Chris Burden, via Art Observed

For its newest exhibition on view at its 24th Street exhibition space in New York, Gagosian Gallery takes a look to the west, embracing the recent potency of Los Angeles’s fine arts community with a show of works that both spotlight the gallery’s representation of artists currently working in the Californian metropolis, while simultaneously exploring the cultural landscape and iconographies of a city that has shaped their work as much as they have shaped its perception in the art world.  Drawing on work from Alex Israel, Mary Weatherford, Jonas Wood and others, the show is a striking introduction to the Californian artists currently working with Gagosian, and the shared lineage of Californian art that the gallery has long participated in supporting. (more…)

Alex Israel, Pelican (2017), via Almine Rech

Marking a new stage in his engagement with the cultural landscape and natural phenomena of the California coastline, Alex Israel returns to Almine Rech’s Paris location this month, presenting his aptly titled solo exhibition, Summer 2.  Drawn from the artist’s work on his forthcoming feature-length film, SPF-18, Israel has created a series of aluminum and acrylic wetsuit sculptures, text-based pieces, and an extremely detailed pelican sculpture, each presenting its own twist on the familiar iconography of the beach environments he has so often used as source material. (more…)

Alex Israel & Brett Easton Ellis, Born and Not Made (2016), all images © Alex Israel and Bret Easton Ellis; courtesy iStock and Gagosian Gallery Photography: Jeff McLane

Marking one of the art world’s more unique collaborations in recent years, Alex Israel has partnered with writer Brett Easton Ellis to create a series of large-scale acrylic and ink canvases, reveling in the unique iconography and landscapes of Los Angeles.  The show, which opened earlier this Winter at Gagosian’s Beverly Hills location, combines Ellis’s distinctively modern texts with Israel’s particular blend of pop-influenced wit, here manifested in sprawling scenes from the varying spheres and vistas of Los Angeles’s shifting landscape.

Alex Israel & Brett Easton Ellis (Installation View)

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Alex Israel is featured in the Brooklyn Rail this week, offering his take on the necessity and/or benefits of continued study at art schools for young practitioners.  “All too often, unsure of oneself, seeking the approval of a favorite professor or influential visiting artist, and/or succumbing to the brand of insecurity that only art schools can breed, an art student will sacrifice what was once the original vision for what he or she thinks the critique—faculty and peers—would prefer the work to be,” he writes. (more…)

Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills will launch an exhibition by Alex Israel and Brett Easton Ellis as part of the gallery’s Oscar-week exhibition early next year, featuring large-scale paintings by the artist adorned with text by Ellis.   (more…)

California-based artist Alex Israel recently sat down with AnOther Magazine to talk about his new show in Berlin, his new series of self-portraits (one of which is on view as part of After-Hours 2:: Murals on the Bowery), and the close ties between his work and the film culture of his home city, Los Angeles.  “For me, going to the studio is a phrase that can only refer to going to a movie studio. That is why I made my work at Warner Bros. I am also a fan. I like movies and TV.” (more…)

Alex Israel, Thirty exhibition at Almine Rech (announcement)

Work by Los Angeles-based American artist Alex Israel is being showcased in the Almine Rech Gallery Paris this month in an exhibition entitled Thirty, harking back to his Berlin exhibition which occurred exactly one year ago at Peres Projects in Kreuzberg, Berlin, and also to his installation at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City this summer.

Alex Israel, Thirty & Property, courtesy Almine Rech
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