Paul Thek's Posthumous Moment: Two Concurrent New York Shows

Paul Thek, who died of AIDS in 1988 at age 55, is the subject of two concurrent New York exhibitions: "Paul Thek: Dream of Vanishing" at Pace Gallery (540 West 25th Street, through August 14) and a show at Galerie Buchholz (31 West 54th Street, through July 25). The Pace survey features nearly 60 works from the early 1960s to mid-1970s, including his famous meat pieces—lumps of raw flesh rendered in colored wax and resin, dubbed "technological reliquaries" by critic Robert Pincus-Witten in Artforum. Also on view are seven "picture light paintings" from 1979-80, small compositions in found gilt frames installed low with child's chairs. Thek's 1964 Stable Gallery debut showed gory reliquaries; Arne Glimcher recalled thinking he could smell the meat. Thek left New York in 1967 to live on a remote Italian island, returning intermittently. The Buchholz show emphasizes paintings on newspaper, a support Thek used for economy, and includes a 1971 diorama of a Mesozoic scene that folds into a shipping crate. Thek's influence persists: Alex Da Corte recreated Thek's missing 1967 installation The Tomb (Death of a Hippie) in shocking pink at Matthew Marks in 2025. Thek's legacy was revived by a 2010 Whitney Museum retrospective and Andrew Durbin's dual biography of Thek and Peter Hujar, published in April 2026. The article questions whether this posthumous attention represents justice or the art world metabolizing guilt into capital.