'GIVE ME TWO': Visual Arts Alums Convene at Anton Kern Gallery
GIVE ME TWO… or give me six! Anton Kern Gallery's ongoing group exhibition, GIVE ME TWO, features six Columbia alums: Olivia Drusin '24, Isaiah Davis '25, Dana Schutz '02, Esteban Jefferson '19, In June Park '25, and Elzie Willams '22—not to mention Assistant Professor of Visual Arts, Kenny Rivero.
Curated by Marcus Jahmal and Giorgia Alliata '25, the show brings twelve living artists together into something of a spatial mixtape—a conversation through physical proximity.
The bold lines of Williams' reimagined Popeye cartoons speak across the gallery to Rivero's hand-painted letters and numbers, insisting on distinctly human mark-making. In front of them, Schutz's warped, dimpled Juggler (43" x 40" x 24 ⅛", bronze, 2019) brings sculpture into the conversation—which Davis responds to in his signature gloopy steel and silver.
Painters Park and Drusin bring psychedelic attention to everyday objects: carseat headrests and stairwells become dizzying investigations into shape and color. Jefferson's oil and graphite figures on linen appropriate the lush detail of Roman antiquity, contrasting his precise technique with stark, raw linen. Rather than drawing attention to mundane beauty, his intentionally unfinished pieces prod at the enduring colonial legacy of the Western art historical canon.
Spanning two floors, the exhibition is connected by a transparent balcony, creating an ongoing dialogue between the works and allowing for new dynamics to emerge depending on the viewer's position in the gallery. More than anything, the curation of the exhibition invites artist-to-artist conversation.
GIVE ME TWO is on view January 14–February 21, 2026 at Anton Kern Gallery, 16 East 55th Street, New York City.
If you'd like to join the conversation, UMARELL, a methodology that focuses on programming events within the process of art-making and exhibition, will be announcing artist talks, walkthroughs, installation screenings, and de-installation viewings that attend to the group of artists and their works in real time.