The Armory Show, September 5 - 8, 2024

Michael Kohn Gallery is excited to propose a presentation of its collective of emerging and established artists. This showcase highlights a diverse employment of materials, relationship to subject matter, and skillful ideological expressions.  

Heidi Hahn’s monumental portraits of women investigate bodily autonomy and interiority. Similarly, William Brickel’s emotionally distant male figures wrap around each other in a double helix of exaggerated forms borne of painterly restraint. Jinbin Chen’s delicate color palettes create environments which traverse a terrain of liminal gender. In contrast, Li Hei Di’s otherworldly canvases capture the transient elements of sexual impulse.

Siji Krishnan’s meticulously layered rice paper paintings explode the boundaries of material possibility with playful renderings of memory and belonging related to her upbringing in Southern India. Hadi Alijani’s fantastical works synthesize Persian iconography through an ironic, quotidian lens. In relation, Ilana Savdie’s electrifying, hot-colored surreal compositions question interstitialities of migration, foreignness, and familiarity.

Rosa Loy’s casein compositions strike a balance between the unheimlich and the humorous. Kate Barbee’s paintings combine impermanence with a Cubist sensibility where her subjects pull away from the constraints of figuration and park themselves firmly in mesmerizing abstraction. Nir Hod’s chromed, reflective canvases collapse distinctions between viewers’ expectations and the reality of the painting surface. 

Beyond painting, Chiffon Thomas’s figurative assemblages interpret feelings of nostalgia, metamorphosis, and decay through his lens as a trans and queer artist raised within a strong religious environment. Alicia Adamerovich’s union of carpentry and surrealism fearlessly explore a subconscious landscape filled with radiant orbs and spiraling appendages.

Rounding out the presentation, Faris Heizer incorporates corporeal gesture, light, and perspective to narrate stories embedded in domesticity. Concerned with the limits of representation, Shiwen Wang shores themes of genesis and catastrophe in her insistently textural and ambiguously formed paintings.

The Armory Show would be the ideal setting to present the works of these masterful artists in a wider conversation with their peers and predecessors.

EXPO Chicago, April 11 - 14, 2024

Michael Kohn Gallery is delighted to announce three solo presentations of paintings by artists Lita Albuquerque, Nir Hod, and Mark Innerst at Expo Chicago 2024.

Inspired by nature and Earth’s place in the grander universe, Light and Space artist Lita Albuquerque’s (b. 1946) body of work interweaves photography, film, performance, painting, and sculpture into a vibrant synthesis of personal and cosmic mythologies. In her presentation at Expo Chicago, Albuquerque revisits her celebrated Auric Field series. In several new canvases varying in scale, hypnotizing golden orbs are set against a minimal background of dark blue pigment. “I started using blue as a way of uniting earth and sky,” says Albuquerque. “From the beginning of my practice, the color blue was also inspired by the color of the Mediterranean where I grew up, and the deep history of cosmology of that region. Since then, using the color blue has been a fascination. To quote Goethe: ‘We love to contemplate blue, not because it comes towards us, but because it draws us after it.’"

Nir Hod’s (b.1970) artistic practice draws upon personal memory and traumatic historical events to elicit subtle tensions between the viewer’s expectations and the material reality of the painting surface. In his most recent series, 100 Years Is Not Enough, Hod appropriates and synthesizes Claude Monet’s water lily iconography into dream-like interpretations of flora and various bodies of water. These new works present a masterful play between the profoundly illusionistic depth of the chromed, mirror-like surface. The viewer and their surroundings are reflected, and the physical substance of the painting, evidenced by the thick impastoed brushstrokes, evoke shimmering sunlight on water. The effect has an extraordinary impact precisely because of the two competing, yet completely compatible, major shifts in painterly perspective.

