iDavid Zwirner · Chelsea
Scott Kahn: Silent Night
This exhibition has ended.
New and recent landscape paintings by Scott Kahn, blending representational and surreal elements—billowing clouds, ominous moonscapes, and bare trees electrified by unexpected hues.
Museum websiteMore in New York
In The Basement, trees grow inside a room. Their roots run into the floor, their branches press against the ceiling, and a window looks out on an endless green wood. Kahn based it on the basement he retreated to as a child and a recurring dream of light coming through windows.
The show pairs 2026 paintings with landscapes going back 25 years, such as Berkshire Nightscape II from 2005. You walk past bare trees in red, blue and green, red clouds and moons that are too big or the wrong colour. Writing for ArtDependence, Margherita Artoni compared the moonlit scenes to Edward Hopper. Kahn is 80, and Cultured tells how Matthew Wong found him on Instagram in 2018 and the market followed. A decade ago he lived in his cousin's attic; the paintings here are priced at $350,000 to $1 million.
Entry is free with no booking, at 537 West 20th Street, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm. It closes on 17 October.
Look for
The Basement (2025)
Look for red, blue and green bare trees rooted in the floor of a room, circling a window onto an endless green wood.
The Basement Window (2025)
A Magritte-like house frames a window, and beyond it a tree bursts into bloom.
Silent Night, Moon (2026)
A path runs between two bushes in a night garden toward a moon that seems to dance beneath red clouds.
The Leaves Have Fallen (2024/2025)
One tree splits the canvas in two: a sunny autumn day on the left, a dark winter night on the right, with a latticed window frame floating between.
Blue Moon (2021)
A calm daytime view where thin red cirrus clouds ring an outsized moon.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Rainy Days
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Image credits
8
- David ZwirnerCourtesy David Zwirner
- Anna Maria Maiolino. ANNA—And the Infinite LineCourtesy of Hauser & Wirth
- David Lamelas: The MachineJoeyvandernaald, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- David Byrne: Stairwell DrawingsDavid Byrne / Pace Gallery
- Hauser & WirthJim.henderson, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dia ChelseaFound5dollar, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Pace GalleryPace Gallery
- GagosianKazuhisa Otsubo (Flickr/cytech), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0