Sarah Morris’s films highlight the interplay between power, progress, and spectacle in dynamic metropolises. Since her 1998 debut film, Midtown, which captures fragments of life in a day in New York City, she has filmed ten global metropolises including Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Beijing, and Rio de Janeiro. Her latest film ETC (2023), co-commissioned by M+ and Tai Kwun Contemporary, is a cinematic portrait of Hong Kong that will be displayed on the M+ Facade at night from January to March 2024.

In Strange Magic (2014), Morris continues her longstanding fascination with urban psychological landscapes, industry, and architecture. Morris forges connections between the cities of Paris and Los Angeles through Frank Gehry's Jardin d'Acclimatation for the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Going behind the scenes of industrial production—including fashion, fragrance, and champagne—Morris’s mesmerizing film deconstructs the emotional and aesthetic pleasures, desires, and dreams conjured by global consumer culture. 

In Abu Dhabi (2017), Morris turns her attention to the United Arab Emirates’ oil-rich capital during its National Day celebrations. Capturing the many facets of this enigmatic city—from the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital and Zaha Hadid’s Sheikh Zayed Bridge to the Umm Al Nar oil refinery and the Liwa desert sand dunes—Abu Dhabi captures a city at a cultural and economic crossroads, hurtling towards a post-oil future.

Since the mid-1990s, New York based artist Sarah Morris (b. 1967, United Kingdom) has been making abstract paintings and films to investigate what she describes as ‘urban, social and bureaucratic typologies.’ These works, based on different cities, are derived from close inspection of architectural details combined with a critical sensitivity to the psychology of a city and its key protagonists. She has exhibited extensively, including recent solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Germany (2023); Espace Louis Vuitton Munich (2023); Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany (2023); Jesus College, Cambridge, United Kingdom (2019); UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2018); and Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland (2017), among others.