Solo exhibition coincides with presentation by Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann, the result of an ongoing exchange between the two artists and writers.
Gagosian is pleased to announce a major exhibition of new works by Edmund de Waal, this must be the place, opening at 541 West 24th Street on September 13, 2023.
The exhibition is the internationally acclaimed artist and writer’s first with Gagosian in New York in a decade and follows elective affinities at the Frick Collection, New York (2019), and The Hare with Amber Eyes at the Jewish Museum, New York (2021–22), which presented different aspects of his wide-ranging practice.
this must be the place features wheel-thrown porcelain vessels, both black and white, presented in wall-mounted vitrines. De Waal juxtaposes the cylindrical vessels and bowls with fine porcelain tiles, blocks of steel, silver, and stone, some of which are inscribed with handwritten text. In their compositions and spacing, these arrangements recall books on a shelf, stanzas of poems, or the notes and rests of musical notation.
this must be the place is complemented by the presentation of to light, and then return— at Gagosian’s gallery at 976 Madison Avenue, New York. This exhibition features sculptures by de Waal and platinum prints and tintypes by Sally Mann that each artist created in response to the other’s work.
The result of an ongoing exchange between two artists who are also celebrated writers, the exhibition is titled after the final line of “The spry arms of the wind” (c. 1866), a poem written by Emily Dickinson on an envelope scrap. Informed by their mutual fascination with material transformation and themes of elegy and historical reckoning, the works on view include de Waal’s sculptural installations featuring porcelain and other materials, and Mann’s tintypes and platinum prints.
Edmund de Waal: this must be the place, 13th September – 28th October 2023, Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, New York
to light, and then return – Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann, 14th September – 28th October 2023, Gagosian, 976 Madison Avenue, New York
About the artists
Edmund de Waal was born in 1964 in Nottingham, England, and lives and works in London. Public collections include the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, England; Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, England; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany; Jewish Museum, Berlin; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Exhibitions include On White: Porcelain Stories from the Fitzwilliam, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, England (2013–14); white: a project by Edmund de Waal, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2015–16); During the Night, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2016–17); white island, Museu d’Art Contemporani d’Eivissa, Ibiza, Spain (2018); –one way or other–, Schindler House, Los Angeles (2018–19); elective affinities, Frick Collection, New York (2019); psalm, Museo Ebraico and Ateneo Veneto, Venice (2019); Lettres à Camondo, Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris (2021–22); and The Hare with Amber Eyes, Jewish Museum, New York (2021–22).
De Waal is also renowned for his family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), which won the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Costa Biography Award, among others, and has been translated into over thirty languages. Other titles include Bernard Leach (1997), The White Road (2015), and Letters to Camondo (2021). In 2015, de Waal was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction by Yale University. In 2021 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for Services to the Arts. De Waal will receive the Isamu Noguchi Award on September 12, 2023, together with Theaster Gates and Hanya Yanagihara.
Sally Mann was born in 1951 in Lexington, Virginia, where she lives and works. Collections include High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; and National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. The major survey exhibition A Thousand Crossings was held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in 2018, and traveled to the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (2018); J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2018–19); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2019); Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (2019); and High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2020). Mann’s many books include At Twelve (1988), Immediate Family (1992), Still Time (1994), What Remains (2003), Deep South (2005), Proud Flesh (2009), and Remembered Light (2016). Her bestselling memoir, Hold Still (2015), was a finalist for the National Book Awards and won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. She has received numerous awards, including National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Guggenheim Foundation grants. In 2021, Mann was honored with the OPUS Award by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame; and was declared the Prix Pictet laureate. In 2022, she received a Lucie Award for achievement in fine art.
