Galerie Lelong and Co., New York, is honored to present a tribute exhibition to Australian artist Rosemary Laing (b. 1959 – d. 2024). In 2002, we presented her first solo exhibition in the United States, bulletproofglass, which inaugurated a close relationship that would lead to solo exhibitions of one dozen unnatural disasters in the Australian landscape (2004), weather (2007), a dozen useless actions for grieving blondes (2009), leak (2012) and The paper (2014). In a career spanning over four decades, Laing created photo-based works that are cinematic in vision and large in scale and scope. Instead of using digital manipulation, Laing photographed real-time performance and physical installations, meticulously staging scenes that interrogate the socio-cultural issues of her native Australia and in the process echo a global awareness of climate change, indigenous rights, and migration. Her work demonstrates not only her distinct and rigorous artistic vision, but also her keen understanding of the issues facing both society and the environment. Writing in the artist’s definitive monograph, rosemary laing, published by Prestel in 2012, art historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau noted that Laing’s “artwork is not only of the highest quality, but her ethical and political convictions and ideas are a model of what it means to be a ‘responsible’ image maker.”

Laing primarily worked in series, creating thematic bodies of work that accumulatively form a narrative of events that have impacted cultural consciousness. Most recently, Laing’s work was on view in the solo exhibition swansongs at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Australia, from March 1 – April 6, 2024, which featured sculptural “shellworks” alongside photographs that featured a selection of these works; Laing described this body of work as being about “a love of, an attachment to, homeland or places of belonging…all the memories and histories that have stemmed from that place, and the making of a kind of ‘song’ that combines the enigma of this attachment with a sadness for what has happened in this place.” In Galerie Lelong and Co., New York’s special tribute presentation, works from some of Laing’s best-known series, many of which feature the vast landscape of Australia as a metaphor for cultural memory interrupted by Laing’s dramatic interventions, will be on view, showcasing the breadth of Laing’s artistic contributions as the gallery celebrates her life’s work.

Laing participated in several international biennials including the Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2008); Venice Biennale, Italy (2007); Busan Biennale, South Korea (2004); and Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (1995). Solo exhibitions of Laing’s work have been held at numerous museums, including Domus Artium 2002, Spain; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Tennessee; Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Denmark; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; National Museum of Art Osaka, Japan; and TarraWarra Museum of Art, Australia. Her work can also be found in many public collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; George Eastman Museum, New York, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Harvard Art Museum, Massachusetts; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Spain; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; National Gallery of Australia; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; North Carolina Museum of Art; and Wadsworth Athenaeum, Connecticut. Laing was honored at the 35th Higashikawa International Photography Festival in 2019, Hokkaido, receiving the Overseas Photographer Award for photographic achievements.

Laing was born in 1959 in Brisbane, Australia, and died in 2024.