May 9 – July 2, 2026
Curated by Allen Frame
Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 9, 2026
6:00 – 8:00 PM
Artists include: Adriel Visoto, Alvin Baltrop, Amina Gingold, Ann Weathersby, Boris Torres, Cansu Korkmaz, Cassandra Langer, Charles Henri Ford, Darrel Ellis, Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, Ethan Cherry, Fernan Bilik, Frank Franca, Ian Lewandowski, Jan Rattia, Jeanette Spicer, Jihye Sage Baek, Jimmy Wright, Jo Ann Chaus, Katherine Finkelstein, Kunwar Prithvi Singh Rathore, Libuse Jarcovjakova, Lori Ordover, Marc Ohrem-Leclef, Mariette Pathy Allen, Marley Trigg Stewart, Matthew Leifheit, Michela Palermo, Miguel Ferrando, Oliver Herring, Patricia Voulgaris, Paul Burnham Schwartz, Pavel Tchelitchew, Rachel Stern, Richard Renaldi, Ryan Zogheb, Shohei Miyachi, Spencer Nichols, Stephen Barker, Sue Williams, and Vicky West
Eros grabs me
Eros tells me what to do
you’re going to live . . . says Eros
you’re going to live inside your flesh.
—Untitled fragment from the poetry collection The Bronze Arms by Richie Hofmann (Knopf: New York, 2026)
In CLAMP’s main space, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s opulent crowns and zany candy dishes feature lollipops of Bill Costa beefcake; the two artists’ contrasting aesthetics ripple through the accompanying salon-style group show, “Eros Rising,” curated by Allen Frame, which tracks a century of erotic tension in photographs, drawings, and paintings by forty-one artists.
Among the highlights in the glimmering echo and sultry undertow are Pavel Tchelitchew’s ink wash of sailors, ca. 1930s; Vicky West’s drawing of an epic fetish orgy, ca. 1970-90s; Alvin Baltrop’s iconic photos from the West Side piers, 1977; Libuše Jarcovjáková’s image of a woman’s bare backside as she leans out a window through lace curtains in 1980s West Berlin; and Oliver Herring’s photos of models from his “Studio” series, 2015-17, using glitter, Mylar, flour, and paint to create mythic intensity.
Desire, longing, fantasy, and spectacle align in a dense array of inter-generational work where cinematic tropes abound: Ann Weathersby’s stacked female portraits smuggled into rose-colored kilnformed glass; Boris Torres’ saucy paintings sourced from 1980s French porn films; Michela Palermo’s smoldering image of a woman’s back, her bra slipping off; Frank Franca’s luminous nude man in boots, standing in a spotlight; Rachel Stern’s seductive gloved hand reaching out from a theater curtain with a leafy philodendron; Shohei Miyachi’s graphic couple (that includes himself) locked in a closeup sex encounter; and Stephen Barker’s enmeshed bodies in an East Village sex club from his “Nightswimming” series.
Juxtapositions heighten the atmosphere of casual intimacy: Mariette Pathy Allen’s trans lovers, one shaving the other’s legs; Kunwar Prithvi Singh Rathore’s bare legs, his own and his queer lover’s, stretched out over a coffee table; and Darrel Ellis’ young friends lounging on a sofa.
Jimmy Wright, with three watercolors from his 1975 Bathhouse series, remembers going to the First Avenue Club Baths and coming upon Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt’s cubicle—lit up with colored lights, he says. Lanigan-Schmidt remembers otherwise: it was not his cubicle (which had just the glow from an 8-watt red light bulb he had installed himself), but the one next door. He could see into it through a hole in the wall. A very large man in a tiny bathrobe had strung up the colored lights and sat munching from a huge bag of potato chips—The Potato Chip Queen, Tommy called him.