SARAH MORRIS: Snow Leopards and Skyscrapers

Key Takeaways

• New paintings translate corporate power into geometric, glossy abstractions
• Films link early Manhattan footage with a portrait of Chris Rock
• Exhibition ties Morris to Capitalist Realism, Warhol, and institutional critique
• White Cube positions the show as a market‑ready commentary on data‑driven capitalism

Pulse Analysis

London’s White Cube is staging Sarah Morris’s most ambitious survey to date, "Snow Leopards and Skyscrapers," running from March 11 through May 9, 2026. The exhibition arrives at a moment when the art market is increasingly attentive to works that interrogate the infrastructure of finance and technology. By presenting a cohesive body that merges painting and film, White Cube not only reinforces its reputation for championing concept‑driven practice but also signals to collectors that critical commentary on corporate power remains a high‑value commodity in contemporary art.

Morris’s new paintings distil the mechanics of multinationals—pharma, data analytics, banking—into saturated, machine‑like surfaces. Using readymade gloss paint, she constructs precise grids of dots, dashes and parallelograms that echo the visual language of branding while simultaneously subverting it. The works reference a lineage that includes Capitalist Realism, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol, positioning Morris as a modern heir to institutional critique. By rendering the flow of capital as an abstracted, almost tactile diagram, the paintings invite viewers to consider how corporate structures shape everyday perception without overt narrative.

The accompanying films deepen the investigation. "Midtown" (1998) offers a fractured, day‑long scan of Manhattan’s corporate skyline, while "Chris Rock" (2025) follows the comedian through New York’s cultural corridors, blending performance with urban portraiture. Both pieces employ non‑linear editing and modular soundtracks to highlight the performative nature of public spaces and personal identity. This cinematic approach reinforces Morris’s thesis that architecture, data and spectacle are mutually constitutive. For audiences and buyers, the exhibition provides a rare synthesis of visual art and film that maps the invisible networks governing modern life, underscoring why such critical perspectives are increasingly market‑relevant.