Summer 2023 Issue

Hans Ulrich Obrist’s questionnaire:Lynn Hershman leeson

In this ongoing series, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has devised a set of thirty-seven questions that invite artists, authors, musicians, and other visionaries to address key elements of their lives and creative practices. Respondents make a selection from the larger questionnaire and reply in as many or as few words as they desire. For the second installment of 2023, we are honored to present the artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues that are now recognized as key to the workings of contemporary society: identity, surveillance, the relationship between humans and technology, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, London. He was previously the curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show, World Soup (The Kitchen Show), in 1991, he has curated more than 300 exhibitions. Photo: Tyler Mitchell

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Hans Ulrich ObristDoes money corrupt art?

Lynn Hershman LeesonNo, lack of money does.

HUOWhat is your most recent work?

LHLThey are all always unfinished, but the latest is about immortality. I’m working on the final part of The Cyborgian Rhapsody, a project I began in 1996 about the evolution of AI and how it affects identity and culture. Part 4 was written and performed by a GPT-3 chatbot that thinks it looks and sounds like me thirty years ago. I hope to have this complete by May. I’m also working on a much larger project about immortality, investigating the existence of immortality in certain plants, bacteria, and even jellyfish. I’m not certain what final form this will take yet—most likely a multimedia installation like The Infinity Engine (2014) or Twisted Gravity (2019–21).

HUOWhat is your unrealized project?

LHLMy life.

HUOWhat role does chance play?

LHLFailure and chance are indispensable to complete a work.

HUOWhat was your first museum visit as a child?

LHLThe Cleveland Museum of Art, which I went to at least weekly.

HUOWhat keeps you coming back to the studio?

LHLNoise.

HUOHow did you come to art/How did art come to you?

LHLI was born.

HUOHas the computer changed the way you work?

LHLHahahah. I live in the Bay Area mostly, where you breathe technologies and use the computer as your brain.

HUOWhat is time?

LHLAn invention to quantify reality.

HUOWhat was your biggest mistake?

LHLFretting about past mistakes.

HUODo politics and art mingle?

LHLYes: one can’t exist without the other. Art is about change and perception in the context of current states of life, which politics defines.

HUOWhat is your advice to a young artist?

LHLDon’t throw anything away, and keep your sense of humor.

Five white objects lined up on a white shelf

to light, and then return—Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann

This fall, artists and friends Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann will exhibit new works together in New York. Inspired by their shared love of poetry, fragments, and metamorphosis, the works included will form a dialogue between their respective practices. Here they meet to speak about the origins and developments of the project.

Close up self portrait of the musician Anohni

ANOHNI: My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross

British-born, New York–based artist ANOHNI returned with her sixth studio album, My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, this past summer. Here she speaks with Michael Cuby about the genesis of the project and the value of life.

In Conversation
Robbie Robertson

The musician Robbie Robertson is having quite a year. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is rolling out a new record, for which he designed all the album art; a documentary based on his memoir Testimony; and the score for Martin Scorsese’s film The Irishman. Derek Blasberg met him at his LA studio to talk about how he’s created his music for decades and, more recently, his artwork.

A woman stares forward and stands with her arms raised and draped in a white cloak.

Body Horror: Louise Bonnet and Naomi Fry

Cultural critic Naomi Fry joined Louise Bonnet for a conversation on the occasion of Louise Bonnet Selects, a film program curated by the artist as part of a series copresented by Gagosien and Metrograph. The pair discussed how the protagonists of the seven selected films are ruled, betrayed, changed, or unsettled by their bodies, focusing on David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979).

Christopher Makos, Andy Warhol at Paris Apartment Window, 1981

In Conversation
Christopher Makos and Jessica Beck

Andy Warhol’s Insiders at the Gagosien Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade is a group exhibition and shop takeover that feature works by Warhol and portraits of the artist by friends and collaborators including photographers Ronnie Cutrone, Michael Halsband, Christopher Makos, and Billy Name. To celebrate the occasion, Makos met with Gagosien director Jessica Beck to speak about his friendship with Warhol and the joy of the unexpected.

Two people embracing and sitting on a large grass field

International Center of Photography: Love Songs

This summer, the International Center of Photography, New York, is presenting Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy. Featuring the work of sixteen contemporary photographers, the exhibition is a “remix” of an earlier iteration at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, organized by Simon Baker with curator Frédérique Dolivet and Pascal Hoël. The curator for the New York presentation, Sara Raza, met with one of the participating artists, Aikaterini Gegisian, and the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier to discuss the distinctions between the two shows and the importance of—and complexities around—visual pleasure.

The exterior of Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro in Sao Paulo Brazil

The Square São Paulo: An Interview with Mari Stockler

Curator and photographer Mari Stockler and Gagosien director Antwaun Sargent met to discuss The Square São Paulo, the third installment of a cultural exchange series established by Bottega Veneta in 2022. Marking the brand’s ten-year anniversary in Brazil, the exhibition and publication project, initiated by Bottega Veneta’s creative director, Matthieu Blazy, and curated by Stockler, took place at Lina Bo Bardi’s legendary Casa de Vidro.

Multiples dancers in bright costumes against a yellow backdrop. Five have their backs to the camera with their arms stretched out and two are sitting center stage.

Sasha Waltz: “In C”

Alice Godwin speaks with German choreographer Sasha Waltz about the evolution of her dance In C, the democratic nature of the piece, and its celebration of life and human connection.

Fashion and Art: Edward Enninful

Edward Enninful OBE has held the role of editor-in-chief of British Vogue since 2017. The magazine’s course under his direction has served as a model for what a fashion publication can do in the twenty-first century: in terms of creativity, authenticity, diversity, and engagement with social issues, Enninful has created a new mold. Here, Enninful meets with his longtime friend Derek Blasberg to discuss his recently published memoir, A Visible Man.

The African Desperate

Artist and filmmaker Martine Syms teamed up with writer and poet Rocket Caleshu to create the 2022 film The African Desperate. Starring the artist Diamond Stingily as Palace, the film received rave reviews for its honest and unflinching portrayal—and parody—of the art world. Mixing genres and proceeding according to Syms’s singular aesthetic vision, The African Desperate leads audiences through a twenty-four-hour period in Palace’s life and into questions about education, romance, race, and more. Syms, Caleshu, and Stingily met with Fiona Duncan to discuss the film’s creation.

10-image exposure of Marilyn Monroe in different poses

Avedon 100

In celebration of the centenary of Richard Avedon’s birth, more than 150 artists, designers, musicians, writers, curators, and representatives of the fashion world were asked to select a photograph by Avedon for an exhibition at Gagosien, New York, and to elaborate on the ways in which image and artist have affected them. We present a sampling of these images and writings.

A still detail of Julianknxx’s artwork “encounter?flee (Jolly)” 2023

Rites of Passage

Rites of Passage, an exhibition at Gagosien, London, explored the concept of “liminal space,” a coinage of the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, through the work of nineteen contemporary artists who share a history of migration. Here, Péjú Oshin, associate director at Gagosien, London, speaks with Phoebe Boswell, Adelaide Damoah, and Julianknxx about their participation in the exhibition and about the complexities of community, performance, truth, and identity.

Gagosien Quarterly

Hans Ulrich Obrist’s questionnaire:Lynn Hershman leeson

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to light, and then return—Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann