For an artist most associated with her renderings of the natural world – flowers, landscapes and bones – it is perhaps nonintuitive to consider architecture as a constant in Georgia O’Keeffe’s career.

Indeed, ‘Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture,’ which opens today at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is the first exhibition concerned exclusively with the artist’s relationship to the built environment. As the show ably demonstrates through an assembly of 36 paintings spanning almost 40 years of O’Keeffe’s career, architecture was a fundamental and perennial fascination for this painter-of-flowers.

The show was passionately cultivated by curator Benjamin W. Colman, who developed the concept from the sole O’Keeffe painting in the DIA’s permanent collection: Stables (1932). The work appears in the Barns section of the exhibition, which collects paintings developed mostly in relationship to upstate New York, particularly Lake George, to which O’Keeffe frequently sojourned from the city.

One of the earlier pieces in this section, My Shanty, Lake George (1922), provided an important talking point for O’Keeffe. Her exploration of colour, form and architecture in this painting was, among other things, a response to the sexism and pigeonholing that would attend her long and singular career in an extremely male-dominated profession.

‘I can paint one of those dismal-coloured paintings like the men [e.g. Arthur Dove, John Marin, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley and Paul Strand],’ O’Keeffe said, in a recollection captured by the Phillips Collection, regarding Shanty. ‘I think just for fun I will try – all low-toned and dreary with the tree beside the door.’

‘Dreary’ seems a harsh characterisation for any of the pieces in the show, which continue over two more sections, focused on the architecture of New York and New Mexico, respectively. The works are united in their formality, and perhaps more strictly figurative than some of O’Keeffe’s trademark subjects – as if turning up the volume on the 'objectivity’ aspect of the dialectic she famously outlined between objectivity and abstraction. Nonetheless, even in her imagery of a city undergoing an industrial revolution and hyper-phallic building boom, there is undeniable emotionality and sly yonic detail in paintings like New York Street with Moon (1925) and Abstraction (1926).

The exhibition comes home, appropriately, to the Southwest, where O’Keeffe settled into her New Mexico environs. This includes her Ghost Ranch homestead, whose patio door was a famous point of obsession in her later works. Here, the curators have provided some charming immersive elements, including a 360-degree video panorama of her Ghost Ranch courtyard, and a hands-on drawing area featuring 3D-printed models and midcentury modern furnishings that were hallmarks of O’Keeffe’s eclectic New Mexico living spaces.

This section offers the viewer much opportunity to meditate on O’Keeffe’s sense of place, from The House I Live In (1937), to the tender, bodily details of her various Ranchos Church renderings, to her patio door. ‘That door was what I bought the house for,’ O’Keeffe says in a video at the entrance of the exhibition.

In a final nod to its lingering importance, the exhibition closes out with a black-painted corridor, a gesture to the portal that held such lingering fascination, with a final work Ladder to the Moon (1958) hanging wistfully in the dark, seemingly pointing the way toward the infinite.

‘Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture’ is on view from 11 September 11, 2026 – 3 January, 2027 at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

American artist Tschabalala Self was keen to bring a modern, urban ‘everywoman’ to tower over the crowds at Trafalgar Square. Her commission for London’s Fourth Plinth, Lady in Blue, is a joyful and proud young woman cast in bronze, the blue of her dress and jewellery inspired by the vibrant tone of lapis lazuli.

Self, who works across mediums including painting, sewing, collage, quiltmaking and printing, imbues her figurative works with a vibrant energy. It is a vitality she translates into her Fourth Plinth commission, the 16th since the programme began, creating work she hopes will be relatable.

‘She is not an idol to venerate or a historic figure to commemorate,’ Self says. ‘She is an everyday person much like the many who occupy the square daily. She is striding forward into our collective future with ambition, purpose and optimism.’

New York born and based Self, who was announced as the winning commission in March 2024 by the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, chaired by Wallpaper* contributing editor Ekow Eshun, has always been inspired by London, she adds. ‘London is to thank for many milestones in my life. My first institutional show was held here in London, along with my first major gallery exhibition. I have come to know London as a truly global metropolis, and Lady in Blue reflects the sophistication of this city.’

Lady in Blue brings a significance to the everyday, adds Eshun. ‘Tschabalala Self takes the familiar figure of a woman moving through the city and gives her an extraordinary presence at the heart of London. This powerful sculpture will invite conversation about contemporary art, giving audiences a chance to engage with the work of a remarkable and inspirational artist.’

Lady in Blue will be a highlight of London Sculpture Week (19-27 September 2026)

‘I'm absolutely mad about rules,’ says artist Amelia Cross, sitting at her studiously arranged desk at Sarabande, the foundation set up by designer Lee Alexander McQueen to support a new generation of creatives. Meticulously realised miniature drawn studies of items of clothing or clothing-related details, such as shirt cuffs, reside alongside a pair of feet shaped canvases encased in white lace socks. Cross has been preparing her first UK solo show ‘Rules of Disappearance’ which opens 10 September 2026 at Angelica Jopling’s Incubator – a gallery championing emerging contemporary art voices – and will showcase a new series of her wonderful ‘sewn paintings’.

Prefect, a new work, is laid neatly on the studio floor. It looks like a school uniform that its wearer has literally just stepped out of. Composed of a perfectly pleated skirt that sits just so, the emerald velvet ribbon trim of its jacket exquisitely stitched, while the matching tonally coloured button is, as you lean in, in fact not a real button at all, but a tiny and perfectly painted rendition of one. As buttons go, it’s beguiling. Prefect is a great introduction to Cross; the prefect badge that sits on the jacket’s lapel is also painted and actually reads ‘perfect’. This kind of knowing use of words and trompe-l’œil effects is central to the way Cross wants to invite the viewer to engage and interact with her painstaking, thoughtful work – most pieces, depending on their size, take around five weeks. ‘I like the idea of the double take or second look,’ she says. ‘My work is quite multiangular too, so you do have to move around them.’

Other pieces in the show include a series of 32 small panels featuring a variety of buttons – 31 of which will be painted and one of which will be real; Cross liked spot-the-difference books as a child. One of the largest works, Marketing Graduate, is a painter’s shirt rendered as a biting dig at the idea of what a young artist might have to endure in the ever-volatile and competitive art market; the interior of the collar reads ‘Tailored for Blue Chips’, while its four front pockets are festooned with the typical artistic tools, from oil sticks to scissors. ‘It’s called the Marketing Graduate because that really is what a lot of emerging artists are,’ says Cross in a refreshingly matter-of-fact way. ‘It’s very anti-art.’

Inspired by McQueen learning the craft of tailoring on Saville Row, Cross initially studied bespoke tailoring at London College of Fashion – her degree show featured four looks that riffed on Lucian Freud paintings – before completing a master’s in painting from the Royal College of Art in 2025.

Her initial experiments in oil revolved around paintings of clothing, but with the figure all but removed, leaving perhaps a singular hand amid two beautifully executed shirts. Cross says her creative breakthrough came with the work Neck (Study) in 2024; having observed her own trench coat draped over a chair, she felt inspired to make its collar, followed by painting its buttons and a subtle shadow that you can barely see in a reproduction photograph.

‘I had to almost reject fashion,’ she says. ‘And then get into painting to return to it. My sewing machine and paints had been next to each other for years, but it had never clicked until the RCA.’

Cross tells a wonderfully rudimentary and DIY story of an early art-fashion cross-over; at around 16, inspired by a Miu Miu collection, she drew cats on a school shirt collar. ‘I would use up all the data on my phone to look at runway shows,’ she laughs. But her interest in clothes began with her mother, who she says has always been very well dressed – ‘She always taught us, if you have a good handbag and a good pair of shoes, you can walk into any room, and you'll be fine’ – while her father’s career as a pilot instigated her lifelong curiosity around uniforms.

Comparisons to Domenico Gnoli are obvious – Cross describes the way he painted the twill diagonal line of a tie with a slight shadow as ‘just delicious’. She notes, too, that conceptual artists such as Yoko Ono, Lawrence Weiner and Marcel Duchamp feel pertinent inspirations. ‘Mary Kelly, I think, is really interesting,’ she says. ‘She did a lot with fashion, in almost using clothing as a documentation of a life, and creating an archive. I think, in a way, maybe that's also what I'm trying to do: create a form of an archive.’ Agnes Martin’s rigour and simplicity similarly chime with Cross’ sensibility. ‘You can see it has taken her years to get that perfect stripe, and I think I'm also chasing that perfect button or stripe.’

Painting mostly from life, Cross’ signature greyish beige Belgian linen offers her a certain restraint – ‘It allows the shadows or the form to do the talking.’ Her process begins with a sketch. She will then pattern-cut as if she is making clothing, deciding crucial measurements before cutting the linen, figuring out dimensions for the stretcher bars and which bits of the linen will need to be primed in order to be painted upon. This is followed by the cutting of each individual piece; she will then begin to paint and sew.

Born in London, Cross grew up in Portugal, returning to the UK to study for her GCSEs. She recognises that the shift in school uniform from a very simple polo shirt to the traditional state-school grey skirt with a blazer and tie cemented her fascination with the language and codes of clothing. ‘You’re judged immediately on how exactly you wear your uniform – there’s such an unspoken language around it,’ she recalls of school-era styling nuances. ‘I do like that tension between the idea that a uniform is a way to equalise but somehow also offers a way in to breaking the rules.’ On a first date, she says her initial question is always ‘What was your school uniform and how did you wear it?’

For a recent show at Nino Mier Gallery in New York, Cross completed extensive archival research into uniforms, specifically school dress codes and workplace attire at both the V&A and the Goldsmith’s Textile Collection. On a board in her studio, there are images of men wearing plus fours from the 1920s, including Cambridge undergraduates. Inspiration is also gathered from real life, specifically on her Northern Line commute. ‘I like to look back, but also look at what people are wearing now because that makes for a new language.’ One of her favourites among this latest work is Sardines, featuring four almost identical navy suit-jacketed arms, which was largely informed by journeying bankers and the varying iterations on a classic navy sartorial uniform.

For those who invest in Cross’ work, they may find a secondary element in addition to the painting itself in the form of some kind of correspondence from the artist. Secret messages, confessional ideas and writings circulate her practice – perhaps another way to keep the audience alert, engaged, looking. For her New York show, Cross made a work called The Price of Privacy, consisting of a small pocket detail and a partly concealed confessional letter detailing the artist’s own sins of the past year. After it sold, she sent the full letter to the buyer – as yet with no response. ‘But that’s part of it,’ she grins. ‘In my mind, I thought they could post it online or maybe just keep it for themselves… I like that these added elements aren’t obvious straight away,’ she says. ‘My work allows me to play, but also to mess with people a little bit.’

Amelia Cross, ‘Rules For Disappearance’, 10 September – 4 October 2026 at Incubator, London, incubatorart.com

Famously, David Bowie was a prolific music lover, with a huge and eclectic appetite, consuming everything from Britpop to classical, delta blues to electronica. ‘It would have been a real surprise not to be surprised by David Bowie’s tastes,’ says musician and journalist Jérôme Soligny, who together with Bowie’s lifelong friend Geoff MacCormack has delved into the subject for new book, David Bowie: Music Lover, published by ACC Art Books. ‘Music Lover highlights, particular, lesser-known artists who were crucial to David, such as Biff Rose, and some may come as a surprise to some readers.’

The book, which unites over 100 artists who had a regular slot on Bowie’s turntable, begins with Little Richard, whose tracks Bowie played on his childhood Dansette record player, and ends with Kendrick Lamar, whom Bowie listened to during the recording of Blackstar, his final album, released just two days before he died.

‘I have been friends with [record producer] Tony Visconti since the 1990s, and it was Tony himself who revealed that they had listened to this Kendrick Lamar album a great deal whilst they were working on Blackstar,’ adds Soligny. ‘For this book, and the other ones we wrote, we have made a point of not ‘putting words into David’s mouth’, so it would be presumptuous to explain why he liked this album. However, the fact that Lamar is such an adventurous artist could only have appealed to David Bowie.’

Inside David Bowie's record collection

Wallpaper*: Having known and listened to music with Bowie for so many years, what does his record collection reveal about him that perhaps his own records and public persona don’t?

Jérôme Soligny: Not much, to be honest, or a great deal – which, in the case of an artist like him, who worked in a way that was a bit like communicating vessels, amounts to the same thing. David Bowie’s music is a sort of fantastical journey, and his musical tastes inspired his work. Lou Reed’s ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’, for example, is a sort of benchmark song that inspired him to write many others. David believed that to know him was to know his music. Everything he wanted to reveal is in his songs.

Geoff MacCormack: I would say that they are one and the same.

W*: Bowie was famously restless in his musical curiosity. How did he discover new music? What did he look for in an artist?

GM: It wasn’t so much as being restless, there was always much he wanted to do with many forms of art, including music – added to which fame and the opportunity to experiment came fairly late. He was already 26 in 1973 when it all took off for him. In many ways, he was trying to catch up. I think he liked anything that had soul, not as in the genre but as in authenticity. Also, if it was quirky or strange too, well, all the better.

W*: How important was listening to music to Bowie’s creative process? Could you tell when something he was listening to was beginning to influence what he was recording?

GM: I think the reason Bowie tolerated me being around him (even taking pictures) was because I never asked him stuff, I was just there as a trusted friend. At any rate, what was happening in David’s life was completely new to us both. I can tell you he, and I, loved Black American music all our lives and would say, obviously, of course it influenced him.

I can tell you we were listening to Kraftwerk around the time of the recording of Station to Station, but I can’t tell you, absolutely, whether it influenced him or not because I didn’t ask him. I would say that what we listened to over the years or recommended to each other, together with what his musicians and other friends introduced to him and whatever he discovered by any source, it would be a given that, like any great artist, all kinds of music would seep through purposely or unconsciously.

accartbooks.com

It started with an invitation – to create a birthday cake to mark our 30 years in print, as celebrated in the October 2026 issue of Wallpaper* – sent to visionaries from across the creative industries that represent Wallpaper’s universe. Those that responded included architects, fashion designers, artists, image-makers, chefs, jewellers and furniture designers, all of whom have helped define our first three decades, and who continue to inspire, excite and shape the present and future of their industries. Among them are former Design Awards judges and winners – including Patricia Urquiola, Jon Gray (Ghetto Gastro), Nifemi Marcus Bello (Nmbello Studio) and Objects of Common Interest – alongside many of the creatives who have appeared on our pages over the years, and whose stories we have been proud to tell.

We were ecstatic with the response. Over the course of several weeks, cakes in all shapes and forms flooded our inboxes – both virtual and physical. They came in the form of drawings, objects, photographs and even real, edible cakes. Some ‘bakers’ invited other creatives to join them in the making of their cakes, leading to an ever-expanding constellation of creativity that made this celebration a perfect fit for our first 30 years. Happy birthday to us – now tuck in…

Issey Miyake

Bas Smets

Patricia Urquiola

Dior

ESTÚDIO CAMPANA

Gucci

Lina Ghotmeh

Marchesi 1824

Ma Yansong

Objects of Common Interest

Norman Foster

Rick Owens

Tosin Oshinowo

Kim Gordon

Faye Toogood

Hannah Martin

Georg Jensen

Completedworks

Nmbello Studio

Massimo Vitali

Samuel Ross

Isabel + Helen

We Are Ona

Ghetto Gastro

AA Murakami

Tai Shani

Lee Broom

Patcharivipa

Marcio Kogan

Perfumer H

Wallpaper’s 30th-anniversary, October 2026 Guest Editors’ Issue – with guest-edited sections by Es Devlin, Carrie Mae Weems and Palace Skateboards – is available from 3 September, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

How would you describe what you do?

I facilitate musical happenings. I'm a singer; the made thing is a collective experience.

Why do you do it?

I truly don't think that there's any other way.

Who or what inspires you?

I just saw a performance by choreographer and dancer Jesse Factor called The MetaMarthasis. It pulls together ideas from Martha Graham and Madonna, and it helped me feel like part of a continuum.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

Live theatre and live music got me inspired. I see now that this is a very basic form of what we do: transmit messages, through code, to people in the same room or space.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Bold and beautiful.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I knew it was an organisation in the process of defining its own medium.

What are you currently working on?

Songs on which the rest of the work is hung.

Favourite restaurant?

The RibCrib in Louisville, KY (now closed).

Anything you'd recommend?

KTNN Radio, the voice of the Navajo nation.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

God bless us, everyone.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

I'd like to say I just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Officially? I'm mostly a photographer, as well as a lighting director, visual merchandiser and occasional chef.

Why do you do it?

I fell into photography by accident. I started out in lighting and became really nerdy about it. I didn't properly pick up a camera until I was 20 because I was terrified I wouldn't be good enough or that I didn't understand it technically. That fear probably shaped the way I work more than anything. Instead of waiting until I felt ready, I just kept doing it anyway. I still approach shoots with that same mindset; commit to the idea and figure it out as you go. Photography can be a very solitary thing, but more often, it takes a whole village. I'm incredibly grateful that people continue to trust me to make work alongside them.

Who or what inspires you?

A lot of my inspiration comes from the people I've met along the way who have taught me what I know now. Jet, the photo studio technician at Central Saint Martins, who encouraged my geekiness about studio lighting. Raph and Lulu at Fashion East, who gave me my first photography job. I genuinely think about them every time I take a photo. Aidan Zamiri is my absolute king, legend and mentor. I don't think he realises how much I've learned just by being alongside him. He has such a clear vision, but he's also endlessly excited to experiment. And I always find myself coming back to the imagery of Hiromix, Christopher Doyle, Luis Sanchis, David Sims and Takashi Homma.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

My dad was a vinyl hoarder. He'd buy anything as long as it was a bargain. I was always rummaging through the stacks to see what he'd found, and I loved the covers. As a kid, I'd pick one record every day and display it on a shelf in my room. It could be anything, from a Russian orchestra to Dolly Parton.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Surreal and an absolute hoot! It never feels like work. Just hanging out with friends who are hilarious and have great taste in music.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

They don't take themselves too seriously while also showing so much care and passion for what they do. Lots of love and respect.

What are you currently working on?

Trying to do more personal stuff.

Favourite restaurant?

This is the worst question to ask me. I love food. Lao Siam and Buck in Paris, Uoriki in Tokyo, Rita's in Soho, El Xampanyet and Nardi in Barcelona, Imone in New Malden, Books for Cooks in Notting Hill, Yokoya in Camden, My Old Place in Liverpool Street.

Anything you'd recommend?

Kokuho by Sang-il Lee. Tart by Slutty Chef. J Dilla's The Shining and Lafayette Afro Rock Band's Afro Funk Explosion. Victoria Peak, Hong Kong, at night.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

Laugh a lot, hang out with your friends, watch films, eat good food, stay out super late, walk where you can, look after your body, be nice to others.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

I am a visual artist working across video, photography, sculpture and found objects.

Why do you do it?

Art making for me is a form of healing. My childhood was quite complicated and traumatic. I pretty much lived in a constant dissociated space and wanted to escape. Even though that space contained a lot of pain, it also gave me a lot of strength.

Who or what inspires you?

Memory Screen, Photosynthesis, Apocalypse Now, Helen Frankenthaler, decay, Bruce Conner, colour, abandoned objects, friends.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

As a teenager, I was inspired by skate videos and magazines. Videos by Mike Hill, such as Memory Screen, really impacted me. It wasn't a standard skate video with trick after trick – it was more of a visual essay, an art piece, mixing Super 8 footage with a barely recognisable skate trick shot on deteriorating VHS. It must've been so much fun to make and that pushed me to be creative.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Effortless. Lev and Stuart have always believed in the work I do. I never felt like they had to hold my hand on solo projects. But also, on the projects we did together, there was a lot of creative freedom and room to breathe, which is extremely rare in the commercial advertising world.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

It was refreshing seeing them create a brand based on lo-fi raw skateboarding that wasn't afraid to be different. None of that dry HD 60p a pop bullshit.

What are you currently working on?

I just recently closed my first solo show, which brought a lot to the surface for me. I'm taking the time to process and understand the experience. It's actually quite exciting, and I'm looking forward to making new work.

Favourite restaurant?

Either Rubirosa (NYC) or La Brace (Cefalù).

Anything you'd recommend?

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit; Perfect Lives store in London; Ana Mendieta at Tate Modern; Synecdoche, New York; Looking for Mushrooms by Bruce Conner; Discreet Music by Brian Eno.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

Revisit and review. Between creative periods, I review my archives, looking back at things I've collected or photographed.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

I make music.

Why do you do it?

Idk, lol.

Who or what inspires you?

Windom Earle.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

Tim & Barry videos.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Jokes.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I used to have the half puffer – that was my favourite jacket.

What are you currently working on?

I made some stuff on my phone that's sounding cool.

Favourite restaurant?

There was a sushi buffet in Canada that I went to once, but I can't remember the name. Also McChina.

Anything you'd recommend?

Chouffe Cherry beer – idk if that's what it's called, but it slaps.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

Yoo, what's going on.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

Wow, great question! Detroit-reared electronic music sound architect, sonic vanguard and time-travelling storyteller.

Why do you do it?

I do it for many reasons, but most specifically for the love of music and being able to create something new by combining two or three songs together. So if you take my mixing style, plus some genuine, honest energy from the crowd, it can create a unique Detroit vibe. Then it becomes more than a party. It becomes emotional. It becomes therapeutic, hopefully even inspiring at times. I do it to make people move, but also to educate them and give a temporary escape from everyday woes or struggles. It's me expressing myself and giving back. A live auditory love letter to and from the city that created DJ Bone.

Who or what inspires you?

My experiences growing up in Detroit, fashion, architecture, science, my wife, the future, the resoluteness of others, avant- garde artists and designers, people who undervalue me, the paranormal, dreams, silence. Musically, I was inspired by so many artists: Prince, Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, Donna Summer, early Motown, The Drifters, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Brian Eno, Wally Badarou, The Electrifying Mojo, 70s and 80s soundtracks, Public Enemy, KRS-One, Nile Rodgers, Roxy Music, Jan Hammer, Thornetta Davis, Martha Jean The Queen, The Scene dance show, Parliament-Funkadelic, Michael Franks, Juan Atkins and so many more.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

I was into engineering, sports and music. I loved the science of engineering, as well as using your hands to make something. I played basketball almost EVERY day. I would apply so much science to my game through angles, rate of speed, etc. And with music, I was into more than just what songs sounded like. I was realising how certain songs and sounds could make you feel. I could tell who wrote or produced songs just by listening for a few seconds. This led me to study the creative processes behind my favourite artists.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

It's been very surreal actually, like ‘How is this happening right now?' Since the first time we worked together, it's been like family. I trust and love the Palace crew so much. Whether it's an interview or project or they want to use some of my music, I know it's going to be dope. They are so creative with it, it's crazy. They're also very genuine and humble as well. I still can't believe how generous, too, helping us the last few years by donating items as gifts for the artists who pledge their sets for Homeless Homies.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I was never big into skateboarding, to be honest, but I've always checked out Palace's clothes as well as their Instagram. I saw some of the dopest collabs they had and I just kept checkin' them out. So when they hit me up to be involved with the Palace x Detroit Tigers, I was so hyped!!

What are you currently working on?

This year was supposed to be a lighter workload year for me, but I've been presented with a lot of great opportunities that I just couldn't turn down. I'm working on taking our DJ Bone presents Further concept to other cities. Alongside our usual dates in Amsterdam this year, we held events in Berlin, Detroit, Manchester, Antwerp, Dortmund and Eindhoven. I'm in the studio relentlessly producing, too, working on several projects at once, including a straight-up dance tracks series, a nature project for a 70s icon, a collab with a well-known Detroit producer/DJ, and a special Spatial Audio release. I'm also working on expanding our charitable activities. Since 2002, all proceeds from my labels, any releases, downloads, remix fees, etc, go directly to our Homeless Homies foundation, but I'd like to do more.

Favourite restaurant?

Originally it was Piazza Duomo in Alba, Italy. But recently we dined at Lucky Cat 22 Bishopsgate in London and it was phenomenal. So I have to call it a tie right now between these two amazing restaurants.

Anything you'd recommend?

Music: Pin Breakers by Zelooperz and Black Noi$e, The Future That Created My Past by Mark Williams, A Time And Place by Dave Angel, Lost Tapes 34 by MAW. Movies: Meta Take One, Is God Is, The Currents, Obsession, The Sheep Detectives. Places: Belle Isle (Detroit, MI), Lahaina Banyan Tree (Maui, HI), Ritz-Carlton O‘ahu, Turtle Bay (Kahuku, HI), Nusa Dua Beach (Bali), Eastern Market (Detroit, MI). Eats: Evie's Tamales (Detroit, MI), Crustacean (Beverly Hills, CA), Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen (Inglewood, CA).

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

First of all, I'm happy that there are so many people who still love to read actual print magazines. It makes sense, too, since Wallpaper* issues are collectibles. I'm very honoured to have this opportunity to be in front of their readers' eyes. It's humbling to know that I'll be in an issue of Wallpaper*. It's such a profound magazine! The writers are always at the forefront of so many things that I love – art, fashion, architecture, technology and even touching on social issues. This is bucket list territory for me to be featured, so thanks again… and huge thanks to my Palace family.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

The best and only way to describe the things I get to do is that I have complete and utter freedom to do what I want and when I want. The dream.

Why do you do it?

I do it for the love, I do it for me, I'm selfish with it.

Who or what inspires you?

Virgil Abloh, Lev Tanju and you, Sir Stuart Hammond, you lot inspire my mental creativity on and off the board. Family friends & the haters.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

I really loved building old war planes from scratch and painting them, along with Lego. Probably my first obsession before skating. I suppose I carried the building aspect on from then.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Forever exhilarating TS.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

Mate, there is no prior. The foot was on the gas from day dot.

What are you currently working on?

I'm working on DCV'87 and Palasonic 2. The rest is hush hush :)

Favourite restaurant?

La Famiglia, London.

Anything you'd recommend?

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Music by James Massiah, Babydoom, Ceehoo, John Glacier, Steven Julien, Othrwld. Art by Shawn Powers. The Game. Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

dcv87.com

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

I am a documentarian of street fashion. I'm also a photographer and publisher.

Why do you do it?

In 1985, when I was 30 years old, I decided that documenting street fashion and creating media would be my life's work. It felt like a very clear calling, and that's why I've been able to continue doing it ever since.

Who or what inspires you?

Ferdinand de Saussure, Georges Bataille, contemporary physics, contemporary art.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

Surrealism, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein and Man Ray. Andy Warhol felt so far ahead of his time that I couldn't really understand him.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

When I went to London, I expected to shoot digitally, but they asked if I could shoot on film instead. For Fruits, I had used a rather unusual medium-format camera, the Fujifilm GA645Wi, so I said I would be happy to shoot on film if they could provide that camera. Amazingly, they rented one for me the very next day. Because I was using ISO 100 slide film, it wasn't suitable for low light or evening conditions, so I shot with both film and digital. We photographed exactly where Lev wanted us to, but the shoot continued after sunset. Under those conditions, the digital images would technically have been much better. In the end, though, they chose to use only the film photographs. That creative decision reflects something I couldn't have achieved on my own – whether it's the British creative spirit or simply Lev's instinct. Combined with Vivienne Westwood's involvement, the styling was exceptional. The models and locations were also perfect. I think it became a wonderful piece of work, and people often compliment me on it.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I had been aware of Palace because I often saw people carrying Palace shopping bags in Harajuku. However, their store was a little outside the area where I usually spend my time, so I had never visited it. In 2022, I was invited to London by The Face magazine to photograph Beabadoobee. While walking through Soho, I saw the Palace store and the long queue outside. I immediately felt the brand's energy and strong sense of style, and I remember thinking that it would be great to work with Palace one day. Two years later, I received an email from Palace offering me a collaboration. I was genuinely surprised.

What are you currently working on?

I'm 70 years old now, so my main focus is how to preserve what I've created over the years. For the past few years, one of my biggest projects has been making the complete digital archives of Street, Fruits and Tune available through libraries around the world. It looks like that will finally become a reality by the end of this year. My next challenge is finding ways to transform my archive into artworks and books that can endure for the future. I'd like to explore whether Fruits could become a fashion brand, and whether it's possible to create a new generation of Fruits magazine. There's also a possibility of developing a Fruits fragrance.

Favourite restaurant?

These days, I usually travel abroad alone, so I don't often go to restaurants. Instead, I love buying charcuterie, cheese, salad, fruit and wine from supermarkets or speciality shops and enjoying them in my hotel room. Earlier this year, while walking through Soho in London, I discovered a long queue outside Thai restaurant Kiln. I invited a friend and we had an unforgettable meal. In 2023 in Paris, I found an incredible charcuterie shop in the Marais called À La Ville de Rodez. I later heard it may have closed, and if that's true, I'd be very sad. Japan has many outstanding restaurants, but these days I don't eat out very often because it's difficult to maintain a balanced diet that way. As an experience, Sukiyabashi Jiro is absolutely worth visiting. I have only been once, but I still vividly remember how extraordinary it was. I was amazed that something as simple as fish on top of rice could taste that incredible. I've been to many famous sushi restaurants, but Jiro stands in a class of its own. Kyoto's long-established kaiseki restaurants are works of art in themselves. And this year, I happened to discover an eel restaurant in Gion, Kyoto, called Yondaime Kikukawa, and it was truly remarkable.

Anything you'd recommend?

Juma Densetsu (The Legend of Juma) by Waka Mizuki. If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – just don't give up after the first episode. Aki Yashiro, Bach's Mass in B Minor, Terry Riley, Illit, and Billie Eilish.

Some of the exhibitions that have impressed me most in recent years were the Man Ray retrospective, the Paul Klee exhibition, and New York's MoMA. I also loved the Hajime Sorayama exhibition at Nanzuka in Shanghai. My greatest museum experience ever was the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, although that was back in the 1980s and the atmosphere was probably very different then.

One experience I'm especially proud of is seeing Jeff Koons' installation in ‘NY Art Now' at the Saatchi Gallery in 1987 – it has stayed with me ever since. I admire Kohei Nawa, and I'm also following Wade Guyton with great interest. I love Harajuku. It has changed a lot since the 1990s, but I still think it's the most stylish neighbourhood in the world. Molecular biology fascinates me. When I listen to Bach's Masses, I feel the presence of god. Quantum mechanics also allows me to imagine something like a divine principle. But I have a feeling that if we keep exploring the inside of cells, we may one day discover signs of god there. That said, the Japanese way of thinking about gods is quite unique.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

I think it's important to fill your mind with good visual culture. I believe that's one way to make the world a better place.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

I'm a former pro skater who writes poems [his previous poetry collections are Out for Air (Penned in the Margins, 2022) and Good Ground (Broken Sleep Books, 2026)]. I don't think anyone's advertising for that particular job, though, unfortunately.

Why do you do it?

It's an impulse I've been responding to, with varying degrees of urgency, since I was a kid. I don't remember making a decision to start writing poems, so it's difficult to find the ‘why'. But I have learned to understand that poems are where I live and skating is who I am.

Who or what inspires you?

Real poetry and poets! Kleinzahler, Seidel, Lowell, Glück, Hofmann, Hughes, Berryman, Olds, Laird, Siobhan Walker.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

Although I was writing poetry from a young age, I wasn't really reading it until I became an undergraduate. Indie and rock music were the dominant art forms of my teen years – listening, not playing, regretfully. It was through music figures like Jim Morrison that I discovered authors like Jack Kerouac, which led to a deeper dive into Beat literature, which I've since outgrown for better or worse, and literature in general.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

I'm wrapping up a third collection manuscript, and have begun work on a new book, which feels so far like it's trying to become a novel in verse. I wonder if it will sustain itself.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

Philippe's, Los Angeles.

What are you currently working on?

I'm wrapping up a third collection manuscript, and have begun work on a new book, which feels so far like it's trying to become a novel in verse. I wonder if it will sustain itself.

Favourite restaurant?

Philippe's, Los Angeles.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

Something about the importance of the written word in print, but they've already got that covered.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

Jackson Technically we're music producers and composers, which entails coming up with musical ideas, developing and recording them and then presenting them in the way we, or our client, want them to be heard. It can be a very simple or a very complicated process, from gestating a tune to delivering a finalised recorded composition. There's a decent amount of creative risk and luck involved too so we can't claim we totally know what we're doing all the time, but we've been doing it together for 13 years professionally, so I guess that means we're doing something right. Luke I tell people I'm a music producer and composer, and steer clear of any mention of DJing or performance to avoid any questions.

Why do you do it?

Luke I started making music in my early teens because I loved doing it and, by process of elimination, it has become – just about – a career. Similarly, Rezzett started with us making music together for a laugh with no plan beyond that. I have a clear memory of us pissing ourselves laughing when we were making what became the first ever tune we released, Fire Bomb – which is also the first tune of ours that Palace used in a video. Jackson I've been fascinated with sound since I was a nipper and got into playing around with it creatively when I was a teenager. I'm 38 now and still think there's a lot left to sonically explore beyond the horizon. I feel lucky to think that there's a few people that wouldn't like me to stop yet. I really love what I do, whether it's in the studio or on the road playing in clubs. It's been a good ride.

Who or what inspires you?

Jackson London. The potential to fail. The potential to win! Happy hardcore. Luke. Luke Inspiration is elusive and can pop up when you least expect it, like hearing three seconds of a track in a mix that makes you immediately open up Ableton, or having a nice interaction at the post office. I have some reliable sources for emergency situations, like the Coen Brothers, or Potential Bad Boy, or my mum, or Will Bankhead, or Jackson.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

Luke I was into anything and everything, watching a lot of MTV, a lot of weird films on late-night television, listening to my older brothers' music, reading my parents' books. I found it all very exciting if I thought it was good, and I'd like to think I have continued through life in that same spirit. Jackson I was already a music studio rat at 15, which led me to messing about with tape machines and electronics. But outside of music, I've always really admired people who hone a tangible craft, whether that's welding, ceramics or skateboarding. I think there's a lot of creative parallels between those kinds of disciplines and making music.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Jackson It almost always starts with a banging email from Stuart. He'll ask for something really specific and with not a lot of time to get it done, so we'll just smash it out until everyone's happy. Sometimes there's a bit of back and forth, but we've been working with Palace for ages and we've always been gassed on whatever project they've asked us to score – and had a lot of fun, too! Luke Refreshing, and a pleasure. A refreshing pleasure. Palace have a clear vision of what they want, but they also put a lot of trust in their collaborators, so we tend to get a couple of helpful notes back, but mostly we are met with deep enthusiasm and a ‘this is sick, send the invoice through, safe!' It makes for good fun and for good work, I think.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

Jackson The people of Palace were in my periphery since I lived in a squat in Elephant. I met Rory Milanes at some shit night at Alibi first and, after a ruckus on the dancefloor involving someone throwing a pint, we swapped numbers and this led to meeting Will Bankhead (The Trilogy Tapes) and that brought us into the fold with Lev, Stuart, Nugget and Lucien. It was really amazing to witness it – just a couple of those first T-shirts to blowing up and having a shop in Soho to seeing Rory and some other geezers I'd met at the pub go pro. Sick!

What are you currently working on?

Jackson We just put out a new 21-track album called Into the Boiling Darks so we're getting ready for live shows while finally having some time to enjoy making music for ourselves again. I've just bought a rare Polish drum machine that sounds mental and is keeping me busy when I'm not.

Favourite restaurant?

Jackson Terry's Cafe in SE1 holds a special place in my heart. Sicilia in Roppongi, Tokyo, does a banging green salad. Luke Estrela d'Ouro, Lisbon.

Anything you'd recommend?

Luke The films of Les Blank. Jackson Guy Sherwin's Optical Sound Films (1971-2007), the bar at Gambrinus, Lisbon.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

Jackson If you're reading thus far and haven't the foggiest what we do still, then go check our music out: some of it is really good. Also big up Adam Bray: he's got you for the interiors. Luke If anyone in the Finsbury Park area wants to buy a 1960s Heal's brown corduroy sofa, hit me up on Marketplace.

How would you describe what you do?

I make music.

Why do you do it?

Because I love it.

Who or what inspires you?

All ten of my siblings, my friends, people that like my music, beautiful things, hard times, good times, walking, running, daydreams, night dreams.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

I've always loved music that feels addictive. In my teens, it was pop music.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Awesome because everybody is so nice and it was so chill. And everybody took a smoke break every five minutes.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I always thought they were cool.

What are you currently working on?

On an album that feels really good.

Favourite restaurant?

Pagliacci's in Victoria, BC.

Anything you'd recommend?

Making iMovie slideshows. I find this is a really nice way to appreciate specific moments in your life with some photos and a nice song.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

Kindness is free.

How would you describe what you do?

Jean Cocteau once said he was a jack of all trades because everything touched him. I'd say I am a multidisciplinary artist, and that every discipline I explore expands and deepens the power of my expression.

Why do you do it?

As a child, I drew to fill the loneliness I felt while at boarding school, far away from my parents. Later, I began imagining a different way of dressing, a way of transforming what I lacked. I worked with humble materials that no one valued – mops, shower curtains, blankets, and the like. These were the materials that had protected me, so I turned them into garments. At that moment, my work became the identity manifesto of my anger, and people began to notice me. I built artistic approach on the raw power of material itself, as a forceful reclaiming of the traditional codes of elegance. It was a form of anti-fashion. I felt very close in spirit to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. From then on, I have lived my practice as an ongoing exploration, a journey toward art, the sacred, and the invisible. This has shaped all of my collaborations, whether with fellow artists or with the church. I am driven by a quest: to create a universe, an emotional and powerful space through which I can play a part in the movement of the world, to bring colour and hope to people living in a society that is becoming increasingly dystopian.

Who or what inspires you?

For a long time, I believed that danger and torment were the inevitable companions of inspiration. ‘Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die', as Malcolm McLaren famously said. Rhythm, music and guitars have always been the heartbeat of my creative process, and the encounters I have had in that world have been truly magical. I have been inspired by the ghosts of the past, history itself, 19th-century English literature, the artists I've met. But what has inspired me more than anything else – and why I believe my work has reached a new level of maturity today – is love. The epic dimension of love, and the certainty that, through my creations, there is always a signal of hope. Among the defining moments of my inspiration has also been the privilege of working for the church and placing my talent at the service of my faith.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

Everything that was connected to music. When I discovered the bands from Manchester, Liverpool and London, I was no longer alone. Everything changed for me. I loved their sound, their names – The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things, The Who, and the first album covers that made their way out to the provinces. They transformed record shops into museums of contemporary art. Then, at 18, came May 1968 and the art of revolution, the posters, the aesthetics of upheaval, the smell of burning tyres, the black smoke against the most beautiful backdrop in the world: Paris.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

In the masterclasses I give, I always tell the students to form a band: the singer as communicator, the lead guitarist as creative force, the bass player as logistics, and the drummer to lead the good news. With Palace, I found my band. I have known them for a long time; they are very close-knit, a team with a very clear philosophy, a kind of excellence. Gareth and his companions often manage to surprise me. I love their choice of collaborations, from Wedgwood to Vivienne Westwood. Their journey is an epic symphony of modernity.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I think about their community, about the Palace spirit, about this notion of universal signs that inhabit the brand and its symbols of recognition, about the dimension of a universal language. Creating images that will leave a mark on people's minds, at the heart of which a generation can recognise itself.

What are you currently working on?

I have just finished work on a book, published by Thames & Hudson, about my style and many different experiences: fashion, art, design, scenography, music, and all my collaborations with other artists.

Favourite restaurant?

La Langosteria at the Cheval Blanc hotel in Paris. But I also love culinary experiences, particularly those of We Are Ona.

Anything you'd recommend?

I am currently reading A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. I am listening to Sleaford Mods, Ben Kidson, Baxter Dury and Erik Satie. I can't wait to see the Bayeux Tapestry in London.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

Creating means anticipating the consequences of an action, and the way in which one can influence society in a humanistic and positive dimension. The sources of inspiration that have always been mine, and my priorities – ecology, art for everyone as a social cement, total and undisciplined art – have become foundational sources of inspiration. The dogmas that once supported the institutional tent are becoming fragile. Only art and the sacred can bring people together. Like sport, they are rare and apolitical forces capable of uniting people through immersive experiences that bring us together. This is where my imagination flourishes today. This is where I find my mission, where the strength of my creativity is at its zenith – as when I created the scenography and the liturgical vestments for the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris.

How would you describe what you do?

I'm an artist, music producer and sound curator, who also consults on soundtracking.

Why do you do it?

I love it, and it keeps choosing me back. May as well keep it pushing.

Who or what inspires you?

Prince, my fiancée, the people of Detroit, acts of resilience, esoteric shit, extraordinary human feats, travel, isolation, love.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

I think I've only ever been seriously drawn to a few creative things – mostly music and writing. I love a good arc, whether it's evolutionary or the exact opposite. Musical storytelling became addictive to me: songs turning into anthems and soundtracking people's lives. Looking back, I guess I was studying the kinds of songs I would eventually want to make myself, the ones I'm making now. As a teenager, I wanted to do something that would let me travel, meet gorgeous women, and potentially earn a big payday. As I matured, I realised I wanted to contribute to a larger artistic conversation, to create the kind of work that might uplift someone the way music uplifted me while I was growing up through harder times.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

Horrible! Hate these guys. Truly unbearable people.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I didn't know much about them. My first connection was through Rory M via Will Bankhead, so when they came to town and I saw how down they were with techno and being in the scene, I thought, ‘Well! These guys have good energy'. Then, after a few brews, I figured out they skated, too, haha. So, to answer more directly, before I knew what Palace was really about, or why they were in Detroit in the first place, my thoughts were basically, ‘These guys are a good hang!'

What are you currently working on?

I'm in LA finishing the recording of my first album, hopefully out spring 2027. :)

Favourite restaurant?

That's a tough one. Off the top of my head, there's a Black-owned soul food restaurant in Azabu-Juban, Japan, called Soul Food House. I love it because it's such a little piece of home, and they do the food so well, you could easily think you were sitting at a table somewhere in the American South. Just a little respite amid the culture shock of Japan.

Anything you'd recommend?

If you get a chance to see Megalopolis, see that shit. That movie will go down as one of Francis Ford Coppola's best. Visit Michigan's Upper Peninsula sometime.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

You get good at whatever you practise.

• Meet more of the Palace Creative Universe

Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953, artist Carrie Mae Weems investigates traditional narratives woven into the structures of race, identity, gender and power. Early works, including the Kitchen Table series (1990), were celebrated for centring the experience of Black women. Others, appropriating daguerreotypes of enslaved people, tinting them red and adding etched text on glass, as in From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995-96), challenged racial representation and questioned the authority of those who write history. Confronting memory and emphasising the importance of a dialogue remain cornerstones of Weems’ practice today. In the October 2026 issue of Wallpaper* magazine, her curated guest edit is printed on unvarnished paper in a nod to Inserts (1988), Weems’ first collaborative effort. Here she highlights work – by herself and artists she admires – that celebrates monuments, mourning, meaning and memory.

The Weight of The Frame

On May Day 1998, the Whitney Museum of American Art, at the Philip Morris HQ on Park Avenue in New York, premiered an installation of a new series by Carrie Mae Weems. During the last 15 years, Weems’ works had been in more than 50 solo exhibitions organised by museums, including the J Paul Getty Museum, Museum of Modern Art, National Museum for Women in the Arts and Walker Art Center, among others, and some of her most celebrated body of works, including Colored People, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, and the Kitchen Table series, had been featured.

To some, the installation mounted at the Whitney that spring, What What When Where, was a departure for the interdisciplinary artist whose work had focused on powerful images of Black identity. But with this work, Weems had created a commentary on class, power and social engagement, while also probing constructivism, one of the 20th century’s most influential art movements.

Curator Thomas Piché Jr wrote, ‘This installation addresses questions of class and social systems but offers no single or clear reading. It also explores Weems’ relationship to art history, part of an ongoing investigation that has so far touched on artists Robert Colescott, Frida Kahlo and Willem de Kooning, among others.’

With this series, she turns her eye on the Russian constructivists, the artistic arm of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and asks us to consider whether artistic social engagement can influence individual and social development. In this theatrical assemblage of digitally reproduced photographs, banners, neon signs, and large-scale freestanding sculptures, we are placed in a terrain of unexpected associations.’

Eight years after the Whitney Museum exhibition, Weems was awarded the 2005/2006 Joseph H Hazen Rome Prize fellowship. For the nine months of her residency at the American Academy in Rome, the artist photographed herself standing in the midst of monumental structures and landscapes in and around the city. Interviewed four years later for Art21, Weems described the catalyst for what would become her Roaming series. ‘I think that architecture, in its essence, much of the fabric of it, is very much about power. If we think about a place like Rome... what one is made to feel is the power of the state in relationship to the lower subject. You are always aware that you are... a minion in relationship to this enormous edifice. The edifice of power. What is this relationship of power to you? Right? And what is your relationship to power. And how do you try, I think, to make someone aware of it?’ noted Weems. ‘The public spaces are, of course, monumental, and they’re beautiful, and the edifices are extraordinary. But I’m not confused about what they’re supposed to mean, and what they’re supposed to do.’

In September 2012, ‘Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video’ opened at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, spanning the 30 years since her 1983 survey at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. The exhibition then travelled to the Portland Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, before ending at the Guggenheim in New York. It was the first time a Black woman had had a retrospective at the Guggenheim – and it was Weems’ first major exhibition at any New York City museum.

While at the Guggenheim, Weems presented a three-day event, co-hosting with poet and playwright Carl Hancock Rux. For this weekend of public programming, which included architecture, dance, film, literature, music, theatre and visual arts, Weems brought together what she called an ‘all-star cast’. The Guggenheim advertised the convening as a ‘multidisciplinary performance-salon focused on contemporary cultural production by people of colour’.

However, Thomas J Lax, curator of media and performance at MoMA, astutely observed, ‘Weems organised the event as a refusal to occupy this impossible position and stand in as The Only One. Instead, she brought the rest of us into the museum with her. Weems’ convening was an assembly of interdisciplinary makers that offered a shared opportunity to create a space where “form is mapped and levels of invention are simply unpacked”. Since then, she has organised these events in other august institutions, such as The Shape of Things at the Park Avenue Armory. She has also located these ensembles within self-made sanctuaries initiated by Black artists, including Theaster Gates and Eliza Myrie’s Black Artists Retreat in Chicago, and Julie Mehretu, Paul Pfeiffer and others’ pastoral Denniston Hill residency in upstate New York. While Weems’ exhibition at the Guggenheim may have been called a first, her emphasis on the convening positions it within a long history of collective self-institutionalisation that has occurred within the Black radical tradition.’

Keeping up with her long-standing practice of leading convenings, such as Land of Broken Dreams (in conjunction with The Shape of Things) and Artist Convening at Brown Arts Institute, Weems expanded her repertoire by staging performances, including Grace Notes: Reflections for Now and, most recently, Contested Sites of Memory. In June 2016, a year after nine worshippers were killed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Weems debuted an original production.

