Farah Al Qasimi’s “Rubberneck” at François Ghebaly, Beverly Hills: Photography for an Age of Watching Disaster

To rubberneck is to slow down and stare at an accident. We all do it, and most of us feel slightly guilty about it. Farah Al Qasimi’s “Rubberneck” at François Ghebaly in Los Angeles takes that reflex as its subject. The exhibition of 15 new photographs, accompanied by vinyl interventions in the space, runs from 4 November to 12 December 2026 at the gallery’s Beverly Hills location on North Camden Drive. It is the photographer’s second solo show with Ghebaly, her first in Beverly Hills — and it arrives just before her solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Who is Farah Al Qasimi?

Al Qasimi was born in Abu Dhabi in 1991 and divides her life between Abu Dhabi and Brooklyn. She studied photography and music at Yale, graduating with a BA in 2012, and returned to the Yale School of Art for her MFA in 2017. In less than a decade she has built an exceptional institutional record, with solo exhibitions at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, C/O Berlin, the Delfina Foundation, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Esker Foundation, among others.

Her work is held by MoMA, Tate Modern, the Guggenheim, LACMA, the Centre Pompidou, SFMOMA and the MCA Chicago. TAILSPIN, her solo exhibition at the Whitney, opens on 30 January 2027.

“Rubberneck”: horror films, sci-fi and the pleasure of catastrophe

According to the gallery, the new series borrows from horror and science-fiction cinema and from our fascination with watching catastrophe unfold. Those are genres built on suspense, on the moment just before something terrible is revealed. A still photograph is very good at holding that moment, and Al Qasimi uses it to make familiar scenes feel slightly off, as if the monster were just outside the frame.

The pictures were made across an unusually wide map: West Texas, New York City, Dearborn in Michigan, Los Angeles and the United Arab Emirates. The titles the gallery has released give a sense of the tone — Computer Room (Oil Fires) (2026), Xanti with Snow Globe (2024), Horse in Swimming Pool (2025) and Pigeon with Bracelets (2026). Oil fires on a monitor, a horse where a swimmer should be, jewellery on a bird: each is a small disaster or a small absurdity, seen at close range.

Ghebaly’s text describes the series as capturing “the fundamentally disjunctive quality of contemporary life” — the way we scroll from war footage to pet videos without changing expression. The exhibition does not lecture about that habit; it simply makes us notice it.

The photographs and the room

Alongside the prints, the gallery lists vinyl interventions in the space — a sign that the installation is meant to be experienced as a whole rather than as a row of framed pictures. With only 15 photographs, “Rubberneck” is a tight, carefully paced show — better seen slowly than in a quick lap.

François Ghebaly in Beverly Hills

François Ghebaly’s main Los Angeles space is on East Washington Boulevard, east of downtown; the Beverly Hills space on North Camden Drive is its second Los Angeles venue. Choosing it for Al Qasimi’s return makes the show an easy stop for visitors already exploring the galleries of Beverly Hills.

Why collectors and photographers should pay attention

Timing is everything in the market, and a gallery show that precedes a Whitney solo exhibition by a few weeks is a rare window to see — and potentially acquire — new work before a major museum moment. Edition sizes and prices are not published; contact the gallery. For photographers, the show is a masterclass in using colour and staging to create unease without a single obvious act of violence. And for everyone else, it is a sharp, funny and slightly uncomfortable mirror held up to how we look at the news.

Visiting information

François Ghebaly, 417 N Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. 4 November – 12 December 2026. Opening reception and Beverly Hills opening hours have not yet been published (the gallery’s main Los Angeles space is open Tuesday–Saturday, 11:00–18:00), so check with the gallery before visiting. Phone: +1 323 282 5187. Email: [email protected].

See the official exhibition page, our exhibition listing, and more Los Angeles and New York openings on Upcoming Art Exhibitions in Leading Galleries.