his art.