Inspired by Greek tragedy Antigone, and blending live music, spoken word, dance and video, the performance investigates escalating racial tensions across the country. The performance’s title, Grace Notes, acknowledged Barack Obama’s eulogy for one of the victims, South Carolina state senator and pastor Clementa Pinckney, as well as the former president’s impromptu rendition of the Black gospel song, Amazing Grace.

‘The thing to me that is remarkable about our history, about who we are, about how we have conducted ourselves in the onslaught of history, is to maintain the core of our dignity,’ the artist commented in an Art21 interview. ‘That is really the ultimate call of grace.’

In 2024, Weems premiered Contested Sites of Memory, using the decommissioning of Confederate statues in Richmond, Virginia, as both a backdrop and focus. ‘I’ve been working around the idea of contested sites for several years now,’ she noted in an interview in Essence. ‘The performance is an opportunity to bring artists together and explore the complicated narratives surrounding monuments.’

Similar to a convening, the collaborators Weems brought together included performer Nona Hendryx, composer and trumpeter Jawwaad Taylor, band leader Craig Harris, Carl Hancock Rux, and poet and playwright Esther Armah, whose music, spoken word and vocals crystallise decades of reflection and conversation. In delivering one of the most personal and poignant moments of the performance, Weems told a story about her grandfather, Frank Weems, a tenant farmer and prominent union organiser in Arkansas, who fled to Chicago on foot after being almost beaten to death. Though he was later found alive, for years, his family and community assumed he was dead. Weems queried, ‘What happens to a man who has been celebrated in some way, but there is no monument built in his name?’ She later reprised Contested Sites of Memory at the Lincoln Center in New York, collaborating with pianist Vijay Iyer and violinist Jennifer Koh.

In 2023, Weems revisited her longtime engagement with monuments when she presented Monumental Concerns, a symposium, held at Syracuse University, exploring their role in society. There she asked, ‘How do we dialogue about these often-controversial issues and fairly address a multitude of perspectives? To what extent do we invite opposition to discussions of monument removal or displacement? When and how do these debates spill over into racial violence, and what can we do to address this reality? How do we acknowledge the emotional and nationalistic role that monuments often play while advocating for more inclusive historical framing?’

In addition to Weems, the university’s inaugural artist-in-residence at the time, the symposium brought together scholars such as Timur Hammond and Delali Kumavie, artists such as Eric Gottesman, Brandon Lazore and Hank Willis Thomas, and curators such as Hamza Walker and Melissa Yuen, along with other thinkers who explored how monuments can commemorate challenging histories and shape dominant narratives both locally and nationally. Weems also questioned what function monuments serve, suggesting they are both ‘vessel and container that can hold a certain kind of meaning, a certain kind of complexity’.

Two years later, in March 2025, she continued the Syracuse gathering with Monumental Concerns 2, a daylong symposium held at MoMA in New York. ‘As artists, we are all profoundly engaged in our mutual practices, yet the water gathers us into a single pool,’ Weems said. ‘I invite you to stand on the bridge as we consider contested sites of memory and monuments.’

As before, the symposium sought to consider the role of monuments and their contested histories in contemporary society. And again, the forum assembled artists, curators, historians and scholars, both to explore how monuments can commemorate challenging histories, and to shape dominant narratives both locally and beyond. The objective was to consider, through sustained thoughtful and respectful dialogue, what a monument is in 21st century America, and what monuments could be in the future.

Last year, commissioned by Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo, Weems premiered ‘Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter’, at the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, an exhibition organised in collaboration with New York publisher Aperture and curated by Sarah Hermanson Meister. This retrospective included Kitchen Table, Museums, and Framing the Town, alongside video installations including The Shape of Things and Leave! Leave Now! But the heart of the exhibition was Preach, an intense installation exploring religion and spirituality among Black communities across generations.

To mark its last month, in April this year, the V&A East Museum in London commissioned a film, The Long Goodbye. In it, Weems ‘traces how bodies of water, from the sweeping currents to soft tides, have shaped us, enabling transatlantic migration and continuing to impact communities from east London and beyond’. And on Juneteenth (19 June), the US holiday marking the day when enslaved Black Texans learned of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed them, Weems’ commission for the Obama Presidential Center went on public view for the first time. Celebrating Obama’s historic 2008 election win, The Cool Blue Wind is a photographic installation comprising 30 images, alongside the Obama Suite, a 40-minute piece composed by Weems, which she performed with musicians Craig Harris, Vijay Iyer, Jennifer Koh, Somi, and Jawwaad Taylor.

For the project, Weems described herself ‘as bandleader, assembling musicians and photographic collaborators across time’. But this collage of monochromatic images, printed on silver metallic paper and tinted blue, also marked a departure for her. ‘I’ve incorporated not only my own [work], but also images created by some of the great photographers of our time,’ Weems said. ‘This serves as a way to commemorate the moment and pay tribute to those who have come before us. Their contributions have widened the path so future generations are more able to focus on the future with fewer obstacles.’

Creatively, Weems shows no signs slowing down. On 4 July – the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States – her nonprofit artist collective Social Studies 101 announced a new initiative, titled 250 and Change. Employing Monumental Concerns and Contested Sites of Memory as springboards, Weems put forth a sweeping proposal to commission 50 artists, in recognition of each of the states in the union, to create 50 original ‘monuments for a future’ they would want to envisage. For the next two years, their maquettes, sculptures, paintings, scale models and sketches will be displayed in containers designed by Elizabeth Diller, co-founder of architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, travelling across the entire country on an articulated lorry. Weems’ objective is to engage a wide, diverse and inclusive cross-section of the nation’s population. The exhibition will visit local cultural institutions, museums, universities and other public spaces, and every exhibition host will benefit from bespoke programming such as lectures, screenings and media campaigns.

‘One of the wonderful things that [American writer and civil rights activist] James Baldwin talked about is that the artist is here in order to illuminate those things that we most fear, the things that we are most ashamed of,’ Weems said in an interview with curator Madeline Haddon in April. ‘We have to bring an audience into a new awareness of who we are and what we are as human beings on the planet, and how we band together in order to achieve something greater.’

When a group of international press descended on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art this week, a common question in the discourse was 'What the hell is narrative art?' Well, when George Lucas, founder of the museum, made a surprise appearance, he set the record straight: art that tells stories.

‘For 2,000 years, the only way you could tell a story was with pictures,’ George Lucas said, referring to cave paintings that have a presence in the museum.

However, for Lucas, honouring narrative art began with illustrators like those who composed the concept art for his history-making franchise, Star Wars. But after working on this museum for nearly 20 years, the idea kept expanding even into the building itself.

Critics have already called the facility ‘one of Lucas’s fantastical creatures.’ But to Ma Yansong, architect and founder of Beijing firm MAD, the floating design tells a different story. It’s a cloud, complete with a rainstorm pouring out of the waterfall feature on the north lawn.

Beyond the architectural marvel, the museum can be a part of anyone’s narrative even without a ticket. The public green space features an amphitheater, vast gardens, and many pieces of art, including a fountain helming a statue of Yoda in the same mold as the one outside Skywalker Ranch. Except this one has Grogu, more commonly known as “Baby Yoda,” clinging tightly to his elder’s robes, a sign of how the story of Star Wars has advanced over time.

Those without tickets can then head into the Education Wing through one of the two main entrances (similar to Yansong’s design for the Hainan Science Museum), walk under a full-scale Naboo Starfighter from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), and enter the free library with three floors of bookshelves. During our visit, there were such books on display as a history of Lucas’s visual effects company, Industrial Light & Magic. Another was the complete works of Austrian painter Egon Schiele.

Across the courtyard created by the main gallery floor that connects the two entrances from four stories up is the Museum Wing, which requires a ticket. The first thing you’ll see are the three tubular elevators that look like they were pulled right out of the Death Star. Before you ride them up (which Yangsong describes as 'departing reality'), enter two theaters showing constant films throughout open hours, and there is an exhibit to the left entitled “The History of Narrative Art: Heroes, Myths, The Sacred.”

This is where the cave paintings are. George Lucas is not shy about how he borrowed from history to create Star Wars. The Cinema gallery upstairs reveals the end result. Find Anakin’s life-size pod racer in action from The Phantom Menace and the original R2-D2 seen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). Almost every scene is accompanied by the original illustrations by now-famous concept artists such as Ralph McQuarrie, showing the genesis of iconic sequences and characters from their initial static versions.

The rest of the galleries are grouped by interesting criteria. Some are dedicated to artists like Norman Rockwell. There are multiple iterations of his seminal piece “Triple Self Portrait.” Others are grouped by genres like fantasy, science fiction, and adventure. A bronze statue of Indiana Jones welcomes the latter.

Some galleries are based on societal elements such as school, sports, and civic life, the last of which includes anti-war propaganda going back to 1971. I was hoping to see a section on music, but my itch was scratched when I saw a photo from the Beatles' legendary Abbey Road shoot in the photography section. Oh, and Banksy has an original stencil in the mural section one floor up.

These widespread classifications demonstrate how stories told with pictures have permeated every aspect of our lives, and Tracey Bates, CEO of the Lucas Museum, hopes they will have the same effect on someone as such art had on George.

‘The most exciting part isn’t what we built. It’s what will happen once we open the doors. If this museum sparks that same imagination in even one young mind that George felt 50 years ago, it will have been well worth it.’

lucasmuseum.org

When Charles M Schulz first introduced Charlie Brown to the world in October 1950, the beloved cartoon character wore a plain white T-shirt. But Schulz realised Charlie Brown was missing something. ‘He didn’t bounce off the page,’ the American cartoonist later recounted. ‘So I gave him that little jagged stripe, and he’s had it ever since.’

Clothing quickly became visual shorthand for each character in the Peanuts comic-strip universe. Sally wore polka dots; Linus had stripes and his trusty security blanket; Peppermint Patty flaunted flip-flops. Even Snoopy, the beloved beagle, first appeared with a flower tucked into his collar.

‘Snoopy in Style’, a new exhibition opening today (2 September 2026) in New York, tells the story of Peanuts and its creator through fashion. Through archival material, fashion rarities, special commissions and experiential vignettes, the show highlights Peanuts’ enduring influence on fashion and pop culture.

That starts with Schulz himself. The Minnesota-born cartoonist – ‘Sparky’, as he was known to those close to him – was always a snazzy dresser, thanks to his father (a barber) and a proclivity for sweaters, courtesy of a clothing store called the Lions Den, local to Santa Rosa where he later moved. The exhibition features a selection of some of the best, courtesy of The Charles M Schulz Museum and Research Center, including a red-and-black argyle number and a flame-stitch crewneck.

As the popularity of the strip grew, so did Peanuts’ reach. San Francisco businesswoman Connie Boucher saw opportunity in Peanuts-themed merchandise. In partnership with Schulz, Boucher helped the comic strip grow from a fixture in the ‘funnies’ into Peanuts the brand. Peanuts-themed datebooks, plush dolls, clothing and more – a plethora of which is shown in ‘Snoopy in Style’ – flooded the market. Standouts include original 1960s-era wall calendars with psychedelic graphics; a rainbow of character-themed sweatshirts; and a Boy George-lookalike Snoopy.

As the decades rolled on, so too did the Peanuts cast’s style – especially Snoopy. At various points in the strip’s five-decade run, Snoopy flaunted alter-egos and styles that drew from the disco, prepster and grunge eras – a sartorial edge that earned him the moniker ‘Joe Cool’. Snoopy still inspires today. The exhibition’s pièce de résistance is a room full of plush Snoopys and Woodstocks, reimagined by some of America’s most talented fashion designers, from Christopher John Rogers to Bode and Willy Chavarria.

Apart from a wealth of Peanuts storytelling, ‘Snoopy in Style’ features plenty of fodder for the social media set, including Instagram-friendly vignettes, a central café peppered with Peanuts-sillouette chairs, a midcentury-inspired listening room, and even a gift shop curated by Colette founder Sarah Andelman.

But the best bits are ones that surprise, including a section dedicated to Schulz’s friendship with tennis superstar and activist Billie Jean King. Both supported Title IX, a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibited sex-based discrimination in schools, which helped open the door for female athletes everywhere. Two years later, in 1974, King founded the Women’s Sports Foundation and Schulz readily agreed to be a trustee. The Peanuts gang also came along for the ride, from Peppermint Patty criticising inequities in women’s sports, to Lucy quite literally serving as a poster child for King’s foundation. (‘Thank goodness for sports,’ the famously cantankerous cartoon character quipped. ‘If they didn’t exist, I don’t know what I’d do with my tremendous natural ability.’)

Whether you pop by between matches at the US Open or Fashion Week events, ‘Snoopy in Style’ makes one thing clear: you’re a good man, Charlie Brown.

‘Snoopy in Style’ is on view from 2-26 September 2026 at 25 Little West 12th St, New York, NY 10014

When pondering the more than 50-year career of filmmaker and artist David Lynch (1946-2025), lightness is not the first thing that comes to mind. Who can forget the haunting suburban scene of Dennis Hopper breathing psychotically into a clear plastic gas mask before groping Isabella Rossellini in the ground-breaking 1980s neo-noir mystery film Blue Velvet? The human cruelty bestowed upon The Elephant Man or the bleak industrial trappings of Eraserhead – which put Lynch on the map in the late 1970s, and left an indelible mark on the industry. But the light – and creative possibility – that he discovered in Los Angeles, where he lived for over five decades, with the picturesque sprawling city and its underbelly as his muse and inspiration, undoubtedly informed his work. For Lynch, the city was ‘a feeling as much as it is a place’, according to Pace, which opens a show of his photographs at its Los Angeles gallery on 19 September.

Titled ‘David Lynch: LA’, the exhibition bridges the emotional and physical landscape between the myths and mysteries of the city and its archetypes – the ingenue, the shapeshifter, the beauty, and darkness. The artist’s blurred reality and surrealist slant in films and television projects, referred to as ‘Lynchian’, are also evident in this collection of photographs that spotlight his distinctive artistic sensibility in a medium that bridges his significant contributions to painting and film.

Lynch is credited for bringing experimentalism to mainstream media in the late 20th century, and was bestowed with a slew of prizes, including an Honorary Academy Award, a BAFTA, the Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award for Mulholland Drive (2001), and the Palm d’Or for Wild at Heart (1990), along with a Golden Globe for his 1990s television series Twin Peaks.

Lynch, born in Missoula, Montana in 1946, moved to Los Angeles in 1972 as a fellow at The American Film Institute, where he set up a studio in the stables at the Greystone Mansion campus in Beverly Hills for four years. Over the years, Lynch also worked as an animator, an author, a furniture designer, and a musician. His talents spanned directing music videos for Moby and Nine Inch Nails, and commercials for Dior, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. His acting roles include playing film director John Ford in Steven Spielberg's drama film The Fabelmans, in 2022.

Because of all his moving-image accolades, many film fans don’t realise that Lynch actually wanted to be a painter. Before his move to LA, he was influenced by Francis Bacon while an art student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, when he began creating short films out of a desire to effect movement in his paintings.

‘David Lynch had an incredibly rich and sustained art practice that began in childhood, continued through art school in the 1960s, and remained an essential part of his life for nearly 60 years,’ says Genevieve Day, senior director at Pace in Los Angeles.

With past exhibitions from the artist spanning other globally recognised galleries in Tokyo, London, Paris, Milan and Moscow, Lynch joined Pace in 2022, marking his debut with the solo exhibition ‘Big Bongo Night’ in New York, featuring mixed-media sculptures, paintings, and a work on paper.

Now, it felt important for Pace to honour the commitment Lynch devoted to this practice, and to have this new show take place in his chosen home since 1972. ‘This exhibition, focusing specifically on Lynch’s photo-based work, is a prelude to a much broader retrospective that LACMA is in the early stages of preparing,’ says Day.

