Nearly a decade ago, Petzel presented We Need to Talk: Artists and the Public Respond to the Present Conditions in America, an exhibition shaped by political rupture and the uneasy sense that what followed might still be reversible. Opening in January 2017, it captured a moment of collective alarm – when a shifting national and global order still felt reversible.
LOUCHE: Sleeping Through the Apocalypse emerges from the long shadow of that moment. What once registered as fear has hardened into lived reality. The years since – marked by political upheaval, ecological crisis, pandemic, and a violent challenge to democratic continuity – have not only confirmed earlier anxieties but exceeded them. If the earlier exhibition was driven by urgency, this one settles into exhausted lucidity.
Yael Bartana
Patriarchy is history, 2019
Neon
63 3/4 x 61 in
162 x 155 cm
Edition 2/5
(YB 20/001)
Cosima von Bonin
El Profesor, 2025
Velvet, cotton, and fleece
59 7/8 x 82 5/8 in
152.1 x 209.9 cm
(CVB 25/010)
Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg
Delights of an undirected mind, 2016
Stop motion animation
6 minutes, 40 seconds
Edition of 3 (AP 1/2)
(NBDH 26/001)
Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg
The Brain Has Corridors (The Love of Rituals), 2018
Plasticine, silicone, acrylic paint, fabric, filling,
epoxy, wood, wire
27 1/2 x 26 x 26 in; 69.9 x 66 x 66 cm
(sculpture)
31 1/2 x 27 1/2 x 27 1/2 in; 80 x 70 x 70 cm
(pedestal)
59 x 27 1/2 x 27 1/2 in; 149.9 x 69.9 x 69.9
cm (overall)
(NBDH 26/002)
Simon Denny
Output 1126, 2026
Plotted acrylic and ink jet on canvas
47 1/4 x 47 1/4 x 1 5/8 in
120 x 120 x 4 cm
(SD 26/012)
Simon Denny
Output 906, 2026
Plotted acrylic and ink jet on canvas
47 1/4 x 47 1/4 x 1 5/8 in
120 x 120 x 4 cm
(SD 26/013)
Simon Denny
Output 952, 2026
Plotted acrylic and ink jet on canvas
47 1/4 x 47 1/4 x 1 5/8 in
120 x 120 x 4 cm
(SD 26/014)
Carroll Dunham
Proof of Concept (III), 2020
Acrylic, graphite, colored pencil, wax crayon and watercolor crayon on linen
Unframed: 60 x 48 in, 152.4 x 121.9 cm
Framed: 66 x 54 x 2 1/2 in, 167.6 x 137.2 x 6.4 cm
(CD 26/001)
Keith Edmier
Untitled (Wreath), 1999
Silicon, dental acrylic, acrylic paint, polyurethane, polypropylene, steel, enamel paint
64 x 40 x 36 in
162.6 x 101.6 x 91.5 cm
(KE 04/003)
This exhibition is not about resistance, nor critique in any familiar sense, but staged indifference: a farce in which cultural production continues unabated as the conditions that sustain it erode. The exhibition performs a deliberate slackening of critical posture — a surrender to spectacle, excess, and dissonance that mirrors a broader social anesthesia. We feared too for our little ivory towers, built over a decade of global expansion in a relatively stable art world. How foolish we were.
To be “louche” is to drift in moral ambiguity, at the edge of clarity and propriety. Humor curdles into menace and seduction gives way to fatigue. The exhibition does not try to awaken its viewers, but implicates them. We recognize the stakes, yet persist in forms of attention increasingly inadequate to them.
Louche offers no exit. It lingers around the limits of imagination—what we failed to foresee, what we have come to accept, and what it might mean to remain awake, if waking is still possible.
Nikita Gale
LOST ARENA 3, 2025
Numbered, signed, and dated verso
Velvet, river sand, cast iron powder, travertine, aluminum
41 x 31 x 5 in
104.1 x 78.7 x 12.7 cm
(NG 25/008)
Philip Guston
Untitled, 1969
Signed lower right.
