Rare Aesthetic: driving to Newark Airport in the morning. Rare Aesthetic: rural middle school in 2012. Rare Aesthetic: texting a situationship during a family roadtrip. Rare Aesthetic: surreal old cartoons. Rare Aesthetic: when aesthetic was aesthetic. The TikTok trend Rare Aesthetic began as a joke about the internet’s seemingly unlimited capacity to produce microcultures, but quickly transformed into something else: slideshows of images, often innocuous smartphone pics, accompanied by highly specific, highly relatable, usually nostalgic captions. Some will resonate immediately, others remain inscrutable; we didn’t all have that strange toy growing up, and we don’t all know what it’s like to be a “divorced librarian.” As social media increasingly professionalizes, Rare Aesthetic does something that in itself might be nostalgic – it disturbs the feed with truly amateur, truly weird, but also completely banal, content. It brings social media back to its absurdist origins.
The exhibition Rare Aesthetics gathers together works by Vikky Alexander, Jessica Diamond, Nancy Dwyer, and Julia Wachtel, all artists whose practices surfaced in the wake of paradigmatic 1980s exhibitions like Pictures and Infotainment, and places them in conversation with a number of emerging artists, including Katherine Auchterlonie, Sophie Giraux, Madeleine Ray Hines, Connor Marie Stankard, Sofia Sinibaldi, Marius Steiger, and Alix Vernet. While the artists in this constellation are not stylistically unified, they all share a sustained engagement with how images are produced, circulated, and internalized. Conceptually heterogeneous as well, these artists contend discretely with the processes by which images both structure and elicit desire. But rather than confronting or critiquing image culture directly, they more often attend to the image’s affective dimensions, foregrounding atmospheric renderings of interiority, ambient traces of cultural detritus, or playful evocations of social performance within their work.
Some works on view also serve as meta-commentary on the formation of cultural nostalgia: Vikky Alexander’s photographic appropriations of fashion editorials – Blue of Noon, 1980 – may have appeared knowingly commonplace when they were first exhibited, but through time they have become evocative of a glamorous lost world, a Rare Aesthetic. Although created more recently, Julia Wachtel’s painting Flood, 2024, and Nancy Dwyer’s Lazy Girl, 1989, both extend formal strategies devised by the artists in the second half of the Twentieth Century, carrying their incisive social observations into the present. As suggested by Dwyer’s humorous flip on La-Z-Boy furniture, questions of gender, and particularly its codification through imagistic representation, are never far from mind. For her part, Jessica Diamond, well-known for her wall texts, pithily notes the disposability of women who appear on screen, by way of the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard: NORMA DESMOND IS 50.
If all of these artists seem to revel in pop imagery and phrasings, it makes sense their digital-native companions would turn more decisively toward material abstraction, seemingly allegorizing the ways in which we interface with images through screens or encapsulating the lingering feeling left by a glut of content. The Rare Aesthetic here is more closely linked to the subjective experience of consuming the algorithm – swiping or skimming or doomscrolling content – than it is to a reflection upon the cultural past. Through markedly different approaches, Sophie Giraux, Madeleine Ray Hines, and Alix Vernet all deal in residual imprints, signs of wear or indices of process, traces of things left behind. Elsewhere, Sofia Sinibaldi aggregates photographs and scanned imagery into densely layered abstractions; the source photographs capture ordinary experiences on the street, yet in composite they appear to function as afterimages, hazy impressions left by visual overstimulation. There are outliers, too: Katherine Auchterlonie’s Pillow Study, 2025, serves here as a counterpoint, a gestural depiction of sustained observation; and Connor Marie Stankard’s portraits return us to the contentions of gendered subject- formation through digital media. One final splashy disruption is provided by Marius Steiger’s Car (A Still Life for the Drunken Ones), 2026, a largescale painting of a Volvo sedan. The Volvo is topped by trompe-l’oeil alcohol bottles and apples, the latter one of Steiger’s recurrent motifs, but the graphic rendering of the vehicle itself is more real than real – a moment of screen-space crashing into the gallery.
