News / Alex Israel

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Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog)

November 18, 2023–April 7, 2024
The Broad, Los Angeles
www.thebroad.org

Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog) is drawn entirely from the Broad collection and showcases works by Los Angeles–based artists. Titled after a work by John Baldessari, the exhibition includes reflections on Los Angeles as a city in flux and turmoil, and on societal issues that extend far beyond the city. Featuring more than sixty works made from 1969 to 2023, it brings together photorealistic painting, photography, sculpture, and political signage by twenty-one artists across varying generations. Work by Mark Grotjahn, Alex Israel, Ed Ruscha, and Jonas Wood is included.

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Room by Room
Concepts, Themes, and Artists in the Rachofsky Collection

September 9–November 25, 2023
The Warehouse, Dallas
thewarehousedallas.org

Room by Room builds on the ongoing interest at The Warehouse to reflect on the development of its collection, presenting works for the first time. Spanning a range of mediums, geographies, and eras, each gallery focuses on a single artist or theme, allowing an in-depth look at the artistic movements important to the collection from the outset, together with other avenues of interest that have developed over the years. Work by Richard Artschwager, Carol Bove, Alex Israel, Sterling Ruby, and Jonas Wood is included.

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Alex Israel × Snapchat

November 29, 2021–May 15, 2022
Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida
thebass.org

This exhibition uses Snapchat’s augmented reality (AR) technology to bring Alex Israel’s Self-Portraits to life, transforming five of his paintings into portals to immersive animated experiences. “Lenses” accessed through the visitor’s smartphone overlay Snapchat’s groundbreaking AR onto Israel’s physical works to offer viewers a new experience of painting. A site-specific sixth work interacts with the museum’s historic Art Deco façade, bringing the building to life.

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Alex Israel
Freeway

November 11, 2021–March 6, 2022
Fosun Foundation, Shanghai
www.fosunfoundation.com

Freeway features Alex Israel’s interpretations of the iconic Los Angeles motifs of sunshine, waves, and the sky, informed by his unique perspective on mass media and popular culture through the lens of his multiple identities as artist, entrepreneur, filmmaker, and talk-show host. This survey exhibition, covering the past decade of the artist’s career, includes works in a range of mediums, and is the first time that Israel’s Self-Portrait and Sky Backdrop series have been presented in China.

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Face à Arcimboldo

May 29–November 22, 2021
Centre Pompidou-Metz, France
www.centrepompidou-metz.fr

This exhibition, whose title translates to Arcimboldo Face to Face, invites visitors to explore the timeless vocabulary of the sixteenth-century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c. 1527–1593). The show demonstrates how his work has influenced art history for more than four centuries through the work of 130 artists, including work by Francis Bacon, Glenn Brown, Alex Israel, Ewa Juszkiewicz, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, and Ed Ruscha.

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Wayne Thiebaud Influencer
A New Generation

June 3–November 12, 2021
Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis
manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu

On the occasion of his 100th birthday, this exhibition explores the profound influence that Wayne Thiebaud, longtime UC Davis art professor, has had on subsequent generations of artists, including both fellow painters and his former students. Pairings explore how Thiebaud forecast the future of painting through his personal journey to find meaning and reinvention in the medium’s history. Work by Alex Israel and Jonas Wood is included.

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In Production
Art and the Studio System

November 7, 2019–March 1, 2020
Yuz Museum, Shanghai
www.yuzmshanghai.org

In Production: Art and the Studio System emphasizes the overlapping histories of visual art and film, with a particular focus on how the site of the studio, both in visual arts and in cinematic production, has radically shifted in the last twenty years. The exhibition highlights the exceptional gifts and acquisitions related to film and video that have entered the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s permanent collection in recent years including work by Piero Golia, Douglas Gordon, Alex Israel, and Mike Kelley.

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Feel the Sun in Your Mouth
Recent Acquisitions

August 24, 2019–February 2, 2020
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
hirshhorn.si.edu

This exhibition brings together artworks acquired by the museum over the past five years with a focus on art that incites sensation and demonstrates a renewed interest in sublime encounters with the world. Spanning a period of extreme technological growth that has led us from the first steps on the moon to the development of the Internet, this exhibition illuminates a return to the poetic, the intuitive, and the cosmic in current artistic practice. Work by Alex Israel, Tatiana Trouvé, and Mary Weatherford is included.

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Alex Israel

June 8–August 31, 2019
MAMO–Marseille Modulor, France
mamo.fr

Alex Israel at MAMO occupies the rooftop deck and former gymnasium of Le Corbusier’s iconic Cité Radieuse. Inspired by Marseille’s gritty history and the architect’s use of concrete, Alex Israel has reimagined the building as Gotham City, and as a temporary home for two new works appropriated from Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). Continuing the artist’s ongoing exploration of rented film props as readymade sculpture, the Batmobile serves as the centerpiece of an installation with smoke, light, and sound, while the Bat-Signal, projected high above the city, activates the night sky throughout the summer.

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Alex Israel × Snapchat

June 17–21, 2019
Le Centre d’art La Malmaison, Cannes, France

Invited to collaborate with Snap’s advanced augmented reality (AR) team, Alex Israel has expanded his multidisciplinary practice through the creation of five new experiences, each linked to one of his Self-Portrait paintings. These five “Snap-Portraits,” unleashed in the user’s smartphone, overlay Snap’s groundbreaking AR onto Israel’s physical works to give viewers an entirely new experience of painting.

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Alex Israel
Waves

March 17–April 28, 2018
Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria
www.kunstraum-innsbruck.at

This spring at Kunstraum Innsbruck Alex Israel presents a new body of work, Waves, low-relief sculptural friezes inspired by surfing wet suits and Hokusai. Each “wave” is an elaboration on a recurring graphic motif from Israel’s 2017 film SPF-18 and is painted in colors drawn from the film’s unique palette.

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The Classical Now

March 2–April 28, 2018
King’s College, London
www.kcl.ac.uk

The Classical Now pairs the work of modern and contemporary artists with classical Greek and Roman antiquities. The exhibition traces the ways in which Greco-Roman art has captured and permeated modern imagination, while exploring the myriad continuities and contrasts between the ancient, modern, and contemporary, revealing the “classical” as a living and fluid tradition. Work by Michael Craig-Martin, Damien Hirst, Alex Israel, Yves Klein, Roy Lichtenstein, Henry Moore, Bruce Nauman, Pablo Picasso, and Rachel Whiteread is included.