Joseph Yaeger
Point of Return
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
29 October 2026 – 28 March 2027
Opening: 29 October 2026, 6.30 pm
On 29 October 2026, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo will open Point of Return, the first solo exhibition in an Italian institution by Joseph Yaeger (1986, Helena, Montana, USA). The exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of Yaeger’s work through a selection of paintings – including some newly commissioned works – that convey the depth of a research developed over several years. In his practice, the artist draws inspiration from stills taken from films, documentaries or found footage to construct compositions that are at once familiar and unsettling. The selected frames never depict iconic scenes or instantly recognisable moments; yet they resonate in the memory as something already seen, even if it is impossible to pinpoint the memory with precision. Indeed, after being cropped and altered, the images remain suspended between recognition and disorientation, evoking in the viewer a sensation that lies somewhere between unease, discomfort and concern.
Point of Return takes its title from a 2021 painting in which Yaeger subverts the expression ‘point of no return’. Whilst the latter refers to the moment when control is lost and surrendered to entropy, suggesting an irrevocable loss, the ‘point of return’ thus represents an attitude of optimism. Building on this premise, the exhibition is the first in which the artist’s paintings, created over many years, are displayed together, thereby being recontextualised in relation to one another. The title suggests the possibility of giving new meaning to what has already happened, and the new works, in this context, play the dual role of window and mirror: whilst on the one hand they embody present-day reality and time – encompassing both collective and socio-cultural aspects as well as the artist’s private sphere – on the other they reflect earlier works and alter them, being themselves altered by them in turn.
The paintings on display are executed in watercolour on gesso – a technique developed by the artist that characterises his work – through a process requiring extensive preparation of the canvas, traces of which remain in the layering of the preparatory ground visible at the edges. The actual act of painting, by contrast, is very rapid. The nature of watercolour requires the artist to paint quickly with the canvas laid flat on the floor: the water penetrates the ground layer and, as it dries, creates fine cracks in the plaster, which reveal the contrast both between the materials used and that between the evanescence of the cinematic image and the tangibility of the painting.
Bio
Joseph Yaeger (Helena, Montana, USA, 1986) lives and works in London. He obtained a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 2008 and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in London in 2019.
His work has been featured in numerous international solo and group exhibitions. His major solo exhibitions include Modern Art, London (2025); Antenna Space, Shanghai (2024, 2022); Project Native Informant, London (2023, 2021, 2020); The Perimeter, London (2023); and V.O. Curations, London (2020). He has also taken part in group exhibitions at: Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (2025), Modern Art, London (2024), Lisson Gallery, London (2024), Hauser & Wirth, Somerset (2024), K11, Shanghai (2023), Antenna Space, Shanghai (2023), Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles (2022) and David Lewis, New York (2022). His works are held in the collection of the Kistefos Museum in Jevnaker, Norway.
