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Trevor Paglen: The Horizon Waved, and Nothing Was Certain: 2006-2026
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Trevor Paglen: The Horizon Waved, and Nothing Was Certain: 2006-2026

Trevor Paglen: The Horizon Waved, and Nothing Was Certain: 2006-2026

January 8-February 28, 2026

Jessica Silverman is elated that artist Trevor Paglen has joined our roster and entrusted us with a solo exhibition of new prints from four award-winning series that explore the outer limits of visual perception. Opening January 8 and running through February 28, the show titled, “The Horizon Waved, and Nothing Was Certain: 2006-2026,” features previously unseen landscapes and skyscapes that investigate computer vision, drone surveillance, secret military bases, and unidentified objects in Earth’s orbit. These pictures are the final ones to emerge from the series that established Paglen as the unrivaled exemplar of the “techno sublime.” As philosopher Brian Holmes explains, Paglen transforms art into “a crossroads of critical analysis and cosmic experience… creating encounters with currently invisible realities.” Put simply: imagine Philip K. Dick meets J.M.W. Turner in Mountain View, CA.

INSTALLATION VIEW
SELECTED WORKS
ARTIST BIO
OTHER EXHIBITIONS

INSTALLATION VIEW

SELECTED WORKS

Trevor Paglen
CLOUD #395 Maximally Stable Extremal Regions; Hough Circle Transform, 2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
48 x 64 inches / 121.9 x 162.6 cm
Edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof (#1/3)
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Trevor Paglen, CLOUD #395 Maximally Stable Extremal Regions; Hough Circle Transform
Trevor Paglen
The Watzmann (Scale Invariant Feature Transform; Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF), 2018/2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
49 1/8 x 73 1/8 x 2 inches / 124.8 x 185.7 x 5.1 cm
Edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#1/5)
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Trevor Paglen, The Watzmann (Scale Invariant Feature Transform; Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF)
Trevor Paglen
Bloom (#957c7e), 2021
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
41 5/8 x 55 1/8 inches / 105.73 x 140.02 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#4/5)
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Trevor Paglen, Bloom (#957c7e)
Trevor Paglen
CLOUD #395 Maximally Stable Extremal Regions; Hough Circle Transform, 2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
48 x 64 inches / 121.9 x 162.6 cm
Edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof (#1/3)
INQUIRE
Trevor Paglen, CLOUD #395 Maximally Stable Extremal Regions; Hough Circle Transform
Trevor Paglen
The Watzmann (Scale Invariant Feature Transform; Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF), 2018/2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
49 1/8 x 73 1/8 x 2 inches / 124.8 x 185.7 x 5.1 cm
Edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#1/5)
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Trevor Paglen, The Watzmann (Scale Invariant Feature Transform; Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF)
Trevor Paglen
Bloom (#957c7e), 2021
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
41 5/8 x 55 1/8 inches / 105.73 x 140.02 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#4/5)
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Trevor Paglen, Bloom (#957c7e)
The works in “The Horizon Waved, and Nothing Was Certain” examine how different ways of seeing produce distinct visions of the world, each with its own emotional associations and potential for empowerment. CLOUD #395 (2025) depicts a celestial sky with patches of blue, hints of golden light, and both fluffy white and dark, ominous clouds. At first glance, the image suggests that heaven waits for those who avoid the lure of the storm. When viewed in person at its full scale of 4 feet high and over 5 feet wide, the skyscape reveals the linear and blotchy marks of two confused algorithms. By inscribing the motifs of classical computer vision on clouds, Paglen does more than make a clever pun about data centers and their "cloud" services. Indeed, he depicts our new world order, warning us not to mistake artificial intelligence for a god-like intelligence, even if the “Singularity” has arrived and technological growth has sped past human control. With CLOUD #395 and several other works in the show, such as The Watzmann (2018/2025) and Bloom (2021/2025), Paglen advocates for the higher power of nature, as witnessed by the human eye, if not the naked eye.
