BEFORE / AFTER THOUGHT, THE PREVIEW · CAMP Z AT AAF, TWO WEEKS OUT ·
ROBERTA FINEBERG ON ARTSY · THE SEASON AHEAD · NEW YORK
Hi {{first_name|there}},
The walls are bare this week. Second Nature came down Saturday and the next show goes up Tuesday. This is the letter we promised: the preview of Before / After Thought, which opens September 10. Then Camp Z's first fair booth, two weeks out and now online. Then the one show that is on view starting this week — Roberta Fineberg's Back to School, on Artsy. And, every show and fair between now and the end of the year.
OPENS NEXT THURSDAY · SEPTEMBER 10–26
Before / After Thought
A surrealism group exhibition · seven painters · curated by Alex Z. Wang
Surrealism never settled its own argument: is the unconscious reached by letting go, or by building it on purpose? Breton's side wanted the hand moving before the mind could object. Magritte's and Dalí's wanted the impossible image reasoned out and rendered until it held still. A century on, both methods are still working — and this show puts them in one room, hung so they have to answer to each other.
Robert Zurer, Rites of Passage, 2025, Oil on canvas, 57 × 53 in, $8,000
On the letting-go side, Robert Zurer, Anya Rosen and Amy Swartelé let the image surface out of the mark — automatic drawing, chalk pastel, chimeric beings that read as found rather than made. On the other, Claire Hashman, James Stamboni and Jim Radakovich engineer it — mirrored mandalas, old-master rendering on brass, a flying saucer over a very calm lake. Jocelyn Tsaih sits in the middle, in soft focus, where one method starts to look like the other.
Anya Rosen, Strange Goat, Wise Grass, Good Moon, 2023, Chalk pastel and acrylic on canvas, 48 × 40 in, $4,000
Jocelyn Tsaih, Horizon Ballad, 2026, Oil on canvas, 30 × 22 in, $2,450
Claire Hashman, In Bloom, 2026, Oil on wood panel, 10 × 10 in, $1,350
Nothing here requires interpretation. Stand in front of a painting and notice what surfaces before you can name it — then try to tell which door the painter came through. Some of these images existed before thought. Others are afterthought in the most rigorous sense: constructed, revised, reasoned into impossibility. The pleasure of the show is that you cannot always tell which is which.
The opening is Thursday, September 10, 6–8 PM. Wine, and the artists will be there. Free — but please RSVP, the room is intimate.
On view September 10–26 · Thursday–Saturday, 1–6 PM, and by appointment · the run carries straight through fair week
SEPTEMBER 16–20 · STARRETT-LEHIGH BUILDING · 601 WEST 26TH STREET · BOOTH F1
Camp Z at Affordable Art Fair NYC
Two weeks out · five artists · sixty-five original works · $425–$3,900
Two weeks from today, Camp Z hangs its first booth, as the fair's newest Fellowship Gallery. The whole booth is now online: every work, every price, and a Buy button that reserves a piece at list — nothing is charged online. Save a shortlist, ask a question, make an offer, or split a purchase into installments. If you cannot get to 26th Street, everything can be reserved remotely, and works go home after the fair closes Sunday the 20th.
John Hayduk's Shift oils. Tanner Bosma's rain-washed cityscapes in acrylic and resin. Vivian Cavalieri's shadow-box assemblages. Patti Jordan's works on paper, from the night-toned Cosmogeny series to the white-ground Cells/Selves tondi. And small skies of Alex Z. Wang, the Fair Weather series from this summer.
First Look, the fair's opening night, is Wednesday, September 16, 5–9 PM. We are still holding VIP passes for readers of this letter — each pass admits two, and we confirm by email before the fair.
General admission Thursday–Sunday · tickets at affordableartfair.com
ON VIEW NOW · ONLINE ONLY · THROUGH OCTOBER 24
Back to School
Roberta Fineberg · an online exhibition on Artsy · August 31 – October 24
Roberta Fineberg, Tell Me a Story II, 2025, Mixed Media, 16 × 16 in, $2,000
The one show on view this week is not on Broome Street at all. Back to School, our first exhibition to live entirely on Artsy, opened Monday: mixed-media works by Roberta Fineberg that pair her photographs with painted or collaged bookshelves, each one an homage to a writer or a book, from Balzac to Ted Joans.
The series comes out of three decades around an English-language bookstore in Saint-Germain-des-Prés that hosted weekly readings from 1982 to 2012. Fineberg photographed the writers who passed through — mostly women — and many of those portraits are now in the Bibliothèque nationale and the Marguerite Durand Library in Paris. The bookshelves are the new layer: oil, acrylic and pastel set against the photographs, asking how the books we keep shape the stories we tell about ourselves.
Every work is available through the show page — inquire or buy directly on Artsy. Her works on paper will also be in the browsing rack at the Camp Z booth, if you would rather see them in person.
THE SEASON AHEAD · SEPTEMBER THROUGH DECEMBER
Fall / Winter 2026
Five exhibitions on Broome Street and one on Artsy · three fairs in three cities
Everything we are hanging between now and the new year, in order. The opening lists are already open — RSVP early for the ones you want; the room fills.
Back to School — Roberta Fineberg · online exhibition on Artsy · Collective Z
On view now through October 24 · see the show
Before / After Thought — surrealism group exhibition · Collective Z
September 10–26 · opening Thursday, September 10, 6–8 PM · RSVP
Camp Z at Affordable Art Fair NYC — Booth F1, Starrett-Lehigh Building
September 16–20 · browse the booth · request VIP passes
Cécile Roberfroid: Carried, Not Told — solo exhibition · Collective Z
October 1–17 · opening Thursday, October 1, 6–8 PM · RSVP
Camp Z at Chicago Art Fair — theMART, Chicago
October 7–10 · Camp Z's first fair outside New York
Bill Buchman: Infinity Oasis — solo exhibition · Collective Z
October 21 – November 6 · opening Thursday, October 22, 6–8 PM · RSVP
Elizabeth Johnson: Dream Gap — solo exhibition · Collective Z
November 11 – December 5 · opening Thursday, November 12, 6–8 PM · RSVP
Collective Z at Scope — Miami Beach
December 1–6 · Miami Art Week
Camp Z at Aqua Art Miami — Room 114, Miami Beach
December 2–6 · Miami Art Week
Small Hours — a small-works group exhibition for the holidays · Collective Z
Opens Thursday, December 10, 6–8 PM · RSVP
The week at a glance
This week — the gallery is closed while Before / After Thought goes up; we reopen Thursday, September 10 with the opening reception.
Collective Z, 325 Broome Street, 1W, New York, NY 10002
Back to School — Roberta Fineberg · Collective Z on Artsy
On view now through October 24 · see the show
Before / After Thought — surrealism group exhibition
September 10–26 · opening reception Thursday, September 10, 6–8 PM · RSVP here
Camp Z at Affordable Art Fair NYC — our fair debut
September 16–20 · Starrett-Lehigh Building, 601 West 26th Street · Booth F1
Browse the booth · Request VIP passes · general tickets at affordableartfair.com
See you at the gallery,
Alex Z. Wang
Founder & Director, Collective Z
Collective Z · 325 Broome Street, 1W, New York, NY 10002