Vikky Alexander (b.1959, Victoria, CA) lives and works in Montreal, CA. She gained her BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax, CA) in 1979. Selected solo presentations: “Dream Palace,” Galerie Allen, Paris, FR (2024); “World Light,” trepanierBaer Gallery, Calgary, CA (2023); “Between Dreaming and Living,” PHOTO OP, Auckland, NZ (2023); and “Les Jardins de Versailles,” Wilding Cran, Los Angeles, US (2022). Selected group exhibitions: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “Core Samples: Selections from the Collection,” Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Montreal, CA (2025); “Black and White and Everything in Between: A Monochrome Journey,” Vancouver, CA (2024); and “Legally Blonde,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2022). Alexander’s work is included in significant public and private collections internationally including Air Canada, CA; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, US; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, US; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, US; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA and among numerous others.
Katherine Auchterlonie (b. 1999, Portland, US) lives and works in New York, US. Her recent exhibitions include: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “Summering in Cyberspace,” Charmoli Charmoli, New York, US (2025); “Unrequited,” Spy Projects at Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, US (2024); and “A Private Viewing,” Charmoli Charmoli, New York, US (2023).
Jessica Diamond (b. 1957, New York, US) lives and works in New York, US. Selected solo exhibitions include: “Wheel Of Life,” Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, National Mall, Washington, DC, US (2023); and “Film Show,” Team (Bungalow), Los Angeles, US (2016). Selected group exhibitions include: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “New Collection Display,” Mudam Luxembourg, Luxembourg, LU (2025); “Radio Luxembourg: Echoes across borders,” Mudam Luxembourg, LU (2025); “New Language and perfect for what it is...,” Grieder Contemporary, Zurich, CH (2025); “Faire Corps/Becoming,” Le Forum Tokyo, Fondation d'entreprise Hermés, Tokyo, JP (2025); “Aoulioulé," MRAC Occitanie, Serignan, FR (2022); and “Hello America,” Karma International, Zurich, CH (2021).
Nancy Dwyer (b. 1954, New York, US) lives and works in Santa Fe, US. Dwyer has exhibited internationally since the mid-1970s. She was a co-founder of Hallwalls, the non-profit organization established in 1974 as a cooperative for artists in Buffalo, US. Recent solo exhibitions include: “Nancy Dwyer ALWAYS,” Ortuzar Projects, New York, US (2025); “Hot Mess,” Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, CH (2024); and “How About Never?,” Theta, New York, US (2023). Group exhibitions include: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “What are we in now?,” The Wig, Berlin, DE (2024); “Everyone Loves Picabia,” David Lewis, New York, US (2024); and “Holly Village II, Derosia and GEMS, New York, US (2023). Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, US; the Brooklyn Museum, New York, US; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York, US; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, US; MOCA Los Angeles, US; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, NL; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US, among others.
Sophie Giraux (b. 1984, Paris, FR) lives and works in New York and Paris. Solo exhibitions include: “C-C-C,” Jenny’s New York, US (2025); “C-C-C,” And Now, Dallas, US (2024); “Dolly,” Etablissement d’en Face, Brussels, BE (2021); and And Now, Dallas, US (2019). Group exhibitions include: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “What are we in now??” The Wig, Berlin, DE (2024); “The Big Chill,” Bernheim Gallery, London, UK (2023); and “Repeater,” The Wig, Berlin, DE (2023).
Madeleine Ray Hines (b. 1988, Chicago, US) lives and works in New York, US. Solo exhibitions include: “As Is,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2025); “Residuals,” Cheremoya, Los Angeles, US (2025); and “The Loved Object,” Situations, Catskill, US (2023). Group exhibitions include: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “As beautiful as a chance encounter with a sewing machine,” Hesse Flatow, New York, US (2025); “Greed,” GDL525, Amsterdam, NL (2025); “Manic Pixie Nightmare Drawings,” Adler Beatty, New York, US (2024); “The Same Room,” Shoot the Lobster, New York, US (2023); “Summer Exhibition,” Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York, US (2023); “Family Style,” Situations, New York, US (2023); “Friends with Benefits,” Estrella Gallery, New York, US (2022); “The Last Day of Disco,” Restaurant Projects, New York, US (2022); and “Onder,” Diez Gallery, Amsterdam, NL (2022). The artist completed her MFA at the New York Academy of Art (New York, US) in 2014, and received her BA from Boston College (Boston, US) in 2010.
