On the evening of September 3, 2026, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center will throw open the doors of its Eleanor Kirkpatrick Main Gallery for the opening celebration of Clever, Quick, Magnetic: The Art of Witty Banter, an exhibition that asks a deceptively simple question: can a painting have a personality? Curated by David Salle, one of the most consequential figures in contemporary American art, the show brings together roughly thirty painters whose works, though wildly different in surface and subject, are said to share a kind of inner kinship — a decisiveness, an openness, a spirit of improvisation that binds them from the inside out.
The event itself, running from 5:30 to 9:00 p.m. with free RSVP tickets, marks the public debut of an exhibition that will remain on view through January 11, 2027. Admission to the galleries is always free, a point of pride for an institution that has spent nearly four decades making contemporary art accessible to Oklahomans. But the opening carries a deeper resonance than the typical museum party, because it represents a homecoming of sorts. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1952, and though he left the state as a child — growing up in Wichita, Kansas, before heading to the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied under John Baldessari — Oklahoma has long claimed him as one of its own. For Oklahoma Contemporary, inviting Salle to curate this exhibition is both a celebration of an international voice and an acknowledgment of the state's own creative roots.
Salle's career has been defined by a restless refusal to settle. He helped define the postmodern sensibility in painting in the early 1980s, layering appropriated and original imagery in ways that deliberately defied easy narrative. His work has been shown at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and beyond. He has also become one of the most incisive writers on art of his generation, publishing essays in Artforum, ARTnews, The Paris Review, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine, and serving as a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His 2016 collection, How to See: Looking, Talking, and Thinking about Art, distilled decades of looking into a book that critics praised for seizing art back from jargon and talking about what actually makes paintings tick.
That same spirit animates his curatorial work. In a statement about the exhibition, Salle described his ambition in characteristically provocative terms: "The idea for this exhibition is to consider types of affinity in painting; the ratios of rigor to permission; the uses of history worn lightly, and a spirit of improvisation and openness that binds diverse works together from the inside out. Is there such a thing as 'aesthetic personality'? Can a painting be said to have a nervous system? … Can artists of different styles — different surface attributes — have a similar relationship to their intention?" The title itself — Clever, Quick, Magnetic — reads almost like a description of the qualities Salle prizes in the work he admires: wit, speed, and a magnetic pull that guides the eye across a canvas.
The roster of featured artists reads like a who's who of contemporary painting, spanning generations and sensibilities. Marina Adams, Ross Bleckner, Joe Bradley, Cecily Brown, John Currin, Verne Dawson, Carroll Dunham, Chantal Joffe, Tamo Jugeli, Alex Katz, Rosa Loy, Bennett Miller, Albert Oehlen, Walter Price, Neo Rauch, Sterling Ruby, Julian Schnabel, Dana Schutz, Arlene Shechet, Amy Sillman, Josh Smith, Gary Stephan, Spencer Sweeney, Henry Taylor, Charline von Heyl, James Welling, Stanley Whitney, Nicole Wittenberg, and Rose Wylie all appear alongside Salle himself. The exhibition's signature image is a new painting by Cecily Brown, The Art of Witty Banter (2026), an oil on linen that gives the show its name. Other featured works include Amy Sillman's She/They (2021), Joe Bradley's Angel's Trumpet (2023–24), Rosa Loy's Speicher (2024), and Josh Smith's How to Stop Time (2025).
The exhibition's conceptual framework is built around the tension between intention and style — between what an artist seeks to convey and the manner in which that intention materializes on the canvas. Visitors are invited to consider the decisions that shape each composition: its marks, images, forms, and structure. Though the paintings differ in subject and appearance, the show argues, they may share underlying characteristics that reveal themselves only when viewed together. It is, in essence, a conversation in paintings — a gathering of distinct voices that, placed in proximity, begin to speak to one another.
For Oklahoma Contemporary, the exhibition is also a milestone in the institution's own story. The organization was founded in 1989 as City Arts Center by Christian Keesee and Kirkpatrick Foundation director Marilyn Myers, a modest community arts center on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. Over the decades it grew into a powerhouse, and in 2020 it moved into a striking new home at 11 NW 11th Street in the city's Innovation District. Designed by Rand Elliott Architects and dubbed "Folding Light," the nearly 54,000-square-foot building features aluminum fins that reflect the Oklahoma sky, and its 4.6-acre grounds include The Studios, a renovated warehouse housing ceramics, fiber, painting, printmaking, and sculpture classes, as well as Campbell Art Park and a sculpture garden. The new building was recognized as one of USA Today's Best New Museums, a fitting capstone for an institution that has always prioritized accessibility.
Executive Director Trent Riley framed the exhibition as the culmination of long and thoughtful consideration by the institution's Exhibitions Committee. "Presenting this body of work by Oklahoma born David Salle in the state where his artistic trajectory began carries profound resonance for both our institution and our community," Riley said. "This exhibition affirms our commitment to situating Oklahoma within a broader global cultural dialogue by presenting artists whose influence extends internationally while honoring the creative legacies rooted here at home."
The exhibition is supported by a robust slate of public programs, educational offerings, and community engagements designed to open new pathways into both Salle's work and contemporary painting more broadly. The Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation serves as patron sponsor, with additional support from Pace Gallery, the Chickasaw Nation, the Oklahoma Arts Council, and a host of local foundations and businesses.
One practical note for families: the museum has issued a content advisory, noting that the exhibition includes two paintings depicting adult nudity, and encouraging parents and caregivers to use their discretion when visiting with children. It is a small reminder that this is an exhibition unafraid of provocation — fitting, given that its curator built a career on it.
For those who attend the opening celebration, the evening offers a chance to be among the first to experience a show that brings one of Oklahoma's most internationally celebrated artists back to the state where his trajectory began. It is, in Salle's own terms, an invitation to consider whether a painting can feel alive — whether it can guide the eye, sustain tension, and radiate the kind of magnetic energy that makes a work feel expressive, even charged. The answer, the exhibition suggests, is to be found in looking closely, and in the company of paintings that, however different they appear, share a quickness of mind and a willingness to improvise.