LONDON.- The Serpentine Gallery announced its 2009 exhibition schedule.

Rebecca Warren
10 March – 19 April 2009
This Serpentine Gallery exhibition is the first major solo show in a UK public gallery of the work of 2006 Turner Prize-nominated British artist Rebecca Warren. Her practice encompasses wall and floor-based vitrines, sculptures in clay and bronze that range from amorphous to more recognisably figurative forms as well as work that embraces both the formal and the grotesque. Combining rich art historical and contemporary references, Warren challenges sculptural conventions while also engaging with the history of figurative sculpture and her position within this, predominantly male, tradition. This show will feature a selection of her best known works in clay and bronze, alongside new work made specifically for the exhibition.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion
July – October 2009
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commission is an ongoing programme of temporary structures by internationally acclaimed architects and designers. Unique worldwide, it presents the work of an international architect or design team who have not completed a building in England. Pavilion architects to date are: Frank Gehry, 2008; Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen, 2007; Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup, 2006; Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond, Arup, 2005; Oscar Niemeyer, 2003; Toyo Ito with Arup, 2002; Daniel Libeskind with Arup, 2001; and Zaha Hadid, 2000.

Jeff Koons: Popeye Series
July – September 2009
The Serpentine Gallery presents the first survey of a key series of works by the celebrated American artist Jeff Koons. Working in thematic series since the early 1980s, Koons has explored notions of consumerism, taste, banality, childhood and sexuality. The Popeye Series incorporates ideas that are central to the artist’s work, including surreal combinations of everyday objects, art historical references and children’s toys. The paintings in the Popeye Series combine disparate found images with images of the inflatables and readymades used in the sculptures, while the sculptures themselves continue Koons’s interest in juxtaposing cast aluminium exact replicas of inflatable pool toys with other readymade objects.

Gustav Metzger
September – November 2009
The Serpentine Gallery presents an exhibition of works by the influential artist and activist Gustav Metzger representing a life-long exploration of politics, ecology and the destructive powers of 20th-century industrialised societies. Destruction, creation and transformation lie at the heart of much of Metzger’s art. In a 1961 action, three coloured nylon 'canvases' were sprayed with acid on London's South Bank, destroying and creating in a process. This demonstration was re-created by the Hayward Gallery in 2006. Metzger continues his consistent rejection of the art dealer system by calling for artists to take over large buildings for the display and
development of art. Gustav Metzger has been a stateless person since 1948. He currently lives and works in London.

Design as a Social Service
December 2009
For this exhibition, the Serpentine Gallery presents an opportunity to view the objects that surround us in daily life in new and unexpected ways. Conceived as a response to the recent explosion of interest in contemporary design, and at a moment where visual artists have increasingly ventured into this territory, the exhibition will explore the role of design in both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. It will investigate the role of design in everyday objects and on the internet, as well as exploring design as a democratic art form. The exhibition will involve interactive and participatory elements, continuing the model of the ground-breaking exhibition Take Me I’m Yours, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist for the Serpentine Gallery in 1995.