Jem Perucchini: Sospiro at David Zwirner, Tribeca

David Zwirner's Tribeca gallery at 52 Walker Street will present Sospiro, an exhibition of new paintings by Jem Perucchini, from November 6 to December 19, 2026. Born in 1995, Perucchini is an Italian painter born in Ethiopia. The show is his first in the United States.

He arrives in New York after recent solo presentations at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, two institutions that have given his figurative work significant European exposure.

The paintings draw on a wide range of sources: early Italian Renaissance painting, the patterns of African wax print textiles, ancient Greek mythology, and the frescoes found in Ethiopian churches. Perucchini sets scenes that feel narratively familiar, then fills them with a distinctive cast of figures who tend to look young, slender, and difficult to read. Along the way he borrows from religious iconography and traditional portraiture, stretching the vocabulary of figurative painting.

His compositions often rely on saturated, jewel-like monochrome palettes and are lit by a glowing spherical moon or sun. The worlds he paints sit outside any recognizable historical sequence, at once past, present, and imagined. Built from densely worked, textured surfaces, the scenes touch on enduring tensions in human experience: solitude and partnership, the archetype and the individual, light and darkness.

The title Sospiro is the Italian word for a sigh. A 2026 work of the same name, courtesy of the artist and Corvi-Mora, London, is among the images associated with the show.

An opening reception takes place Friday, November 6, from 6 to 8 PM. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM.