Gagosian will present 'UNREAL', an exhibition of new paintings by Julie Curtiss, opening on 10 November 2026 at the gallery's 541 West 24th Street space in New York. The exhibition runs through 19 December and marks the gallery's first presentation of Curtiss's work in the city.

Curtiss's paintings stage stylised figures whose faces remain turned away or obscured, building narratives out of cropped compositions of isolated body parts. The works balance humanistic observation with a sly, unsettling humour. 'Makeover' (2026), one of the new paintings, depicts two women from behind on the street, dressed in fur coats and sunglasses and wearing postoperative compression face masks; stripped of identity and read only through signals of age and class, they become emblems of a luxury that curdles into something uncanny. Across the show, fragments of anatomy — a wrist, a shoulder, a fold of fabric — are made to carry the full weight of character, forcing viewers to complete the person from almost nothing.

The New York debut extends Curtiss's relationship with the gallery, which has championed the artist as her profile has risen across the United States and Europe. Her work — often described as drawing the grotesque and the glamorous into the same frame — has found an audience attuned to painting that mixes art-historical literacy with pop-cultural provocation.

The exhibition joins a dense autumn programme at the West 24th Street space. With the gallery presenting its first Curtiss show in the city, 'UNREAL' positions the artist within Gagosian's New York roster rather than as a one-off guest appearance.