BEST OF SHOWLower East Side

Photo by Effie Liu for Beholdr
Published: January 29, 2026
Words by: Beholdr
Start in the back and work your way forward at this limit-pushing show, which is clever conceptualism, experimentation, and delightful brain candy, all at once. In Moulene’s hands, identity, material, and truth unravel. Then reconfigure themselves. Move slowly through the exhibition and move around each piece to figure out what’s not quite right about them. Which, of course, is the whole point.
This exhibition ponders how we try to make sense of the universe through science, religion, and politics, and how they teach us everything and nothing about the mysteries of our minds, bodies, and the space we inhabit. Because once you take things apart, they become even more of a mystery. Such is the beautiful conundrum of the world.
Jean-Luc Moulène (b. Reims, France, in 1955, now lives in the Perche region of Normandy). He came of age in the Post-Structuralist universe of Paris in the 1970s, where he studied Aesthetics and the Sciences of Art at the Sorbonne. Understanding this show relies on recognizing his particular conceptualist, deconstructivist approach. These strains of intellectual thought, like Moulene’s art, are dedicated to turning things inside out, finding things outside the dominant narratives to pull them apart.

Alternative SpaceLower East Side
Young curators get free rein at this Eldridge Street nonprofit to make shows about social justice, memory, and whose stories get told.

GalleryLower East Side
Walking into gratin is like entering a party lit up by the promise of the night.

Bar & Alternative SpaceLower East Side
Come for the exhibitions or zine fair at this artist-built nightlife institution, stay for the DJs. Evenings dissolve into dancing under its purplish-pink light, and somehow it's four hours later.

GalleryLower East Side
Artist-curators stretch the rules in this LES storefront gallery.
Discover other top-rated shows happening nearby.
Discover other top-rated shows happening nearby.

Best of ShowLower East Side
One image leads to another, leads to the next. Chasing beauty, it turns out, is contagious.

Best of ShowLower East Side
Ceramic sculptures flirt with structural collapse and become strange, tender creatures determined to survive what ever comes next.

Best of ShowLower East Side
Looping rhythms and syncopations collide with words and color that bubble across painting, poetry, and pop.