Magritte: This Is Still Not a Pipe at Gagosian review

This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte brings together works by the Belgian Surrealist master, René Magritte, with those of more than forty modern and contemporary artists influenced by his distinctive visual language. Covering his career from the 1920s to the 1960s, the exhibition offers a comprehensive view of his artistic evolution while exploring the extraordinary influence he continues to exert on artists today.

RENÉ MAGRITTE. La Lampe philosophique (The Philosopher’s Lamp), 1936. Oil on canvas. 19 3/4 x 26 inches (50 x 66 cm). © 2026 C. Herscovici/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy Private Collection, Brussels, Kingdom of Belgium

Born in Belgium in 1898, Magritte became one of the most recognisable figures of Surrealism. Yet his approach was distinctively his own. Rather than abandoning reality altogether, he took ordinary objects (apples, pipes, bowler hats, windows and cloud-filled skies) and placed them in situations that quietly unsettled our understanding of the world. Rendered with almost photographic clarity, his paintings make the impossible seem entirely plausible.

Perhaps his most famous example is The Treachery of Images (1929), depicting a pipe accompanied by the words Ceci n'est pas une pipe, "This is not a pipe." The statement is deceptively simple: what we see is a representation of a pipe, not the object itself. Yet it opens up profound questions about language, representation and the assumptions we make whenever we look at an image. For Magritte, seeing was never simply a matter of looking; it was about questioning what we believe we know.

This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte, installation view, 2026. Artwork © Sarah Lucas; © Jordan Wolfson; © 2026 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London; © Jeff Koons; © Harold Ancart; © Jordan Wolfson; © Isabelle Albuquerque; © 2026 Betye Saar; © Rachel Harrison; © David Hammons, ARS, NY and DACS, London 2026; © Nairy Baghramian; © Alex Da Corte; © Sula Bermúdez-Silverman; © Mona Hatoum; © Sean Landers. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Courtesy Gagosian

At Gagosian, his world is not presented in isolation. His paintings, works on paper, sculpture and photography are placed in conversation with artists from different generations, including Ed Ruscha, Mona Hatoum, Yoko Ono, Jeff Koons, George Condo, Sarah Lucas, Soshiro Matsubara and Michael Craig-Martin to name a few. Major works from public and private collections sit alongside contemporary pieces, some created specifically for the exhibition.

The exhibition is much more than a tribute to Magritte. It feels like a fascinating conversation between artists across generations, showing how his ideas continue to inspire and take on new meanings. His familiar world is all here: floating clouds, apples, pipes, bowler hats and those impossibly calm skies where nothing is quite as it seems. But seen through the eyes of contemporary artists, these familiar images begin to feel different.

Some play with scale and perception, while others question what images mean and whether we can ever really trust what we see. What I find particularly interesting is how these artists take Magritte's ideas and make them their own, rather than simply borrowing his imagery. And in doing so, they make us look at Magritte himself a little differently, too.

The gallery installation is central to the experience. Its dark, theatrical atmosphere heightens the sense that we have stepped into a carefully constructed illusion. It is an inspired setting for an artist who understood that the ordinary could be more unsettling than the fantastical. A familiar sky suddenly feels artificial; an apple becomes monumental; a room opens onto an impossible horizon. The everyday world remains recognisable, but our certainty about it begins to dissolve.

This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte, installation view, 2026. Artwork © Issy Wood; © Victor Man; © 2026 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London; © Dominique Fung; © Isabelle Albuquerque; © Soshiro Matsubara; © Glenn Ligon; © Alex Da Corte; © Ricky Swallow; © Maurizio Cattelan Archive; © Charles LeDray; © Joseph Yaeger; © Jeff Koons; © Robert Gober; © Vija Celmins; © Anna Weyant. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Courtesy Gagosian.

And this is precisely why Magritte still matters. His influence extends far beyond Surrealism, into popular culture, design, photography, advertising and contemporary art. His questions about reality and representation feel particularly pertinent in a world saturated with photographs, screens and digitally manipulated images. We are constantly asked to interpret what we see, assess its authenticity and decide what, or whom, to believe. Magritte understood that images do not simply show us the world; they shape how we perceive it.

There are the familiar bowler hats, apples, impossible skies and, of course, the pipe, but seeing them together in this setting, they feel wonderfully hallucinogenic all over again. Magritte had an extraordinary ability to take the most ordinary objects and make us question what we think we know about them.

What makes This Is Still Not a Pipe particularly rewarding is its breadth: a comprehensive display of Magritte's work throughout his career, alongside artists who have followed in his footsteps, demonstrating that his legacy is not simply historical. His ideas remain an active, generative force, continually questioned, reinterpreted and reinvented.

What are we actually looking at? How much can we trust what we see? And what happens when an image refuses to mean what we expect it to mean?

RENÉ MAGRITTE. Le Lieu commun (The Commonplace), 1964. Oil on canvas. 39 3/8 x 31 7/8 inches (100 x 81 cm).

Magritte never offered easy answers. Instead, he gave us a way of looking at the world with greater curiosity, a little suspicion and a renewed sense of wonder.

A beautifully theatrical, thought-provoking and exciting exhibition, and an absolute must-see for anyone interested in Surrealism, modern and contemporary art, or simply the extraordinary possibilities of looking at the world differently.

Date: 24 September - 12 December 2026. Location: Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, 20 Grosvenor Hill, London W1K 3QD. Price: Free. gagosian.com

By Massoumeh Safinia