News / Walton Ford

November 17–22, 2023
Metrograph, New York
metrograph.com

Walton Ford has curated a selection of films as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph. The program features five films that explore extreme psychological states in their storylines and use pioneering and sometimes unconventional acting and cinematographic techniques to achieve the result. Ford explains, “These films dive deep into characters in ways that are sometimes harrowing and always completely surprising. None of these films are cliché or pat, and all share an unorthodox style or method. As a narrative painter, I seek to explore subjects and tell stories in this way.”

Featured films include
At Land (1944, directed by Maya Deren)
Heat Lightning (1934, directed by Mervyn LeRoy)
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, directed by Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied)
Naked (1993, directed by Mike Leigh)
The Sword of Doom (1966, directed by Kihachi Okamoto)

Friday, November 17, 2023, 8pm
Metrograph, New York
metrograph.com

Join Walton Ford and designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia for a conversation and screening on the occasion of Walton Ford Selects, a film program curated by the artist as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph. The pair will discuss how the selected films share an unorthodox style or method and delve into characters in ways that are sometimes harrowing and always surprising. After the talk, a trio of films—Heat Lightning (1934), Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), and At Land (1944)—will be screened.

Purchase Tickets

Saturday, August 27, 2022, 3pm
Taschen Store, East Hampton, New York
www.taschen.com

Walton Ford will sign copies of the updated edition of his book Pancha Tantra (2020). The most comprehensive survey of the artist’s work to date, the expanded publication features forty new works, more than 120 additional pages, and a new essay by the artist. These appear alongside a text by Bill Buford, excerpts from Ford’s textual inspirations—including Indian folktales, the letters of Benjamin Franklin, and The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini—and a complete biography of the artist. The event is free and open to the public.

Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 1pm EDT

As part of the Brooklyn Rail’s online series New Social Environment, Walton Ford joins the journal’s editor-at-large Jason Rosenfeld for a conversation about the artist’s current eponymous exhibition at Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street, New York, as well as his practice in general. In these daily lunchtime Zoom conversations, invited artists, writers, filmmakers, and poets discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality with Brooklyn Rail staff. The talk will conclude with a poetry reading by Lee Ann Norman. To join the online event, register at brooklynrail.org.

Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Capitale, New York
bombmagazine.com

Bomb magazine’s annual gala and benefit art auction will celebrate its fortieth anniversary in New York on April 13, where art luminaries including Walton Ford and Linda Goode Bryant will be honored. The auction benefits Bomb, a nonprofit that has been publishing conversations between artists of all disciplines since 1981. This year’s auction features work by over thirty artists including Walton Ford, Vera Lutter, and Mary Weatherford. To attend the event, purchase tickets at shop.bombmagazine.org.

Friday, December 14, 2018, 7–8pm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
www.metmuseum.org

As part of the Met’s Artists on Artworks and MetFridays programs, Walton Ford will discuss Eugène Delacroix’s images of animals, a subject important to his own practice, in conjunction with the exhibitions Delacroix and Devotion to Drawing: The Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix currently on view at the museum.