Trevor Paglen
UNKNOWN #89161 (Unclassified object near The Revenant of the Swan), 2023
Silver gelatin LE print
81 1/8 x 55 1/8 x 2 1/4 inches / 206.1 x 140 x 5.7 cm
Edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof (#1/3)
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Trevor Paglen, UNKNOWN #89161 (Unclassified object near The Revenant of the Swan)
Trevor Paglen
UNKNOWN #87782 (Unclassified object near the Vela Supernova Remnant), 2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
50 x 35 inches / 127 x 88.9 cm
Edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof (#1/3)
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Trevor Paglen, UNKNOWN #87782 (Unclassified object near the Vela Supernova Remnant)
Ever curious and committed to research, Paglen decided to make pictures from even greater distances by exploring infrared astronomy. He assembled his own mobile observatory equipped with several telescopes and infrared cameras, using the same software NASA employs for the largest telescope in space. UNKNOWN #89161 (2023/2025) captures an unidentified object (a true unidentified flying object, aka UFO) near "The Revenant of the Swan," a massive, unstable star in the Milky Way.
Trevor Paglen
Untitled (Reaper Drones), 2009/2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
49 1/8 x 63 1/8 x 2 inches / 124.8 x 160.3 x 5.1 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#1/5)
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Trevor Paglen, Untitled (Reaper Drones)
Trevor Paglen
The Workers; Las Vegas, NV; Distance ~1 mile, 2006
Single-channel SD video, no sound
2 minute loop
Edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof (#1/3)
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Trevor Paglen, The Workers; Las Vegas, NV; Distance ~1 mile
Trevor Paglen
Area 52; Tonopah Test Range, NV; Distance ~ 20 miles; 10:23 a.m., 2006/2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
31 1/8 x 37 1/8 x 2 inches / 79.1 x 94.3 x 5.1 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#1/5)
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Trevor Paglen, Area 52; Tonopah Test Range, NV; Distance ~ 20 miles; 10:23 a.m.
Trevor Paglen
Untitled (Reaper Drones), 2009/2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
49 1/8 x 63 1/8 x 2 inches / 124.8 x 160.3 x 5.1 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#1/5)
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Trevor Paglen, Untitled (Reaper Drones)
Trevor Paglen
The Workers; Las Vegas, NV; Distance ~1 mile, 2006
Single-channel SD video, no sound
2 minute loop
Edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof (#1/3)
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Trevor Paglen, The Workers; Las Vegas, NV; Distance ~1 mile
Trevor Paglen
Area 52; Tonopah Test Range, NV; Distance ~ 20 miles; 10:23 a.m., 2006/2025
Dye sublimation on aluminum print
31 1/8 x 37 1/8 x 2 inches / 79.1 x 94.3 x 5.1 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#1/5)
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Trevor Paglen, Area 52; Tonopah Test Range, NV; Distance ~ 20 miles; 10:23 a.m.
In a red-and-purple picture taken with a large-format camera at sunrise called Untitled (Reaper Drones) (2009/2025), Paglen plays with the postwar history of abstraction and pattern recognition, from Mark Rothko to Gerhard Richter and Andreas Gursky. “Paglen has a sophisticated feel for color,” writes art historian Julia Bryan Wilson. “He deliberately shoots at times of day when the light produces specific, sometimes peculiar, chromatic effects." The work’s title provides a crucial clue, guiding viewers to recognize two combat drones used for surveillance, reconnaissance, and military strikes. While these grim reapers lack black robes and scythes, they pose a threat to human lives and symbolize death for “enemies” of the United States. When we identify the drones, the work shifts from a pretty skyscape to a war photograph. It also moves from the familiar domain of the picturesque into the estranged zone of the sublime, which, in the Romantic tradition, is always haunted by terror.

