While most of the art world descended upon Miami Beach, an intimate band of artists, writers, and friends gathered at the Holmby Hills home of legendary art dealer Larry Gagosian to celebrate the launch of Emma Cline’s Picture Books series in collaboration with Gagosian.
In 2017, Gagosian published an essay by Cline about painter Walton Ford, sparking a dialogue about the relationship between writing and visual art. The literary girl-wonder approached Gagosian in early 2021 with the idea of a new kind of inter-medium collaboration that pairs artists with writers to create a cooperative package of art. For Picture Books, artists are asked to create an image in response to a story written specifically for the project. “It’s kind of the dream,” Cline told Vogue. “You get to amplify, or in some way create a space, for these people to have a conversation where they might not have before.” Together, Cline and Gagosian act as artistic matchmakers, setting up their friends and colleagues for creative partnerships.
Surrounded by Gagosian’s extraordinary contemporary collection inside the mid-century modern masterpiece designed by A. Quincy Jones, Cline introduced Ottessa Moshfegh, author of the first installment of the series, to read from her darkly funny contribution titled My New Novel, paired with London-based artist Issy Wood. Moshfegh’s zany humor shines through her tale of Jerome Littlefield (a name borrowed from her favorite Jerry Lewis film, The Disorderly Orderly), who enlists an irreverent Craigslist user to help him write his novel. “When I finished this story, I immediately knew it was for something special,” Moshfegh told Vogue.
Each collaboration is printed into a book and poster designed by Peter Mendelsund, who designed the cover of Cline’s first novel for a limited run of 2,000 copies. “It’s so rare as a writer to get the chance to be translated into the visual in a very proper way,” said Cline. “Peter Mendelsund is very acutely attuned to those issues. He felt like the exact right person.”
Moshfegh and Wood’s publication will be followed by Percival Everett’s Grand Canyon, Inc. with artwork by Richard Prince. “Publishing books is one of my favorite things that we do,” said Gagosian, who publishes nearly 30 books per year. “Bringing creators together in this unique way adds another dimension to the gallery’s innovative and expansive publishing program.”
At the chic Los Angeles evening backyard affair, guests mingled poolside under a foggy sky and shuffled around Chef Ivan Guillén as he served cochinita pibil sopes and Antigua lamb straight from the grill, leche de tigre in cucumber shooters, and sweet guava tamales. Yola Mezcal mixologist, Magna Howard, created an assortment of cocktails for the occasion.
Those in attendance included John C. Reilly, Alison Dickey, Kim Gordon, Griffin Dunne, Bruce Wagner, Luke Goebel, Scott Sternberg, Jordan Wolfson, Michael Kives, Ricky Saiz, Alex Karpovsky, Soo Joo Park, Cord Jefferson, Louise Bonnet, Ariana Papademetropoulos, and Mark Grotjahn.
My New Novel/The Down Payment is available for purchase exclusively on gagosianshop.com and at the Gagosian Shop located at 976 Madison Avenue.
