An Exhibition Full of Horror

Why It Matters

The exhibition shows how contemporary art can translate societal unease into visceral experiences, shaping curatorial practice and audience engagement with difficult subjects.

Key Takeaways

• Exhibition "Horror" explores discomfort through over 30 contemporary artists.
• Lenticular prints create kinetic illusion, heightening uneasy visual experience.
• Works reference historical trauma, e.g., enslaved man's photograph.
• Multimedia elements like balloon pop video amplify psychological tension.
• Curator Jill Moliti blends pop culture icons with unsettling narratives.

Summary

The new exhibition "Horror" opens featuring more than 30 artists confronting uncomfortable emotions through unsettling visual language.

The show employs diverse media—lenticular prints that appear to move, sculptures with disembodied heads, assemblages of real human skulls, and video installations that repeat a balloon‑pop motif—to make viewers physically feel the tension the works evoke.

Highlights include Mike Kelly’s Odelisk sculpture, Arthur Jaffa’s reinterpretation of a historic slave‑whipping photograph, Jill Moliti’s “Gun Shop” painting referencing Dean Stockwell’s character in Blue Velvet, and Rosemary Troal’s looping balloon video that subverts expectations of pregnancy.

By marrying contemporary art with historical trauma and pop‑culture references, the exhibition forces audiences to confront the aestheticization of horror, prompting dialogue about how art can process collective anxieties in a post‑pandemic cultural climate.

Original Description

What happens when the familiar turns threatening?

At Sprüth Magers LA , the exhibition "Horror" explored the use of distortion, dark humor, and discomfort to make the ordinary feel unsettling. Curated by the artist Jill Mulleady, the show brought visitors into a territory where bodies, memories, and cultural images stopped making sense the way they should.

Although the show has already closed, you can experience it now through this tour with Claire de Dobay Rifelj, Associate Director at Sprüth Magers.

Horror

Nov 21, 2025–Feb 14, 2026

Sprüth Magers

Los Angeles 🇺🇸