Tabboo! “Cityscapes”

Karma

[Image: "Tabboo! "Big Green Manhattan Skyline" (2021) acrylic and glitter on canvas, 72½ x 111¼ in.]

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188 & 172 East 2nd Street

Karma and Gordon Robichaux presents Cityscapes, a solo exhibition of paintings by Tabboo!. The expansive show will be on view across Karma’s 188 and 172 East 2nd Street locations and Gordon Robichaux at 41 Union Square West.

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 center 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, gray 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 colorfields 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.”