This continues the thread of Los Angeles, which became a defining presence in Lynch’s imagination. ‘It traces the atmospheric feeling of the city through his early 1979 black and white “portraits” of the distinctive architecture of Los Angeles, to his continued study of the nude, in which the female body becomes abstracted and visually topographical,’ says Day. ‘Later, he digitally manipulated his photographs, creating a contemporary odalisque – the reclining figure of art-historical tradition. The five large-scale colour photographs of women and smoke expand on this idea of the surreal, vivid in our imagination. Each work has a distinctive quality, but together reveal Lynch’s broader vision.’

As seen in the provocative red lips with a wafting cloud of smoke, Lynch captures these images as a moment of ecstasy. In stark contrast, smoke is also seen as a plume rising from a drab 1950s-style sofa with chintz floral drapery in the background. Ironically, Lynch was a lifelong chain smoker, and, already suffering from emphysema, he died in 2025 following evacuation during the devastating Southern California wildfires that swept through the city that same year.

In the many years that Pace has been involved with Lynch and his artwork – most recently with two 2026 group exhibitions in Berlin – there are still surprises to uncover. ‘Like the best artists, there is a mystery in his work that becomes both illuminating and more confounding the more closely you look,’ says Day. ‘He was a storyteller – some images are overt, while others are much more enigmatic, leaving space for the viewer to create their own narrative.

‘I hope people come away with a deeper understanding of David Lynch as a visual artist,’ adds Day. ‘His photography was only one aspect of his immense creative practice as an artist whose vision found expression across many different mediums.’

‘David Lynch: LA ’at Pace Los Angeles, 1201 South La Brea Avenue, 19 September – 24 October 2026

pacegallery.com

Melissa Auf der Maur is at home, enjoying a rare moment of peace in the midst of a hectic schedule. Just two days before she reunited with the Smashing Pumpkins on stage at Lollapalooza in Chicago, joining her former band for a performance of 'The Everlasting Gaze' from their 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God. Auf der Maur’s guest spot (the Pumpkins were also joined by Olivia Rodrigo and Yungblud) won’t be the only prominent role the photographer, musician and gallerist is taking this year.

This Autumn, a new exhibition opens at the Art Gallery of Ontario featuring over 200 over the Montreal-born artist’s photographs, My ’90s Rock Photographs (DelMonico Books) taken almost obsessively during an era of constant touring and recording, a time when a roll of 35mm film was on her rider and hotels, tour buses, gigs and festivals provided an ever-changing subject matter.

The show and monograph follow on from last year’s publication of Auf der Maur’s acclaimed memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A ‘90s Rock Memoir (Da Capo Press), which chronicled her time playing bass in Hole between 1994 and 1999, Smashing Pumpkins in 1999 to 2000 and the solo work the followed. They’ll be followed by a new album, Bass Womb Room, featuring 4-track demos and field recordings from the era.

Now based in Hudson, NY, where she is the cofounder of the multidisciplinary art centre Basilica Hudson, Auf der Maur spoke to Wallpaper* about this current flurry of creative work, her evolving, holistic approach to photography, music and art and what comes next.

Wallpaper*: Where are you now?

Melissa Auf der Maur: I am in upstate New York, on the eve of fulfilling my dream as a fine art photographer in a museum with a book. That’s all I ever wanted, but I got derailed a hundred times. And in my mid-fifties, I get to establish myself in that land, and I am so grateful to the creative gods and goddesses that brought me here. Especially to the AGO, who know my archive better than I do now.

So I am here, starting my new life as a true multimedia artist, which is what I always thought I was. But I got very defined as a bass player and as a musician, obviously, and I’m so grateful that was my destiny. But I had so many longings outside of that were never fulfilled.

W*: Did the music feel like a side quest at the time?

MadM: When Courtney [Love] called me to ask me to join the band, and I said no, thank you. I’m a photographer, and I’m going to go do my masters, and that has always been the anchor of the crossroads, and very clear to me. But the question for me always has been, how long do I derail? When do I return?

This is the question that has seemed to run through my entire life, personally and creatively and professionally, especially as someone who went into motherhood after she quit music. How long do you serve these other callings that are absolutely fulfilling and meaningful and powerful?

W*: Do you not think that you can take on all those various things?

MadM: I don’t look at the world through lenses of right and wrong and gender and man and female. I look through more of a kaleidoscopic psychedelic lens, of energy in the cosmos and stardust. Back in 1994, I somehow managed to get a photo exhibit of my college work at this legendary dive bar in the Lower East Side of Manhattan called Max Fish. It featured a piece that’s also going to be in the AGO, ‘The Sky Is My Ocean’, a compilation of blown-up images of my SX70 Polaroids, self-portraits, and close-ups of Renaissance paintings. For me, it was when I found my voice.

I have always been obsessed with the Renaissance moment - as a young person, I started seeing myself in Botticelli paintings. I found myself in Botticelli’s muse as much as I did in Robert Smith of The Cure. When I started photographing those samples, it’s almost like sampling in music, creating what now looks like an Instagram grid, only back in the 90s.

W*: How else do you think your approach back then is mirrored by today’s media?

MadM: The creative packages I’d send to friends back then were as much a part of my soul expression as me being on stage at Lollapalooza. They were all the same and equal to me. In some way, feel like I was looking at the Renaissance because there was this explosion of spiritual media meets religion back then. I hope I was not just out of time, but I was ahead of time - I was waiting for the next Renaissance, or I was romanticizing the last Renaissance.

W*: You’re saying you’ve never been as inspired and driven as you are now. What was the instigating even to go through your archives and did your archives inspire you, or were you inspired to go through them?

MadM: The instigation was becoming a mother. I’m over a decade into motherhood and have a deep desire to integrate and unpack, integrate my past, my present, my future, and be healed, unpacked light for my daughter. My memoir is dedicated to my daughter, and all the girls of the world. I consider it all to be one big multimedia archive project - the memoir, the photo book, the exhibit, the demos, entirely spawned by the eve of turning 50.

I’ve always worked in decades - every decade seems to be really particular for me as well as thematic. Obviously, my memoir is dedicated to the decade that defined me and my generation, ’91 to 2001. After that I had this weird decade, and then I had my daughter in 2011. That will be my second memoir, about becoming a mother and what that does to a human, but also to a creative. To someone who has lived a life serving their inner voice, and then you switch in the most beautiful, physical, spiritual DNA way to serve another’s voice and to nurture the creation of another being.

W*: So that marked a major change in your process?

MadM: That was the decade of transformation and complete metamorphosis. If you want total metamorphosis, transformation, unlike anything else, have a child. If you don’t, you’ll have a fine life. You’ll have a great life as a creative. You can continue to evolve, but if you want an actual, down on your knees, fucking complete changeover, then have a baby.

I didn’t want to be on tour, so of course I quit music to become a mother because I wanted to be home. I transformed how I live my life and how I move the energy through my body and how I serve my creative inspirations. I had founded a non-profit art centre, Basilica Hudson, in 2010, a physical space for other people’s work and for music and art and dedicated a whole decade to give back to others. I had the luckiest creative life, although dark and difficult – getting to be in two giant rock bands and then make solo records and travel the world so many times over.

W*: How did the memoir come about?

MadM: I had completely gone from a global musician to a local art centre den mother. I had to find my way back, and the best way for me to do it was to start writing about it. Both my parents were literary people, and I’ve been keeping a journal since I was 12 years old.

We live in a very creative area. The Hudson Valley area has a great liberal arts college, Bard, with an amazing photo, film, and multimedia department. I started hiring students scan my negatives and had little army of photo people just scanning and going through my negatives over the course of many years.

W*: Why do you think you turned your back on the 90s for so long?

MadM: I’ve written my memoir now to explain how. It was adventurous and amazing, but how painful and dark! I joined Hole in the wake of death, so as if it wasn’t enough to join a band with the ghosts of Kurt and Kristen, but also the loss of innocence of our entire generation. I embarked on a very melancholic, hard journey with both bands - when I joined the Pumpkins, D'arcy [Wretzky] had gone missing in action.

The amount of casualties of that time… I also dive in very deeply on the death of my father [the journalist and politician Nick Auf der Maur] at the peak of my time in Hole. His death is the defining dark night of my soul that I’ve been healing from ever since. Writing this book was the essential healing. The wound and facing the grief of my father, not to mention my collective unconscious grief of my generation, was central to writing this book.

W*: Let’s talk about your photography. The images are so redolent of that era, the flash, the saturated colour, the drama of the compositions. It’s a sort of bridge between formal photography and today, where everyone captures everything on their phones.

MadM: I truly was the only person who had a camera on me every day, everywhere I went. I had obviously studied photography and loved my Nikon FE SLR, but when I became a bass player in a rock band it was too bulky so I moved into a point and shoot. I had a slightly wide-angle lens, so that specifically I could capture more of the room, and those self-portraits where I’d reach my arm out around and photograph these other people.

What’s strange is that I saw that I was sort of butchering photography - I didn't havea light meter and I had never used a flash in my life. I was used to existing light and really working on exposure and then printing in the darkroom. So what I was doing was sacrilegious in many ways.

[For a long time] my archive felt like garbage to me. When I left the Pumpkins in 2000 I had made a pledge to myself to quit music and finally go back to photography. I spent a long time the following year looking through the archive and trying to imagine what I could do with it. I realised I needed a decade or two for the answer to come to me.

That’s been what’s so inspiring and exciting, both for the stories in the memoir, but more specifically for the photo archive, is a quarter of a century is exactly enough time [for it to become] be a cultural offering for people to glean something about humanity and about pop culture and about history, not just about like some girl in a rock band.

W*: Will this creative rebirth you’re undergoing continue with new work?

MadM: I will continue to write. There’s no question. I loved writing that memoir. It came like flowing out of me so quickly. The photography archive has potential for collaborations with other artists and other mediums. For example, there’s a soundtrack for the installation in the exhibition, a mixed media installation that has sound, projections, photos and structure., a giant mirror pyramid with stacks of television monitors from the videos from my archive.

I was inspired by the three-dimensional sound dream I had at the age of 19, which is in my book. I received messages that pretty much changed the way I live, changed the way I see the world, and changed my path in music. There’s a soundtrack that I recorded for it, a hybrid of field recordings, my four-track demos, and 21st-century intervention connected by a heartbeat. I’ll also be bringing the Bass Womb Room to life – it’s in a beautiful Frank Gehry-designed pavilion.

W*: You were on stage with the Pumpkins just a few nights ago.

MadM: It was the coolest thing ever. Everything is coming back. Everything is returning. I don’t understand how it’s possible, but it is. I had invited Billy Corgan to my event in LA in the Spring and we had this very meaningful conversation around my memoir. It just so happened that day he’d confirmed that the Pumpkins were going to headline Lollapalooza in their hometown. We’ve only seen each other a handful of times in twenty years, and he just said, well, maybe you should join us for a song. I said sure, maybe.

When the gig was announced, my teenage daughter was like, ‘Holy shit! Look at this lineup!’ Because she likes Charlie XCX and Tate McRae so of course she said, ‘we have to go. You have to say yes.’ So I called Billy up and said I’d do it. And then what happens? Olivia Rodrigo was the other guest and she invited me and my daughter to Daisy Chain Fields.

It’s merging my past life with my current life. It’s just the best. The highlight of it all, the most important thing to tell you, is that I miss my fucking bass so fucking much. This entire thing, this archive scanning, this museum exhibit, this writing of this book is all one big trick to get me back into my bass.

I’m also singing on Courtney’s new record. Courtney is in great shape, and she’s going to have a big resurrection in 2027. She’s got a solo record coming out, a memoir, and a really good documentary film. I suspect there’ll be a lot of activity around all of these people and bands.

The most beautiful thing is that my grunge parents, Billy and Courtney, who found me and took me under their wings, are forever my gateway into this big world. We’re all closer than we’ve ever been. It is a happy ending, considering how hard that moment was for all of us.

Melissa Auf der Maur: My ‘90s Rock Photographs is on at the Art Gallery of Ontario, AGO.ca, @AGOToronto

The accompanying monograph, Melissa Auf der Maur: My ‘90s Rock Photographs, is available from Shop.AGO.ca and Artbook.com, $65 CA / $49.95 US

Melissa Auf der Maur, xmadx.com, @xmadx, xmadx.bandcamp.com

Humour has always been a central tenet of Christine Sun Kim’s artistic practice - and her first artist book, Deaf Material is no different. Across 400 pages, the artist presents over 600 images from her personal archive of photographs and deaf imagery found in mainstream culture, often captioned with critical but humorous anecdotes, histories, and commentaries. Yet when her work and the book’s captions are funny, it isn’t just for the giggles; it is a way of opening the work to new audiences.

'The subject of deafness can be closed and very specific,' Kim says, 'so audiences often find it difficult to relate, and they stop right there. I use humour as a tool to hold their attention, serve as an entry point, and make the work accessible,' she continues. 'It’s like memes: Unfunny memes don’t make the rounds, but funny ones do. Super funny memes circulate so well that they transfer into real life - as Halloween costumes, as mentions in movies, and as part of contemporary language. Humour has to be right enough to circulate.'

In her work, the American artist strikes that balance: It’s right enough to circulate, but critical enough to send a message.

Kim – who earlier this year was included in the Wallpaper* US 400 – is known for drawings, performances, videos, and large-scale murals that examine how societies are shaped by sound and language, often adapting forms from silent modes of communication like musical notation, infographics, and American Sign Language to reshape and translate lived experiences into visual language. With Deaf Material, she offers an array of new insights into her personhood and, more generally, Deaf and disabled cultures and histories through captioned images, divided into 24 categories, drawn from her expansive personal archive.

'I find myself asking, again and again, ‘What are deaf aesthetics, exactly?’ So I started putting hundreds of images together, loosely categorizing them, and getting a good sense of our aesthetics,' she explains of the inspiration and process for the book. 'Deaf histories are messy. They’re often erased, hearing-washed, or not fully documented. Not only that, but many archives out there haven’t been digitized. We need to make our [Deaf] histories more formal: documenting, filing, and sharing. That will force a place in human history for us.'

Some categories in the book speak to specific bodies of Kim’s artwork - such as Captions, Subtitles, and Deaf/death - while others, like Ability, Airports, and Celebrity ASL, shed light explicitly onto her personal feelings toward and experiences relating to the titular topic.

For example, in her performance Spoken on My Behalf (2019) and series of public installations Captioning the City (2021), Kim reframes closed captions as poetic, political, and emotional tools. In Deaf Material’s Captions and Subtitles sections, photos immediately make clear the gaps in how the hearing world perceives sound and deafness compared to the reality, as well as sharing histories about captioning. Atop a photo of a pamphlet titled 'How you can add words to the picture,' Kim writes a caption that explains how a television station received a number of complaints after becoming the first to air a program with opening captioning (meaning the captions were burned in and could not be turned off). This resulted in the development of closed captioning, which can be turned on and off. Other photos are of videos playing on Kim’s laptop, showing how sometimes captions are not actually captions: One reads, 'This is a captions test. This is a test. This is a capt.'. Other offer the opportunity to 'advertise your product or brand here.'

Meanwhile, in the sections Celebrity ASL and ILY, Kim’s captions explain how she feels toward the ASL sign for 'ILY' increasingly appearing in pop culture and worldwide marketing. Beneath a photo of a Japanese bag of chips featuring a cartoon hand signing 'ILY,' she writes: 'ILY has gone global. I would have loved it even more if deaf people had the same resources and access to education and employment as hearing people in their countries. ILY is being hearing-washed.' Atop an image of Hilary Clinton flashing the sign, Kim has written: 'Love over emails.'

Taken as a whole, Deaf Material is a material expansion of Kim’s overarching practice. It is not only about deafness but disability and accessibility at large, making clear that we still have a long way to go: 'As much as I don’t want to admit it, I have an insanely huge amount of anxiety and paranoia around my existence,' Kim says. 'With eugenics against deafness in full swing and disability laws weakening, I am not very optimistic about the future of the Deaf community. Putting work together like this actually helps me deal with it. Therapy, I guess?'

