Raúl de Nieves, a queer Mexico-born artist based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is preparing for his latest institutional exhibition, “In Light of Innocence,” opening September 12 at Pioneer Works in Red Hook. The show features 40 new stained glass assemblages made from tape, acetate, and inexpensive materials, installed above a single floor-bound work—a departure from his typically maximalist style. De Nieves, who has exhibited at the ICA Boston, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, and gained prominence after the 2017 Whitney Biennial, describes the exhibition as a valediction, stating it will be the last time he creates this kind of work.
The exhibition matters because it marks a deliberate turning point in de Nieves’s career, embracing restraint and negative space as a portal for personal and artistic growth. By framing the show around themes of failure and transformation—embodied in a mantra reading “Growth arrives cloaked in failure’s grace”—de Nieves challenges his own signature aesthetic and invites audiences to reconsider their own narratives. This shift signals a new chapter for an artist who has long been celebrated for exuberant, bedazzled sculptures, and underscores how established artists can evolve by confronting creative risk.