Marcus Jahmal: Booty at Anton Kern Gallery

Anton Kern Gallery presents Booty, new paintings and an installation by Marcus Jahmal, on view through October 31, 2026. It is his third solo show at the gallery and his first since GIVE ME TWO, the group exhibition he co-curated there in January 2026.

The subject is piracy. Pirates are often cast as romantic outsiders who defy authority, follow their own aims and stand for freedom from monarchy. Their history, though, runs through European colonial expansion and the transatlantic movement of goods, enslaved people and colonial wealth. Jahmal holds both readings in the same picture: the fantasy of the outlaw who upends systems of ownership and trade, and the violence embedded in the history that produced that image. The resulting scenes are playfully absurd and, at the same time, tense and layered.

The paintings extend his practice of invented scenes set against broad fields of color, with elongated, contorted bodies. The figures carry the familiar kit of the screen pirate, including peg legs, hook hands, swords and wide-brimmed hats, an image shaped by popular culture, Hollywood and the swashbuckler of Stevenson's Treasure Island. They fire cannons, walk the plank and raise their blades, performing scenes scripted by books and films. Hands and legs are warped and compressed. Bandanas, jeans and jackets mark them as stand-ins playing a role rather than portraits of historical sailors.

Titles among the works include Captain Hook, Walking the Plank, Woman in Piracy, Black Caesar, Pirate Portrait, Ice Bath and Purple Lady, along with a trio called Booty (1), (2) and (3).

The title carries two meanings: the wealth pirates seize, and the contemporary slang in which the body becomes an object of desire, reward and possession. On the gallery floor, Jahmal builds sculptural heaps of Swarovski crystals, left out as if waiting to be plundered.

The gallery is at 16 East 55th Street in Midtown East and is open Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm.