Honor
Jenny Saville
Le Chiavi della Città di Firenze
Jenny Saville has been given the keys to Florence, Italy, by the city’s mayor, Dario Nardella, in a special ceremony on Wednesday, September 29, 2021. The prestigious honor was conferred on the occasion of Saville’s multipart exhibition at five museums in Florence, which places her paintings and drawings in dialogue with masterworks of the Italian Renaissance and is on view through February 20, 2022.
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Jenny Saville being awarded le Chiavi della Città di Firenze (Keys of the City of Florence) by Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella, Salone dei Cinquecento, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, 2021
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Artist Spotlight
Jenny Saville
July 22–28, 2020
In her depictions of the human form, Jenny Saville transcends the boundaries of both classical figuration and modern abstraction. Oil paint, applied in heavy layers, becomes as visceral as flesh itself, each painted mark maintaining a supple, mobile life of its own. As Saville pushes, smears, and scrapes the pigment over her large-scale canvases, the distinctions between living, breathing bodies and their painted representations begin to collapse.
Photo: courtesy the artist
Online Reading
Jenny Saville
Oxyrhynchus
Jenny Saville: Oxyrhynchus is available for online reading from July 22 through August 21 as part of Artist Spotlight: Jenny Saville. This publication features more than a dozen works from 2006 to 2014 in which the artist references the layer upon layer of discoveries at Oxyrhynchus, a city in upper Egypt that was established in 332 bce and is considered one of the world’s most important archaeological sites. The final effect is a mysterious narrative of layered bodies and images, conveyed in a combination of oil, charcoal, and pastel. An essay by art historian John Elderfield, built around the observations of multiple past voices and the artist herself, captures the temporal culture of visual art to which the Oxyrhynchus canvases belong.
Jenny Saville: Oxyrhynchus (London: Gagosian, 2015)
Video
Jenny Saville
Life through a Microscope
In this video produced by the National Galleries of Scotland, Jenny Saville speaks about her practice on the occasion of her major survey at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, in 2018. She discusses her identity as a “picture maker,” the artistic freedom that having children has given her, and the importance of Titian.
Still from “Jenny Saville: Life through a Microscope”
The Thinking Hand
Edmund de Waal speaks with Richard Calvocoressi about touch in relation to art and our understanding of the world, and discusses the new stone sculptures he created for the exhibition This Living Hand: Edmund de Waal Presents Henry Moore, at the Henry Moore Studios & Gardens. Their conversation took place at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, in the context of the exhibition The Human Touch.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2021
The Fall 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Damien Hirst’s Reclining Woman (2011) on its cover.
Behind the Art
Rick Lowe: In the Studio
Join Rick Lowe in his Houston studio as he speaks about his recent paintings, describing their connections to his long engagement with the activity of dominoes and to his community-based projects created in the tradition of social sculpture.
Georg Baselitz: Pulling Up the Image
In celebration of five recent projects related to Georg Baselitz, Richard Calvocoressi, Max Hollein, and Katy Siegel speak with the artist and look at his prolific career.
Social Works II: Kahlil Robert Irving
Antwaun Sargent speaks with Kahlil Robert Irving in advance of the opening of Social Works II and presents a portfolio of Irving’s sculptures.
The Destination Is Latinx
Susan Breyer surveys the dynamic state of contemporary Latinx art in the United States. Highlighting seven artists who are rewriting cultural narratives, Breyer calls for sustained attention to this growing group beyond National Hispanic Heritage Month.
Touché
Christopher Rudd’s pas de deux Touché, choreographed for American Ballet Theatre during the onset of the pandemic, follows dancers João Menegussi and Calvin Royal III through a charged, vulnerable, and ultimately tender love story. In conversation with scholar Clare Croft, the artists reflect on the politics, poetics, and process of bringing this groundbreaking duet to life.
Behind the Art
Tatiana Trouvé: In the Studio
Join the artist in her studio as she speaks about her new series of drawings, From March to May. Trouvé describes the genesis of the project and the essential role its creation played in keeping her connected with the outside world during the difficult months of pandemic-related lockdown.
Kon Trubkovich
Historian Victoria Phillips speaks with the artist about his new paintings, memory and its relationship to media, and the continuing impact of the Cold War.
In Conversation
Katy Hessel, Matthew Holman, and Eleanor Nairne on Helen Frankenthaler
Broadcaster and art historian Katy Hessel; Matthew Holman, associate lecturer in English at University College London; and Eleanor Nairne, curator at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, discuss Helen Frankenthaler’s early training, the development of her signature soak-stain technique and subsequent shifts in style, and her connections to the London art world.
Gagosian Quarterly Films
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The San Francisco Art Institute: Its History and Future
Constance Lewallen marks the 150th anniversary of the San Francisco Art Institute, exploring the school’s evolution and pioneering faculty, as well as current challenges and the innovations necessary for its preservation.