Image: Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles
Michael Kohn Gallery is presenting a focused survey of work by Pictures Generation artist Mark Innerst, with ‘Mark Innerst, Paintings 1982-2024’ on view in Gallery 3 through September 9, 2026. The exhibition, which opened on July 9, gathers a rare selection of paintings that trace Innerst’s imagery from the 1980s to the present, bringing together cityscapes, media references and natural forms in one concise display.
The gallery describes the presentation as an important look at an artist whose practice has long engaged the visual culture of the late 20th century and beyond. Innerst’s work, according to the exhibition text, developed in the late 1970s after he worked in the studio of Robert Longo. The gallery places him alongside other artists associated with the Pictures Generation, including Cindy Sherman, Longo, Richard Prince and Sarah Charlesworth, while noting his continued attention to the themes and “roles” circulating through media imagery.
Rather than relying on photography, Innerst has used painting to interpret images that range across mass culture and everyday life. The exhibition text cites sources including textbook photographs, 1980s television series and city views shaped by American painting of the 1920s and 1930s. More recent works expand that field to freeway overpasses and natural subjects such as sparrows and morning glories, showing a subject range that moves from the urban to the botanical.
A consistent feature across those different motifs is Innerst’s method. Michael Kohn Gallery notes the artist’s detailed, enamel-like handling and his use of an “antique” found-object frame, which the gallery says contributes to the small-scale works’ traditional beauty. The exhibition page compares the effect to Netherlandish painting and, more specifically, to “a modern Vermeer,” underscoring the precision and polished finish that distinguish the paintings within a media-saturated framework.
The gallery also frames the show as part of Innerst’s longer career trajectory rather than a single-theme presentation. ‘Mark Innerst, Paintings 1982-2024’ brings together work from across decades, allowing viewers to follow how the artist’s imagery has shifted while retaining formal continuities. The exhibition title itself signals that span, and the selection is described as rare within the gallery’s current program.
Innerst’s institutional standing is noted on the gallery site, which says his work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others. At Michael Kohn Gallery, the exhibition is listed in Gallery 3 and runs until September 9, 2026.
