Jem Perucchini, a painter born in Ethiopia in 1995 who lives and works in Milan, will have his first exhibition in the United States on Walker Street in Tribeca. David Zwirner opens Sospiro, a show of new paintings, at its Tribeca gallery at 52 Walker Street on Friday, November 6, with an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The show runs through December 19.

The New York show follows two recent solo exhibitions at European institutions: a solo presentation at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, and another at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville. Sospiro is the Italian word for a sigh.

Who Jem Perucchini is

Perucchini was born in Tekeze, Ethiopia. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan and still lives and works in that city. He is represented in London by Corvi-Mora, which is credited alongside the artist on the image David Zwirner released for the show.

His paintings mix sources that rarely sit side by side. According to the gallery, he draws on early Italian Renaissance painting, the patterns of African wax print textiles, Greek mythology and the frescoes found in Ethiopian churches. The scenes often look like familiar religious or narrative pictures, but they are filled with young, slender figures whose expressions give little away. Many of the compositions are painted in a single dominant jewel tone and are lit by a round moon or sun hanging in the scene. The gallery describes the subjects of the new work as themes of solitude and companionship, the archetype and the individual, light and dark.

What came before Tribeca

Perucchini's first institutional solo show was Evenfall, at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, which ran from April 8 to October 12, 2025. The foundation built it around the theme of twilight and the space between pairs such as day and night. It brought together twelve new and existing paintings whose titles point to figures from antiquity, among them the Roman emperor Elagabalus and Eros and Thanatos, the Greek personifications of love and death. At the entrance sat a new installation of ceramic tiles called Tappeto, named after a short poem by Giuseppe Ungaretti. The foundation noted that the faces in his portraits tend to look away from the viewer, with small details such as a letter or a glance hinting at a larger story.

The Seville presentation followed at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Andalusia's contemporary art center.

The gallery on Walker Street

David Zwirner's Tribeca space is at 52 Walker Street, between Broadway and Church Street. The gallery, which also has buildings on West 19th and West 20th Streets in Chelsea, keeps its Tribeca location open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Anyone who wants to see the room before Perucchini's paintings go up has until Saturday, October 24, to catch the current show there: Emma McIntyre's This body holds / swamp stuff, which opened September 18. The gallery's Chelsea calendar for the same season includes a Yoshitomo Nara exhibition across its 19th and 20th Street galleries, opening November 5, the day before Sospiro.

How to get there

Walker Street runs one block south of Canal Street. The Canal Street station served by the N, Q, R, W, J, Z and 6 trains is a short walk to the northeast. The Franklin Street station on the 1 is a few blocks to the west, and the Canal Street station on the A, C and E is a short walk to the northwest.

Plan a visit

Jem Perucchini: Sospiro is on view November 6 to December 19, 2026, at David Zwirner Tribeca, 52 Walker Street, New York, NY 10013. The opening reception is Friday, November 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. Regular hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The gallery's exhibition page lists no ticket or reservation for the reception. The gallery's Tribeca page lists current hours.

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