This is the entrance to Josh’s studio building. Inside it, you can also find Gene & Fred: mine and Josh’s collaborative curatorial project – or gallery; honestly, however you want to describe it is fine, really. You actually need to walk through Josh’s studio to get to our gallery. And Josh is one of the artists on the Gene’s Dispensary roster; when he realized that there was this weird old janitor’s closet in the building that was empty and unused and unrealized, Josh asked our buddy, the painter Shane Tolbert – who sort of is in charge of the building – if he could take it over, and then, of course, we suddenly had a gallery. If you need further explanation of the name of the gallery, Gene is a derivative of Gene’s Dispensary and Fred is a derivative of Freddy.

Josh only uses the finest oil paints, and he always has: Williamsburg, Old Holland, Gamblin, and probably some other top-notch shit I’ve never even heard of…He paints on the finest of linen, too. However, he also paints on burlap. This peasant-ass move really upends the overarching bourgeoisie vibe going on with the materials in his otherwise modest Santa Fe studio.

I have never met anyone, artist or otherwise, as meticulous and organized as Josh. It’s wild – I will talk to friends of mine, who are accountants or lawyers or doctors or whatever, and they’ll describe how they organize their lives…and then I’ll think about how Josh organizes his, and I’m like, “Oh, Jesus…y’all have no idea.” Just look at this methodical madness.

Now look at these brushes. They’re so beautiful. And everything is in its right place. And also, look at that Abelow book. There are so many amazing Abelow books in the world at this point. In fact, a new book of poetry is being released on Josh’s 50th birthday (today, September 3rd), the same day a new solo show of his, Blue Hyperlink, will be opening in St. Louis. Blue Hyperlink will be one of my now-many off-site Gene’s Presents shows, hosted by Rumpus Room and Amy Granat. The book of poetry is titled H-Man Poems (2009-2026) and is published by TUNG in Seoul, South Korea.

Who’s that man doing HVAC repair work? Thanks, homie! To the left of him are some H-Man paintings. These are some epic new bad boys that are inspired by a character that appears in a novel written by Josh’s mother. Who is H-Man? For Josh, it is an openended, absorbent, dark figure…very fitting for our current end times.

Oh, you didn’t know? Josh can do neo-geo. Or at least he can do neo and he can do geo. He’s been doing neo and geo for basically his entire artistic career. More here; more to come.

There’s Josh’s wife and fellow amazing artist, Katya Kirilloff, documenting some of his finished geo paintings in a fresh Gene & Fred ballcap. Josh has been one of my best friends and closest confidants for two decades now, and in addition to us using our gallery names to commemorate our newest collaboration, I also really like the connection to Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, longtime collaborators whose professional relationship I greatly admire.

Here sits a collaborative piece by Katya and Amy Granat from the last exhibition Josh and I staged at Gene & Fred, titled Sun Belt Gothic. The third show I did at the first Gene’s location was a two-person exhibition by Katya and the New York-based artist,
Michael Assiff. I also included one of these “sad unicorn” pieces at OPaf, a one-day outdoor alternative art fair in San Pedro, California, back in the fall of 2025. This October, I will be doing one of my off-site Gene’s Presents exhibitions at Essex Flowers in New York; it will be a two-person exhibition by Josh and Katya, entitled Transaction.

Josh has been making these meme drawings for a few years now. I’m obviously biased, but I’m obsessed with these things. Josh is almost ten years older than me, and even though he doesn’t understand technology very well, he understands the internet and culture at large better than almost anyone I know. We have connected over communication and the dissemination of ideas and information ever since we first became friends more than 20 years ago. Not only are these drawings funny as hell, they are also such a strong representation of society at this specific moment.

Here’s a pair of paintings that Josh made after he graduated from RISD and was living in his boss’s basement. He was employed by Ross Bleckner at the time, and the basement actually used to be part of the infamous MUDD Club, where Keith Haring would curate art shows, and bands like Talking Heads and experimental musicians like Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Kim Gordon, and John Lurie would perform.

This past July, Josh drove a truckload of art from his old storage unit in upstate New York to his new storage unit in upstate New Mexico. On his way, he dropped off a selection of work – going all the way back to 1995 – at Forms, a new gallery in Hamtramck, Michigan. On July 11th, we opened Gene’s Presents Truckload of Art at Forms. Truckload of Art was used as a title to simply be direct, honest, and transparent about the actual process of the show. It was presented as a survey of recent and old work, showing a very wide range of Josh’s practice and process. We also titled the show Truckload of Art as a reference to the classic country song by the legendary visual artist and musician, Terry Allen. It’s such a funny and sobering song. Please do yourself a favor and listen to it as soon as you get a chance. Like Josh, Terry is truly a one-of-akind artist and, in my mind, understands what it means to move through the world and understand and respect people better than most of the rest of us.

A candid shot of Josh with his truckload of art!

The organization is seriously so real. Everything is packed to perfection, always. This POV pic can serve as somewhat of a sneak preview for his aforementioned two-person show with Katya at Essex Flowers.

I’ll leave you with this: Stacks and stacks of completed and wrapped paintings, plus two rare offerings of never-before-seen bangers. The world ain’t ready for these, but I can’t wait to share them anyway.

Text by Keith J. Varadi (of Gene’s Dispensary)