Installation view of For Esmé – With Love and Squalor by Julian Schnabel at Pace Gallery
When someone says “Julian Schnabel” in certain circles, his name invokes those infamous smashed ceramics paintings that literally broke the concept of surface into smithereens, turning late-stage East Coast Abstract Expressionism into a spectacle of ambition, rebellion, and theatricality caught in a Newtonian struggle with gravity and alchemy.