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Theories on Forgetting

July 9–August 21, 2015
Beverly Hills

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view Photo: Jeff McLane

Installation view

Photo: Jeff McLane

Works Exhibited

Piero Golia, On Record (three days conversation on general matters), 2014 Stone and steno paper, 10 ¾ × 11 × 4 ½ inches (27 × 28 × 11 cm)© Piero Golia. Photo: Benjamin Lee Ritchie Handler

Piero Golia, On Record (three days conversation on general matters), 2014

Stone and steno paper, 10 ¾ × 11 × 4 ½ inches (27 × 28 × 11 cm)
© Piero Golia. Photo: Benjamin Lee Ritchie Handler

Douglas Gordon, Self Portrait of You + Me (Jackie smiling II), 2008 Burned print, smoke, and mirror, 45 ⅜ × 36 ¾ inches (115.2 × 93.5 cm)

Douglas Gordon, Self Portrait of You + Me (Jackie smiling II), 2008

Burned print, smoke, and mirror, 45 ⅜ × 36 ¾ inches (115.2 × 93.5 cm)

Richard Phillips, Cooking, 2014 Oil on linen, 24 × 20 inches (61 × 50.8 cm)© Richard Phillips

Richard Phillips, Cooking, 2014

Oil on linen, 24 × 20 inches (61 × 50.8 cm)
© Richard Phillips

Sterling Ruby, TROUGH, 2014 Bronze, 52 ¾ × 46 × 89 inches (134 × 116.8 ×226.1 cm), edition of 3© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, TROUGH, 2014

Bronze, 52 ¾ × 46 × 89 inches (134 × 116.8 ×226.1 cm), edition of 3
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Ed Ruscha, Rusty Signs—Dead End 1, 2014 Mixografia® print on handmade paper, 24 × 24 inches (61 × 61 cm), edition of 50© Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha, Rusty Signs—Dead End 1, 2014

Mixografia® print on handmade paper, 24 × 24 inches (61 × 61 cm), edition of 50
© Ed Ruscha

Analia Saban, Claim (from Chair), 2013 Linen on chair and canvas, 89 × 104 × 68 inches (226 × 264 × 173 cm)© Analia Saban. Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Brian Forrest

Analia Saban, Claim (from Chair), 2013

Linen on chair and canvas, 89 × 104 × 68 inches (226 × 264 × 173 cm)
© Analia Saban. Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Brian Forrest

Max Hooper Schneider, The Extinction of Neon, 2015 Acrylic terrarium, modeled landscape, neon signs, plastic flora, insect matter, resin, and custom aluminium stand, 66 × 42 × 24 inches (167.6 × 106.7 × 61 cm)Photo: Jeff McLane

Max Hooper Schneider, The Extinction of Neon, 2015

Acrylic terrarium, modeled landscape, neon signs, plastic flora, insect matter, resin, and custom aluminium stand, 66 × 42 × 24 inches (167.6 × 106.7 × 61 cm)
Photo: Jeff McLane

Max Hooper Schneider, The Extinction of Neon, 2015 (detail) Acrylic terrarium, modeled landscape, neon signs, plastic flora, insect matter, resin, and custom aluminium stand, 66 × 42 × 24 inches (167.6 × 106.7 × 61 cm)Photo: Jeff McLane

Max Hooper Schneider, The Extinction of Neon, 2015 (detail)

Acrylic terrarium, modeled landscape, neon signs, plastic flora, insect matter, resin, and custom aluminium stand, 66 × 42 × 24 inches (167.6 × 106.7 × 61 cm)
Photo: Jeff McLane

Taryn Simon, Folder: Mirrors, 2012 Archival inkjet print, 47 × 62 inches (47 × 157.5 cm), edition of 5© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Folder: Mirrors, 2012

Archival inkjet print, 47 × 62 inches (47 × 157.5 cm), edition of 5
© Taryn Simon

Jonas Wood, Untitled (Snake Killers), 2010 Charcoal on paper, 31 × 30 inches (78.7 × 76.2 cm)© Jonas Wood

Jonas Wood, Untitled (Snake Killers), 2010

Charcoal on paper, 31 × 30 inches (78.7 × 76.2 cm)
© Jonas Wood

About

Theories on Forgetting maps evolutions of cultural symbolism through the work of eighteen contemporary artists. Questioning how popular images originate, gain importance, obsolesce, and renew, the exhibition surveys a broad range of artworks with source amnesia: strange relics and personal figments reveal the emergence of new languages fertilized by previous ones. These diverse cultural apparitions engage individual and collective memory as subject, action, and material.

The rise and fall of icons occurs cyclically, and sometimes recursively. In Christian Jankowski’s film installation Casting Jesus (2011), the Vatican plays host to a reality show in search of a church-ordained face of Christ, paneled by experts in divinity. In the series Self-Portrait of You + Me, after the Factory (2007), Douglas Gordon appropriates Warhol’s images of “superstars” and burns them away to reveal polished mirrors that reflect the viewer’s consumptive stare.

Recalling life before the advent of the Internet’s vast image bank, Taryn Simon has photographed groups of related postcards, magazine clippings, and other printed images from the famous Picture Collection of the New York Public Library. Each of Simon’s photographs contains overlapping printed matter that she has selected from archival categories such as Mirrors, Abandoned Buildings and Towns, Express Highways, and Waiting, like Borges’s Chinese encyclopedia. Oliver Laric uses 3-D technology to analyze museum artifacts and map trajectories of style, from Greek to Roman to everyday knockoffs. Sourcing objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Jonas Wood invents his own archive of antiquity.

With the proliferation of instant news sources, history has given way to a multiverse of potential truths, while new forms of shorthand and social media communications constantly force adaptation to diachronic shifts in language. Mungo Thomson’s appropriation of the format and legacy of Time alludes to the magazine’s intended function as a populist social mirror. In recent prints, Ed Ruscha depicts typical metal road signage, patinated and punctured by corrosion and bullets, while in large-scale paintings, Mark Flood invokes “bit rot,” the blight of digital archives, as it overtakes diametrically opposed voices in television.

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Installation view with Douglas Gordon, Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now... (1999–)

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.

still from video of eyeball

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.

Richard Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe, actor, New York, May 6, 1957 on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Summer 2023

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2023

The Summer 2023 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Richard Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe, actor, New York, May 6, 1957 on its cover.

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.

Sterling Ruby studio

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.

Jordan Wolfson’s House with Face (2017) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Fall 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2022

The Fall 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Jordan Wolfson’s House with Face (2017) on its cover.