Events
In Conversation
Sam Lipsyte
Geoff Dyer
Thursday, October 20, 2022, 6:30pm
NeueHouse Hollywood, Los Angeles
www.neuehouse.com
Join Gagosian to celebrate the publication of Friend of the Pod by Sam Lipsyte with a reading by the author, followed by a conversation between Lipsyte and writer Geoff Dyer. Matched with an artwork by Jordan Wolfson, in the form of a printed poster, the book is the third release from Gagosian’s Picture Books, an imprint conceived by author Emma Cline and dedicated to publishing fiction by leading writers alongside contributions by celebrated contemporary artists.
Friend of the Pod introduces readers to Jason, a stalled Gen X playwright from Queens whose friend Nando lands him a job producing a podcast. But when Ted Goldsworthy, the aging but irrepressible host of Inter Alia, New Jersey, insists that Jason commutes to his house in the Garden State, his egomaniacal daughter Roanne begins to cast her spell. Wolfson’s photograph—a self-portrait of the artist clutching a smartphone as he shoots a selfie in a mirror—reflects on the psychological power of the confrontational and prompts consideration—as does Lipsyte’s fiction—of the ways in which new media further complicates the already myriad challenges of self-expression.
Sam Lipsyte, Friend of the Pod / Jordan Wolfson, Untitled (New York: Picture Books | Gagosian, 2022)
Announcements
New Representation
Jordan Wolfson
Gagosian is pleased to announce shared representation of Jordan Wolfson alongside Sadie Coles HQ and David Zwirner. Wolfson is known for his provocative work in a wide range of mediums, including sculpture, installation, video, photography, digital animation, and performance. Manipulating the languages of advertising, the Internet, and current technology, he engineers enigmatic and confrontational narratives that use invented characters to probe dark, difficult topics in contemporary society.
Photo: Jason Schmidt
Museum Exhibitions
Opening Soon
Jordan Wolfson
Body Sculpture
December 9, 2023–April 28, 2024
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
nga.gov.au
This exhibition is the first solo presentation of Jordan Wolfson’s work in Australia and features the world premiere of Body Sculpture (2017–23), a recent major acquisition by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Body Sculpture is a new animatronic work that combines sculpture and performance to generate emotional and physical responses in the viewer. It will be shown alongside a selection of earlier works by the artist, providing an overview of Wolfson’s practice, which probes difficult, often controversial topics and themes that underlie American culture and contemporary society.
Sean Sprague, Jordan Wolfson, 2020 © Sean Sprague
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Transformers
Meisterwerke Der Sammlung Frieder Burda Im Dialog Mit Künstlichen Wesen
December 10, 2022–April 30, 2023
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany
www.museum-frieder-burda.de
This exhibition, whose subtitle translates to Masterpieces of the Frieder Burda Collection in Dialogue with Artificial Beings, offers visitors the opportunity to meet artist-made avatars—human machines that are able to move, talk, and learn—and observe the richness of their movements, language, and responses. By juxtaposing these beings with key works from the museum’s collection, Transformers aims to create multidimensional experiences that reflect our increasingly artificially transformed world. Work by Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, and Jordan Wolfson is included.
Jordan Wolfson, Female Figure, 2014 © Jordan Wolfson. Photo: Markus Tretter, Kunsthaus Bregenz
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Jordan Wolfson
Female Figure
October 12–December 23, 2022
Brant Foundation Art Study Center, New York
www.brantfoundation.org
Housed within a new artwork-specific room, this exhibition presents Jordan Wolfson’s decade-defining sculpture Female Figure (2014), in which the animatronic form of a woman dressed in a negligee, boots, and witch mask dances seductively while speaking in the artist’s voice. Through the use of facial recognition technology, this work is able to meet the viewer’s gaze, reflecting the invasive character of surveillance, objectification, and control.
Jordan Wolfson, Female Figure, 2014 © Jordan Wolfson
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Jordan Wolfson
July 16–October 9, 2022
Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria
kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Jordan Wolfson is known for powerful and unsettling works in a range of mediums and formats that interrogate the conditions of art, technology, and mass media in contemporary life. Wolfson commandeers his motifs from the gaming industry, the Internet, comic strips, and facial recognition software. His works are anything but accommodating, his questions discomforting. This exhibition explores the questions, How are imagery and information processed? How do technologies infiltrate our thoughts and perceptions? What is our approach to such issues as sexism, racism, and homophobia? What are our fears doing to us?
Installation view, Jordan Wolfson, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, July 16–October 9, 2022. Artwork © Jordan Wolfson. Photo: Markus Tretter
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High Anxiety
New Acquisitions
November 30, 2016–August 25, 2017
Rubell Museum, Miami
rubellmuseum.org
High Anxiety: New Acquisitions presents a selection of artworks by thirty-two artists acquired by the museum since 2014, many of which explore polarizing social and political concerns through a broad spectrum of practices. In gauging the output and energies of these artists we find creative currents that speak to our shared state of uncertainty, nervousness, and pessimism. Work by Harold Ancart, Cy Gavin, and Jordan Wolfson is included.
Installation view, High Anxiety: New Acquisitions, Rubell Museum, Miami, November 30, 2016–August 25, 2017. Artwork © Cy Gavin. Photo: Chi Lam, courtesy Rubell Museum, Miami
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Whitney Biennial 2017
March 17–June 11, 2017
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org
The Whitney Biennial was established in 1932 by the museum’s founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, to chart developments in art in the United States. The 2017 edition arrives at a time rife with racial tensions, economic inequities, and polarizing politics. Throughout the exhibition, artists challenge the viewer to consider how these realities affect our senses of self and community. The biennial features sixty-three individuals and collectives whose work takes a wide variety of forms, from painting and installation to activism and video-game design. Work by Deana Lawson and Jordan Wolfson is included.
Deana Lawson, Ring Bearer, 2016 © Deana Lawson