Hanging Out

Invitation card for Nate Lowman's exhibition Hanging Out, opening September 10, 2026, at David Zwirner's 519 West 19th Street location in New York.

The exhibition debuts a body of shaped canvases that take the form of keys, objects freighted with associations of access, security, and exclusion. Lowman has frequently employed universally recognizable shaped canvases including hearts, tree-shaped air fresheners, poppies, and maps, each produced in iterations with distinct painted surfaces. His key paintings extend this vocabulary. They range from tightly rendered replicas to more schematic, nearly abstract forms. Some reproduce dissonant photographic imagery taken by the artist. Others appropriate the bright, patterned novelty finishes available at hardware stores to distinguish one key from another. A silkscreen diptych represents two keys yet to be cut into their final shape. The paintings recall distinct art-historical registers: hard-edged geometric abstraction, loose gestural markmaking, and the flattened logic of the readymade.

Nate Lowman (b. 1979) is an American artist whose practice appropriates imagery from art history, news media, and popular culture. He creates paintings, sculptures, and installations that are critical, humorous, political, and poetic. His work questions the intended meanings of commonplace motifs while generating alternative narratives. Major solo exhibitions include shows at Musée national Eugène Delacroix, Paris (2025); Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires (2024); Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2018); and Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2017). His work is held in collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Guggenheim, Whitney Museum of American Art, Centre Pompidou, and Moderna Museet Stockholm. He has been represented by David Zwirner since 2019.