'Christine Sun Kim: Deaf Material' is currently available online via Primary Information. It will be available in bookstores from September 15

When it came to chronicling the contents of George Lucas’ monumental new architectural undertaking, the MAD-designed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles (opening 22 September 2026 – see last year’s architectural preview), there was only ever one candidate for the publication. German art magnate and monograph master Taschen was assigned the task of assembling this mighty two-volume exploration of the museum’s expansive collection.

Lucas’ museum, set in a prime 13-acre site on LA’s Exposition Park, is home to all manner of materials and artworks that focus on visual storytelling, a display that ‘connects traditions of image-making across centuries, cultures, and mediums’. While the building itself requires 300,000 sq feet of exhibition space (designed by Ma Yansong of MAD with Stantec), the accompanying book is no less ambitious.

Introduced by Ryan Linkof, senior curator and head of film programmes at the LMNA (a former founding curator at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and curator at Los Angeles County Museum of Art), the book also includes texts by Lucas himself and fellow director Guillermo del Toro.

Both are longstanding adherents to storyboard-driven narratives about fantastical worlds and characters. The editor is Jessica Hundley, author of a number of books including studies of Dennis Hopper, Gram Parsons and David Lynch and Taschen’s The Library of Esoterica series.

The two volumes draw on an abundance of visual richness, covering every genre from sci-fi to Westerns, via children’s literature, fantasy art, and graphic novels. Key artists and themes are given plenty of space and room to breathe, with focuses on the work of painter and muralist Thomas Hart Benton, illustrator Jessie Willcox Smith, fantasy art pioneer Frank Frazetta, romantic classicist Maxfield Parrish, and all-American icon Norman Rockwell.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a copious amount of material drawn from the world-building of Lucas’ Star Wars series, including concept art and production paintings, costumes and vehicles, alongside things that obviously fall in del Toro’s wheelhouse, like Mexican horror comics.

Arranged thematically, the monograph is awash with classic imagery, inter-generational connections and examples of every form of media, from cave painting to digital art. It’s the ultimate takeaway from a museum that promises to deliver big in every way.

As well as the 6kg+ slip-cased Classic Edition shown here, there’ll also be a catalogue available in the company’s more compact 45 Edition format, with a smaller-still Piccolo edition for a more pocketable distillation of the collection.

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, edited by Jessica Hundley, Taschen $200 / £175 Taschen.com, @Taschen, LucasMuseum.org, @LucasMuseum

Bruce of Los Angeles was one of the most prolific photographers of the male nude, and his influence was far-reaching. Artists including Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber were inspired by his physique photography, which blended studio professionalism with an old world Hollywood glamour.

Critic Vince Aletti – who published his own collection of physique photography last year – has long been a fan, curating a selection of Bruce’s works for an upcoming exhibition at Acne Paper Palais Royal, Paris. The 77 images in the collection, drawn from his personal collection, are from the photographer’s Rodeo series, created during his travels across the American West.

They mark a change in Bruce’s previously established style, seeing him move away from working with professional models in a studio environment, instead photographing cowboys and rodeo riders in their own environments across Arizona, California, Oregon and Canada. He resisted embellishing or imposing narratives on his subjects, letting them be as they naturally were, rather than performing for the camera.

Born Bruce Bellas, the photographer began his career as a chemistry teacher in his home state of Nebraska, losing his job after photographing a male nude. He moved to California, opening his studio in 1948, establishing a distinctive style which celebrated the male body for a mostly hidden gay audience. His Rodeo series was widely recognised as some of his most personal work, and something he pursued for the rest of his life, cut short in 1974 after Bruce suffered a fatal heart attack while photographing a rodeo in Alberta.

'Bruce of Los Angeles: Rodeo' at Acne Paper Palais Royal, Paris from 3 September – 7 October 2026

Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama has died, aged 97.

Kusama, who came to art later in life, was born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, and began drawing as a child. Her bold, striking dots and nets were her own original way of confronting infinity, repetition and the boundaries of the self.

Yayoi Kusama – the influential artist's life

In 1957, Kusama moved to New York, producing paintings, sculptures, installations, performances and films which later inspired minimalist and Pop Art movements. Her phallic sculptures were controversial, as were the Infinity Mirror Rooms she created in 1965, which transported the viewer into realms of endless space. Her polka dot and pumpkin works became, commercially, massively successful.

Upset at the thought that her work was being copied by male contemporaries, including Andy Warhol, Kusama returned to Japan in 1973. From the late 1970s, she lived voluntarily in a psychiatric hospital while continuing to work in a nearby studio (where her roles included guest editor of Wallpaper* for the October 2023 issue).

Her company confirmed Kusama’s death at a hospital in Tokyo on 14 August 2026. ‘Throughout an extraordinary lifetime devoted entirely to artistic creation, Kusama pursued an internationally acclaimed career as a pioneering avant-garde artist whose creative practice encompassed visual art, performance, fiction, and poetry,’ they said.

‘She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul. We will carry forward Kusama's wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.’

Late summer in London, August Bank Holiday Weekend, can mean only one thing: Notting Hill Carnival. And 2026 is more special than ever for Europe’s largest street carnival, with the event marking its 60th anniversary.

Also marking a significant anniversary: Ian Watts. The Londoner has been photographing the carnival for 50 years. In 1976 he was 'a young teenager, just out of school', living in a youth hostel in Harlesden. Armed with a second-hand East German Praktica, a basic SLR camera, and a bursting curiosity, he made his debut on the streets around Ladbroke Grove.

'The group of guys I was hanging out with said, “Let's go down to Carnival.” In the end, they decided not to go. But I went anyway,' he remembers. 'I shot [mostly] black and white, and also some colour film. And my feeling was: wow, this is a great experience! I was primarily drawn because I'm very interested in sound-system culture and reggae music. But I went on a voyage of discovery.'

Teenage Ian was hooked, and thereafter returned annually. He’s documented every Notting Hill Carnival since – apart from 2012 when, his youthful passion having morphed into an adult professional occupation, his career as a BAFTA- and Grierson-winning director of photography in TV and documentary took him to Siberia.

Now, from an impossibly rich archive of photographs numbering in the tens of thousands, Watts has curated a fraction of his still images – between 100 and 150 – for a free exhibition that’s showing on the towering screens of Outernet at the other, eastern end of central London. ‘Carnival 60: Ian Watts at Outernet’ is a unique record of over half a century of partying, freedom, creativity and social change, the pictures arranged in chronological sections to create an unparalleled, insightful visual narrative. As Scott Neal, creative director of culture and lifestyle at Outernet, puts it: 'The pictures Ian has taken from being a young boy to today, across six decades, are a vibrant record of what Carnival is about and how important it is to the fabric of London.'

It’s a peerlessly vivid, and still evolving, record, one that speaks to a lifelong mission that Watts lays out on his website: in his commitment to documenting the Black diaspora, his work 'explores themes of identity, diaspora, cultural expression and community, capturing both historic moments and everyday life'.

Not that that teenager had such grand ideas in mind. Watts says that he never 'consciously' decided that photographing the carnival would be part of his life’s work.

'Once I had caught the Carnival bug, I thought, well, I’ll go back in 1977 and continue the journey.' But over time, 'it became essential, and nothing else mattered other than going to Carnival every August. Nothing else would be on my agenda. I set my work [and life] schedule to make sure that I was around.'

As it happened, Watts’ first Notting Hill Carnival was the year of a heatwave (1976), and of rioting on the streets around Acklam Road 'under the flyover'. As he recalls, 'there was a lot of tension in the air because of the heat… That might have had some effect as to what happened at Carnival, because there were lots of people getting uptight with the way the police were treating people.'

But when I ask him to highlight his best and worst experiences, he cites two moments in the 1990s.

'I had progressed onto Nikon cameras with Nikon lenses. I tended to shoot the black and white stock on Ilford film, the colour on Kodak stock. But this year I decided I was going to use Fujichrome stock. This is a stock where you shoot transparencies, you take the photograph, and then you have to send it off to Fuji for them to process it, then they post it back to you. And unfortunately, what I think are some of my best photographs of Carnival, I haven't seen – they got nicked or lost in the post.'

As for his best one: 'It's difficult to pinpoint a year but it would also be some point in the 1990s. I started enjoying Carnival in a big way. One of the things I love is going there and you don't know who you're going to bump into. I meet old friends who I haven't seen for years. I always seem to bump into my brother. [There are] people you haven't seen for the whole year and then you miraculously meet them at Carnival.'

And, in his own seventh decade, Ian Watts’ commitment to Carnival is undiminished.

'As long as I can pick up a camera, I'll be taking photographs of Carnival. As soon as I arrive on [the streets], I'm energised and straight into the zone because I just love it. One of the best things for me about the Outernet exhibition,' he adds, 'is seeing that the photographs I took at my first Carnival, shot on that very basic Praktika, have held up. They're not as good as the digital photographs I've taken more recently. But it's nice that you have this record of very old photographs. It just shows my Carnival journey from 1976 right through to 2025.'

Finally: does this Carnival whisperer and sound system expert have any music recommendations for anyone heading to Notting Hill’s teeming, beaming streets this weekend?

'Depending on your taste, there's Brazilian bands, soca bands, reggae bands… But for me there are a couple of sound systems that are really important. I would go for Rapattack. They provide a nice selection of music. And then it's a choice between Channel One and Aba-Shant-I. Two very important sound systems. They play similar forms of music, but they are Carnival stops that I have to make.'

‘Carnival 60: Ian Watts at Outernet’ is free and runs 27 August – September 2026, outernet.com

The V&A is celebrating the 80th anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s birth with a free exhibition tracing the singer’s style evolution.

Created together with Mary Austin, Mercury’s former fiancée and friend of 20 years, ‘Splendid Things’ unites eight famous looks Mercury wore in music videos and for performances throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Costumes and accessories include the monochrome outfit Mercury wore on the cover of Queen’s debut album in 1973, the ‘Mercury Wing’ catsuit designed by Wendy de Smet worn in the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ video and the crown and cloak designed by Diana Moseley, worn for his last stage appearance with Queen at Knebworth, in 1986.

Austin, who has lent seven of the eight looks to the V&A for the exhibition, emphasises the key role clothes held in Mercury’s exploration as an artist. ‘As we celebrate Freddie’s legacy in what would have been his 80th year, the clothes and costumes to be displayed at the V&A tell a hugely important part of his story both on and off the stage,’ she says. ‘Never mere accoutrements, his costumes and clothes were essential to his performances, creative vision, and wider self-expression, carefully designed to create a lasting visual and emotional impact that has reached across the generations and still reverberates today.’

It is an appropriate tribute to Mercury, who delighted in beauty and had a passion for art, design and fashion, remarking in 1978, ‘I like to be surrounded by splendid things. I want to lead a Victorian life surrounded by exquisite clutter.’

'Freddie Mercury | Splendid Things' will be at the V&A in London from 24 October 2026 – 17 January 2027, across the museum’s permanent galleries, and will be free to visit

vam.ac.uk

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, artists in Ukraine were drawing from an eclectic prism of crafts to create work led by instinct, rather than formal training. The naïve art movement, as it was dubbed, tapped into a greater tradition which sought to give shape to a raw emotion, through mediums as diverse as wood painting and embroidery, to carving and objet d’art.

Now, this body of work is the subject of a new Assouline book, a project led by Ukrainian design and fashion brand, Gunia Project, who deep dive into the works, as well as tracing their later influence on the modernists.

‘For a very long time, Ukrainian art was viewed internationally through an imperial and, later, Soviet lens,’ the Gunia founders say. ‘As a result, many artists, movements and the sources that shaped them were detached from their Ukrainian cultural context or absorbed into the much broader narrative of the so-called “Russian avant-garde”.

‘When we look more closely at the environments in which many of these artists developed, however, we begin to see the significance of folk art, rural visual culture, embroidery, decorative painting, icons, vernacular objects, colour and traditional geometry. For us, restoring these connections is not about rewriting history in the opposite direction. It is about making that history more precise, more nuanced and more complete.’

Throughout, the works speak to these connections within a broader history of European art by placing works in context, uniting well-known and lesser known works in a respectful restoration of living, evolving Ukrainian culture.

By presenting the history of this craft, Gunia Project is shifting the emphasis to the future. ‘For us, documenting a craft in an archive is not enough. For a tradition to remain alive, it has to remain relevant and practised,’ the founders say.

‘This is where contemporary design can play an important role. It can give a traditional technique a new function, a new context and a new audience. At Gunia, we work with craftspeople across Ukraine and with a wide range of techniques - from blown glass and weaving to ceramics, embroidery, carving and wickerwork. It is essential to us that this knowledge does not exist solely as a demonstration of the past, but remains a viable profession and part of contemporary life. Perhaps one of the most meaningful ways to preserve a craft is to allow it to evolve.’

'Naïve My Love: Ukrainian Art of the 20th Century' is published by Assouline. The creative direction and content were led by Mariia Gavryliuk and Natalia Kamenska, the founders of the Ukrainian brand Gunia Project, with the idea of collaboration itself initiated by the GOGOLA media agency

assouline.com

At the top of a flight of stairs at Alara in Lagos, are carefully arranged photographs lined in white and dark walls. In them, a father holds his son’s arm, as a mother does her young daughter’s. A preacher speaks with his brother. A woman shops in a mall. An Eyo masquerade stands between two women. A group of children plays. The subjects are all dressed in white garments, a visual marker that identifies them as members of different religious communities that emerged from the Aladura movement.

But collectively, they form What Comes to Mind When You See the Garment?, Stephen Tayo’s new exhibition, on show now until September 20th.

Since 2022, the Nigerian photographer has been developing this ongoing documentary project across five cities across Nigeria, Benin Republic and the U.S and adds to the conversation of the migrational story of the Aladara movement– 'a strand of pentecostal Christianity that emerged among the Yoruba communities in the 1910s and 1920s'

Meaning 'people of prayer', Aladura churches are distinguished by fervent prayer, prophecy, healing, fasting and visions, weaving Christian doctrine with Yoruba modes of worship and expression. That synthesis has also made the movement a subject of suspicion and misunderstanding. For decades, Nigerian popular culture, particularly Nollywood, has repeatedly used white-garment churches as visual shorthand for supernatural narratives. The garment has consequently accumulated associations with spiritual danger, possession, dubious prophecy and ritual, even when the people wearing it are simply moving through their ordinary religious lives.

In this exhibition, Tayo combines sound, film, photography while also experimenting on other elements like printing on textiles and metal. Some of the works are presented in light boxes inspired by churches' offering boxes and other design elements found within the church. There are also dreamlike textures that evoke intimacy such as the soft blur of a sister finding solace in another’s arms.

Tayo is not simply capturing his subjects as a photographer. As a philosophy graduate of the University of Lagos, he is also asking viewers to interrogate the ideas the media has weaponised to shape biases around the Aladura movement.

Wallpaper*: How did the idea for this project come to you?

Stephen Tayo: I wanted to use the work to find a balance with things I've always thought about, especially ideas that have stayed with me over the years. A lot of them are conditioned knowledge, or inherited knowledge, from growing up with my mother. Sometimes she would tell me not to do something, but there wouldn't really be an explanation. It was almost an avoidance of the conversation itself.

I've always been very curious and very critical about so many things, and I felt there was an opportunity for me to develop my own perspective, to arrive at my own expression of the world. I wanted to ask myself: what are the things I'm actually thinking about? How do I look at something and make sense of it on my own terms?

When I started thinking about the series, I kept coming back to one question: What comes to mind when you see the garment? At some point I realised that's the title. It came quite naturally. I had been exploring different ideas, but that question stayed with me. I was deeply curious. I also wanted to decongest everything I had heard about the white garment churches, the Aladura movement. I'd absorbed so much information over the years, and I wanted to spend time with it, to develop my own understanding from a visual perspective.

W*: Why did you decide to shoot the project in black and white? Was that a very intentional decision?

