From our newsletter archives — Originally published January 20, 2022.
Not all art ephemera is created equal. At Gallery 98 our diverse inventory includes many DIY flyers from downtown art spaces in the 1970s and 80s, mostly hand-lettered and cheaply printed on black-and-white xerox machines. Commercial galleries, on the other hand, hired designers, and used color-offset printers to produce the cards and posters that promoted their exhibitions. Especially conspicuous from the 70s to the 90s was the art ephemera from the prolific Leo Castelli Gallery.
The dramatic expansion of art as an upscale commodity in the 2000s is directly reflected in art ephemera. Leading the trend was the Gagosian Gallery whose multiple venues in the US and Europe exhibited some of the most commercially successful artists. Having started his art career selling posters, Larry Gagosian understood the importance of ephemera, and his gallery empire includes its own publishing house and quarterly magazine.
Gagosian announcement cards are luxury items — they are bigger, they are printed on thicker, more durable material, and they were mailed in custom envelopes to avoid damage. For those lucky enough to be on the gallery’s mailing list, these were items to display and keep. This collection of cards comes from renowned art dealer Annina Nosei, who stored them in a closet filled with other treasures.
Ed Ruscha, Then & Now, Gagosian Beverly Hills, 2005
Ed Ruscha, Then & Now, Gagosian Beverly Hills, Panoramic Fold-Out Card, 2005
Fold-Out Card
Size: 10 x 8 inches (folded) 30 x 8 inches (unfolded)
Available — $250
“Ed Ruscha: Then & Now, a set of photographic prints that documents Hollywood Boulevard, first in 1973 and then thirty-one years later in 2004. This exhibition also marks the ten-year anniversary of Gagosian Beverly Hills.”
— Galley Press Release
Jeff Koons, Cracked Eggs (Blue), Gagosian London (Davies Street), 2006
Jeff Koons, Cracked Eggs (Blue), Gagosian London (Davies Street), Card, 2006.
Card
Size: 7 x 7 Inches.
Available — $150
“A large two-part stainless-steel sculpture from the mythic Celebration series that he began with Balloon Dog in 1994. Cracked Egg (Blue) is a unique work and the first of five versions… each rendered in a different vivid color.” — Gallery Press Release
Ghada Amer, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, Card, 2004
Ghada Amer, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, Card, 2004
Card
Size: 10 x 8 Inches
Available — $125
“She is best known for her use of the great symbols of feminist ire: embroidery as “woman’s work,” hardcore pornography, and religious fundamentalism.”
— Gallery Press Release
Damien Hirst, A Thousand Years and Triptychs, Gagosian London (Britannia Street), 2006
Card
Size: 8 x 10 Inches (folded) 24 x 10 Inches (unfolded)
Available — $250
“A Thousand Years, one of Hirst’s most provocative and engaging works, contains an actual life cycle. Maggots hatch inside a white minimal box, turn into flies, then feed on a bloody, severed cow’s head on the floor of a claustrophobic glass vitrine.”
— Gallery Press Release
Sally Mann, Large Format Photographs, Gagosian New York (Madison Avenue), 2006
Sally Mann, Large Format Photographs, Gagosian New York (Madison Avenue), Card, 2006
Card
Size: 8 x 10 Inches
Sold
“Executed between 2000 and 2004, these works consist of images of the faces of her three children Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia”
— Gallery Press Release
Douglas Gordon, Self Portrait of You + Me After the Factory, Gagosian New York (Madison Avenue), 2007
Card
Size: 7.5 x 9.75
Available — $150
“Warhol’s immortalized cultural icons here take the form of charred, browned bits of commercial reproductions floating on mirrored backgrounds, singed remnants of the heroic originals that nonetheless possess an eerily powerful presence.” — Gallery Press Release
Tukashi Murakami, Tranquility of the Heart Torment of the Flesh — Open Wide the Eyes of the Heart and Nothing is Invisible, Gagosian New York (Madison Avenue), 2007
Card
Size: 8 x 10 Inches (folded) 24 x 10 Inches (unfolded)
Available — $150
“In his approach, high art and popular culture, East and West, present and past, humor and gravity, skepticism and belief are all sides of the same coin.”
— Gallery Press Release
Richard Prince, Canal Zone, Gagosian New York (West 24th Street), 2008
Richard Prince, Canal Zone, Gagosian New York (24th Street), Foam Board Card, 2008
Card
Size: 11.5 x 8.25 Inches
Available — $200
“Prince has transformed the former reality of his birthplace into a fictive space: ‘Canal Zone’ provides an anarchic tropical scenario in which extreme emanations of the (white American male) id—fleshy female pin-ups, Rastafarians with massive dreadlocks, electric guitars, and virile black bodies—run riot.” — Gallery Press Release
Yayoi Kusama, Flowers That Bloom at Night, Gagosian Beverly Hills, 2009
Yayoi Kusama, Flowers That Bloom at Night, Gagosian Beverly Hills, Card, 2009.
Card
Size: 7 x7 inches
Available — $150
“These astonishing triffid-like flowers, which measure from four to sixteen feet in height, are cast in highly durable fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then hand-painted in urethane to jazzy perfection… To date, Kusama has completed several major outdoor sculptural commissions… In 2007 the Beverly Hills City Council in Los Angeles commissioned Kusama’s first public sculpture in the United States, just a stone’s throw away from Gagosian Gallery.”
— Gallery Press Release
Cindy Sherman, New Photographs, Gagosian Rome, 2009
Cindy Sherman, New Photographs, Gagosian Rome, Poster, 2009.
Poster
Size: 22 x 30 Inches.
Available — $500
“Sherman’s latest photographs depict wealthy middle-aged American women, past their prime physically but at the height of their social powers, protected by their sartorial armor yet utterly exposed by the camera — and our scrutiny.”
— Gallery Press Release
For more items see our special Gagosian Gallery section
