Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles is pleased to present ‘Ellen Gallagher. Accidental Records,’ the artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Comprising a suite of new works that includes paintings and drawings, the exhibition finds Ellen Gallagher returning to and building upon themes and motifs at the center of her practice. These works extend her exploration of the complex histories of the Black Atlantic and the afterlives of the Middle Passage. Widely acclaimed for her own genre of history painting, Gallagher questions accepted geographies. The layered surfaces of her works become a kind of reckoning, evoking, in the artist’s words, ‘the way sailors mark their location at sea, determined by return.’

‘Accidental Records’ will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring texts from Adrienne Edwards, Curator at Performa and Walker Art Center, and Philip Hoare, a writer whose books include ‘Leviathan, or the whale,’ ‘The Sea Inside’ and, most recently, ‘RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR.’ Edwards addresses themes of portraiture and performance while Hoare considers Gallagher’s work in relation to the greater scope of marine and whaling history.