Carlye Packer is pleased to present Duet, a pairing of works by Los Angeles-born and based artist Jools Rothblatt (b. 1991) and the late Lee Lozano (b. 1930).

Though working across different eras and contexts, Duet brings these two formidable voices into conversation, revealing shared strategies of critique, distortion, and dark humor in their approaches to painting and figuration.

Lozano’s work from the 1960s and early ’70s anticipated many of the concerns Rothblatt addresses today: the grotesque and the absurd as mode of spastic critique, the use of figuration to rebuff power and propriety, the blending of performative gesture with formal abrasion, and the laughing conference of it all at once. Known for her raw mark-making as well as her withdrawal from the art world as a conceptual gesture, Lozano’s paintings and drawings provide a combative counterpoint to Rothblatt’s spikey caricatured portraits of the fringe. Both artists’ work evoke a frenzied urgency, scenes of collapse, punky survival and the abyss.

Duet brings these two artists into conversation not through similarity of style, but through shared urgency. Both mine the messiness of social life for its emotional contradictions and challenge aesthetic norms to make space for vulnerability, instability, and confrontation. In doing so, they expand the role of painting as a site for both personal excavation and cultural critique.

ABOUT DUET

Organized by curators Kyle DeWoody and Zoe Lukov, Duet features presentations from 11 select galleries, each installed in its own space. This new format offers a fresh way to experience and collect art – a platform for galleries we admire, at a time when new models for engaging with artists and audiences are paramount.

Inspired by conversations around duality– yin and yang, partnerships, twins and two spirits, mirrors and reflections, Duet explores the magnetic tension between two forces. From the choreography of the pas de deux to the playful rhythm of double dutch, from the vulnerability of companionship to the joy of the do-si-do, from the energetic link of twins to the uncanny doppelganger, from the mirror selfie to the digital avatar, the exhibition explores the good fortune of ibeyi, the terrible twos, and celebrates the transformative power of the dynamic duo.