Walead Beshty started his Industrial Portraits series in 2008. He realizes them wherever he goes, asking all the art people he works with to pose in their working environment and working clothes: studio assistants, gallery staff, curators, lab technicians, critics, fellow artists, collectors, art handlers and even the “machines,” which contribute to an artwork’s progress from studio to gallery and beyond. Captioned first as “framer,” “Fedex courier” or “darkroom assistant” and then identified with the location and date of the shoot, together his models form a nonhierarchical, kaleidoscopic yet very detailed “facebook” of the art world, following in part the tradition of great American anthropological photographic surveys. This publication gathers together the Industrial Portraits created between 2008 and 2012. A second volume will be published to span the subsequent years.

Author: Hans Ulrich Obrist

Publisher: JRP Ringier, Zürich, 2017 

Language: English 

Softcover: 608 pages

Dimensions: ‎4.2 x 1.3 x 6.5 inches

ISBN: 978-30376-448-5-0

About the artist

Walead Beshty (b. 1976, London, U.K.)

Walead Beshty was born in London, United Kingdom in 1976 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. He studied at Bard College and received his Masters in Fine Art from Yale University in 2002. He has held academic positions at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA; Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; and currently at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA.

Beshty has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2014, 2022); Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich (2016, 2021); Musée d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva (2019); Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2018); Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo (2017); Travesía Cuatro, Guadalajara (2015); Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, New York (2015); Curve Gallery, Barbican Centre, London (2014); Malmö Konsthall, Malmö (2011); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2009); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2006); and MoMA PS1, New York (2004), among others. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at Cloud Seven, Brussels (2022); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017, 2022); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2019); Tate Modern, London (2018); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2014); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2013); Gemeente Museum Den Haag, The Hague (2013); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (2011); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010), among many others.

Walead Beshty has also curated many exhibitions, including Luma Arles, Arles, France (2018 & 2016); Hessel Museum, Center for Curatorial Studies, Hudson, NY (2017); Petzel Gallery, New York (2014); Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2014); Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA (2013); and MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY (2006).

Beshty has works in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; the de la Cruz Collection, Miami; the Fond Régional d’Art Contemporain Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque, France, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.