Ethan Greenbaum & Sun You
October 21st, 2025

Soundtracks both real and imagined were the inspiration for the playlist of the great artists, educators, curators, and longtime couple Sun You and Ethan Greenbaum.

Ethan engages with the iconography of public urban spaces, from signage to advertisements to the plywood barriers around building sites. His complex process incorporates printing, painting, and sculpting to create ambiguous yet compelling objects.

Sun’s work brings together baked polymer clay, cut and manipulated canvas, and paint to create intricate abstractions. Concentrating on play, intuition, and self-imposed constraints, Sun works a kind of alchemy of improvisation on humble materials.

The focus of our conversation was their two-person show “Fun,” full of new works on view at Geary in Millerton, NY from October 11 to December 7, 2025. The juxtaposition of the two artists’ work and practices finds form in a photo mural on either side of the central wall dividing the exhibition space. This mural is composed of an index of images of Ethan’s and Sun’s work in progress and life together.

Like the mural, our discussion roams topics from process and materials to ideas and politics to the challenges and benefits of being a creative couple!

1. Green Arrow, Yo La Tengo
   
2. Mist, Jung Hoon Hee
   
3. The Stranger Song, Leonard Cohen
   
4. Little Room, The White Stripes
   
5. Beautiful Woman, Shin Joong Hyun
   
6. Ivy, Frank Ocean
   
7. 빗속의 여인, Jang Hyeon
   
8. Haenim, Kim Jung Mi
   
9. Speeding Motorcycle, Daniel Johnston
   
10. I Don't Blame You, Cat Power
11. The Belt of Faith, jung jaeil
12. Atlantic City, Bruce Springsteen
13. I Won’t Complain, Benjamin Clementine
14. Cries And Whispers, Cho Young-Wuk
15. Papa Was a Rodeo, The Magnetic Fields
16. We Can't Be Beat, The Walkmen
17. Sleepwalking (Couples Only Dance Prom Night), Modest Mouse
18. I Put a Spell On You, Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Ethan Greenbaum is a New York based artist.

Selected exhibition venues include Derek Eller Gallery, New York; Hauser & Wirth, New York; Marlborough Chelsea, New York; Higher Pictures, New York; Marianne Boesky, New York; Lyles & King, New York; KANSAS, New York; Circus Gallery, Los Angeles; Steve Turner, Los Angeles; The Suburban, Chicago; Galerie Pact, Paris; Super Dakota, Brussels; The Aldrich Museum, Connecticut and Socrates Sculpture Park; Long Island City.

His work has been discussed in The New York Times, Modern Painters, Artforum, BOMB Magazine, ArtReview and Interview Magazine, among others.

Ethan is a cofounder and editor of thehighlights.org and his writings have appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Wax Magazine, BOMB, Paper Monument and others. He has also curated and co-curated multiple exhibitions at venues including The Suburban, Chicago; Lyles & King, New York and Super Dakota, Brussels.

Greenbaum is the recipient of the Queens Art Fund New Work Grant, the Silver Art Residency, The Keyholder Residency at the Lower East Side Printshop, Dieu Donne’s Workspace Residency, LMCC’s Workspace Program, The Robert Blackburn SIP Fellowship, The Socrates EAF Fellowship, The Edward Albee Foundation Residency and The Barry Schactman Painting Prize. He received an MFA in Painting from Yale School of Art.

Sun You is a Seoul born, New York based artist. You has exhibited her work in galleries and museums internationally. Selected exhibition venues include Geary, New York, The Pit, Los Angeles, Queens Museum, New York, The Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul, Scotty Enterprise, Berlin, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia and The Suburban, Chicago. You was an artist in residence at Hunter College, Ace Hotel, Marble House Project, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Triangle Arts Association, Silver Art Projects, Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral and the Sharpe and Walentas Studio Program. She was a recipient of Contemporary Visual Art Award 2023 from AHL Foundation, the Korean Art Foundation.

You’s work has been featured in many publications including Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, Korea Times, Hyperallergic, Modern Painters and Widewalls.

You’s artist book, ‘please enjoy!’ was published by Small Editions and acquired by the Whitney Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University and New York Public Library.

You heads President Clinton Projects, a curatorial project and co-runs a non-profit gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York. She teaches as an assistant professor at Lafayette College.

Current exhibition: Fun, a two person with Ethan Greenbaum, Geary, Millerton NY
Upcoming Exhibitions 2025-2026
G Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
Korea Gallery, Korean Cultural Center New York, New York, NY
Bridgehampton Museum, Bridgehampton, NY