You Know You Feel Dirty. Change Yer Sheets
“We should all aspire to be better people. So change yer sheets. Now. And welcome to 2026.”
— Benjamin Tischer
Angelo Madsen, My Structuralist Film, 2026. Edition 1 of 5, single-channel video. Courtesy of the artist and New Discretions
At the gallery entrance, an image of the inside of a colon—the star of Angelo Madsen’s video work, My Structuralist Film (2026)—alongside painted images of Pee-wee Herman morphing into the artist Aaron Michael Skolnick, sets the tone for New Discretions Gallery’s first exhibition in 2026, Change Yer Sheets. Indeed, the entire show aims to please. Presented are works from fourteen artists made between 1962 and 2026 that, together with the show’s suggestive title, consent to our inner peeping tom.
Aaron Michael Skolnick, Me and Pee Wee, 2025. Various, oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and New Discretions
The theme was inspired by the twentieth-century works in the show: Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972) and Conversions II: Insistence, Adaptation, Groundwork (1971), as well as Fakir Musafar’s The Collar (1962) and Wearing Lead III (1962)—two of his body augmentation works. Not only do these works still feel fresh and relevant today, but they also remind us that the use of kink, the transformed body, and intimate moments might shock some, but it is precisely what exposes our humanity. The body is our primary point of relation, and the work invites us to rediscover a shared sense of inner gleeful liberation.
Fakir Musafar, The Collar, Self Portrait, 1962. Edition 3 of 25, silver gelatin print. 14 x 11 in. Courtesy of New Discretions
We’ve been told to change our sheets, with the implication that we have soiled them. And even though making them dirty might have been fun, we are now ready for a refresh. The exhibition asks us to reflect on the marks we left behind and who we want to be as we ring in the new year. To be struck in yer face by this timely question is just what Benjamin Tischer of New Discretions brings to his group shows again and again. Considering last year’s The World is Garbage (co-curated with SITUATIONS), who could be surprised that Tischer does it again?
Here, the works are incestuous in their relationship to each other, both in their imagery and in a real practical way: Madsen wrote and directed the recent documentary about Musafar entitled A Body to Live In, and on one wall, Clarity Haynes’s Linus (study) (2023) depicts the torso of the artist Linus Borgo, whose bathroom home-surgery scene, Haruspex (2023), depicts another artist, Felix Beaudry, whose work has often appeared as part of the programming of SITUATIONS. (SITUATIONS alternates shows with New Discretions at the same space—kissing cousins, so to speak.) Borgo’s painting is a microcosm of the show itself, where the naked protagonist dissects, reinvents, and sews up a doll, whilst a fragment of another body in the mirror shows us someone totally different—a reflection of a person watching, one imagined, or one yet to come.
Linus Borgo, Haruspex, 2023. Oil on canvas. 64 x 54 in. Courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo
Refreshingly, the exhibition might be about sex, yet it is without a load of objectified women’s bodies. Some works are evidence of a body, and some are augmented fantasies. Yet through the assembling of these works, we are made voyeurs and reminded of how sex, identity, and aspiration are inseparably and intimately linked: how we feel in them, act with them, create and present them as who we want to be. We can’t help but look—we want to look. Up close. Get in there.
If you’ve ever wondered what role play and pierced teapots have in common, this show is for you. It’s up for a while, preparing us all for Valentine's Day.
Installation view of Change Yer Sheets. Courtesy of New Discretions
Change Yer Sheets is on view at New Discretions through February 14th.
