What Will You See at Julie Curtiss’s UNREAL at Gagosian New York?

Short answer

Julie Curtiss: UNREAL opens at Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, New York, on November 10, 2026, and runs through December 19, 2026. It is the gallery’s first New York presentation of the Brooklyn-based painter: a suite of new paintings of stylized, faceless figures set in a metropolitan fever dream of apartment interiors, laundromats, bodegas and a fortune teller’s window. The opening reception is Tuesday, November 10, 6 to 8 PM.

Key facts

• Who: Julie Curtiss, a Brooklyn-based painter known for stylized figures whose faces remain obscured, and for cropped compositions that mix humanistic observation with sly humor.
• What: UNREAL, an exhibition of new oil and acrylic paintings about life in New York City, identity, gender and aging, and a pervasive feeling that nothing can be trusted.
• Where: Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011.
• When: November 10 – December 19, 2026. The opening reception is Tuesday, November 10, 6 to 8 PM.
• Admission: Free. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM.

What will you see?

Paintings of a city that no longer feels real. Curtiss positions her stylized figures so their faces remain hidden, while cropped compositions of isolated body parts build a narrative of observation and sly humor. In Makeover (2026), two women on the street become symbols of luxury in fur coats, sunglasses and postoperative compression face masks; shown from behind, their identities are concealed by indications of age and class. Curtiss devotes careful attention to the patterns and textures of her subjects’ hair, coats and accessories, mimicking the way women with means exhibit autonomy through grooming and self-care rituals.

The settings are unmistakably New York: intimate apartment interiors, laundromats, bodegas and a fortune teller’s window. “Nothing feels real right now,” Curtiss says. “It’s not even surreal, just the feeling that nothing can be trusted. We are bombarded with fake everything, AI everything, infiltrating our lives and our sense of reality.”

Why does this exhibition matter?

This is Gagosian’s first presentation of Curtiss’s work in New York, bringing her examination of identity, gender and aging to Chelsea at a moment when her subject, the unreality of everyday life, could hardly be more current. Gagosian, founded by Larry Gagosian in 1980, is a commercial contemporary art gallery with locations around the world; its 24th Street space is one of its two Chelsea flagships.

How do you visit?

The gallery is at 541 West 24th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM; admission is free. Curtiss’s surfaces reward close attention to texture; our guide on cultural mediation explains how to meet a work on its own terms.

FAQ

When does Julie Curtiss: UNREAL open at Gagosian?

The exhibition opens on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, with a reception from 6 to 8 PM, and runs through December 19, 2026.

Does it cost anything?

No. Admission to Gagosian is free.

Is this Julie Curtiss’s first show at Gagosian in New York?

Yes. UNREAL is the gallery’s first New York presentation of her work.

What does the title UNREAL mean?

It names the feeling Curtiss describes behind these paintings: a daily life saturated with fakes, in which, as she puts it, nothing can be trusted and everything feels slightly unreal rather than surreal.

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Sources

• Gagosian, exhibition page for Julie Curtiss: UNREAL: dates, works, artist quote and background.
• Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street location page: address, hours and visitor information.

More context: our guides to Zeng Fanzhi’s first New York show in over a decade at Hauser & Wirth and Kehinde Wiley’s What the Light Becomes at Sean Kelly.