Mark Innerst (b. 1957) broke into the New York art scene in the early 1980s as part of the Pictures Generation of artists who employed widely varied images as source material culled from the expanding media of the pre-digital age. His small-scale oils on canvas in hand-made frames showcase a continuous conceptual investigation into thematic genres of traditional painting. Towering buildings of cityscapes are depicted as bejeweled giants which line the lonely canyon of an urban avenue. Elsewhere, Innerst produces his own version of a Dutch church interior with a blue-toned study of the grand lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, replete with visitors filling the vast space.

Art Basel Miami Beach, December 4 - 8, 2024

For Art Basel Miami Beach 2024, Michael Kohn Gallery is delighted to present a focused exhibition of its historical roster that speaks to the gallery’s nearly four-decade presence in the Los Angeles contemporary art scene. In particular, this showcase weaves together key works from historical movements, such as Beat, Light and Space, Pop, and Minimalism, and contextualizes them within the grander contemporary atmosphere of the fair.

Representing the Gallery’s historical roster are internationally recognized West Coast artists. Lita Albuquerqueinterweaves photography, film, performance, painting, and sculpture into a vibrant synthesis of personal and cosmic mythologies. This year, Albuquerque presents a work from her notable Auric Field series which was included in the 2022 Venice Biennale and is in the largest scale to date. Martha Alf’s minimalist rolls of toilet paper “cylinders” stand monumental on a deftly painted stage. Bruce Conner will be represented by his found object, “trashy” assemblages, while Wallace Berman is represented by a group of his pioneering Verifax collages. As part of the Picture Generation, Mark Innerst’s cityscapes present a continuous conceptual investigation into thematic genres of traditional painting. Significantly visible in the booth is a selection of large-scale works by Joe Goode which range from his 1970s Torn Sky series to contemporary iterations of his iconic Milk Bottle paintings. A new addition to this year’s presentation is a minimal glass sculpture by Light and Space artist Larry Bell, which has not been seen publicly in decades.

Bringing the presentation into the 21st century are new works by established artists Heidi Hahn and Nir Hod. In her organic, form-forward portraits of women, Heidi Hahn portrays wavering expressions of the self in the arena of the public and private. The new work glances into Hahn’s newest series which will be shown in her upcoming solo exhibition with the gallery in Spring 2025. Nir Hod’s chromed, reflective canvases draw upon personal memory and traumatic historical events to elicit subtle tensions between the viewer’s expectations and the material reality of the paintings surface. Hod’s painterly prowess is complemented by his sculptural practice, with a 14-foot bronze candle that commands the booth.

Untitled Art, Houston, September 19 - 21, 2025

For Untitled Art Houston’s inaugural fair, Michael Kohn Gallery is delighted to propose a curated exhibition of new work by Lita Albuquerque, Nir Hod, and Gonzalo Lebrija. The presentation examines the materiality of contemporary Light and Space works as seen through Albuquerque’s iconic Auric Field series, Hod’s tactile reflective canvases, and Lebrija’s elegant geometric abstractions. 

Inspired by nature and Earth’s place in the grander universe, Lita Albuquerque’s body of work interweaves photography, film, performance, painting, and sculpture into a vibrant synthesis of personal and cosmic mythologies. In this presentation, Albuquerque revisits her distinguishable Auric Field series– golden orbs set against a minimal aura of rich ultramarine. “I started using blue as a way of uniting earth and sky,” says Albuquerque. The work’s luminescence is generated from the sunken relief of the sphere that takes center and presents as a source of energy. Nir Hod’s artistic practice draws upon personal memory and traumatic historical events to elicit subtle tensions between the viewer’s expectations and the material reality of the canvas. In his series, The Life We Left Behind, Hod presents a masterful play between the profoundly illusionistic depth of the chromed, mirror-like surface and the physical substance of the painting, evidenced by the thick impastoed brushstrokes. The effect has an extraordinary impact precisely because of the two competing, yet completely compatible, major shifts in painterly perspective. Gonzalo Lebrija’s almost humorous nihilism explores the passage and futility of life and often focuses on the vertiginous possibilities of frozen moments. His Veladuras (Veils) paintings depict triangular overlays of thinly applied oil paint, becoming darker and more complex as each layer interacts with the other. Lebrija’s complex compositions, based upon the folds of a paper airplane, allude to the lightness, ingenuity and ephemerality of this invention. By extension, the viewer can sense an existential philosophy in Lebrija’s subtle and immensely beautiful abstract paintings.

