Gagosian Catalog App

The situation—

The Gagosian Gallery represents some of the world’s most celebrated artists and hosts groundbreaking shows across a global network of galleries that bring some of their most celebrated works together.

The challenge—

Collectors and historians alike have been seeking new technologies to explore the artwork and gain unprecedented access to these shows; how could the traditionally-printed gallery catalog keep up with the times?

The solution—

Reinvent the catalog in the form of an iOS app which employs unique interaction schemes designed to bring viewer and artwork closer than ever before.

Issues, published quarterly, are managed via a download manager which gave readers the freedom to manage the file size of the app. Each issue was navigated via a dynamic pasteboard of current or upcoming shows.

Features were uniquely designed experiences, collecting multiple shows or works from a single artist and revealing them through unique editorial methods. Essays, historical images, and video interviews accompanied these prominent works.

Through the use of new image capture mediums, the app is able to transport the viewer to the artwork like never before: a 360˚ video tour of two Serra sculptures immerses the viewer within the canyon-like structures of the works.

Each work is presented with provenance details, and can be viewed on its own, or alongside notes, background content and other supporting information.

Our team designed unique tools to explore the process and detail of many of these works: the picture explorer layered a number of process images, provided by the artists or from estates or archives, in a unique tool which shows the various stages of sketch and development of works.

Many artists were excited to partner with our team and granted us permission to explore, dissect, and develop their works into new interactions and motifs. Our living cover for a Damien Hirst retrospective featured his iconic dot paintings translated into a gestural interaction, activated as the tablet is tilted and dipped.

Similarly, Taryn Simon collaborated with our team across several sessions: many of her projects, including A Living Man Declared Dead, are displayed in site-specific installations created by the artist.

We translated that into a exploratory navigation that allowed the viewer to witness the components of the work in their own order. Many of the peices were photographed to include the custom frames from the Gagosian installation.