Gagosian Gallery unveils long-awaited monograph of works by Richard Wright

Gagosian Gallery announces its publication of a long-awaited monograph book on visual artist Richard Wright.

The new book surveys work created between 2010 and 2020 and will be available for purchase on June 20, 2023. The new book features notable public projects and works from otherwise inaccessible private collections worldwide. 

Wright is known for large-scale, site-specific, often temporary, painted, and applied metal-leaf installations. These works invest architectural spaces with new optical and associative complexity. Wright shifts between illusionism and abstraction; his projects alter the viewer’s perception and understanding of space.

Further, his works incorporate graphic and decorative elements, alluding to Renaissance and Minimalist painting, Baroque ornamentation and Constructivist tile patterns, commercial image making, and natural contour lines.

In his works on paper, Wright employs ink drawing, gilding, printmaking, and watercolor painting techniques. Among the many works pictured and discussed in the new book are Wright’s prestigious permanent installations at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh; Queen’s House, London; and Tottenham Court Road station (Elizabeth Line), London.

Also featured are his works in leaded glass, beginning with his 2013 project for Tate Britain, London—the book documents almost all of the works on paper that Wright has made over the past decade. Significantly, the publication is an essential record of many temporary works that no longer exist, including installations at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Volksbühne, Berlin; Lismore Castle, Ireland; and Gagosian, Britannia Street, London.

The book includes essays by Martin Clark, director of Camden Art Centre, London; social anthropologist Tim Ingold; and the artist himself, and features an in-depth conversation with Will Bradley, director of Kunsthall Oslo. Clark, in his text “Process and Reality,” draws parallels between the orientation toward ephemerality in Wright’s work and the ideas of physicist David Bohm and philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, who theorized that objects exist in a state of unending “becoming”—and entirely in relation to one another.

Ingold’s contribution, “Fleeting Sounds, Glittering Stars and Orphan Spirits,” explores Wright’s projects for the Rijksmuseum, Queen’s House, and Scottish National Gallery, focusing on how the artist’s use of color, pattern, and ornamentation resonate with the distinct features of the three historic buildings.

Tracing connections with other artists, from Piet Mondrian and Alexander Rodchenko to Donald Judd, Lygia Clark, and Gerhard Richter, he provides a fascinating individual perspective on the progress and purpose of his chosen medium. Finally, Bradley quizzes Wright on subjects including authorship, artisanship, and the relationship of his work to performance. The artist recalls making early, adrenaline-fueled works at Kunsthalle Bern and arguing for the time needed to produce his elaborate gold-leaf work for the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate, London, in 2009.

Organized on the occasion of Wright’s exhibition at Gagosian, Davies Street, which opens on March 29, a conversation between Wright and Martin Clark will be held in April at the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade.

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Richard Wright was born in 1960 in London, living and working in Norfolk, England, and Glasgow, Scotland. Exhibitions include Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2001); Tate Liverpool, England (2001); Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland (2004); Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy (2005); Works on Paper, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland (2012); and Theseus Temple, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna (2013). Wright participated in Manifesta 2, Luxembourg (1998); the British Art Show 5 (2000); and the 55th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2008).

Permanent commissions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2007); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2010); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2013); Tate Britain, London (2013); Queen’s House, London (2016); and Tottenham Court Road station (Elizabeth Line), London (2018). Wright won the Turner Prize in 2009.