News

February 19–March 20, 2022
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
www.laphil.com

Frank Gehry’s immersive installation Wishful Thinking (2021) will be installed in BP Hall at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, following its debut at Gagosian, Beverly Hills, last year. Based on a scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the work depicts the Mad Hatter’s tea party as a group of ten surreal figures, twice life-size. Fashioned from brilliantly painted metal, Gehry’s abstracted interpretations of Lewis Carroll’s characters surround an internally lit table, the glowing heart of the scene. Three overlapping woven steel “tapestries” of trees evoke the episode’s forest setting, while a mirror on the opposite wall implicates the viewer. The crumpled surfaces of Wishful Thinking’s figures establish a new visual connection with some of Gehry’s best-known designs. The installation will be free and open to the public.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022, 12pm est

Tiffany Lambert, curator at the Japan Society in New York, will discuss the relationship between Arakawa’s art and his collaborative architecture practice with Madeline Gins. Taking Arakawa’s conceptual works from the 1960s and the 1980s—including paintings and drawings on view in the exhibition Arakawa: Waiting Voices at Gagosian, Basel, through January 22—as a starting point, this online talk examines the compelling connections between these works and the pair’s idea of using the built form as a way to investigate and transform the relationship between body and environment. To join the online event, register at zoom.us.

January 5, 7, 8, and 9, 2022
Centre Pompidou, Paris
www.centrepompidou.fr

In conjunction with the installation of Richard Serra’s sculpture Transmitter (2020) at Gagosian, Le Bourget, the gallery and Centre Pompidou, Paris, will present a four-day retrospective of the artist’s films and videos, drawn from the collections of the Centre Pompidou; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Anthology Film Archives, New York. This is the first time that all of Serra’s film and video work will be shown together in Europe. Each of the six screenings will be introduced by an esteemed curator or scholar, including Eric de Bruyn, Enrico Camporesi, Søren Grammel, Marcella Lista, Philippe-Alain Michaud, and Marie Muracciole. The event is free and open to the public.

December 10–19, 2021
Metrograph, New York
metrograph.com

Kon Trubkovich has curated a selection of films under the title of The Russians Love Their Children Too, as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph in the theater and online. The program, comprising ten films, explores Russian and Eastern European cinema through various angles. From the documentaries of Sergei Loznitsa to quintessential masterpieces such as Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975), the selected films contain elements key to Trubkovich’s life and art practice. To attend a screening, purchase tickets at metrograph.com.

Additionally, on December 18, Trubkovich will be in conversation with director Sergei Loznitsa following the screening of The Event.

Wednesday, December 8, 2021, 6pm EST

As part of ICP Talks, an online lecture series organized by the International Center of Photography in New York, Jeff Wall will be joined by David Campany, ICP’s managing director of programs, in a discussion about the artist’s practice. Wall will consider how his interest in scale and the beholder in the exhibition space shape his image making as he moves between documentary and more cinematographic pictures. To join the event, purchase tickets at buy.acmeticketing.com.

Thursday, December 2, 2021, 7pm EST

To celebrate the publication of The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, 1963–1965, Volume 2, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, is hosting a conversation about Andy Warhol’s practice as a filmmaker. John G. Hanhardt, general editor of the catalogue raisonné, will be joined by film scholar Bruce Jenkins and filmmaker Tom Kalin, both contributors to the publication, to discuss the history of Warhol’s engagement with cinema and share insights into why Warhol’s films have been influential for generations of artists. To join the online event, register at whitney.zoom.us.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has released The Met 150, a limited-edition print portfolio featuring works by twelve contemporary artists from around the world who have a strong history and connection with the museum, including Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, and Sarah Sze. Commissioned in celebration of the museum’s 150th anniversary in 2020, the portfolios are produced in an edition of sixty by the renowned artists’ workshop Gemini G.E.L in Los Angeles. The twelve signed prints are housed together in a red linen clamshell box and are accompanied by essays written by the Met director Max Hollein and Sharon Coplan Hurowitz, co-publisher. Proceeds from sales support the museum. To purchase a portfolio, contact the Mezzanine Gallery at the Met Store at + 1 212 650 2908.

Sally Mann is the winner of the ninth cycle of the Prix Pictet, which aims to harness the power of photography to draw global attention to issues of sustainability, particularly concerning the environment. The thematic focus of this award cycle is “fire.” Mann has been recognized for her Blackwater series (2008–12), a multifaceted exploration of the Great Dismal Swamp, which spans the border of Virginia and North Carolina. Viewed by the artist as “a vessel for the memories of the complex struggles enacted upon it,” the swamp was long a treacherous refuge for people escaping slavery, and had been devastated by wildfires by the time Mann photographed it. The award ceremony took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on December 15, 2021, in advance of the opening of an exhibition at the museum showcasing the twelve photographic series shortlisted for the prize.

Giuseppe Penone has launched a website, giuseppepenone.com, offering an in-depth overview of his career to audiences everywhere. The bilingual (English/Italian) site features hundreds of works made over five decades—including many in major public collections and from the artist’s personal collection—which are searchable both chronologically and thematically. Designed and developed by Wiedner Studio, the site also contains extensive biographical information, writings by the artist, and a news section.

In December 2021, Gagosian will launch Picture Books, an imprint dedicated to publishing fiction by leading authors alongside contributions by celebrated contemporary artists. The series, conceived by Emma Cline, author of Daddy (2020), pairs each writer with an artist, who is given carte blanche to produce an image in conversation with the text. Book and image—in the form of a printed poster—are packaged together in limited hardcover editions designed by Peter Mendelsund, author, designer, and creative director of The Atlantic.

On the occasion of his Artist Spotlight, Edmund de Waal has created a playlist of music he listens to in his studio. Ranging in genre from contemporary classical to rock, electronic, and African folk, the selection features composers and musicians such as Philip Glass, Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem, and Michael Kiwanuka. The twenty-three tracks are synthy, expansive, rhythmically hypnotic, or just generally dreamy—sharing a meditative quality with de Waal’s visual artwork.

Listen Now

In this video, Edmund de Waal introduces his new book, Letters to Camondo (2021). The book consists of a sequence of haunting imaginary letters from de Waal to Count Moïse de Camondo, the owner of a Parisian palace turned into a memorial for his son, who died in World War I. The Camondo family lived a few doors away from de Waal’s forebears, the Ephrussis. Both families were collectors and part of Belle Époque Parisian high society. Both were also targets of antisemitism. De Waal describes the particular resonance of this home, now the Musée Nissim de Camondo, as a “house for a lost family” and discusses his need to write this story.