January 28, 2022
To celebrate the publication of Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour — Frederick Douglass by Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Tang Museum, and DelMonico Books, Julien was joined by Celeste-Marie Bernier, Paul Gilroy, Cora Gilroy-Ware, Vladimir Seput, and Vron Ware at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, to discuss the enduring legacy and power of Frederick Douglass. During the program, presented in collaboration with Victoria Miro and Isaac Julien Studio, the panelists detail the scope and focuses of the book.
Lessons of the Hour — Frederick Douglass was conceived as an artwork, with sumptuously illustrated pages that depict both Isaac Julien’s artworks and the archival images, some of which have never been printed in a book before.
Lessons of the Hour — Frederick Douglass is also a reader, and it features a range of essays by the most prominent scholars on Frederick Douglass, photography, art history, cultural studies, and race and gender studies: Celeste-Marie Bernier, professor at the University of Edinburgh and author of numerous books on Douglass who worked closely with Julien on Lessons of the Hour artwork; Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic and the winner of the 2019 Holberg Prize for his outstanding contributions to humanities; Vron Ware, photographer and academic, author of Beyond the Pale and numerous other publications on racism and feminism; the world-renowned Henry Louis Gates, Jr., from Harvard University, the preeminent Douglass scholar and art historian; film scholars Kass Banning and Warren Crichlow, who have followed Isaac’s work since the mid-1980s, write about the aesthetics of the film installation; Susan Solt, distinguished professor and former dean of the University of California, Santa Cruz, writes about Douglass’s relationship to language, Shakespeare, and Othello; visual artist and historian of photography Deborah Willis created three special inserts throughout the book dedicated to nineteenth-century African American photographer James Presley Ball, Douglass’s relationship to photography, and his aesthetic theory; John G. Hanhardt, American film and video curator, remembers the inception of the work and its curatorial beginnings; Jonathan P. Binstock, the work’s commissioner for the Memorial Art Gallery at University of Rochester, reflects upon Douglass’s relationship to Rochester; Douglass’s great-great-great grandson, Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., made an incredibly moving text for the preface of the book; and the book concludes with an extensive interview with Julien by Jennifer A. González, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and theorist of contemporary art.
This event took place at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, on November 19, 2021
Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour — Frederick Douglass is a visual and literary meditation juxtaposing artworks by Isaac Julien with archival images of Frederick Douglass and essays that consider his enduring legacy.
Social Works II: Curated by Antwaun Sargent, Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, October 7–December 16, 2021
In this video, Jenny Saville sits down inside her first major exhibition in Venice to discuss how the great Venetian artists of the past and the city’s heritage influence her work. The show brings together more than thirty canvases and works on paper from the 1990s to the present, tracing the development of her practice, which is deeply rooted in the history of painting.
On the occasion of his exhibition The Fire This Time at Gagosian, Paris, Titus Kaphar discusses themes of history, representation, and collective memory in his recent paintings and hand-carved wood sculptures.
Join the artist inside Carol Bove: Nights of Cabiria, her recent exhibition at Gagosian, Beverly Hills, as she considers the power of illusion, the histories of her materials, and the philosophical lessons at the heart of Federico Fellini’s films.
In this video, musical ensemble Sō Percussion performs Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood” inside the exhibition Richard Serra: Running Arcs (For John Cage), 1992, at Gagosian, New York.
The House on Utopia Parkway: Joseph Cornell’s Studio Re-Created by Wes Anderson is an exhibition conceived by curator Jasper Sharp and the acclaimed American filmmaker. The show brings Cornell’s New York studio to the heart of Paris, transforming Gagosian’s storefront gallery into a meticulously staged tableau—part time capsule, part life-size shadow box—for the first solo presentation of the artist’s work in Paris in more than four decades. In this video, Anderson discusses the genesis of the exhibition and the process by which it came together.
Join exhibition curator Donna De Salvo as she discusses her selection of the artist’s rarely seen sculptures, drawings, films, and archival materials in Walter De Maria: The Singular Experience at Gagosian, Le Bourget. Chief among these is Truck Trilogy (2011–17), De Maria’s final sculpture and the centerpiece of the exhibition.
Join Glenn Brown in his London studio as he discusses his presentation for the Studio section of Frieze Masters 2025, which explores the idea of the artist’s studio as a time machine: a space in which historical memory fuels creativity, manifesting in artworks that look to the future. Brown speaks about the featured works, which range from new paintings, drawings, and a sculpture to historic works on paper from the Brown Collection.
Péjú Oshin visits Christine Checinska, senior curator of African and diaspora textiles and fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum. From her London office, Checinska shares her curatorial insights into the international traveling exhibition Africa Fashion, which originated at the V&A, and the Costume Institute’s current show Superfine: Tailoring Black Style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The conversation delves into notions of diaspora, memory, homecoming, and the freedoms of being “anti-disciplinary.”
Paul McCartney: Rearview Mirror: Photographs, December 1963–February 1964 at Gagosian, Beverly Hills, brings together self-portraits, unguarded snapshots of The Beatles, and vivid depictions of the pandemonium that greeted them at every turn. Ahead of the exhibition, McCartney and Joshua Chuang, director of photography at Gagosian, met up at Griffin Editions in Brooklyn, New York, to reflect on the prints featured in the show.
In conjunction with the exhibition Adriana Varejão: Don’t Forget, We Come From the Tropics at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, New York, Laura Dias Leite produced a video directed by Luisa Marques in which the artist discusses the genesis of the show. The exhibition debuts the latest works in Varejão’s Plate series (2011–), which, shown alongside historic ceramic plates from the museum’s collection, pose questions about aesthetic hierarchies.
Join Gagosian for a conversation between Derrick Adams and Ekow Eshun, author, curator, and chair of the commissioning group for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London. The pair discuss Adams’s latest paintings depicting visions of Black Americana—featured in the exhibition Situation Comedy at Gagosian, Davies Street, London—within the context of British contemporary culture.
To coincide with her exhibition Setsuko: Kingdom of Cats, at Gagosian, New York, the artist speaks with architect Peter Marino about her recent sculptures, paintings, and works on paper.