“Liv From the Front: The Woman Behind the Back Views” by Dorothee Baer-Bogenschütz
Adam Leveille and Liv Jung-Koenig: UNadorned
Chase Young Gallery June 1 - July 15, 2026
The contrast between the two walls in Unadorned is ironic and witty. On the right side, presented by a very local Adam Leveille, we see everyday objects, simple and inexpensive, made from plastics and tin. In fact, the materials that went to create these paintings cost about twenty times more than the depicted objects. The backgrounds are flat, the colors primary, the presentation brutally honest: Yes, this is junk made of poisonous oil by-products that couldn’t be any worse for the environment. But see how cute they are! Adam’s part of Unadorned is a 2D version of recycled art.
The images on the left, by the German artist Liv Jung-Koenig, are subtle, though equally simple. If on Adam’s wall, everything looks us squarely in the eye, loud and proud, Liv’s subjects glance away from us, showing only their backs, or else rough overexposed silhouettes, or, at best, a cast down visage obscured by a thick fringe. The backgrounds are fractured, the pointillist texture blurs parts of the central figures, while other parts—ostensibly least important, like a hat or t-shirt—are executed clearly and boldly in bright corals and pinks. The message is unmistakable here: This is a new female portrait, in which women don’t even bother to show their faces, let alone make themselves pretty for the artist or viewer.
It is the shared irony that holds the show together. Liv’s sports images are blurry—that’s how one sees the game in shimmery heat, through a sheet of sweat and probably having forgotten one’s glasses. One can’t even see the ball or other players! The female portraits are stripped of all artifice, showing only disheveled backs of athletes or else someone completely uninterested in jewelry and hair-styling. By contrast, Adam’s grinning recycled objects with their scratched off numbers, torn off labels and crumpled ungainly bodies promote themselves with joy and abandonment, as though they were the most precious rarities on earth. The reality portrayed surely is unadorned, yet elegance is an attitude, and every image here, either through extreme restraint or extreme self-promotion, manages to achieve that.
- Anna Friedrich