Is full of long motions; as the ponderous
Deflations of distance; or as clouds
Inseparable from their afternoons;
Or the changing of light, the dropping
Of the silence, wide sleep and solitude
Of night, in which all motion
Is beyond us, as the firmament,
Up-rising and down-falling, bares
The last largeness, bold to see.”
– Wallace Stevens
In a single, wayward sentence, Wallace Stevens’ poem “The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician” expands from an observation of drifting curtains to floating clouds to the vast, undulating firmament, “the last largeness.” The ever widening aperture of the poem suggests that the metaphysical is accessed by observing the minute phenomenon of our lives. The mere rustling of a curtain reveals cosmic motions far beyond us. The immediate is the path to the absolute.
Curated by Ethan James Green, Scene includes works from Daniel Arnold, Drake Carr, Alma Feldhandler, Luke Hannam, Jessika Miekeley, Samara Paiva, Jason Pinkney, Linus Alexander Hübell Salic, Louis Slobodkin, Joseph Solman, Raphael Soyer, Joseph Paul Vorst, and Andre Wagner. The exhibition begins with a pair of 19th century wood panels carved into trompe l'oeil curtains. Originally created for a horse-drawn hearse, the decorative black panels once concealed corpses on their journey to the graveyard. The curtains are half-drawn, implying an ambiguous sense of temporality, liminality, and movement. They are apt for a hearse, a psychopomp delivering the body from the living world to the hereafter. However, the lifted curtains also convey a sense of spectacle that belies their original function to shroud the body; they threaten to reveal as much as they conceal.
By the same token, the artworks on view in Scene are at once candid representations of their subjects and allusions to things unseen: the political histories, aesthetic movements, and conceptual frameworks that invisibly shape our perception. In the Social Realist works of Joseph Paul Vorst or Raphael Soyer, everyday settings and working-class subjects allegorize the broader socioeconomic forces that impact the artist, subject, and viewer alike. Though Vorst worked in a Regionalist style that observed the specificities of daily life in rural American towns in the 1930s and 40s, even the local, quotidian aspects of his work usher in global, structural questions. His painting The Blacksmith, n.d. evokes an entire industry through its sensitive depiction of a single worker in a moment of repose at his forge.
Each work conjures up not only its political context but also a series of art historical references. Throughout the exhibition, the genre of portraiture is a central concern. Andre Wagner’s Self-Portrait, 2024, for example, captures the sitter’s expressive countenance and posture while also subverting the formal conceits of portrait photography. The seamless backdrop used to create the illusion of placelessness and emphasize the model’s subjectivity is here revealed as a prop, exposing the studio behind the model. Wagner’s photograph makes visible what traditional portraiture leaves out of frame. This dramatic use of cropping is also visible in the paintings of Linus Alexander Hübell Salic and Jessika Miekeley, whose compositions similarly question where a portrait begins and ends.
Many of the exhibition’s contemporary artworks echo not only general art historical movements but specific 20th century artworks also on view. Alma Feldhandler’s paintings reference images found in vintage photography archives, giving her subjects and compositions an uncanny timelessness. Feldhandler’s Untitled, 2024, and Joseph Solman’s Kathy Ling, c. 1960s, both limn slender, seated figures in a haze of blue and green. These cagey subjects avert the viewer’s gaze and resist our identification, an impulse reflected in the suggestive, open brushwork and spare, ambiguous settings. The paintings, like their subjects, reveal only so much.
If the frame has been likened to a window onto the artwork, then the notion of the curtain raises questions about what is truly visible to the viewer. Through the curtain, one begins to consider the histories, associations, and ideas that hover just in front of the image, its invisible valence, “bold to see."
Daniel Arnold (b. 1980, Madison, WI) is a photographer based in New York City. Arnold has had solo exhibitions at New York Life Gallery, New York, NY (2023) and Larrie, New York, NY (2022). He has participated in group exhibitions at Library180, New York, NY (2026); The Hole, New York, NY (2025); Anent Gallery, Mexico City, MX (2025); Webber Gallery, London, UK (2025); Abri Mars, New York, NY (2025); Market Gallery, New York, NY (2025); Webber Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2025); the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, Seoul, KR (2024). In 2025, Arnold participated in Paris Photo with Kominek Gallery. Arnold's photography appears regularly in publications including The New York Times, Vogue, and Interview, among others. Arnold's photography has been the subject of three monographs: You Are What You Do (2025: Loose Joints), New York Life (2023: New York Life Gallery), and Pickpocket (2022: Elara Press).
Drake Carr (b. 1993 Flint, MI) is an artist and illustrator based in New York. Carr has had solo exhibitions at Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, AT (2026); Megan Mulrooney, Los Angeles, CA (2025); FIERMAN, New York, NY (2024); Mariposa Drive, Paris, FR (2024); Artists Space, New York, NY (2023); New York Life Gallery, New York, NY (2023); Situations/FIERMAN, New York, NY (2022); 0-0, Los Angeles, CA (2019); and The Hole, New York, NY (2018). He has participated in group exhibitions at Library 180, New York, NY (2026); Hesse Flatow, New York, NY (2025); Marvin Gardens, New York, NY (2024); The Hole, New York, NY (2024, 2017); Nicodim Gallery, New York, NY (2023); Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA (2021); and Karma International, Los Angeles, CA (2017). Carr's work has been published widely, including in Art in America, Artforum, Vogue, W Magazine, i-D, and Cultured, as well as Samuel Delany's novella Big Joe (2025: Inpatient Press).
