When Forms Come Alive

Inspired by sources ranging from a dancer’s gesture to the breaking of a wave, from a flow of molten metal to the interlacing of a spider’s web, the artworks in When Forms Come Alive conjured fluid and shifting realms of experience.

Undulating, drooping, erupting, cascading and promiscuously proliferating, these sculptures invited a tactile gaze, and triggered physical responses. In an era when our encounters are increasingly digitised and disembodied, these artworks called to mind the pleasures of gesture and movement, the poetics of gravity and the experience of sensation itself.

Palpably dynamic, they proclaimed that nothing in the world stays the same, that everything is moving, seething, changing and transforming.

Taking place in the spring of 2024, the exhibition featured work by 21 international artists: Ruth Asawa, Nairy Baghramian, Phyllida Barlow, Lynda Benglis, Michel Blazy, Paloma Bosquê, Olaf Brzeski, Choi Jeong Hwa, Tara Donovan, DRIFT, Eva Fàbregas, Holly Hendry, EJ Hill, Marguerite Humeau, Jean-Luc Moulène, Senga Nengudi, Ernesto Neto, Martin Puryear, Matthew Ronay, Teresa Solar Abboud and Franz West.

The exhibition was generously supported by the When Forms Come Alive Exhibition Supporters’ Group: Bianca and Stuart Roden, Simon Morris and Annalisa Burello, White Cube, Thomas Dane Gallery, Gagosian, Sprüth Magers, David Zwirner Gallery and Sarah Cannon. Additional support was kindly provided by the Henry Moore Foundation, Hauser & Wirth and Fluxus Art Projects.

Curator: Ralph Rugoff
Assistant Curator: Katie Guggenheim