The exhibition catalogue for ‘The Life of the Work’, the first major UK survey of Swoon’s practice, now on view at Woodbury House, opens with a foreword by the independent curator Pedro Alonzo.

Few people are better placed to write it. Alonzo has known the American artist Caledonia Curry, known around the world as Swoon, for over two decades, since the days before street art had picked up a name. He has curated her work, travelled alongside her practice as it moved from the walls into the world’s great museums, and watched at close range as she built communities capable of making extraordinary things happen.

His foreword is not a conventional curatorial essay. It is a personal account of knowing one of the defining artists of her generation, and it opens with a story about a river.
We publish it here in full.

“I have the pleasure of knowing Caledonia Curry, AKA Swoon, for over two decades. As a young curator, I began my foray into the world of Street Art before the genre had picked up a name. Swoon was one of the artists who emerged immediately as an someone I had to know. When we finally met, I invited her to participate in my first exhibition featuring street artists, “Spank the Monkey” at the Baltic in Newcastle. Her response surprised me. She said something to the effect of, “I don’t want to sound weird, but I can’t be in your show because I am floating down a river with a group of friends on homemade rafts”. Before our first meeting, I had seen her work on walls, in publications, on Wooster Collective and at Deitch Projects in New York but I realize now, that I had no idea who I was talking to and what she is capable of.

Callie has the power to connect with people and build communities to make wonderful things happen such as building boats using recycled materials and sailing them down the Mississippi with friends. A journey which included stopping in small towns to entertain the locals with music and theater. Swoon is a maestro who can identify talent and abilities in others, which she can then harness into fabricating magnificent artworks including immense trees in the Brooklyn Museum, a pagoda about the Anthropocene at the ICA Boston, beautiful custom-built earth homes for villagers in Haiti and portraits of individuals struggling with addiction in Philadelphia. Her portraits capture the lives and challenges of those who society chooses not to see. Bringing to the forefront individuals who linger on the margins and make them seen in her art and sometimes heard. Such as Yaya, a formerly incarcerated artist we met in Graterford State Prison and Sonia a woman who shared her tragic story of losing her child to an audience of strangers at the ICA Philadelphia.

Callie inspires others. Her work connects deeply. I rarely well up with emotion when engaging with an artist but with Callie it is a common occurrence. The power of her work resides in heartfelt narratives based on human experience, combined with her commitment to others, which elicit an emotional response. Working with her, sometime simply communicating with her, can lead to tears. I tease her that she makes me cry. This is not a warning, it is an invitation to dig deep, look closely, ask questions and enjoy the selection of work of a truly fascinating artist.”

Pedro Alonzo | Independent Curator

Alonzo’s foreword captures something about Swoon that exhibition texts rarely manage: what she is actually like to know.

The raft story with which it opens is true, and it is telling. The artist who declined a museum invitation because she was floating down a river on homemade boats is the same artist whose work now hangs in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum and Tate Modern. The two facts are not in tension. They are the same fact: a career conducted entirely on her own terms, which is precisely what ‘The Life of the Work’ puts on the walls.

His foreword also names the through-line that visitors will feel in the gallery. The projects he describes, the rafts on the Mississippi, the immense trees in the Brooklyn Museum, the earth homes in Haiti, the portraits of individuals struggling with addiction in Philadelphia, are not side projects to the artwork. They are where the artwork comes from. Two of the people he names, Yaya and Sonia, are the subjects of works now on view in Mayfair.

And his closing line is the best visiting advice the exhibition could ask for: an invitation to dig deep, look closely, ask questions, and enjoy the work of a truly fascinating artist. The foreword appears in full in the exhibition catalogue, alongside a gallery introduction by Woodbury House and a statement in Swoon’s own words. To request a copy of the exhibition catalogue, contact the gallery directly on [email protected] or 0203 750 2222, we’d be delighted to assist with your request.

‘The Life of the Work’ by Swoon is on view at Woodbury House, our flagship Mayfair gallery, through 13th August 2026.

Visitors are welcome during gallery hours, Monday to Friday, and admission is free. Every work in the exhibition is available to acquire, from prints and editions to major original works. To arrange a private viewing, request the full list of available works, or enquire about a specific piece by Swoon, please contact the gallery directly.

Woodbury House
29 Sackville Street,
Mayfair,
London,
W1S 3DX

[email protected]
0203 750 2222