Nicole Eisenman, new paintings in Hong Kong and a group show in New York
Published on 08/24/2026 at 13:45 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Nicole Eisenman anchors the summer with a solo exhibition Fallen Angels in Hong Kong and a group appearance in New York. As Hauser & Wirth notes in its exhibition text, Fallen Angels runs at the gallery's Hong Kong space from March 24 to May 30, 2026, while the group show Fool's Privilege at Uffner & Liu in New York features Eisenman's work alongside sixteen colleagues.
Solo exhibition Fallen Angels
Hauser & Wirth presents Nicole Eisenman's first solo exhibition in Asia under the title Fallen Angels, focusing on eleven new paintings and three sculptures that orbit the sites of home, work and beach. The show opened in Hong Kong on March 24, 2026 and runs through May 30, 2026, coinciding with Art Basel Hong Kong to anchor Eisenman's presence in the region.
The exhibition's title painting Fallen Angels (2025) introduces a nocturnal atmosphere reminiscent of Wong Kar-wai's cinema, setting a darker register that threads through seemingly ordinary interiors. Works such as A Good Place to Start (2025) and Leonard Street (2025) compress the tension between domestic calm and looming urban unease, with Eisenman using thick impasto and wine-dark skies to signal how exterior darkness penetrates familiar rooms.
Group show Fool's Privilege in New York
At Uffner & Liu in New York, the group exhibition Fool's Privilege runs from July 10 to August 28, 2026, gathering sixteen artists whose work taps the logic of the fool as an agent of critique and inversion. The press release explicitly positions humor as a vehicle for seriousness, allowing figures like clowns and tricksters to expose social hierarchies through exaggeration and absurdity.
Within this context, Nicole Eisenman appears alongside painters such as Dana Schutz and Peter Saul as part of a lineage of American figurative painting where distortion, grotesquerie and excess serve as deliberate rhetorical tools rather than stylistic accidents. Eisenman's contribution sits in dialogue with works like Genieve Figgis's Court Painting (2026) and Curtis Talwst Santiago's Tears of a Clown (2024), emphasizing how comedy and caricature continue to function as forms of authority and critique.
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The exhibition axis in 2026
Eisenman's exhibitions in 2026 form a clear axis between Europe, Asia and the United States. In addition to Fallen Angels in Hong Kong, Hauser & Wirth lists a Zurich presentation of Eisenman's sculpture-focused show with, and, of, on Sculpture at its Limmatstrasse space from June 12 to September 5, 2026, which extends her presence into a Swiss context.
On the institutional side, the retrospective Nicole Eisenman: What Happened continues at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, offering a survey of approximately 100 works from 1992 to 2023. The show follows earlier stations at Museum Brandhorst in Munich and Whitechapel Gallery in London, underscoring how Eisenman’s painting and sculpture have entered museum collection and exhibition tiers across Europe and the U.S.
How the artist works
Nicole Eisenman is known primarily for figurative painting that blends everyday scenes with historical and political references, often laced with humor and a sense of unease. Her practice has expanded into sculpture and installation, with works such as Banandelier (2022) and bronze pieces like Mad Cat (2024) showing how she treats found objects and cast forms as extensions of painterly thinking.
Across series from What Happened to Fallen Angels, Eisenman revisits motifs over many years, reworking canvases like Hope Street with Freddy and George (2016-2023) to embed temporal layering in the paint surface. This revisiting aligns with her broader concern for how private and public life, queer subjectivity and social critique intersect in images that oscillate between intimacy and collective allegory.
Where the artist stands now
Nicole Eisenman currently stands at a point where commercial gallery projects in Hong Kong, Zurich and New York intersect with an ongoing museum retrospective in Chicago, signalling sustained institutional and market interest across multiple regions in mid-2026.
Nicole Eisenman at a glance
- Artist: Nicole Eisenman
- Medium / Genre: Painting and sculpture (figurative, politically inflected)
- Born: 1965, Versailles, France
- Place(s) of practice: Studio in Brooklyn, New York
- Active since: Early 1990s, with major institutional visibility from the 2010s onward
- Key work groups: What Happened, Fallen Angels, Heads, Kisses, Battles: Nicole Eisenman and the Moderns, Giant Without a Body
- Current/last exhibition: Nicole Eisenman: What Happened, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, on view through September 22, 2026
- Major collections: Museum Brandhorst (Munich), MCA Chicago, Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo), Kunsthalle Bielefeld collaborations, various U.S. and European museum holdings cited across retrospective venues.
- Awards: MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2015), American Academy of Arts and Letters induction (2018)
- Next date: Group exhibition Fool's Privilege at Uffner & Liu, New York, running through August 28, 2026
Frequently asked questions about Nicole Eisenman
Where is Nicole Eisenman currently on view?
Nicole Eisenman is currently visible in the group show Fool's Privilege at Uffner & Liu in New York, running from July 10 to August 28, 2026, and in the retrospective Nicole Eisenman: What Happened at MCA Chicago, on view through September 22, 2026.
What defines the exhibition Fallen Angels in Hong Kong?
The exhibition Fallen Angels at Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong, open from March 24 to May 30, 2026, comprises eleven new paintings and three sculptures that focus on three sites of middle class living: home, work and beach, with a notably dark and contemplative tone.
How does Fool's Privilege position Nicole Eisenman among other painters?
Fool's Privilege at Uffner & Liu frames Eisenman alongside Dana Schutz and Peter Saul as part of a longer arc of American figurative painters who use distortion, grotesquerie and excess as deliberate rhetorical tools, situating younger artists in this lineage of irreverent social commentary.
This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.
