RA4 inversé

Walead Beshty (b. 1976, London; based in Los Angeles) is an artist, photographer, and writer whose work investigates how artworks are made, circulated, and transformed by systems—from shipping logistics to gallery labor.

Beshty gained recognition with his FedEx series: glass or copper sculptures made to FedEx box dimensions and shipped unprotected so that damage—cracks, oxidation, fingerprints—became part of the work’s history and meaning. In works like Color Curls and Transparencies, film and photographic paper are exposed was to airport scanners, producing abstract surfaces marked by chance and movement.

His practice extends to large-scale installations of cyanotypes and copper panels that catalog studio debris or gallery interaction, making visible the often-invisible labor behind exhibitions.

Beshty studied at Bard College (BA 1999) and Yale (MFA 2002), and has taught at institutions including UCLA, CalArts, Bard, and SCI‑Arc. His work has featured in solo exhibitions at venues like the Barbican Centre (London), Kunsthalle Basel, MAMCO Geneva, and exhibitions at MoMA, Whitney, Guggenheim, Tate, and other major institutions worldwide.

In essence, Walead Beshty creates visually compelling objects and images that record their own passage through the art world—inviting us to see systems, movement, and chance as integral to meaning.