Curated by Klaus Kertess

It’s fitting that curator Klaus Kertess has coined a snappy neologism to title this group show, which highlights contemporary explorations of and expansions on myth, allegory, and fable. The five painters brought together here are, by all accounts, some of the most accomplished dream weavers and yarn spinners today. Including meaty samplings of recent works by Carroll Dunham, Ellen Gallagher, Chris Ofili, Neo Rauch, and Matthew Ritchie, “Fabulism” reveals just how complicated the vocabulary of fantasy has become—infused with questions of national identity, politics of race and gender, co-opted scientific formulas, and a dollop of Freudian id. In the accompanying catalogue, Kertess christens this bunch the latest in a long lineage of “geographers of the imagination”—but let’s just call them Ab Fab.

— Johanna Burton