May 28–August 16, 2026
Long Island City NY 11101
United States
Hours: Monday and Thursday–Sunday 12–6pm
Akinsanya Kambon: Soul Sessions
A collaboration with the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA)
On view: May 28–August 16, 2026
Opening reception at SculptureCenter: May 27, 2026, 6–8pm
Opening reception at CARA: May 28, 2026, 5:30–7:30pm
SculptureCenter and the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA) present Soul Sessions, the first two-venue survey exhibition dedicated to artist, educator, and organizer Akinsanya Kambon. The show borrows its title from weekly gatherings organized by Black Marines during the Vietnam War, where Kambon served as infantryman and combat illustrator. These “soul sessions” became spaces of learning—fostering solidarity, education, and community building. SculptureCenter’s presentation includes over ninety of Kambon’s intricately crafted figurative ceramics, which depict African mythologies, deities, historical figures, and events tied to legacies of violence and resistance across the United States, the African diaspora, and colonial and neo-colonial Africa. At CARA, the exhibition foregrounds Kambon’s expansive practice through a selection of works on paper, paintings, wall plaques, and archival materials that surface stories of oppression, resistance, and spirituality.
Ellen Pau: She Moves
On view: May 28–August 16, 2026
Opening reception: May 27, 2026, 6–8pm
She Moves is the first US survey exhibition of the pioneering video artist Ellen Pau, bringing together thirteen of her selected videos and installations from the late 1980s to the present. A self-taught artist born in British Hong Kong, Pau works across video, installation, and performance, and is drawn towards the aesthetics of abstraction and ambiguity. The electronic medium, which the artist rigorously engages, is a source from which Pau communicates a poetic and implicit political commentary. While her work is rooted in the cultural landscape of Hong Kong, it reaches beyond any single place, speaking to a shared and universal experience.
In Practice: Magdalena Petroni
On view: May 28–July 6, 2026
Opening reception: May 27, 2026, 6–8pm
Magdalena Petroni’s practice delves into the subtext of meaning in popular visual language, drawing from media, branding, and online subcommunities. Layering painting and sculpture, her works often accumulate within immersive installations. Dissimilar objects are assembled in a frantic manner, exploring alterity, the uncanny, and the extrasensory in relation to the alienated. For In Practice, she examines the blurred boundaries between reality and hyperreality through a site-responsive environment that expands on her research into perception, liminal spaces, and movie sets.
In Practice: Michaela Bathrick
On view: July 16–August 16, 2026
Opening reception: July 16, 2026, 6–8pm
Michaela Bathrick’s work finds subtle instances of expression in the functional forms of the built environment. Head-on, her sculptures—primarily made of cast cement treated with soap stain—seem formal, weathered, and neglected, like brackets or fittings decommissioned from a public building. From other angles, they resemble letters or bits of language, drawing out the wry, barely ornamental excesses of public space, and creating the sense that the city may be built of incomplete utterances. Bathrick is developing a new body of work for In Practice.
Events
An Evening with Ellen Pau at MoMA: May 18, 7pm
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Akinsanya Kambon: The Hero Avenges Book Launch: May 30, 4pm
Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA)
Approaching Ellen Pau at Asia Art Archive in America: June 3, 6:30pm
Asia Art Archive in America
Fall 2026
Solo exhibitions featuring new work from Aziz Hazara and Cevdet Erek will be on view alongside an exhibition by Yining Fei.
Support
Generous support for Akinsanya Kambon: Soul Sessions is provided by the Kayne Opportunity Fund and Berry Stein. Additional funding is provided by Angela Robinson-Witherspoon.
Generous support for Akinsanya Kambon: Soul Sessions at SculptureCenter is provided by the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation; Ortuzar, New York; Marc Selwyn Fine Art; and V. Joy Simmons, MD. Additional funding is provided by Tim Disney.
Generous support for Ellen Pau: She Moves is provided by Shane Akeroyd, Angelo K H Chan and Frederick Wertheim, Wendy Lee, Nelson Leong, Margaret Wang, and Anonymous.
Generous support for the Ellen Pau: She Moves exhibition catalog is provided by Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong and New York.
Ellen Pau’s artwork production development and video upscaling were supported by The Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
In Practice is made possible by the Elaine Graham Weitzen Commissioning Fund for Emerging Artists.
Major support for the In Practice program is provided by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
Generous support for In Practice is provided by Sarah Elson.
The SculptureCenter Asymmetry Curatorial Fellowship is made possible by Asymmetry.
Support for all of SculptureCenter’s work with artists from abroad is provided by the International Council: Anonymous, Stephen Cheng, Yan Du, Thomas Berger, Shareen Khattar, Kenneth Tan, Füsun Eczacıbaşı - SAHA, Antonio Murzi and Diana Morgan, Yuan Han Li, and Audrey Rose Smith and Vicente Muñoz.
Leadership support for SculptureCenter’s exhibitions and programs is provided by Carol Bove, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, Barbara von Portatius, and Teiger Foundation. Major support is provided by Richard Chang, Jill and Peter Kraus, Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins, Eleanor Heyman Propp, Jacques Louis Vidal, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Generous support is provided by Candy and Michael Barasch, Jane Hait and Justin Beal, Gabrielle Humphrey, Amy and Sean Lyons, Lily Lyons, Ronay and Richard Menschel, Poppy Pulitzer, and Alexander S.C. Rower. Additional funding is provided by Ben Ackerley, Charmaine and Roman Mendoza, Matt and Elizabeth Quigley, Katharine Ristich, Julien Sarkozy, Carla Shen, Kristina Wong Foster, and Lisa Young and Steven Abraham.
Leadership support for SculptureCenter’s annual operations is provided by the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation. Major support is provided by Irene and Allen H. Brill, the Hartwig Art Foundation, and the A. Woodner Fund. Generous support is provided by Andrew Fine and David Andersson, Zenas Hutcheson/The Knox Foundation, Marinela Samourkas, our Board of Trustees, and many charitable individuals and friends.
SculptureCenter’s programming and operations are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