The Armory Show, September 5 - 7, 2025

Michael Kohn Gallery is excited to share a curated presentation of UK-based painters William Brickel and Shiwen Wang. This showcase of work presents a fluent meditation of human intervention in nature, as seen through Brickel’s human figures painted within industrial landscapes; and explorations of life and its transience as experienced through Wang’s richly painted abstractions of the natural world.  

William Brickel’s multi-figured compositions carry an emotional intensity that unfolds on the canvas through anatomically exaggerated, larger-than-life limbs. The subjects, generated from personal experience and memories from the English countryside, roam in environments that pose questions surrounding identity and its relation to people and the individual self. Similarly concerned with humanity’s place in natural life, Shiwen Wang’s intuitive earth-toned and aquatic palettes appropriate ecological symbols, such as fish, decaying leaves, and fossils to visualize the compression of time and organic cycles of decay and rebirth.

Uniting the two practices is a common thread of cryptic connotations; while Brickel captures intimate interactions between anonymous figures, Wang’s subjects evaporate into states of becoming. The artists, both at emerging stages in their careers, demonstrate an exceptional command of their respective figural and abstract painting practices. Together, Brickel and Wang produce a visually enchanting realm within the greater context of The Armory Show and their contemporaries.

Independent, May 8 - 11, 2025

Evoking Artemisia Gentileschi by way of David Cronenberg, Queens-based artist Alicia Adamerovich’s (b.1989) paintings, drawings, and sculptural practice invite her audience to visualize their own psychological state. The landscapes – seemingly barren with their darkened color palette and organic surfaces of pumice, gels, wax, and sand  – come gracefully alive with radiant orbs and spiraling, structured appendages. These strange biomorphic forms are anthropomorphic and seductive in nature with soft curvatures alternately drawn from the realms of the arboreal, anatomical, and fantastical. As they slouch roughly across their staged compositions, they invoke a sense of familiarity amidst the discomfort of human emotion and contemporary political and cultural narratives surrounding the climate, human rights, consumerism, and journalistic integrity. In this new body of work, ranging from graphite and pastel works on paper to painting and sculpture, Adamerovich continues her investigations of truth, absurdity, and objective reality through enigmatic and intriguing forms. As Adamerovich states: “I don’t wish for my frames to be vessels for the work, but instead to be extensions of the line… making connections with both the viewer’s body and mind. Immersing oneself is bringing the experience closer to my own experience of creation.”

Alicia Adamerovich was born in Latrobe, PA and is currently based in Queens, NY. She received her Bachelor’s of Design from Pennsylvania State University in 2013. Adamerovich has been a recipient of several residencies including the Hayama Artist Residency, Hayama, Japan; Del Vaz Projects Residency, Los Angeles, CA; Moly Sabata Artist Residency, Albert Gleizes Foundation, Sablons, FR; and Palazzo Monti Residency, Brescia, IT. Recent exhibitions include Rude Awakening, Timothy Taylor, New York, NY (2024); This is the time of the hour, Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Ultra-gentle manipulation of delicate structures, Projet Pangée, Montréal, QC (2022); Second Nature, Del Vaz Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2021); and A Bat out of Hell, Sans Titre (2016), Paris, FR. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; He Art Museum, Guangdong, China; X Museum, Beijing; and the Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas.

Art Basel Miami Beach, December 3 - 7, 2025

Michael Kohn Gallery is pleased to announce a cross-generational presentation illustrating the gallery’s forty-year dedication to West Coast artists and art history. Navigating through various stylistic periods, this showcase spotlights rare and iconic work from the Beat Generation, Minimalist, and Light and Space movements and epilogues with a look towards the gallery’s prospective curatorial vision. 

