Zoe Leonard Leaves Hauser & Wirth for Maxwell Graham as Venice Biennale Opens
Zoe Leonard, the American artist whose work is appearing in the Venice Biennale next week, has changed galleries, leaving Hauser & Wirth for Maxwell Graham, the New York space known for its spare presentations of conceptual art. The move places Leonard with a much smaller gallery than the one that had represented her since 2016, while she continues to work with Galeria Gisela Capitain in Cologne and Raffaella Cortese in Milan.
Maxwell Graham said in its announcement on Friday that Leonard’s work “has observed the world” and described her as “among the most critically acclaimed artists of her generation.” The gallery also noted that it staged its first Leonard exhibition last year, “Display,” which brought together photographs of historical objects in museums that were shot in the 1990s but printed only recently.
Leonard’s practice has often returned to fragility, repair, and the afterlife of images. “Strange Fruit” (1992–97), one of her best-known works, is an installation made from 300 fruit skins sewn back together. “I want a president” (1992) is a text work that registers dissatisfaction with American leadership during the AIDS crisis. In more recent years, Leonard has focused her camera on the US-Mexico border in “Al río / To the River” (2016–22).
Her Venice appearance comes through fierce pussy, the New York-based collective of queer women artists, as part of Koyo Kouoh’s exhibition “In Minor Keys.” Leonard also won the top prize at the 2014 Whitney Biennial for a camera obscura work that transformed the Whitney Museum’s former Marcel Breuer-designed home into a darkened optical chamber.
Hauser & Wirth’s Marc Payot said the gallery had collaborated with Leonard for more than a decade and had been honored to support her “very substantially” on “Al Rio/To the River.” The gallery did not say why she left. Leonard is the second artist to depart Hauser & Wirth in the past year, following George Condo’s exit in November for Skarstedt and Sprüth Magers.
The shift is a reminder that gallery representation in the contemporary art world is not only about scale. For an artist with Leonard’s range, it can also signal a recalibration of context, audience, and the kind of institutional attention a practice receives.
