Debs & Co. is a contemporary art gallery. We exhibit emerging and mid-career artists, with an emphasis on politically relevant work. The gallery is located at 525 W. 26th Street, 2nd Floor, New York City.



Our most recent exhibitions:

Emily Jacir

Aaron Cobbett

Nina Katchadourian

Carrie Moyer

Stefanie Nagorka

Sandow Birk

Other recent shows:

Joy Episalla

Tony Gray

Dominic McGill

Carrie Yamaoka



We are open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. We will be closed from mid-July until Labor Day. In addition, we will be closed Saturdays in July.



For information on other artists and previous exhibitions, poke around our archives (flash required).



Here's a panoramic (and horridly montaged) view of our booth at Arco 2003, Madrid. (Work by Dominic McGill, Joy Episalla, and Rina Banerjee).



Please drop us an email with any questions.

Check it out:



Now available at the gallery: J'aime la Nature: A Blueprint for Asymetric Threats in Rhyme, a full color 'zine in a signed and numbered edition of 30, with text by Chris Habib and images by Libby McInnis. Comes with your choice of hand-printed t-shirt or tote bag! $60.00, come and get it.



Hilarious interview with Stefanie Nagorka, Home Depot sculptor, on NPR's All Things Considered.



Sandow Birk's Dante's Inferno is available for viewing on request. The gorgeous book is in an edition of 100. More information over at Trillium Press.



Until July 27th, you can see Nina Katchadourian's spider video Gift/Gift at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.



In the June 2003 Art in America, great review of Nina Katchadourian's most recent show here -- a "suberb...presentation [...] a ridiculously fun experiment."



Emily Jacir in Rainer Ganahl's private/public, through June 27th, in Munich at Häusler Contemporary, in Made in Palestine at the Art Car Museum in Houston, and here in New York in Homeland, the Whitney ISP's exhibition at the CUNY Graduate Center.



Many of the reviews are in: read about our most recent exhibition by Emily Jacir: "One of the most moving gallery exhibitions I've encountered this season." -- Holland Cotter, New York Times

The World's a Mess, It's in My Kiss
May 29th through July 18th, 2003

Debs & Co. is pleased to present The World's a Mess, It's in My Kiss. The group show features Joy Episalla, Joy Garnett, Dominic McGill, Libby McInnis and Chris Habib, Michele O'Marah, and Type A. The exhibition takes its name from a song by the band X, written for their album Los Angeles in 1980.

The World's a Mess... is about disgust with the fakeness of contemporary experience, the commercialization of violence, and the social veneers that obscure the great greeds and scandals of our time. It is also about the importance of laughing when people fall down.


[Please note: click most images for a larger view]


In The Grand Tetons of Yonkers, Joy Episalla explodes a picture-perfect mural of the Grand Tetons from her deceased father's office into a massive scrim. Unlike the real deal, these mountains are readily transportable, easy to clean, and resistant to UV degradation, although it should be noted that the feet of the assistant propping up the mural are clearly visible beneath the scenery. Nature! Culture! Death! Bummer! Episalla had solo shows in 2002 at Debs & Co., Clifford Smith Gallery (Boston), and the Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester).




Joy Garnett paints what is usually invisible to the human eye of the common citizen, whether obscured by distance, government, or time. Her interest in the subset of science and militarism is evident in her large painting Riot Squad, in which a group of dark figures in some nation's combat gear menace the viewer. NYPD? DEA? Interpol? A Darth Vader look-alike competition? Identity is certainly not the issue. Garnett has most recently appeared in Americana, curated by Anne Ellegood at the School of Visual Arts (New York City).




Dominic McGill is our very own Mr. Sweetness and Light. Dead End World in Favor of the Domesticated Poodle is a cheery vignette of two snarling beasts -- a paw-trapped wolf and a leashed standard poodle -- locked in an eternal attempt to devour each other. A morality tale in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, James Bond and The Man from Uncle, Dead End World... meticulously morphs from animal to discarded fur coats and back again. Quite literally cynical, McGill's baroque doggies are a nasty reminder of the death of humanism. McGill was recently curated into ARCO 2003 by Omar Lopez-Chahoud.




Libby McInnis and Chris Habib present J'aime la nature: A Blueprint for Asymmetric Threats in Rhyme, a series of eleven pop-up panels telling the story of how a lovely young couple makes a baby in order to turn it into a bomb. Procreation with a purpose! Interactive, instructional, and easy to follow, these completely outrÈes works are a cautionary tale for power-abusing "elected" officials, and inspiration for lovers of liberty everywhere. Sic semper tyrannis, baby. In March of 2003, Chris Habib launched Protest Records with Thurston Moore. McInnis most recently appeared in Were You Alright Yesterday? at White Columns, curated by Monya Rowe.




Michele O'Marah, a great young video artist working in Los Angeles, presents a holy terror of a two-channel video, White Diamonds/Agent Orange. On one monitor, a Vietnam war movie compiled from every hackneyed trope ever perpetrated in the cinema is almost-earnestly performed by Hollywood hipsters. The guns couldn't be faker; the black- and yellow-face couldn't be crueler. Simultaneously, the other monitor presents a recreation of the famous and twisted 1970 Sixty Minutes interview of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Recent history never looked so ill. O'Marah is currently exhibiting in Baja to Vancouver: The West Coast in Contemporary Art (travelling, 2003-2004). She is represented by Mary Goldman Gallery in Los Angeles.




Since its performance in 1999, Type A's Outstanding has only gained in power and relevance. In the 30-minute documentary video, the two suit-wearing collaborators shake hands for thirty minutes amid the Park Avenue parade. Both homophilic and conspiratorial, the confirmation of mutal agreement between the fake businessmen has obviously lingered far too long. Just visible in the left side of the single shot is the cropped logo of Bear Sterns. Type A's most recent solo exhibition was at Sara Meltzer Gallery, where they are represented.