
Artist to Artist: Edmund de Waal and Theaster Gates
Join the artists for an extended conversation about their most recent exhibitions, their forebears in the world of ceramics, and the key role that history plays in their practices.
Art Fair
March 24–27, 2021
Gagosian is pleased to present Innovate, Originate, Overturn: Modern and Contemporary Pioneers, an exclusive online project for Art Basel’s launch of OVR: Pioneers. The presentation will include works by Helen Frankenthaler, Theaster Gates, Andreas Gursky, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Nam June Paik, and Rachel Whiteread.
At once mavericks, inventors, and disruptors, pioneering artists reconsider the very nature of the art object, and in so doing often introduce new materials and processes. For this special themed edition of Art Basel’s Online Viewing Rooms, Gagosian presents works by modern and contemporary artists who exemplify this commitment to pushing aesthetics, critical discourse, and the creative process into uncharted territories. The presentation will be viewable concurrently at Gagosian Online.
Works by Helen Frankenthaler and Nam June Paik attest to their tremendous influence on subsequent generations—in terms of technique, with Frankenthaler’s innovative soak-stain method of painting, and material, in Paik’s radical blending of screen technology with physical elements and haptic expressiveness. In Rachel Whiteread’s sculptural oeuvre, materials more commonly associated with industrial production are brought to bear on intimate human objects through the negative-to-positive casting process that became synonymous with her art. Andreas Gursky’s epic photographs of natural landscapes and built environments reveal the mesmerizing patterns and interconnectedness of globalized existence.
Other participating artists bring pioneering perspectives to the character and perception of the art object itself. In producing aesthetic objects from used materials charged with social and political content, Theaster Gates proposes the work of art as a communicating vessel of history and shared experience; while Jeff Koons reinvents and reinvigorates exacting and alluring artisanal fabrication processes, employing a lexicon of cultural symbols and technologies to create popular icons for our time. Embracing dichotomy and paradox, Damien Hirst uses strategies of taxonomic systematization and cool seriality in his unflinching explorations of beauty, life, and death.
The invitation-only VIP preview in Art Basel’s Online Viewing Rooms begins on Wednesday, March 24, at 9am edt, and the presentation opens to the public on Thursday, March 25, at 9am edt and runs through Saturday, March 27, at 7pm edt. OVR: Pioneers is viewable on Gagosian Online from Wednesday, March 24, at 9am edt through Saturday, March 27, at 7pm edt.
To receive a pdf with detailed information on the works, please contact the gallery at inquire@gagosian.com.

Theaster Gates, American Tapestry, 2019 © Theaster Gates

Join the artists for an extended conversation about their most recent exhibitions, their forebears in the world of ceramics, and the key role that history plays in their practices.

Rachel Whiteread speaks to Ann Gallagher about a new group of resin sculptures for an exhibition at Gagosian in London. They discuss the works’ emphasis on surface texture, light, and reflection.

Damien Hirst speaks about his Veil paintings with Gagosian’s Alison McDonald. “I wanted to make paintings that were a celebration,” he says, “and that revealed something and obscured something at the same time.”

Pittura/Panorama: Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, 1952–1992 marks the first time that Frankenthaler’s paintings have been exhibited in Venice since her inclusion in the 1966 Biennale as part of the US Pavilion. This video, including interviews with the show’s curator, John Elderfield; the chairman of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Clifford Ross; and the Foundation’s executive director, Elizabeth Smith, provides viewers with an in-depth look at the fourteen paintings included in the exhibition.

Gillian Jakab considers the role of choreography in Nam June Paik’s 1989 video installation Fin de Siècle II.

Learn more about Jeff Koons’s Easyfun-Ethereal series in this video featuring Rebecca Sternthal, one of the organizers behind the most recent exhibition of these works in New York.

A conversation between Theaster Gates and Jessica Bell Brown, with an introduction by Sydney Stutterheim.

Stella McCartney’s new limited-edition capsule collection made in collaboration with Jeff Koons launched in January 2026. Blending the two creators’ singular visions, the collection, which was first seen in McCartney’s Winter 2025 runway show, features a wide array of garments and accessories printed with artworks by Koons and slogans by McCartney. The collaboration continues the pair’s long-standing creative partnership, which has previously included jewelry, prints, and charitable initiatives. At the unveiling in New York, Koons met with Derek C. Blasberg to reflect on the collaboration, the importance of caring and community, and meeting Salvador Dalí when he was nineteen years old.

The Winter 2025 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Jeff Koons’s Kissing Lovers (2016–25) on the cover.

With an exhibition of all-new work at Gagosian, New York, in November, Jeff Koons met with Alison McDonald at his New York studio to discuss the processes, inspirations, and metaphysical underpinnings of his latest sculptures and paintings.

At the center of Andreas Gursky’s new exhibition in Paris at Gagosian’s rue de Castiglione gallery is Paris, Montparnasse II (2025), a reengagement with his celebrated photograph from 1993 of the architect Jean Dubuisson’s iconic building in the capital city. In the new work, Gursky reexamines the subject, tracing the changes time has inscribed on the architecture and its occupants. Here, in conversation with the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier and shown alongside behind-the-scenes images from the artwork’s making, the artist addresses his motivations and interests in this long-term project.

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.