Charcoal on paper
Unframed: 18 x 24 in, 45.7 x 61 cm
Framed: 26 1/8 x 31 7/8 x 1 1/4 in, 66.4 x 81 x 3.2 cm
(PG 26/001)
Keith Haring
Untitled, 1984
Red and black ink on paper
Unframed: 20 1/8 x 28 3/4 in, 51.1 x 73 cm
Framed: 36 x 28 1/2 x 1 3/4 in, 91.4 x 72.4 x 4.4 cm
(KH 26/003)
Keith Haring
Untitled, 1984
sumi Ink on paper
Unframed: 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 in, 100 x 69.8 cm
Framed: 45 3/4 x 34 x 2 in, 116.2 x 86.4 x 5.1 cm
(KH 26/002)
Keith Haring
Untitled, 1988
Black ink on paper
Unframed: 38 1/8 x 50 in; 96.8 x 127 cm
Framed: 43 ¼ x 55 ¼ x 2 ¼ in; 109.2 x 139.7 x 5.1 cm
(KH 26/001)
Martin Kippenberger
Untitled (Zwerg vor Kanone), 1996
Concrete, wood and steel
dimensions variable
Edition of 7 (#0/7)
(FP 26/003)
Ella Kruglyanskaya
See Saw (Ecstasy in Rust), 2024
Oil on linen
Diptych, overall: 90 x 136 in
228.6 x 345.4 cm
(EK 26/001)
Malcolm Morley
Tilting, 2017
Oil on linen with additional painting attached by aluminum supports
50 x 100 in
127 x 254 cm
(MOR 22/038)
Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe
A Smile Without a Cat, 2005
Four c-prints
16 x 13 in
40.6 x 33 cm
3, Edition 5/10 (AP 3/0)
(PP 04/011)
Joyce Pensato
Majestic Batman, 2017
Enamel and metallic paint on linen
124 x 100 in
315 x 254 cm
(PEN 17/064A)
Seth Price
Are You Read, 2026
Signed and dated on verso
Ink, enamel, acrylic, and mylar collage on extruded polypropylene, mounted to aluminum
66 x 42 x 1 in
167.6 x 106.7 x 2.5 cm
(SPR 26/011)
Seth Price
Puritan Graves, 2024
Plastic, transfer print, UV-print on aluminum
composite
48 x 36 x 1 in
121.9 x 91.4 x 2.5 cm
(SPR 24/046)
Peter Saul
Superwoman, 1995
Color pencil, marker and graphite on paper
29 x 23 in
73.7 x 58.4 cm
(FP 26/001)
Pieter Schoolwerth
Silent Pilot, 2026
Signed verso
Oil, acrylic and inkjet on canvas
71 x 87 in
180.3 x 221 cm
(PS 26/002)
Amy Sillman
Fall: Abstrac/on as X-ray, 2024
Sound by Marina Rosenfeld
Animated drawing, single channel, 1:00 min, color, sound
(AS 26/003)
Amy Sillman
Spring: Abstrac/on as ruin, 2024
Sound by Marina Rosenfeld
Animated drawing, single channel, 1:01 min, color, sound
(AS 26/001)
Amy Sillman
Summer: Abstrac/on as apprehension, 2024
Sound by Marina Rosenfeld
Animated drawing, single channel, 1:04 min, color, sound
(AS 26/002)
Amy Sillman
Winter: Abstrac/on as insomnia, 2024
Sound by Marina Rosenfeld
Animated drawing, single channel, 1:21 min, color, sound
(AS 26/004)
Harold Stevenson
Black Fates, 1973
Oil on canvas
70 x 49 1/2 in
177.8 x 125.7 cm
(HS 26/002)
Nicola Tyson
Handholding, 2025
Signed verso
Acrylic on canvas
77 1/4 x 66 in
196.2 x 167.6 cm
(NT 26/011)
Raphaela Vogel
Boudicca’s night table, 2026
Oil on leather with metal rods
105 1/2 x 81 x 9 in
268 x 205.7 x 22.9 cm
(RV 26/003)
