Installation Views

Works Exhibited

About

Words have these abstract shapes, they live in a world of no size.
—Ed Ruscha

Gagosian is pleased to present LEXICON, an exhibition of artworks that employ the written word.

A lexicon is a stock or inventory of systematized language, whether personal or belonging to a larger cultural context, which can be shared and deployed. Since the beginning of recorded history, language and art have collided and intersected. And from the modern era onward, artists have employed words and language to diverse effect, using writing as both act and subject—in print, light, sculpture, and paint on canvas. Works in the exhibition include Marcel Broodthaers’s Académie I (1968); Alighiero Boetti’s embroidered magic word squares (Arazzi) (1977–92); Ed Ruscha’s large-scale three-part painting A, B, C (1985–87); Jenny Holzer’s stone agit, Selections from the Living Series (Bench #9) (1989); Douglas Gordon’s text work for a television monitor, A moment’s silence (for someone close to you) (1998); Jean-Michel Basquiat’s cultural cryptograms; and Cy Twombly’s abstruse and airy scratchings. Lawrence Weiner has created a new site-responsive version of AT THE SAME MOMENT (2000) for the rue de Ponthieu gallery, and Piero Golia has designed a printed wallpaper especially for the exhibition.

Language and art have never lived too far away from one another: concrete poetry, propaganda, graffiti, and Pop art, among other genres, testify to their dynamic interplay over time. LEXICON presents works by artists who have made language and letters into what poet William Carlos Williams would have referred to as “the thing itself”: language becoming physical object.

The exhibition will include works by Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Julien Audebert, Robert Barry, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alighiero Boetti, Joe Bradley, Marcel Broodthaers, Robert Filliou, John Giorno, Robert Gober, Piero Golia, Douglas Gordon, Loris Gréaud, Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Emilio Isgrò, Neil Jenney, Jasper Johns, Joseph Kosuth, Barbara Kruger, Claude Lévêque, Glenn Ligon, Adam McEwen, Sarah Morris, Albert Oehlen, Nam June Paik, Steven Parrino, Richard Prince, Sterling Ruby, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, and Lawrence Weiner.

Rollin’ High and Mighty Traps: Richard Prince

Rollin’ High and Mighty Traps: Richard Prince

Sydney Stutterheim traces the linkages and affinities between the work of Richard Prince and that of Bob Dylan. Using Prince’s Untitled (Dylan) as a starting point, she considers the artist’s enduring interest in questions of originality and authorship, as well as his sustained relationship with the worlds of American music and counterculture.

On Willem de Kooning: Albert Oehlen In Conversation with John Corbett

On Willem de Kooning: Albert Oehlen In Conversation with John Corbett

On the occasion of Willem de Kooning: Endless Painting, curated by Cecilia Alemani and comprising paintings from 1944 through 1986 and two sculptures, the Quarterly revisits a conversation between Albert Oehlen and John Corbett from 2013. The pair reflect on de Kooning’s late work and its lasting influence on them.

Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2025

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2025

The Spring 2025 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Cy Twombly’s Paesaggio (1986) on the cover. 

Cy Twombly by Jenny Saville: To Lift the Veil

Cy Twombly by Jenny Saville: To Lift the Veil

Jenny Saville reflects on Cy Twombly’s poetic engagement with the world, with time and tension, and with growth in this excerpt from her Marion Barthelme Lecture, presented at the Menil Collection, Houston, in 2024.

Hidden in Plain Sight: New Discoveries in the Art of Jasper Johns, Part Two

Hidden in Plain Sight: New Discoveries in the Art of Jasper Johns, Part Two

In the second part of a two-part essay, art historian John B. Ravenal considers Jasper Johns’s continued engagement with the motif of woodgrain.

Jazz & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jazz & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Gagosian director Jessica Beck speaks with Lee Mergner, author and publisher of JazzTimes, about Basquiat’s lifelong engagement with jazz on the occasion of “Bebop Revolution: JLCO with Wynton Marsalis,” two nights celebrating bebop and the genre’s influence on the painter at Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York.