ST: It was, but it also happened quite organically. I shoot film as well, and when I began working on the project I was using a 35mm camera. At the time I was living in Olowogbowo on Lagos Island, and I happened to start photographing the series on black-and-white film. When I developed the negatives and saw the images, I thought, “This is really nice.” There was something about them that immediately felt right. Even when I continued the project on my Fujifilm digital camera, I carried that same visual language across. I based the digital setup on the look and feel of those first developed film photographs.

Once I saw those initial tests, it just made sense. It looked right, and it felt like the perfect decision. In the end, shooting the series in black and white became a very effortless choice.

W*: Were you trying to challenge people's assumptions through this exhibition? When we see the white garment, do we immediately think of spirituality, or controversy? Popular culture and film have often portrayed the white garment church through a particular, sometimes even demonic, lens. Were you trying to make people reconsider those associations?

ST: Very much so. My approach was quite epistemological. I wanted us to investigate our own knowledge again, to take a second look at something that we've inherited a particular understanding of. So much of what we know has been transferred to us. I wanted people to pause, to think, and then think again. I wanted the work to create a space where we could question our own beliefs and assumptions.

When you think about religion in Nigeria today, there's also been a shift. Social media has changed how churches present themselves. Years ago, depending on the church you belonged to, appearing on television or online was often frowned upon. Today, many churches actively use social media as a tool for communication and outreach. That shift interested me, but I also wanted to broaden the conversation beyond religion itself. I wanted to think about our belief systems, our thought processes, and what happens when our eyes come into contact with something that is deeply Nigerian. The white garment is one of the strongest visual identifiers of Nigerian Christianity. It's become part of our cultural identity, not just within Nigeria but across the diaspora. You see white garment churches in London, New York, Atlanta and elsewhere. If someone sees a white garment in Peckham, for example, there's an immediate recognition; "That's Nigerian." That cultural association fascinated me, and I wanted the work to explore that.

W*: Many of the photographs don't show people's faces directly. Why so?

ST: There are actually different kinds of images in the series. Some are frontal portraits, some are taken from the side, but the majority are made from an observational perspective. They're not staged. This body of work requires observation. It requires me to spend time looking, watching and responding to moments as they unfold. I wanted viewers to feel that sense of observation, to feel as though they were witnessing something rather than simply looking at a portrait. Some of the photographs were made with people looking directly into the camera, but many of the works selected for this exhibition were intentionally chosen because they maintain that observational point of view.

W*: Why did it take so long to release the project?

ST: It was actually shown at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2024. Personally, I love my process. I like taking my time to develop a body of work because it becomes part of you. You want to make sure you've really thought through every aspect of it, not just making the photographs, but also how the work is produced, how it's exhibited and how it exists in the world. There are different phases to every project. I don't think I consciously decided to delay showing it. I think it was more that the longer I spent with the project, the more I learned from it. When you're working on personal projects, you're also balancing commissioned work, so sometimes you have to pause, take on other assignments, and then come back to it. That's really what was happening.

W*: What was the reaction of the people you photographed?

ST: It was very welcoming. Whenever I visited a church or a community, I introduced myself and explained that I was working on a project. These days, people usually ask to see your portfolio, which often just means your Instagram. They'd look at my work and say, "Oh, nice. Congratulations. Let us know if you need anything." That openness gave me confidence to continue working from my own point of view. Of course, when I'm photographing on the street, I don't necessarily announce myself. But when I enter churches or more intimate spaces, I always introduce myself first. After that, I take a step back because the work depends on observation. I walk around, spend time in the space, and wait until I encounter something that speaks to me.

The process has been incredibly rewarding because I've learned so much, not only about photography but also about myself. I've discovered different ways of using my camera and different ways of producing work. The more you practise, the more you understand how you want to work within different conversations. For me, that's what keeps me in love with photography. I enjoy learning while I'm making the work, and that openness has shaped the way I think.

There are so many layers to working on a long-term project. Sometimes you make a few images and think you'll return the following month, but then you're busy with commercial assignments and you have to wait. That teaches you commitment. It teaches patience. It reminds you that meaningful work takes time. That's why I describe it as an ongoing project. In a year, two years or even five years, it may become something else entirely. Leaving it open allows me to keep discovering new approaches.

W*: Did the project challenge your own assumptions about religion and spirituality in Nigeria?

ST: Absolutely. First of all, I'm a Christian, and like anyone else, I carry my own assumptions. None of us approaches these subjects without preconceived ideas. When I decided to make this project, I deliberately trained myself to be more open. I saw it as a learning process. My interest was primarily in the physicality of the church rather than its spirituality, even though the visual expression inevitably carries spiritual meaning. Once you spend time there, you begin to see other things. You notice a sense of purity, love and community that isn't always obvious from the outside.

Because my focus was on what we can actually see, I had to approach the work as a student. I wanted to learn first and then develop my own understanding of these spaces and the conversations surrounding them.

‘What Comes to Mind When You See the Garment?’ is on view until 20 September 2026, at Alara, Lagos

When Donald Judd purchased an abandoned military base outside Marfa, Texas in the late 1970s, the artist saw beyond the site’s scarred landscape and trash-strewn buildings; he saw a place where art, architecture and the land could exist in perfect balance.

Judd identified a pair of long sheds, originally used to house trucks and artillery, to transform into twin galleries that would house an ambitious site-specific work, 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, a meditative installation of gleaming aluminum boxes. Judd encountered a problem, though: the buildings leaked. When standard patches didn’t work, Judd, who also designed furniture and buildings, rectified the issue by capping the historic structures with a secondary arched roof made from corrugated steel.

Forty years on, Judd’s Chinati Foundation is one of the most important sites for 20th-century art in the US, a fact that helped transform the sleepy desert town into a global art mecca. But the artillery shed roofs still leaked.

‘In a massive Texas rainstorm, we will sometimes put out 100 buckets inside of the building,’ says Stephen Martin, the foundation’s director of preservation and planning.

What’s more, sand and dust from the surrounding Chihuahua desert would blow into the building through crevices; and temperatures inside could soar to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, sweltering heat that cooked staff, guests – and even the artworks (conservators discovered that the extreme temperature variances caused the aluminum sculptures to move off of their precise grid formation).

‘I don't want to use the word “crisis,” but when there are large weather events, we're very concerned,’ Martin adds.

Circumstances are about to change for the artillery sheds. Following a capital campaign, the Chinati Foundation has announced that it will be delicately restoring the two buildings to suit Judd’s artistic vision while preserving them for the future.

‘The approach has been first to really understand what are the real issues and concerns with the building,’ explains Caitlin Murray, the foundation’s executive director, ‘but [also] really understanding how we preserve the experience of this work according to Judd's intentions.’

Chinati has enlisted a team of experts to a team, including architect Troy Schaum, whose practice restored another foundation site, The John Chamberlin Building, four years ago.

‘There are two inhabitants that we're designing this space for,’ Schaum notes: the artworks and visitors, 20,000 of which visit the site every year. He underscores the delicacy of the gleaming boxes that make up 100 untitled works in mill aluminum: ‘The aluminum is a 3003 aluminum alloy that was specially-made for this artwork, and it has no finish on it, so it's very delicate and it's irreplaceable in its current state if it gets damaged,’ Schaum says.

His firm’s architectural approach will be similarly delicate: an invisible film will be added to some 10,000 sq ft of windows to block out UVA and UVB rays; the design team will positively pressurise the building to help circulate air and prevent dust and grit from entering the building envelope; and the team, with the expertise of engineering firm TYLin, will be incorporating a new roof structure to address the leaks, improve drainage and even harvest rainwater.

‘It’s like a heist movie or something – we like sneak in, make changes and we leave,’ Schaum says. ‘You're not going to find our fingerprints.’

Chinati is also using the opportunity to renew the land itself, whose ecosystems had been damaged after years of military use. Landscape experts Maggie Tsang and Jim Martinez will be analysing the site to restore the soil, bring back native plant species, redirect rainwater and thwart grassfires. The design team will also work to improve accessibility to the site by creating wider pathways and incorporating ramps.

The artworks will also receive TLC. For the first time, the installation will be relocated to make way for analysis and conservation helmed by Alfred Lippincott, who originally fabricated the works in the 1980s; the Getty Conservation Institute; and Bogna Skwara, Chinati’s head of conservation.

Preservation works will begin later this year; the team expects the project will take between two and three years to complete. But it will be worth the wait: ‘This is one of the most significant preservation projects for Chinati in a generation,’ says Murray. ‘It's an incredible honour to get to work on this work of art in a really holistic way.’

They have been emitting, as their founding motto has it, 'The stink of excellence in a world gone tits up since 2004.' They are Modern Toss, cartoon chroniclers extraordinaire of the early 21^st century, scabrous and sweary inheritors of the mantles of both Hogarth and Viz. And this month the artist duo of Mick Bunnage and Jon Link are being honoured with an anniversary exhibition.

Running at the Drawing Room in Bermondsey, South London, it’s titled Having an exhibition yeah?, with Modern Toss’s – how shall we put it? – f*ck-you insouciance baked into its very title. Here, looking all fancy and large-format, are scrappy scribbles of argy-bargy office drones ('I can’t come in today so f*ck off'; 'I think I’ll go home, I’m a bit bored'); toxic workplaces (at a clifftop coastguard station, a manager declares: “Come on mate, I’m not paying you to look out the f*cking window”); and comic characters such as Mr Tourettes, Awkward C*nt and Gitanes-smoking, beret-wearing Art Dog. The Beano it ain't.

The contemporary workplace is their playground, as befits a partnership that began when Link, then a graphic designer, and Bunnage, a journalist, met while in an office job. Albeit that office belonged to the year-zero ’90s lads' mag Loaded.

'It was very freeform at Loaded,' says Link with admirable understatement of an undeniably creative office with the energy and boundaries of a piss-up in a zoo. 'You could just suggest things and the art department worked with the journalists in creative and weird ways. And that's how I started working with Mick, through discussing ideas and then turning them into something.'

This was less a culture of punching the clock than punching other things, including, occasionally, each other. Hence their proto-Modern Toss work, a cartoon strip published in the magazine called Office Pest.

'It was about experimental violence in the workplace,' says Link, who does the drawings. 'And we were actually witnessing a lot of that at Loaded. On the face of it, it looked like an actual office. But there were some very odd things going on in there. Office Pest was influenced by that, and was our way of trying to deal with this office we were in.'

Alongside featuring some of their greatest hits, the exhibition includes a 'working prototype' of what these proud ethno-linguists and champions of gutter Anglo-Saxon are calling 'the first ever UK Swear Map, an interactive artwork and growing archive of regional swearing slang', created with actual academics at the University of Sheffield. There is, too, a Photo Booth offering art-goers an instant portrait courtesy of Link’s wonky pen, and a showing for 'a particularly potent section' of the F*ckyeux Tapestry. It’s their crowd-sourced, 103-metre 'cartoon reimagining of the Bayeux Tapestry'. It features, quite possibly, even more phalluses than – in Modern Toss’s uniquely modern worldview – the manky old bit of French cloth that’s about to be unveiled at another art institution across town.

'I'm sure the British Museum are thrilled that we've done a version that audiences can experience for much cheaper than visiting the original,' says Bunnage. 'Which isn't that good! And we've got more jokes in ours.'

And don’t be fooled by the pair’s cartoons’, well, tossed-off aesthetic. 'Writing jokes is really hard sometimes,' sighs Bunnage. 'It looks like it's taken two seconds, which is about how long it takes to read it, but it might have taken us all afternoon. Which is really embarrassing.'

Modern Toss on 21 years of cartoons

Crudités and crudities: isn’t a 21st anniversary exhibition, with a private view and everything, a little “art establishment” and boring for you guys?

Jon Link: Well, it's actually not the 21st anniversary. It’s more like the 22nd or 23rd. So it's quite good already because it's just a lie.

“The stink of excellence in a world gone tits up since 2004.” Would you say that was a good, future-proofed summation – pessimistic but realistic – of the founding Modern Toss ethos?

Mick Bunnage: Yeah. We anticipated when we started that that was going to be the case. So it worked out quite well.

Link: We're playing a long game on that one.

If working at Loaded was your contextual influence, what were you artistic inspirations?

Bunnage: Viz was a big thing. That was a big thing for us and for Loaded. But we wanted to do something totally new: the simplest possible route to getting a laugh. Jon's drawings were so simple. So we just sat in the pub with a bit of paper and a pencil, and did about 10 cartoons straight off. And we were rocking!

Link: One of the things we first started talking about was cartoons, because we were both into them. We shared some old cartoonists that we liked. We both really like Saul Steinberg and James Thurber.

Bunnage: Also Pete[r Cook] and Dud[ley Moore], Jacques Tati films, Mel Calman cartoons, The Ramones, Mike Judge, greetings cards from 1973 and Novelty Rock by Denim.

The rough and ready nature of the drawings, the wonky squiggles of a lot of the characters: is that a fundamental of Modern Toss?

Link: I think it is. A lot of it came from when we were sitting together talking about ideas, and I’d have an A4 sheet of paper, and [the squiggles] would just be written down to remind us of the joke. And that would be it. That would then be scanned. And that would be the finished thing done.

That gives it a real urgency. It feels like it's done at the same time as a joke, which is quite a powerful thing. [Other cartoonists] put a lot of work into drawings. But with jokes, it doesn't necessarily help a lot of the time.

Can you break down, please, the power of the well-deployed swear?

Bunnage: It is tricky because people always think that we're swearing to upset people. And we're not. It's just punctuation, really. You bung it in because it sounds good. But it is dramatic as well. You can elevate the punch of the joke by sticking in some bit of lazy swearing. It's brilliant, works really well. But it is mostly how people that we know talk. And how talk as well.

Link: What we're doing is really stripped-down captions. We do notice it ourselves, if there's too much swearing in. We often do stuff and then go through it, and we call it the “f*ck sensor” – take a few out or move them around a bit. Just to get a balance

The UK Swear Map: what's the importance of getting a proper linguist, the University of Sheffield’s Dr Chris Montgomery, involved with that?

Link: It came out of an earlier exhibition. In Liverpool, it was suggested to us we should do a localised version of the periodic table using Scouse swearwords. So we put this small thing together and people really responded to it.

Then it happened that the next exhibition was in Sheffield, and they have these big university language departments. So we made contact with them and had a chat with Chris. He said it was a really good idea because people think language is becoming the same everywhere. This map proves that it isn't. There are still these pockets of language around the country that people are really proud of.

We just did Portsmouth for the Swear Map. F*cking hell, there's some stuff going on there! It seems like port areas have really strong [language heritage]. The main one there is dinlo: an outsider idiot that's not local to the area. It's not a particularly heavy swearword, but the way they use it improvise it into longer strands of terrible swearwords is just exceptional.

Any other favourite regional swearwords?

Bunnage: Prannet. No one says that anymore. That's just a berk. All that Cockney stuff is sort of gone, innit? People don't use it anymore. But you can actually use any word not as a swearword but as a comedy putdown. Prannet sounds like something technical, doesn't it?

And any personal favourite cartoons from the exhibition?

Bunnage: There’s a bloke staring at the countryside through binoculars. And a fellow says to him: “Birdwatching?” He replies: “No I'm looking for somewhere to dump me fridge.” It looks really good as a massive landscape cartoon. [pause] The reason that we're not stand-up comedians is because we can't tell jokes. So we draw them.

Link: One that sticks in my mind is an early one from about 2004 – a bloke being interviewed in the street by a news person. And they say: “Are you worried about SARS?” And the other bloke just goes: “No I like it. I think it’s good.”

Bunnage: A lot of the early ones were just a bloke selling someone else to fuck off in various permutations.

Link: There’s a mid-period one: a funny-shaped coffin being lowered into another funny-shaped coffin. And the priest is saying: “And so we say our last goodbyes to Dave, buried alongside his wife, who was also a massive Tetris fan.” It's just a nice image. It's quite sophisticated for us.