The presentation begins with an installation representing the historical legacies of West Coast artists, Bruce Conner(1933-2008) and Wallace Berman (1926-1976): an assemblage of objects via Conner’s playful SWEET 16 CANDY BARRS, 2/13/1963, and Berman’s visually rhythmic assemblage of found media –a 56-part negative Verifax collage. The gallery will celebrate Wallace Berman’s 100th birthday with a centennial exhibition that opens in February 2026. The debut of this seminal work imparts the perspectives of two contemporaries responding to the chaos of post-World War II America.

Embodying the spirit of counterculture, the late Joe Goode (1933-2025) began his career in Los Angeles in the 1960s. Known for his depictions of everyday phenomena, most notably in his Cloud and Milk Bottle series, the presentation spotlights the conceptual 1978 painting, Drag Strip (Black Series) from his Black Painting series. The painting is sourced directly from the Estate’s archives and a signifier of the Light and Space movement. At the heart of the presentation pulses Lita Albuquerque’s newest Auric Field, which features a recessed golden disk embraced by a dense sea of ultramarine. Punctuating the historical narrative of the booth is California artist Martha Alf (1930-2019). In Black and Yellow, 1975, Alf ingeniously anthropomorphizes a toilet paper roll into a psychological study of human emotion and Minimalist form. Alf’s Cylinder paintings were included in the Whitney Biennial 1975: Contemporary American Art. Additional artists in the presentation include, Pictures Generation’s Mark Innerst, a rare painting by postwar minimalism pioneer, John McLaughlin (1898-1976), and a significantly important and intricately stunning work by Colombian artist María Berrío, El Cielo Tiene Jardines, 2013.

The booth concludes with a look at the gallery’s current roster with work by New York-based artists, Nir Hod, Alicia Adamerovich, and Heidi Hahn. In his notable 100 Years is Not Enough series, Hod captures the iridescent reflection of various bodies of water through his mirror-like, chromed canvases that are overlaid with impressionistic depictions of flora. Adamerovich’s painting, A repetitive noise, 2025, approaches materiality via a constructed pointillistic surface that generates the illusion of light appearing from dark spiraling forms and overlayed orbs. Meanwhile, Hahn’s large-scale work, NOT YOUR WOMAN #10, composes the human form through exaggerated limbs, expansive color fields, and gestural layers. Together, Hod, Adamerovich, and Hahn command painterly technique to propel contemporary conversations surrounding materiality forward. 

In the spirit of the Michael Kohn Gallery’s 40th Anniversary, this year’s presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach bridges a focused survey of esteemed artists spanning half a century with contemporary peers and art history. 

Dallas Art Fair April 16-19, 2026

Michael Kohn Gallery is delighted to return to the Dallas Art Fair with a three-part presentation that focuses on the tradition of figurative painting, West Coast Pop, and the contemporary practice of Indian painter, Siji Krishnan.

The presentation brings together three painters, Amoako Boafo, William Brickel, and Heidi Hahn each with a unique command of figuration. While Boafo captures the character of his subjects through gestures of his direct touch, Brickel employs anatomical exaggeration to communicate the psychological undertones of his compositions. Hahn’s gestural bodies and saturated canvases push the definitions of canon forward into territories that cross into abstraction.

Representing the West Coast Pop movement is a selection of paintings and a sculpture by Richard Pettibone and Christopher Wool. Pettibone’s intimately-sized paintings that replicate iconic images by Roy Lichtenstein and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres are presented alongside a historical enamel work by Wool who is recognized for his experimentation with printmaking techniques.

Rounding out the booth is a dedicated exhibition of new works by Kerala-based painter, Siji Krishnan. The group of oil on linen and watercolor rice paper works present Krishnan’s intricately detailed family paintings and emotional landscapes. The ensemble of work, recently presented at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, captures the artist’s delicate impressions of life in the vivid countryside of southern India.