Cary Leibowitz

Cary Leibowitz

You Haven't Changed At All

October 17 to November 30, 2024

Tibor de Nagy Gallery is proud to present, You Haven't Changed At All, a solo exhibition by Cary Leibowitz. The exhibition runs in conjunction with a sister presentation, You Really Let Yourself Go, at New Discretions, New York.

The following poem, written by Leibowitz, serves as an playful introduction to the exhibition:

Conceit

repeat

Connect the dots

Bon mots

Man Ray objects

Magritte Visual puns

Arp wood paintings

Amateur signage

Fluxus

dada

Dad jokes

Sad jokes

Mad jokes

Do overs

Re-do

Regret

Cry baby

Words that rhyme with fart

Leibowitz’s words provide a foundation from which one may explore the artist’s new text paintings included in You Haven't Changed at All. The double edge of the exhibition's title is seen in the diptych which features two pink hearts with one saying I HEART U and the other I FART U; in another artwork, a tondo declares, I'VE GOT SOMETHING VERY VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT TO SAY; and in another, a silhouette of a dog (pictured above) states SILLY BILLY YOU FUCKED-UP AGAIN. Congratulations, you won.

For decades, Leibowitz has been the New York art world’s master painter of abjection and neurosis, self-loathing, self-doubt, and self-interrogation—“like a human dynamo of insecurity,” Rhonda Lieberman wrote in Artforum in 1992. His uproarious text paintings of self-lacerating one-liners, typically composed against glossy, pastel-colored wood “canvases,” are self-conscious counterpoints to neo-expressionist grandiosity and the new pop spectacle of the 1990s art world—incorporating elements of therapy, interrogation, social and institutional critique, and stand-up comedy. Leibowitz’s work, however, is also (and always) deeply personal and idiosyncratic, driven by anxieties, neuroses, and premonitions of difference. Work that explores the nagging of crippling conscience that perpetually lies beneath, behind, or just around the corner—with a mocking and knowing wink.

Leibowitz’s love for puns and metaphors is also a marker of this new body of work. A pineapple, in bright yellow, states CRY ME A PINEAPPLE (pictured below). In another work, the shape of a circular saw declares, OK OK I DIDN'T SAW YOU U U DIDN'T SAW ME OK OK. Leibowitz explains, as paintings, they are “seductive brushstrokes.”

Leibowitz has produced periodically throughout his career a distinctive form, the unique multiple. Last year even saw the publishing of “Official Candyass Muggery Drinking Vessels 1990 – 2023 Catalogue Raisonné by Cary Leibowitz” by Krakow Witkin Gallery. Visitors to You Haven't Changed At All will be gifted a new story/poem in the form of a mug—an offering from the artists to all. You are welcome.

Cary Leibowitz (b. 1963) has exhibited in museums and institutions across the globe including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; The Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; The Jewish Museum, New York; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; PS1 MoMA, New York; to name just a few. His work has been reviewed in the New Yorker, Artforum, The New York Times, Frieze Magazine, Art in America, among others, and is included in the permanent collection of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the Hirshhorn Museum, and The Jewish Museum in New York. He currently has an installation included in the exhibition, Get in the Game at SFMOMA.