Sheyla Baykal: Horizontal Thinking

Sheyla Baykal: Horizontal Thinking
Curated by Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez with Penny Arcade and Soft Network

July 10 – August 16, 2026
Gallery hours, Thursday – Sunday, noon-7pm
116 Elizabeth St. Floor one
New York, NY 10013

Sheyla Baykal: Horizontal Thinking presents a sequence of twenty-four portraits taken by the artist between 1979 and 1996. Curated by Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez with Penny Arcade and Soft Network, the exhibition takes as its prompt a 1993 taped conversation between Baykal and her friend Charles Baxter wherein they discuss both her own posthumous printing ambitions, as well as that of their mutual friend Peter Hujar, who had passed away six years prior. The exhibition marks the first time Baykal’s portraits are printed as 16x20 inch silver-gelatin prints, executed in a collaborative dialogue between her Archive and the printer Andrew Jarman. Hung in a long horizontal row with a non chronological sequence, the portraits are juxtaposed in the gallery space with artworks and objects by and from the people represented in the photographs, including Penny Arcade, John Eric Broaddus, Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, Steve Lott, Agosto Machado, Minette, Jack Smith, Christopher Tanner, and Paul Thek. This will be the second solo exhibition of Baykal’s work organized as part of Soft Network’s 2025-2027 Archive-in-Residence for Baykal, and Soft Network’s first collaboration with Participant Inc.

Subjects pictured in the exhibition include: Paul Ambrose, Penny Arcade, Bette Bourne, John  Eric Broaddus, Michael Collins, Jackie Curtis, Alexis del Lago, John Epperson, John Edward  Heys, Peter Hujar, Ricky Lee, Steve Lott, Agosto Machado, Taylor Mead, Minette, Cookie  Mueller, Bill Rafford, Jack Smith, Christopher Tanner, Paul Thek, John Vaccaro, and Sophie  VDK.