Petzel Gallery in New York has unveiled the third installment of The Viewing Room, a focused exhibition series that offers an intimate look into new and pivotal works by contemporary artists. This edition places the spotlight on Hudson Valley–based artist Tschabalala Self, who presents a new body of work that extends her ongoing inquiries into figuration, abstraction, and the multiplicity of Black selfhood. The exhibition runs from May 14 to May 23, 2025, and marks a significant moment in Self’s career as Petzel also announces her formal representation, in collaboration with Pilar Corrias in London and Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zurich.
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Titled The Viewing Room, the series functions not only as an exhibition platform but as a site for dialogue and reflection. Self’s presentation explores the mechanics of repetition and pattern as visual and psychological tools. Known for her collaged approach to figuration, Self uses sewn, printed, and painted materials to construct depictions of predominantly female bodies that exist outside of traditional frameworks. Through this technique, she builds a visual language that references both historical craft and contemporary painting while challenging dominant narratives around identity and representation.
Central to the presentation is Heroine No. 2, a largescale painting that shows a female figure in a Virabhadrasana II yoga pose, an asana named after a warrior incarnation of the Hindu god Shiva. Here, Self’s subject occupies a liminal floral space, moving forward in strength and transformation, seemingly unaffected by the viewer’s presence. The painting, like much of Self’s work, combines the spiritual and the personal, the symbolic and the embodied, channeling a sense of quiet resistance through visual composition.
Self also debuts a new series titled Studies on Wood, which introduces a distilled format within her practice. These works resemble poetic fragments, more abstract than narrative, yet rooted in the same emotional and cultural register that defines her larger compositions. They function as meditations, teasing out themes that recur throughout her oeuvre while offering new spatial and material considerations.
Across the presentation, Self’s figures resist classification. They are not characters designed for interpretation but instead visual assertions of autonomy and presence. Her work neither conforms to nor explicitly rejects the gaze placed upon the Black body, it destabilizes it entirely. By creating a visual field in which these bodies operate on their own terms, Self opens up speculative possibilities around pleasure, self-realization, and refusal.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Self will appear in conversation with interdisciplinary artist Shanekia McIntosh on Saturday, May 17 at 4pm. Their discussion promises to expand on the themes in the exhibition and explore how personal narratives intersect with broader cultural memory. The talk continues the gallery’s push for meaningful engagement, as The Viewing Room series moves forward with additional programming this fall featuring artists such as Stefanie Heinze, James Little, and Seth Price.
