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Frank Gehry

Fish Lamps

November 7–December 21, 2013
Davies Street, London

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London I), 2013 Metal wire, ColorCore formica, silicone, and wood base, 61 ⅜ × 58 ¼ × 64 ⅞ inches (155.9 × 148 × 164.8 cm)© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Joshua White

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London I), 2013

Metal wire, ColorCore formica, silicone, and wood base, 61 ⅜ × 58 ¼ × 64 ⅞ inches (155.9 × 148 × 164.8 cm)
© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Joshua White

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London II), 2013 Metal wire, ColorCore formica, and silicone, dimensions variable© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Stuart Burford

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London II), 2013

Metal wire, ColorCore formica, and silicone, dimensions variable
© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Stuart Burford

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London V), 2013 Metal wire, ColorCore formica, and silicone, dimensions variable© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Stuart Burford

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London V), 2013

Metal wire, ColorCore formica, and silicone, dimensions variable
© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Stuart Burford

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London III), 2013 Metal wire, ColorCore formica, and silicone, dimensions variable© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Stuart Burford

Frank Gehry, Untitled (London III), 2013

Metal wire, ColorCore formica, and silicone, dimensions variable
© Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Stuart Burford

About

The fish is a perfect form.
—Frank Gehry

Gagosian London is pleased to present “Frank Gehry: Fish Lamps.” This is the latest body of work in Gehry’s new series of playful and dynamic light sculptures.

One of the most celebrated architects living today, Gehry's career spans five decades and three continents. Known for his imaginative designs and creative use of materials, he has forever altered the urban landscape with spectacular buildings that are conceived as dynamic structures rather than static vessels.

Gehry has always experimented with sculpture and furniture in addition to his architectural pursuits, coaxing inventive forms out of unexpected materials, from the Easy Edges (1969–73) and Experimental Edges (1979–82)—chairs and tables carved from blocks of industrial corrugated cardboard—to the Knoll furniture series (1989–92), fashioned from bentwood. The Fish Lamps evolved from a 1983 commission by the Formica Corporation to create objects from the then-new plastic laminate ColorCore. After accidentally shattering a piece of it while working, Gehry was inspired by the shards, which reminded him of fish scales. The first Fish Lamps, which were fabricated between 1984 and 1986, employed wire armatures molded into fish shapes, onto which shards of ColorCore are individually glued, creating clear allusions to the morphic attributes of real fish.

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