Hero image for event titled Screening & Talk: Cosima Spender, Saskia Spender and Valerio Bonelli moderated by D.W. Moffett on ‘Arshile Gorky. Horizon West’

Cosima Spender, Photo: Lelia Scarfiotti; D.W. Moffett; Saskia Spender, Photo: Lelia Scarfiotti; Valerio Bonelli

Talks

Screening & Talk: Cosima Spender, Saskia Spender and Valerio Bonelli moderated by D.W. Moffett on ‘Arshile Gorky. Horizon West’

Wednesday 25 February
6 – 8 pm
Register

On the occasion of the opening of ‘Arshile Gorky. Horizon West’ at our West Hollywood gallery, please join us on Wednesday 25 February at 6 pm for a seated screening of the new film, ‘Horizon West,’ followed by a talk with:

Saskia Spender, President of Arshile Gorky Foundation 
Cosima Spender, Director of ‘Horizon West’ 
Valerio Bonelli, Editor of ‘Horizon West’ 
D.W. Moffett, Chair of SCAD and producer, actor and writer 

The exhibition ‘Arshile Gorky. Horizon West’ will present a selection of Gorky’s landscapes from before and after his transcontinental trip in 1941 from New York to California, tracing the evolution of his incomparable approach to the genre. The exhibition will feature never-before-exhibited works alongside paintings from the artist’s first solo museum show in 1941 at the San Francisco Museum of Art (later SFMOMA), offering visitors a rare opportunity to examine the expansion of Gorky’s abstract landscapes in response to his first-hand experience of America’s terrain. 

The run time for ‘Horizon West’ is 23 minutes. Following the screening and talk, join us for the opening reception at 7 pm. The program is free to attend, however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register.

About Cosima Spender 
Cosima Spender was born and grew up in Siena in an English artists’ family. She moved to England at age 14. A university degree (BA 1st Class Hons) in anthropology and art history at the University of London sparked her interest in storytelling, identity and traditions. Spendergraduated from the UK National Film and Television School where she specialized in Documentary Direction.

She is an award-winning British/Italian documentary director. Her latest feature documentary ‘Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe’ (eOne/Lionsgate) premiered at TIFF in September 2024 and was theatrically distributed as a global event screening in Autumn 2025.

About Saskia Spender 
Saskia Spender, granddaughter of Arshile Gorky, has been President of the Arshile Gorky Foundation since 2015. She is a ceramic artist and lives in London.

About Valerio Bonelli  
Valerio Bonelli is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning film editor who has worked with some of the most renowned directors in the world, across both feature films and television. Growing up in Italy and moving to the UK in 1999, Valerio studied at the prestigious National Film and Television School, graduating in 2001. 
 
Over the years, he has built a reputation for his collaborations with visionary directors such as Joe Wright, Stephen Frears, Ridley Scott and recently Noah Baumbach. His editing credits include, ‘Jay Kelly,’ ‘M: Son of the Century,’ ‘Darkest Hour,’ which featured Gary Oldman’s Oscar-winning performance, the Oscar-nominated ‘Philomena’ with Judi Dench, ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, and ‘The Martian’ with Matt Damon, which was also nominated for an Academy Award. 
 
Bonelli is equally recognized for his work in documentaries. He won Best Documentary Editing at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival for ‘Palio,’ directed by Cosima Spender. He continued collaborating with Spender on other award-winning documentaries, including ‘Sanpa: Sins of the Saviour’ and ‘Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe’. 
 
Driven by a passion for both visual and narrative storytelling, Bonelli continues to work on ground-breaking projects across genres.

About D.W. Moffett
D.W. Moffett has amassed an impressive list of stage and screen credits. He can be seen these days in ‘One Battle After Another’ directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Moffett is currently the Chair of the Film and Television Department at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA (SCAD). The SCAD Film Department boasts an 11-acre backlot, a working faculty of 35 and the best film equipment available to students of any film school on the planet.