Alma Feldhandler (b. 1996, Trappes, FR) is a painter based in Paris, FR. She received a BA from London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (2017), and a DNSEP from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris Cergy (2021). Feldhandler has presented solo exhibitions at Meyer Riegger Wolff, Seoul, KR (2026); Meyer Riegger, Berlin, DE (2024); and Galerie Derouillon, Paris, FR (2023, 2022). She has participated in group exhibitions at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels, BE (2025); Galerie Derouillon, Paris, FR (2023); and Penarth Centre, London, UK (2017).
Luke Hannam (b. 1966, Oxfordshire, UK) lives and works in East Sussex, UK. Hannam studied at Chesterfield College of Art and Canterbury College of Art. He has had solo exhibitions at The Ruffed Grouse Gallery, Narrowsburg, NY (2024); 8 Holland Street, London, UK (2024); and Anima Mundi, St Ives, UK (2023, 2021). He has participated in group exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2024, 2022); 8 Holland Street, London, UK (2024); Kravitz Contemporary, London, UK (2024); and Anima Mundi, St Ives, UK (2021–23).
Jessika Miekeley (b. 1969, Berlin, DE) lives and works in St. Louis, MO. She received an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (2002), following postgraduate study as a Meisterschülerin at Hochschule der Künste Berlin through the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) (1992–99). Miekeley’s work was included in Melancholia Futura, curated by Saša Bogojev and Nicola E. Petek at HAUNT, Berlin, DE (2025).
Samara Paiva (b. 1995, Maués, Amazonas, BR) lives and works in São Paulo, BR. Paiva has had solo exhibitions at Claraboia, São Paulo, BR (2026); Gaby Vera Fine Arts, Madrid, ES (2025); Casa do Benin, Salvador, BR (2024); and Galeria Nonada, Rio de Janeiro, BR (2024). She has participated in group exhibitions at Turf Projects, Croydon, UK (2025); auroras, São Paulo, BR (2025); Sesc Quitandinha, Petrópolis, BR (2024–25); Tropigalpão, Rio de Janeiro, BR (2024); Galeria Nonada, Salvador, BR (2024); Galeria Nonada, Rio de Janeiro, BR (2023–24); Sesc Belenzinho, São Paulo, BR (2023–24); and SP–Arte: Rotas Brasileiras, São Paulo, BR (2022). In 2023, Paiva participated in the Pivô Arte e Pesquisa residency in São Paulo, BR. In 2026, she completed an artist residency with Angola Air in Luanda, AO.
Linus Alexander Hübell Salic (b. 1999, Copenhagen, DK) is a painter currently completing a BA at Funen Art Academy, Odense, DK. He has participated in group exhibitions at Isaak Fangel, Copenhagen, DK (2025); Rundgang Funen Art Academy, Odense, DK (2025-26); and FLUK, Svendborg, DK 2025.
Louis Slobodkin (b. 1903, Albany, NY; d. 1975, Bay Harbor Islands, FL) was an American sculptor, writer, and children’s book illustrator. He attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City from 1918 to 1923. Slobodkin’s sculpture was included in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (1945); The Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL (1942); New York World’s Fair, New York, NY (1940); among others. In addition to his sculptural work, he became renowned for his contributions to children's literature, writing and illustrating nearly fifty books throughout his career. His most notable illustration work in the book Many Moons won the Caldecott Medal.
Joseph Solman (b. 1909, Vitebsk, RU [now Belarus]; d. 2008, New York, NY) was an American painter based in New York. Solman studied at the National Academy of Design and was a founding member of The Ten, a group of New York Expressionist painters formed in 1935. He worked in the easel division of the WPA Federal Art Project from 1935–41. In 1949, the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, presented a retrospective of his work. Throughout his career, Solman exhibited extensively at A.C.A. Gallery, New York, NY; Mercury Gallery, Boston, MA; Robert Brown Gallery, Washington, DC; and Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco, CA. His work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, among others.
Raphael Soyer (b. 1899, Borisoglebsk, RU; d. 1987, New York, NY) was not only a prolific painter, draftsman, and printmaker, but also a catalyst in the Social Realism movement in the United States. Fleeing the tsarist government in the late Russian Empire, Soyer arrived in New York and enrolled at the Cooper Union to study painting and drawing, where his urban, working-class surroundings became his subjects. Soyer advocated his Realist ethos in his teaching and the art journal, Reality, which he co-founded. After years of exhibiting in group shows and biennials, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York held a retrospective in 1967. Soyer’s works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Jewish Museum, New York, NY, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, among others.
Joseph Paul Vorst (b. 1897, Essen, DE; d. 1947, Overland, MI) was a German-American painter, muralist, and printmaker associated with American Regionalism. He studied at the Folkwang Schule in Hagen and the National Academy of Berlin under Max Liebermann and Max Slevogt before immigrating to the United States in 1930, where he became associated with the Ste. Genevieve Art Colony in Missouri. During the 1930s and 1940s, Vorst completed numerous public commissions through New Deal art programs. His work was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, among other institutions. Vorst’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO.
Andre Wagner (b. 1986, Omaha, NE) is a photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Wagner has had solo exhibitions at The Gordon Parks Foundation, Pleasantville, NY (2023); Papillion, Los Angeles, CA (2015); and Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn, NY (2014). He has participated in group exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York, NY (2026); Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY (2024); BROWN Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Providence, RI (2023); Museum of the City of New York, NY (2023); Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (2019); Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2019); and New Gallery of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC (2015). Wagner’s works are in the permanent collections of the Hessel Museum of Art, New York, NY; Gordon Parks Foundation, Pleasantville, NY; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; and Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, IA. Wagner’s photography has been the subject of two monographs: New City, Old Blues (2026: Steidl & The Gordon Parks Foundation) and Here For The Ride (2017: Creative Future).