Frieze Masters 2024

Gagosian is pleased to participate in the 2024 edition of Frieze Masters with a display curated by artist Urs Fischer that pairs sculptures by late American artist John Chamberlain (1927–2011) with furniture by Australian designer Marc Newson. Fischer’s selection contrasts Chamberlain’s urge to reveal the physical configuration of manufactured items through their forcible reshaping with Newson’s technical precision, which belies the handmade nature of his work.

Chamberlain shaped a distinctive aesthetic and technique early in his career, citing the time he spent on an aircraft carrier as a member of the US Navy in the mid-1940s as influential on his understanding of scale and perspective. By compressing metal forms, then welding elements together, he developed an innovative variant on three-dimensional collage that emphasizes mass and volume. Newson, for his part, designs and produces objects rooted in an ongoing experimentation with materials and processes, structure and technology. These elevated forms, which include items of furniture such as the iconic Lockheed Lounge (1988), reflect and extend a highly refined visual and tactile sensibility.

The presentation at Frieze Masters includes three late steel sculptures by Chamberlain—COLONELGARGLE (2008), ENTIRELYFEARLESS (2009), and STUFFEDWITHSURPRISE (2011)—and four pieces of furniture by Newson—Lockheed Lounge, Random Pak Chair (2006), Low Voronoi Shelf (2008), and Charcoal Glass Chair (2017). Seen in dialogue, each of the two groupings of works on view helps clarify the other, both communicating through the visual language of industry and their relationship to everyday functionality. Formally, the objects share a restricted color palette, while the fact that the majority were produced during the same roughly ten-year period introduces an additional parallel between their makers’ practices, one of which was still evolving as the other neared its end. Fischer has designed a bespoke printed tufted carpet for the booth, titled Medium, which further unifies the installation.

Fischer previously curated an exhibition of Chamberlain’s works at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado. In THE TIGHTER THEY’RE WOUND, THE HARDER THEY UNRAVEL (2023–24), he placed Chamberlain’s early and late sculptures in dialogue with each other, also presenting the artist’s foam sculptures and miniatures. For the accompanying publication, Fischer mischievously resisted Chamberlain’s stated preference for his works to be seen in isolation by juxtaposing photographs of them with those of other artists’ projects.  

On Friday, October 11, at 9:30am, Fischer will sign copies of his new book Monumental Sculpture and participate in a discussion with curator and critic Róisín Tapponi at Sadie Coles HQ, 62 Kingly Street, London.

Download the full press release (PDF)