Now on view at Gagosian is Upside Down, an exhibition of new fin sculptures by Alex Israel at the Davies Street gallery in London. The four sculptures, enlarged versions of those found on surfboards, allude to both Southern California surf culture and postwar Los Angeles art history. Each work is titled after a beloved pop song, adding to its aura of collective longing and nostalgia.
Carved from Plexiglas and rendered in varying degrees of reflectivity and transparency, the sculptures’ pop-inflected colors evoke the commercial aesthetics employed by surf brands to convey the freedom and optimism long associated with Southern California’s coastal lifestyle. The works’ sleek production and emphasis on physical and perceptual experience invite dialogue with LA’s Finish Fetish and Light and Space movements of the 1960s.
The new fins, related to those first exhibited at Gagosian Rome in 2023, are here inverted and suspended from the gallery ceiling. The positioning reflects the surfers orientation of the fins beneath the water. The installation also lends the gallery, with its street-facing windows, a fish tank–like appearance, positioning viewers at an “underwater” vantage.
Israel’s inspiration for using the fin as an artistic motif can be traced back to his feature-length teen surf film SPF-18 (2017). Since then, it has appeared on his Louis Vuitton Artycapucines handbag design (2019), in his official logo for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and on the temples of sunglasses he produced in collaboration with Oliver Peoples to support victims of the Los Angeles wildfires (2025).
