Karon Davis: Wishful Thinking at Salon 94

Salon 94 on East 89th Street presents Karon Davis: Wishful Thinking, running from November 5 to December 19, 2026.

Davis is a sculptor known for life-size figures made by casting real bodies. This exhibition takes up a pointed question: what has the place of the Black figure been within the canon of art history, a role that has been complicated and, all too often, absent? The title suggests both a desire for that presence and the distance between desire and reality.

The works on view are new life-size nude sculptures, each made by casting the bodies of friends, muses and models. Davis draws on the classical tradition of sculpture and extends it, looking at the nude again through a contemporary lens.

Her sources reach beyond sculpture. Davis pulls from visual art, mythology and theatre, moving across eras from antiquity to the modern period, and assembles figurative tableaux that reflect on Western traditions of representation while imagining them differently. The staged, scene-like quality of these arrangements is likely to be a defining feature of the show.

The gallery is at 3 East 89th Street and is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm. Salon 94 is also opening a new space in Paris, at 30 galerie de Montpensier, on October 18.