TABBOO!

This joint exhibition presents the most comprehensive survey to date of Tabboo!‘s cityscape paintings from the last three decades. In these works, Tabboo!‘s beloved stomping ground of New York City takes centre stage, giving the viewer a chance to see the city through his eyes—a vantage imbued with possibility. The city has anchored Tabboo!‘s practice across works on paper and on canvas. Rendered in quick, impressionistic gestures and a vivid palette, grey skies and iconic skyscrapers attest to its stoic beauty. In describing his turn to the city as muse, Tabboo! has said, ‘I made art about what was around me, what I knew... I know my plants. I know all my tchotchkes, my puppet collection, and New York City.... So that’s my subject matter.’

These sweeping cityscapes are reminiscent of the backdrops Tabboo! painted for his drag performances in the 1980s. Dramatic colourfields render the city in moments of transition, from day into night and back again. Gleaming windows are sprinkled with glitter, scattering the sun’s brilliance as it sets. An indelible energy soaks these cityscapes, many of which depict the view from Tabboo!‘s apartment windows.

‘I paint from my Alphabet City apartment, which I’ve lived in for forty years,”‘Tabboo! explains. ‘Here’s my big fancy artist statement: I don’t have one! I just do what I do.’

The exhibition is accompanied by a forthcoming fully-illustrated catalogue, featuring newly commissioned essays by Ksenia M. Soboleva, Jonathan D. Katz, and Eileen Myles.