Edmund de Waal Exhibition: "if you came this way"

Gagosian presents if you came this way, an exhibition of new works by Edmund de Waal, from November 13 to December 20, 2025, at the gallery’s Beverly Hills location.

The works in if you came this way consist of de Waal’s porcelain vessels, lyrically arranged in vitrines alongside glimpses of other materials, including gold, silver, lead, marble, aluminum, alabaster, and Kilkenny stone. These installations act as repositories of memory, archives, and language. They are intended to invite slow looking and contemplation.

In the series if you came this way (2025), de Waal has for the first time displayed his vessels in gilded vitrines, where gold leaf has been applied to oak using a technique that is thousands of years old. Many combine the radiant aura of gold with brushed-on liquid porcelain, creating a new materiality that evinces porcelain’s historical designation as “white gold.” These works respond to devotional images by Duccio, Giotto, and other Proto-Renaissance artists. The housing of vessels within golden structures recalls reliquaries: containers of sacred objects.