Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Sixties Surreal curator Dan Nadel calls this work by Karl Wirsum a "vibrant, hilarious, and beautiful portrait."

Here Nadel explains the diverse sources that Wirsum draws on to create this portrait, from comic books, to botany, to commercial graphics, to barbershop windows, to pinball machines, to insect dissections, to Mesoamerican art. In the painting, Wirsum combined all of these sources, and more, to depict the feeling of experiencing Screamin' Jay Hawkins in concert.

Time is running out! See the exhibition through January 19th, only at the Whitney.

Find out more about the exhibition here: whitney.org/exhibitions/sixties-surreal

Book tickets to visit: whitney.org/general-admission

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