Petzel is pleased to present the seventh installment of The Viewing Room, a series that spotlights specially curated works across media and genre by gallery artists, open to the public for a limited time. This iteration will feature new paintings by Hudson Valley-based artist Tschabalala Self. In conjunction with The Viewing Room, Self currently has a work on the façade of the New Museum in New York. In the fall, she will unveil a sculpture on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square.

On view from May 12 through May 16, 2026, Self's presentation continues the artist's ongoing investigation into the emotional, physical, and psychological states that animate the human figure. Her work is dedicated to figuration. She constructs depictions of predominantly Black figures using a combination of sewn, printed, and painted materials, traversing different artistic and craft traditions. The formal and conceptual aspects of Self's work seek to expand her critical inquiry into selfhood and the human experience.

Across this new suite of works, each figure inhabits a distinct interior condition — states of grace, vulnerability, and spiritual protection rendered through Self's characteristic fusion of stitch, textile assemblage, and paint. The works draw on vernacular language, scripture, and embodied experience to locate the universal within the deeply particular. Shown in unison, the paintings engage varied iterations of a shared reckoning with what it means to exist fully within one's own body and one's own life.

Creek, 2026, takes its title from the Americanism "God willing and the creek don't rise," a vernacular idiom originating in the American South in the late 18th or early 19th century. The expression speaks to the desire to complete a goal or task without unforeseen interference. This painting shows a figure sitting leisurely by a metaphorical creek. Her grace is reflected in not only her posture but also her attitude. This grace and optimism, despite possible adversity, is reflected in the work's title. Relaxed and at ease, the painting's protagonist finds comfort in the waters.

In Humility, 2025, a man with a bowed head stands vulnerable and nude, alone with only his consciousness as company. There exist no airs, no performance, only quiet reflection. He is humbled not by man or woman, but by life itself; not by its disappointments or its joy, but by its sheer magnitude. Through that humility, he arrives at gratitude, and through gratitude, at the true grandeur of the human experience — one made sweeter by the knowledge of knowing that he knows nothing at all.

Rooted in scripture, The Anointed Head, 2026, draws on Psalm 23:5 — "You anoint my head with oil" — a passage that symbolizes God's intimate care, protection, and blessing, acting as a shepherd who heals and protects his sheep from harm, insects, and distress. This work reveals a feminine figure and her shadow. Her head is illuminated as she looks upward—outlined in light—protected by a force greater than herself.

Kana, 2026, takes its name from the Hebrew word meaning to be humbled, to subdue, or to break down low, a term used in biblical contexts to denote submission to God. The work serves as a companion piece to Humility, 2025, and when the two paintings are placed together, their figures bow toward one another.

The Viewing Room continues through 2026, with presentations coinciding with programming such as book signings, artist talks, and screenings, to be announced.

About Tschabalala

Self Tschabalala Self (b. 1990 Harlem, New York) lives and works in the Hudson Valley, New York. Recent solo exhibitions and performances include Longlati Foundation, Shanghai (2025); Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland (2024); Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen (2023); Le Consortium, Dijon (2022); Performa 2021 Biennial, New York City (2021); Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2021); ICA, Boston (2020); among others.

Self’s work is included in collections such as Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, USA; Consortium Museum, Dijon, France; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA; ICA Boston, Boston, USA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France; Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA; New Museum, New York, USA; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Stedelijk Museum Collection, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Studio Museum Harlem, New York, USA; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; among others.