Jenny Wu's New York Gallery Guide: Isaacs, Lawson, Wu Ziyang and Kokopeli on Technology's Banal Evils
In her gallery guide for ArtReview, Jenny Wu highlights the disturbing yet mundane aspects of technology. At Theta in Tribeca, Kelsey Isaacs presents two 2026 paintings titled Cloud Editor 1 and 2, featuring a naked infant on a blue-and-white floor, named Baby Mozart's Kiss. Over at Gagosian in Chelsea, Deana Lawson's Edge Control (2023–) showcases silver halide prints derived from surveillance images, including one of a Black woman in a beauty supply store in Houston and another with Donald Trump’s face superimposed. The Hill Art Foundation presents Wu Ziyang's 2026 video New Silk Frequencies in its Thucydides Fever Dream. Meanwhile, Marc Kokopeli's 2026 ring sculptures, including The Hare, Zero, and The Holy Ghost of TV, can be found at Gladstone, and Kristian Kragelund's Strum und Drang at Island features plates marked with thermal prints and malicious code.
Key facts
- Jenny Wu's 'Notes from New York: Antisocial Gallery Guide' was published by ArtReview for Armory Week 2026 in New York.
- Kelsey Isaacs's exhibition Baby Mozart's Kiss is on view at Theta in Tribeca, featuring oil-on-aluminium paintings Cloud Editor 1 and 2 (both 2026).
- Deana Lawson's Edge Control (2023–), silver halide prints appropriated from found surveillance stills, is on view at a Gagosian gallery in Chelsea.
- The group show Thucydides Fever Dream at the Hill Art Foundation includes Wu Ziyang's two-channel video New Silk Frequencies (2026).
- Wu Ziyang's video draws on a documentary about China's satellite project that, beginning in 2015, installed solar-powered television infrastructure across Africa to close the digital divide.
- Marc Kokopeli's ring sculptures at Gladstone's Upper East Side gallery hold miniature LED screens; The Hare (2026) is a moissanite-encrusted signet ring with protruding bunny ears.
- Kristian Kragelund's exhibition Strum und Drang at Island in Chinatown features thermal-marked aluminium plates containing malicious code from DIY hacker forums and archives.
- One Kragelund plate, CABANAS (2026), is a eulogy for Gonzalo Cabanas; another, Acurev (2026), asks 'How Can You Think Freely In The Shadow Of A Church?'
Entities
Artists
- Jenny Wu
- Kelsey Isaacs
- Deana Lawson
- Donald Trump
- Wu Ziyang
- Marc Kokopeli
- Kristian Kragelund
- Gonzalo Cabanas
Institutions
- ArtReview
- Theta
- Gagosian
- Hill Art Foundation
- Gladstone
- Island
- StarTimes
- Greater New York
- South Park
- R.E.M.
Locations
- New York
- United States
- Tribeca
- Chelsea
- Upper East Side
- Chinatown
- Houston
- China
- Africa