I'm sharing the PR here for my show at Laurel Gitlen in Brooklyn, opening March 28, 2026. The show is modest in scale and my first solo presentation in NYC.
I'll also share two epigraphs, by Marcel Duchamp, and Gilles Deleuze, that we redacted from the final draft. I believe nonetheless that they address a key problem in art making, which is knowing when to stop. Art making today is a challenging thing because no one tells artists to stop, and no one tells them to keep going. This is particularly challenging in an individualistic culture where the utility of art is ambiguous, and often egoistic. I actually intuit that my writing below is symptomatic of the culture and feel a bit uneasy about it...
I REALIZED VERY SOON THE DANGER OF REPEATING INDISCRIMINATELY THIS FORM OF EXPRESSION AND DECIDED TO LIMIT THE PRODUCTION OF "READYMADES" TO A SMALL NUMBER YEARLY. I WAS AWARE AT THAT TIME, THAT FOR THE SPECTATOR EVEN MORE THAN FOR THE ARTIST, ART IS A HABIT-FORMING DRUG AND I WANTED TO PROTECT MY "READYMADES" AGAINST SUCH CONTAMINATION.
- Marcel Duchamp, ‘Apropos of Readymades’
“ He does not seek the last drink; he seeks the penultimate one. Not the ultimate, because the ultimate [Deleuze gestures with his hands] would place him outside his arrangement. The penultimate is the last one… before beginning again the next day.
- Gilles Deleuze, ‘B: Boire/Boisson (Drink)’
The title I’m here to stop is a quote from a terrifying fake Kafka story, which no one had written. It showed me my greatest fear, a deadline. A totality beyond my control! Something about the closure frightens me . . . that I don’t know enough, that I haven’t gathered enough yet.
Students think about this too; some can be very apprehensive about their own work and, to a degree, don’t see it as art. Maybe they believe the tasks aren’t substantial, that the studio environment is the only legitimate context for their practice. A studio is a study, and a study is not work.
A mentor once asked me how my work would exist in the world. Maybe she meant, physically, how do ideas become objects? I heard: how does the work leave the studio if I never do? I’m not sure I misinterpreted. How does work enter the world if I’m already outside?
Now, I circumnavigate the world, like a silhouette or a curve, in search of elegant shapes, and live a life that leads me to them. An anamorphic life. Nothing too crazy. In doing so, at my most self-aggrandized, I think I’m remaking it all. I take illustrations from books, and pick up leaves from the street. Small samples of reality. The samples are cut with any tool available. Apparently, at the right speeds and concentration, anything can be a blade. I wanted a knife, but a light is much faster. It doesn’t make things easier; it just changes the quantity and time. The paper billows and leaves blow from the cuts.
The exhibition includes such cuts of paper and a plastic material called Duralar; retired shoes with blind-spot mirrors attached; and wine bottles with silhouettes as labels. The Duralar rolls and curves along its flat edge and joins together through small slits, partially visible, assembling into something you can see through. It’s a city of invisible people, burial objects, modern sculpture, and bonsai trees. None of the silhouettes are of a real person, except me. The paper is what I keep: photo proofs, class notes, photocopies of comic book pages, credit card offers, medical bills, and press releases. I cut leaves from the imminent failures and future potential, then put the negatives in little boxes, or string them along a cable.
Walking shapes the shoes, and I’ve had at least one pair for eight years. I wear these things into the dirt, flat-footed and mildly pronated. The mirrors attached to the toes feel like picking up a nice leaf from the ground. Momentarily, the world is compressed between your eyes and feet.
None of this makes things easier. I still reach for a thought before it’s formed; I collect before I commit. Always penultimate. But it’s not avoidance anymore. I just stop while I’m ahead.
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