Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2026 features Avedon’s Armstrong

Richard Avedon’s luminous photograph of Louis Armstrong, captured at the Newport Jazz Festival on May 3, 1955, commands the cover of Gagosian Quarterly’s Winter 2026 issue with the kind of quiet intensity that only Avedon could render. The portrait, rendered in the photographer’s signature black and white, frames Armstrong in formal dress, his gaze soft yet knowing, a moment suspended between performance and privacy.

Within these pages, the publication traverses the landscapes of contemporary art and visual culture with characteristic rigour. Carlos Valladares examines the multifaceted relationship between Avedon and Hollywood, tracing how the photographer navigated the machinery of cinema and celebrity. Rod Mengham writes on Georg Baselitz’s final series of paintings, while Maurizio Cattelan reflects on his exhibition “NIGHT” at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, offering insight into the artist’s evolving practice.

The issue ventures into unexpected territories: a road trip to Arizona accompanies Paloma Picasso and Ed Ruscha as they visit James Turrell’s monumental earthwork “Roden Crater,” begun in 1976 and still under realisation. Wyatt Allgeier and Miriam Bale report from the Venice Film Festival, and Mark Francis honours filmmaker and theorist Peter Wollen as this edition’s Game Changer. Helen Oyeyemi concludes her fiction series “As You Wish,” while Charlotte Gainsbourg discusses her first photography exhibition. Avis Berman’s new Roy Lichtenstein biography also receives critical attention.

The Winter 2026 issue is available to read online or to order as a physical copy through Gagosian Shop.

Imagery courtesy of Gagosian (@gagosian).