Paglen enjoys capturing subjects that resist being seen or represented. For Area 52; Tonopah Test Range, NV (2006/2025), Paglen climbed a Nevada mountain in winter equipped with a long-range telescopic lens, camera, and heavy-duty tripod. The resulting image struggles to reveal a secret military test site from twenty miles away, thereby testing the limits of intelligibility. "The representation is falling apart,” says Paglen about these existential, investigative works. “I like being on the line between something you can name and something you can’t.”
Trevor Paglen
Near Eagle Ridge (undated), 2025
Instant Film
10 1/8 x 11 3/8 x 1 1/2 inches / 25.6 x 28.7 x 3.8 cm
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Trevor Paglen, Near Eagle Ridge (undated)
Trevor Paglen
Near Todd Road (undated), 2025
Instant Film
10 1/8 x 11 3/8 x 1 1/2 inches / 25.6 x 28.7 x 3.8 cm
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Trevor Paglen, Near Todd Road (undated)
Through a very different process, Paglen has created intentionally ambiguous “UFO photographs,” using a 4x5 camera with Fuji instant film, which produces Polaroid-like 4x5-inch prints. Images such as Near Todd Road (undated) (2025) are undoctored but carefully crafted. Unless you believe in aliens, viewers should ask: Is it a bird, a plane, or something extraordinary? Since its invention, photography has been considered a reliable witness—"the camera doesn't lie"—but UFO photos introduce uncertainty. “I've always been obsessed with UFO photography,” admits Paglen. “The ontology of the UFO photograph is the most precise distillation of the metaphysics of photography.”
Trevor Paglen
Near Trojan Point (undated), 2025
Instant Film
11 3/8 x 10 1/8 x 1 1/2 inches / 28.7 x 25.6 x 3.8 cm
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Trevor Paglen, Near Trojan Point (undated)
Trevor Paglen
Near Keibel Road (undated), 2025
Instant Film
10 1/8 x 11 3/8 x 1 1/2 inches / 25.6 x 28.7 x 3.8 cm
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Trevor Paglen, Near Keibel Road (undated)
Paglen’s biography is so relevant to his artistic output that you couldn’t make it up. The son of an Air Force eye surgeon, Paglen grew up in a household supported not just by the business of vision but its fallibility. As a military brat, he also understood that the United States was shaped by a quiet global network of “thousands of American bases with people moving in and out of them all the time.” Growing up in a patriotic and transient subculture, Paglen was infused with both idealism about democracy and an aptitude for handling change. Meanwhile, Paglen’s grandmother was a painter, and his mother was an Episcopal priest. An interest in other people’s belief systems and “making ideas visible,” as he puts it, led Paglen to pursue a BA in Religious Studies, then an MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago. Combining his love of the real world with his interest in landscape, he went on to do a PhD in Geography, investigating state secrecy and places that don’t officially exist.
Trevor Paglen
The Model (Personality), 2020
Silver-plated bronze
7 1/4 x 7 1/8 x 5 3/8 inches / 18.4 x 18.1 x 13.7 cm
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Trevor Paglen, The Model (Personality)
Trevor Paglen
NOYFB, 2006
Fabric patch
11 5/8 x 11 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches / 29.4 x 29.4 x 3.8 cm
Edition of 50 plus 2 artist’s proofs
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Trevor Paglen, NOYFB
Trevor Paglen
Faces of ImageNet, 2022
Interactive video installation
Dimensions variable
Edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs
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Trevor Paglen, Faces of ImageNet
Paglen is a conceptually adventurous MacArthur "Genius" with a talent for profound beauty that art historian Hal Foster has described as “Malevich in the sky with diamonds.” In exploring the hazy borders between knowing and not-knowing, the perceptible and the undetectable, secrecy and revelation, Paglen manifests documentary work that feels like science fiction. He also confronts chilling realities with an uncanny optimism that sustains hope and a romantic missionary spirit. With "The Horizon Waved, and Nothing Was Certain: 2006-2026," Paglen delivers an exhibition of technically complex, historically relevant, and emotionally resonant images, which reveal the hidden systems that shape our world.
Trevor Paglen (b. 1974, Camp Springs, MD) received his BA from University of California, Berkeley; MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and PhD in Geography from UC Berkeley. He has received numerous awards, including the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, Aperture West Prize, and Artadia New York. Paglen has enjoyed solo exhibitions at Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; MCA San Diego; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; Fondazione Prada, Milan; Barbican Centre, London; and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, among others. Paglen’s work is featured in recent and forthcoming exhibitions at Moody Center for the Arts, Houston; MCA Australia, Sydney; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil; Jeu de Paume, Paris; Jewish Museum, Berlin; and Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan. His work is in numerous permanent collections including Baltimore Museum of Art; Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA; Dallas Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; MFA Boston; MFA Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Thoma Foundation, Dallas; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Paglen lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He is represented by Pace and Jessica Silverman.
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