Gagosian Premieres

The ninth episode of Gagosian Premieres celebrates Nathaniel Mary Quinn: NOT FAR FROM HOME; STILL FAR AWAY—an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper at Gagosian, New York—featuring a raw musical performance by Raphael Saadiq; an intimate conversation between Quinn and Amanda Hunt, director of public programs and creative practice at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles; and insightful commentary from writer and curator Ekow Eshun.

The eighth episode of Gagosian Premieres celebrates Frank Gehry: Spinning Tales—an exhibition of new work presented at Gagosian, Beverly Hills—featuring musical performances by esperanza spalding and Gustavo Dudamel and YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), and a conversation between Frank Gehry and Julian Rose conducted in Gehry’s Los Angeles studio.

In this Session, blues poet, musician, and organizer aja monet performs with Weedie Braimah, Jeremiah Edwards, Craig Harris, Jehbreal Jackson, and Samora Pinderhughes inside the exhibition Amoako Boafo: what could possibly go wrong, if we tell it like it is at Gagosian, 980 Madison Avenue, New York. In a powerful exchange of spoken word and song, monet reads poetry that she composed in response to Boafo’s portraits, which blend themes of Black love, resistance, joy, and community building, while her musical collaborators perform a free-flowing new interpretation of Aaron Neville’s 1966 soul hit “Tell It Like It Is” on piano, bass, drums, trombone, didgeridoo, and djembe, with expressive vocals by Jackson. Pinderhughes and Braimah also worked with monet on her recently released debut album, When the Poems Do What They Do (2023), which was described by NPR’s Sheldon Pearce as “gorgeously meditative and potently groovy.”

As part of Sessions, a spin-off of Gagosian Premieres, musician, producer, and film and television composer Isabella Summers, a founding member of Florence and the Machine, performs inside the exhibition Cy Twombly at Gagosian, Beverly Hills. Summers presents three chapters from a piece she composed, titled To Neptune, Ruler of the Seas Profound, that is inspired by Twombly’s life and work. The music is interwoven with quotations from poems and literary texts by authors who have served as muses or subjects for Twombly, including Homer, Stéphane Mallarmé, and William Butler Yeats.