Sofia Sinibaldi (b. 1992, Guatemala City, GT) lives and works in New York, US. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2016. Solo exhibitions include: “Souvenirs and Substitutions,” Chapter NY, New York, US (2024); “Half of Me,” Inge, New York, US (2024); “You’re So in Your Head,” Jack Hanley Gallery, New York, US (2023); and “Eye to Eye Delirium,” Interstate Projects, New York, US (2020). Group exhibitions include: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “Shimmerburn,” Juf, Madrid, ES (2025); “Empieza La Noche,” Grupo Ñ, Mexico City, MX (2025); “Contemporary Fossil Record,” Jack Hanley Gallery, New York, US (2024); and “A Sofa Under My Painting,” Pio Pico, Los Angeles, US (2023).
Marius Steiger (b. 1999, Bern, CH) is a Swiss artist who holds a Master’s degree in Painting from the Royal College of Art in London, UK. He has been awarded a scholarship from the Patronage Fund for Young Swiss Artists of the Kunsthalle Basel. His recent exhibitions include “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “Hermitage,” Kunst Raum Riehen, Basel, CH (2025); “Vanity, Duarte Sequeira,” Seoul, KR (2025); “Brick Breath Horizon,” Lisson Gallery, Shanghai,CN (2025); “Clear History,” Perrotin, Paris, FR (2025); “Day, Galleri Opdahl,” Stavanger, NO (2024); “1974/2024,” Villa Benkemoun, Arles, FR (2024); “Sun shines, Money falls,” Blue Velvet, Zurich, CH (2023); and “Lust for Life,” Incubator, London, UK (2022). His work is part of public collections such as the Art Collection of the Canton of Bern, CH; the Art Collection of the City of Zurich, CH; the Collection of the New Art Dealers Alliance, New York, US; and the Swiss National Library, Bern, CH.
Connor Marie Stankard (b. 1992, Princeton, US) lives and works in New York, US. She received her BFA from Pace University, New York, US, in 2015 and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, US, in 2021. Selected solo exhibitions include: “Love Apple,” Night Gallery South, Los Angeles, US (2024); and “Ava, Chloe, Blair, Nicole, Lubov,” New York, US (2022). Her work has been included in group exhibitions: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “It Smells Like Girl,” Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, US (2025); “Social Photography XI,” Carriage Trade, New York, US (2025); and “Beach,” Nino Mier Gallery, New York, US (2023).
Alix Vernet (b. 1997, Denver, US) lives and works in New York, US. She received a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles and completed her MFA in Sculpture at Yale. Vernet has had solo exhibitions at Helena Anrather, New York, US; and group exhibitions at Museion, Bolzano, IT; the Gund Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, US; Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, US; and Soft Opening, London, UK. Her photographs have been published by Dashwood Books, and she has received critical recognition in Frieze, Texte Zur Kunst, Artforum, and Art in America.
Julia Wachtel (b. 1956, New York, US) lives and works in New York, US. She received her BA from Middlebury College in 1979. Solo exhibitions include: “Plastic Fantasy,” VonAmmon Co., Washington, DC, US (2024); “Fulfillment,” Helena Anrather Gallery, New York, US (2022); “Helpp,” Mary Boone Gallery, New York, US (2019); “Displacement,” Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, US (2017); Vilma Gold, London, UK (2016); and Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, US (2014). Group exhibitions include: “Rare Aesthetics,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2026); “Hello Hello Hello,” Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, US (2025); “Future Shock,” Lisson Gallery, New York, US (2023); “The Sum of All Parts,” MoMA, New York, US (2021); “The Sorcerer’s Burden,” The Contemporary Austin, Austin, US (2019); “Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980s,” Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, US (2018); “Fast Forward: Paintings from the 1980s,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US (2017); and “Champagne Life,” Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2016).
