Imagine you already have it: Paul Thek's Diaries as a Key to Reading His Shows at Pace and Galerie Bucholz

Paul Thek, Untitled (Dragons), 1971. Gouache and oil on newspaper, 57.5 x 83.5 cm (framed: 64.2 x 90.5 cm). Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz. 

By SIVAN LAVIE July 10th, 2026

Paul Thek is making renewed waves in New York City, thirty five years after his passing. With concurrent exhibitions at Pace and Galerie Buchholz, it is currently possible to make a daytrip pilgrimage through the city in tribute to the artist and his work.

Thek is renowned for his Beuys-like, visceral wax body part works aimed to shake and shock the art world in the 1960s. What’s sometimes overlooked, but is of equal interest, is his painting practice. Thek’s oeuvre is expansive, which is proof that artists can do a plethora of things over their careers that interrelate and come together, stemming from the same hand. 

 Paul Thek: Dream of Vanishing. Installation view, Pace Gallery, 2026. 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001 May 15–August 14, 2026. Photography courtesy Pace Gallery.

Paul Thek, Untitled (Red Men by Sea), 1971. 7 parts, tempera and oil on newspaper, each 57.5 x 84 cm (framed each: 66.5 x 91 cm). Installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2026. Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz

Thek existed right in the middle of the New York art scene in the 1960s. He was friends with Andy Warhol, Susan Sontag, Robert Wilson, and showed at Pace and Stable Gallery. While this is true, he was also known for his elusiveness. He stood in the limelight, made some waves, then dipped out, disappearing for years at a time to Berlin, Italian Islands, and other European cities. His lack of stable presence in New York created a cult following and a semi-secret legacy. 

 Paul Thek. Installation view Galerie Buchholz, New York 2026. Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz.  

Perhaps it is the unstable tendencies of his personality that caused his diverging and plethoric art practices. Even within his painting practice, many types of projects and sub-genres exist. Paper works expose a feminine gentle side of Thek. Galerie Bucholz exhibits multiple series of beautiful paintings on paper, which are splayed generously across the many walls of the gallery. Calm waters and views of small distant mountains are brushed smoothly across newspaper pages, painted in sky, cerulean and cobalt blue, flat and matte in gouache. 

Paul Thek, Untitled (Cherry / Volcano Smoke), 1971. Gouache, oil and pencil on newspaper, 57.5 x 84 cm (framed: 64 x 90.5 cm). Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz

Another series of newspaper works, all with pale pink backdrops, depicts dragons, dinosaurs, smashed tomatoes and cherries, ocean waves and landscapes. Their simplicity and pastel palette create room to breathe. A delicate touch radiates through them, emitting a quiet calm. 

Pace boasts a large display of a very different painting series: Thek’s writing works. Letter-sized acrylic paintings on canvas board in bright cadmium red, canary yellow, hot pink, violet, turquoise, neon lime green, each painting declares a word, phrase, gibberish writing, or just repeated letters. These comic-esque BIG BANG, AESTHETIC ESCAPISM, Waiting for you to come, and Zzzzz among others, build a more pop, masculine, playful, side of Thek’s practice. They are particularly enticing, living up to the title “Aesthetic Escapism”, not trying too hard.

 Paul Thek, Big Bang Painting , 1987-1988 .Acrylic on canvas board 12" × 16" (30.5 cm × 40.6 cm) 13-1/8" × 17" × 3/4" (33.3 cm × 43.2 cm × 1.9 cm), frame. Photo by the writer.

Paul Thek ,Susan Lecturing on Neitzsche , 1987. Acrylic on canvas board 12-7/8" × 16-7/8" (32.7 cm × 42.9 cm) 12-7/8" × 16-7/8" × 1-3/8" (32.7 cm × 42.9 cm × 3.5 cm), frame. Photo by the writer.

Paul Thek: Dream of Vanishing. Installation view, Pace Gallery, 2026. 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001 May 15–August 14, 2026. Photography courtesy Pace Gallery.

Both shows at Bucholz and Pace display Thek’s chair works that show conceptual humor. These are funny little paintings framed in golden frames, lit up by individual picture lights and hung up at child height, with a wooden preschool chair situated in front of each. These installation pieces offer the idea of a devout exercise in art literacy for children. The subjects of these paintings range from landscapes to “Bread and Buttocks".

 Thek, Paul. Jesus in the Arms of Krishna, c. 1979-1980. Acrylic on canvas with artist’s frame and picture light 10-1/2" × 13-1/2" (26.7 cm × 34.3 cm) No. 98754 © The Estate of Paul Thek, courtesy Pace Gallery and the Watermill Center

Alongside these parts of Thek’s practice, are his grand abstract paintings shown at Pace, depicting ego-less, gestural detachment from personality, and of course his aforementioned sculptural pieces that reveal an outlandish conceptuality. Together, these disparate practices are the yin and yang that reveal at once an outgoing, verbal, social, humorous side, as well as a gentle, introspective, observant, abstracted one. 

The thread between all the many types of work can be more easily mapped when considering the artist’s journals. Through his career, Paul Thek kept journals as spaces to reflect, word vomit, doodle, write ideas, squiggle, draw, make jokes to himself, plan paintings. Pace reproduced one of his journals, Notebook #41, a composition book, including thin lined paper shaped like a notebook, the marker drawings, and pen-written words bleeding through the back of each page. Realistic and affordable, the publucation offers a bible-like, intimate key to Paul Thek.

Paul Thek: Dream of Vanishing. Installation view, Pace Gallery, 2026. 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001 May 15–August 14, 2026. Photography courtesy Pace Gallery 

Thek’s works feel like extensions of this fun journaling practice. In the pages of Notebook #41 is poetic humor. Whether in drawing or writing, intensely vivid images pop up, that together give a picture of Thek's inner world. On one page, a solitary sentence at the bottom reads “Susan being hit by a shooting star.” Another page, colored in with festive markers like rainbow tie dye, shows a detailed pen drawing of a jar of fireflies. Yet another page discloses intimate theories on the nature of worry. On another, a large red spring-like spiral in marker fills the page. Below it, the sentence “Imagine you already have it. Whatever it is, imagine you already have it.” This aphorism, alongside other exercises of imagination, are a generous approach to art viewing, not just as entertainment, but also offering exciting potential to change, growth and transformation.

Paul Thek, page from Notebook #41, 1977. Pen and marker on paper. Notebook reproduction by Pace. See https://www.pacegallery.com/journal/paul-thek-notebook-41-1977/ to purchase. Photo by the writer.

 Paul Thek, Untitled (view of Zannone and Scoglio Grosso from Ponza),1969. Gouache on newspaper 41 x 57 cm (framed: 46.5 x 63 cm). Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz

It is notable to mention that Daniel Buchholz and Christopher Müller at Galerie Bucholz, and Noah Khoshbin, Arne Glimcher and Oliver Shultz at Pace did a fantastic job in capturing Paul Thek’s playful, poetic nature through colorful, creative and expansive curation that’s worth seeing, for diehard fans and laymen alike. WM

Paul Thek

Galerie Buchholz, 31 West 54th Street, New York

13 May 2026 – 25 July 2026

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Paul Thek: Dream of Vanishing

Pace, 540 West 25th Street New York

May 15 – August 14, 2026