Vincent Gardner: On Bebop

Vincent Gardner: On Bebop

Vincent Gardner, trombonist, composer, and arranger in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, speaks about the bebop genre and Jean-Michel Basquiat with the Quarterlys Alison McDonald on the occasion of “Bebop Revolution: JLCO with Wynton Marsalis,” two nights celebrating bebop at Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York.

A Living Symbol

A Living Symbol

As American identity once again comes into question during a politically charged election cycle, the Quarterly revisits the motif of the American flag in art. Here, John B. Ravenal contextualizes Robert Lazzarini’s new wall-based flag sculptures and elucidates the tensions they lay bare in the symbol of our nation.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: From Modena to Los Angeles

Jean-Michel Basquiat: From Modena to Los Angeles

Jessica Beck addresses Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 trip to Italy, considering the effects of the country’s art and history on the young painter’s process and iconography. She focuses in particular on the painting Untitled (1982).

Hidden in Plain Sight: New Discoveries in the Art of Jasper Johns

Hidden in Plain Sight: New Discoveries in the Art of Jasper Johns

In the first part of a two-part essay, art historian John B. Ravenal considers Jasper Johns’s continued engagement with the motif of woodgrain.

Sophia Heriveaux and Roger Guenveur Smith on Jean-Michel Basquiat

In Conversation
Sophia Heriveaux and Roger Guenveur Smith on Jean-Michel Basquiat

Join Gagosian for a conversation between director, producer, and writer Sophia Heriveaux and actor, director, and writer Roger Guenveur Smith inside the exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: Made on Market Street, at Gagosian, Beverly Hills. Heriveaux and Guenveur Smith both share a personal connection to Basquiat: Heriveaux is the artist’s niece and Guenveur Smith was one of his friends and collaborators. The pair discuss Basquiat’s work and legacy, as well as his lasting impact on contemporary art and culture.

Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2024

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2024

The Spring 2024 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available with a fresh cover design featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Lead Plate with Hole (1984).

Douglas Gordon: To Sing

Douglas Gordon: To Sing

On the occasion of Douglas Gordon: All I need is a little bit of everything, an exhibition in London, curator Adam Szymczyk recounts his experiences with Gordon’s work across nearly three decades, noting the continuities and evolutions.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: Los Angeles

Jean-Michel Basquiat: Los Angeles

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, met with filmmaker Tamra Davis, art dealer Larry Gagosian, and author and curator Fred Hoffman to reflect on their experiences with the artist during the 1980s in Los Angeles.

Douglas Gordon: if when why what

Douglas Gordon: if when why what

Douglas Gordon took over the Piccadilly Lights advertising screen in London’s Piccadilly Circus, as well as a global network of screens in cities including Berlin, Melbourne, Milan, New York, and Seoul, nightly for three minutes at 20:22 (8:22pm) throughout December 2022, with his new film, if when why what (2018–22). The project was presented by the Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Art (CIRCA) in conjunction with the exhibition Douglas Gordon: Neon Ark at Gagosian, Davies Street, London.

Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2023

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2023

The Spring 2023 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Roe Ethridge’s Two Kittens with Yarn Ball (2017–22) on its cover.

Adam McEwen and Ian Penman

In Conversation
Adam McEwen and Ian Penman

In conjunction with his exhibitions Adam McEwen at Gagosian in London, and Adam McEwen: XXIII at Gagosian in Rome, the artist sits down with author Ian Penman to discuss his new obituary works and graphite sculptures.

Sterling Ruby: The Frenetic Beat

Sterling Ruby: The Frenetic Beat

Ester Coen meditates on the dynamism of Sterling Ruby’s recent projects, tracing parallels between these works and the histories of Futurism, Constructivism, and the avant-garde.

Adam McEwen: An Act of Love

Adam McEwen: An Act of Love

Contemporary artists Adam McEwen and Jeremy Deller met up online over the holiday season to discuss McEwen’s upcoming exhibitions in London and Rome. McEwen delves into the motivations and criteria behind his work, as well as the challenges and complexities of memorializing the living.

Sterling Ruby: TURBINES

Sterling Ruby: TURBINES

Join Sterling Ruby in his Los Angeles studio as he works on new abstract paintings ahead of his exhibition TURBINES at Gagosian in New York.