What is the risk for any punter entering your Photo Booth at the exhibition?

Link: Funny you should say that. I've done a full risk report on it for the gallery. Well, Chat GPT did. There’s really no risk at all. You'll just get a really sh*t drawing at the end. With a stamp on it. Something you can keep forever.

Anger is, as they say, an energy. But when the real world is really very f*cking angry indeed, how do you stay funny?

Bunnage: Essentially, it’s not too hard because we're actually quite calm people. We don't stoke up anger. We just absorb it and stick it back out again. So, the more there is around, the more we neutralise it. We’re like anger blankets.

I'm going to say it's anger asbestos.

Bunnage Yeah, that's good. But that's dangerous, isn't it? You got to get that shipped away by a professional.

How good a living have you made from two decades of been rude, crude and angry?

Bunnage: Terrible! We’d be better of being vets, or doing dentistry.

Link: It's a way of life, really. A slight curse in a way. But what else are you gonna do?

Having an exhibition yeah? — 21 Years of Modern Toss, Drawing Room, Bermondsey, London SE1 5WS, until 6th September 2026. Tickets available at drawingroom.org.uk

In Alex Prager’s work, nothing is ever quite what it seems. Her surreal, uncanny style sits at the periphery of reality and fantasy - which makes a new collaboration with Disney a more natural move than it may first appear.

‘This was a dream project for me,’ Prager tells Wallpaper*. ‘I felt a connection to the initial scripts and Disney is a personal favourite and inspiration of mine. I also had great partners, who were incredibly smart and creative. When I pitched doing everything in-camera with traditional practical effects, the response was excitement and I knew we were aligned for this story of childhood imagination and its lasting impact.’

Prager’s photographs and films consider human nature’s complexity, often through a cinematic and fantastical lens, which lends itself naturally to the short film Once A Princess, Always A Princess, created to mark World Princess Week. Taking a friendship between two young girls as the focus, the story zips between the imaginative world they create and the parallel, quotidian reality.

‘Those transitions were really important to me because I wanted the audience to understand when they were in the real world versus their imagination,’ Prager adds. ‘I didn’t want the real world to feel bleak because they are children and children see pretty much everything through a lens of play. Luckily I was working with Hoyte van Hoytema, Jahmin Assa and Paul Rogers who all brought such a sensitivity to the project. We would talk through my approach and then through conversations, seeing locations and telling stories about our own childhoods, ideas would evolve and grow through this. This became our playground, a place for us to craft this story together.’

Working in-camera - where effects were created during filming, instead of being added later in post-production - added a layer of magic to the creation process, says Prager. ‘It's real life movie magic, partially why I got into filmmaking in the first place. When effects are practical and in-camera, it feels more visceral because the sense of gravity and tactile nature reflect how we perceive emotion as something very physical. Every effect we used was physically rigged, from floating carpets to drifting clouds. For the underwater sequences, the team used the classic Hollywood “dry-for-wet” technique, and the puppets we created were all built of wood and felt and puppeteered in-camera, and the digital effects were used to integrate what we built practically.’

For Prager, the project has been a personal one, linking back to her experiences of watching the Disney Princesses as a child. ‘The Disney Princesses are iconic. They represent so much more than just pretty heroines on screen. For me they are like an Hermès bag or Marilyn Monroe. They are the modern day myth of Woman. They are layered. You see what you want in them, they are an amalgam of every female character that's ever been told, condensed into a few characters. They are every dream and nightmare - what you want in a good fairytale - and they are aspirational and inspiring.’

America in the early 1900s was in a state of flux. A slow transition away from the country’s agricultural foundations and a movement towards an industrial, modern world were triggering seismic changes.

Thanks to parallel developments in photography, it is a cultural shift heavily documented, and one that's at the heart of Dulwich Picture Gallery’s new exhibition, ‘Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography’ (until 4 October 2026). Beginning in the early 20th century, when – thanks to the camera becoming a more affordable purchase for families – photography was becoming more democratic, the exhibition unites 38 of the era’s leading photographers, who capture the USA’s tumultuous volatility.

Tracing a chronological path through the century, the exhibition begins with Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage, an image that captured the sharp inequalities of class through the divide on an ocean liner. The reverberations from the Wall Street Crash in 1929 can be felt in important works by Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke‑White, who documented the devastating effects of mass unemployment and the debilitating poverty of the Great Depression that followed.

The physical space of the city takes shape in a multitude of ways, with photographers including Berenice Abbott, Arthur Leipzig and Ed Ruscha considering the architecture of the city itself, from the skyline to how the forms of the buildings and open spaces adapted to accommodate new demands in work and leisure. On the streets, Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander turn their lens to people creating new ways to live, while Peter Hujar documents the communities ravaged by AIDS.

‘American photography offers one of the most vivid and influential records of the modern city,’ says Alexander Moore, exhibition curator and creative producer at Dulwich Picture Gallery. ‘By bringing this remarkable collection to London, we invite audiences to reflect on how the rhythms, challenges and possibilities of urban life continue to echo through our own – a century of human stories told with extraordinary immediacy and invention.’

‘Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography’ is at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 4 October 2026. Presented in partnership with Savings Bank Foundation DNB and created in collaboration with Lillehammer Art Museum

Tilda Swinton is proposing pink lemonade in a navy silk Chanel two-piece from her dressing room at the Onassis Ready, a multimedia arts space in Athens. Her yellow-white hair is brushed back to reveal that extraordinary face. To her right sits one of her co-conspirators, the fashion curator, historian and director of Fondation Azzedine Alaïa, Olivier Saillard. For the past 14 years, the pair have created a series of highly original performances – often referred to as ‘living exhibitions' – in various museums and galleries. These thoughtful, thought-provoking acts seem conceived to unpick our collective fascination and often complex, multilayered relationships with clothing.

As a three-year-old, Swinton wore a white organza party dress. She vividly recalls in ‘The Biographical Wardrobe' – one of her and Saillard's most recent collaborations – the reaction this dress elicited in her elder brothers. ‘You look pretty…' they said, from the family staircase, ‘revolting!' She leans in to pick up the catalogue for her ‘Ongoing' exhibition, which opened at the Filmmuseum in Amsterdam in late 2025, before heading to Athens – it's co-produced by the Onassis Foundation – and will eventually tour globally. Flicking to a photograph of herself wearing said gown, a bow nestled neatly in her hair, Swinton, her voice comically teetering up several octaves, cries ‘I look fabulous!' She turns to Saillard. ‘Before that, I was wearing shorts or a jersey, but this was the first ‘we're getting you a dress' moment. And my brothers said that, but I thought it was fabulous, so there was this feeling that a piece of clothing is valuable, not only in the eye of the beholder, but that I liked it. I felt great in it. So, that was an epiphany for me about how clothes carry meaning.' She smiles. ‘What about you?'

Saillard begins. ‘When I was around seven years old, I discovered the attic. In the attic, I was completely alone and there were boxes and boxes of the clothes of my mother, my sisters, my father, very old pieces. It slowly became my room. I unpacked all the clothes from the boxes,' Saillard continues. ‘I put all of the garments on the floor, and I spent my time as a teenager sleeping on the clothes, smoking, reading… and I realised, when I joined the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in the 1980s, and after having slept in the storage room there, when I woke up, it was clear. I was in the same land, the same geography as the attic of my parents.' Swinton gently exhales. ‘Oh, how beautiful. Wow.' ‘This was my first immersion with clothes.'

Swinton conceived and curated ‘Ongoing' to illustrate a ‘fellowship' of collaborators with whom her creative exploration is both longstanding and active. It features directors Joanna Hogg (their mutual short film debut was 1986's Caprice); Derek Jarman (with whom Swinton made eight films and the only member of the cohort no longer alive); Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Jim Jarmusch and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, alongside photographer Tim Walker and Saillard. It is specifically not a retrospective and includes all new work with the exception of Almodóvar, who is represented by the short film The Human Voice.

Swinton and Saillard were introduced by a mutual friend, artist Katerina Jebb. Swinton recalls that, during their first conversation, Saillard expressed his increasing dissatisfaction with exhibition making and was looking for a way to bring new life to them. ‘It was like the beginning of this flame,' says Swinton. ‘I thought the way Olivier's curiosity leads him, it's a bit like a mystery quest, and that's the way I work. It was very easy and we made this agreement to find a way together to create living exhibitions. Though we didn't know what that meant yet.'

In 2012, at the Palais de Tokyo during Paris Fashion Week, they staged their first piece, ‘The Impossible Wardrobe'. More than 50 items from the collection of the Palais Galliera museum (where Saillard worked at the time), including anonymous items alongside the likes of Coco Chanel's hat, Napoleon's ceremonial dress coat and Schiaparelli's claw gloves, were either held, draped on the body or presented by Swinton. It took an hour. ‘It was a great statement to play with the museum's collection in a respectful way,' explains Saillard. ‘But also it was Fashion Week, and all of these garments were technically unwearable and none of them were for sale.'

Subsequent pieces included 2013's ‘The Eternity Dress', where the pair illustrated, on stage to music, the making of a dress from scratch in 60 minutes, while 2014's ‘Cloakroom – Vestiaire Obligatoire' involved Swinton interacting with items of clothing checked in by the audience; putting money into a pocket, tucking a hair under a collar, kissing a handkerchief. ‘It was radical,' Swinton admits. ‘It was about normal clothes.'

Between 2021-2025, they enacted ‘Embodying Pasolini' – an arresting rebirth of 30 film costumes originally created for the film director Pier Paolo Pasolini by Danilo Donati. Swinton has said of working with these cinematic ensembles: ‘There's still a spirit in them – they hold energy and can spark new dreams.'

The distinction between clothes and fashion is one of several recurring themes in Swinton and Saillard's work. ‘I'm not interested in the fashion of today. I'm always interested in past fashion, but the past could be yesterday,' Saillard suggests. ‘We all have labels, those that are well-known, and those that are not. But the only label I love is this invisible label we give to clothes; some trace of ourselves.' He pauses. ‘I think, step by step, we realised we had opened a door that was not an exhibition and not a fashion show, but something else through the art of the performance. Clothing is a performance every day. It's difficult to talk about clothes, fashion, without speaking about money, looks. I don't think we're talking about that. We are not selling anything.'

‘I think it's all about connection, and that's what clothes have in common with art. Art is about connection. Fashion is very often not about connection at all,' chimes in Swinton. ‘Very often, fashion is about disconnection… an obscuring of identity and a sense of artifice. But the clothes we're talking about, and actually I would suggest the clothes that we're wearing, this is true of all of us, are clothes that contribute a kind of honesty about who we are, and that means we're people who are willing to be seen. We're willing to be known, and we're willing to be in communication. And that's a significant difference between, I would suggest, clothes and a lot of fashion.'

In the days prior to our conversation and after it, ‘The Biographical Wardrobe' is performed multiple times, slightly differently each time, but fundamentally a study of their ever-evolving interest in clothing and how that plays into notions of an identity. It is a tender, hilarious, historical, ceremonious, affectionate sartorial portrait of life and death. It begins with an empty rack of coat hangers, recently found Jarman Super 8 footage of Swinton crawling through stones in a brown overcoat and bare feet unfolding gloriously in the background. Swinton wears her father's silk dressing gown from Harrods and impersonates her mother's make-up routine. She lovingly shares with the audience a sweatshirt that she co-owned with Jarman – ‘It has a little tear under the right armpit, but I can't bring myself to mend it' – and recites, like a poem, the 14 words, including ‘independence', ‘wanderlust' and ‘companionship', that are stitched and emblazoned on the front of a red Raf Simons S/S02 sweatshirt that Swinton wore the first time she met Guadagnino, and again in a new short they made together specifically for ‘Ongoing'.

In part inspired by a piece Saillard had made about his mother following her death – he had seamstresses repair her ‘very ordinary clothes in a very haute couture way' – and coupled with a more narrative approach they had introduced during ‘Embodying Pasolini', discussions for ‘The Biographical Wardrobe' began. ‘I was very interested to think about the way to present a wardrobe of someone like Tilda Swinton because, I have to confess, I have seen many exhibitions of famous people and it's always very frustrating to see their clothes without them. It often reminds me of when you cut the head off an animal and put it on a wall,' says Saillard, smiling. ‘There was a little ghost in the air of making something on my wardrobe,' says » Swinton. ‘And I remember being a little hesitant because I thought, ‘what does that mean?' Because, of course, he [Saillard] wanted it all to be about the clothes that I wear on the red carpet because he has this big fantasy that I live my life on a red carpet [laughs]. I was hesitant for that reason, but then…' ‘Well, that is a moment in the performance,' laughs Saillard, who does, indeed, briefly demand Swinton show him and the audience, somewhat hilariously, how to pose on a red carpet. Side note: ‘I prefer to wear high heels to stay awake,' is one of Swinton's red carpet survival quips.

To make the piece, the pair journeyed to Swinton's ancestral home in Scotland, where, she says, they did a lot of ‘digging' and ‘whittling down'. ‘We developed a code, because there was so much. The things that started to really resonate with us were those that had had more than one life,' she says. ‘The velvet dress I wore to the Edward II premiere is the same dress I wore to the Orlando premiere. These things were like tentpoles for us, and everything that had had more than one life, or anything related to an experience, found its place.'

This spring, another new work, ‘Silent Models', inspired by shop windows and mannequins, was staged at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, as part of Saillard's two-week residency, ‘The Living Museum of Fashion'.

‘It's a very strange, mystical thing,' says Swinton of the piece, which they hope will travel, possibly to London. ‘There's sort of a strange dance we do at the end.' Wearing a black silk dress that couturiers use for fittings, in a room with Joan Mitchell's mighty La Grande Vallée VI abstract oil painting hanging on the wall, Swinton performs multiple gestures, interacting with Saillard and various objects related to historical objects used to display clothing. Saillard might hand her a vintage male mannequin head, Swinton replicating its fake frozen face. At one point, a dressmaker's dummy is swathed in a Madeleine Vionnet violet gown while Swinton is dressed in a duplicate version – a kind of surrealist duet between something living and something not.

‘It is probably the performance that I had in mind since I was in the attic,' laughs Saillard. ‘I was always very fascinated by mannequins in windows. They're not real, not a nice object, it's not sculpture, it's not living. It's supposed to be alive, but it's absolutely not. ‘Silent Models' is a piece about bodies, about presence and absence.'

The latter is another topic that the pair repeatedly return to in their practice. In the ‘Ongoing' catalogue, Swinton says to Saillard that one of the important parts of their work together is that it allows her to be ‘fully present as myself, I'm fully awake… I'm like a vessel with which to carry these gestures, these pieces of clothing, to behave as a lightning conductor for time, for mortality.'

Indeed, the work Swinton and Saillard are making together is serious, curious, poetic and, at times, perfectly peculiar. It also has a strong sense of momentum and future promise. Swinton stands, brushing down her skirt, wrapping up the conversation, as they must dash to start conceiving what will soon become ‘House of Gestures' for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. ‘Truthfully, we have a lot more plans,' she says.

‘Tilda Swinton – Ongoing' is an immersive exhibition co-produced by the Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Onassis Foundation, Athens

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Welsh artist Gwen John is experiencing a well-deserved renaissance, one century after her only lifetime exhibition. A painter as sensitive to psychological interiority as she was the technical aspects of her craft, John’s contemplative portraits are currently featured in a touring exhibition moving from Amgueddfa Cymru to the National Galleries of Scotland before it travels to the US. 'She was such a remarkable painter and a remarkable mind,' says Charlotte Topsfield, co-curator of ‘Strange Beauties’. 'She was a thoughtful artist who was very analytical in her working methods. She was constantly reading and thinking about art.'

Born 150 years ago, John was deeply independent, among the first generation of women to receive a formal art education. She moved to Paris to pursue her painting career, where she was inspired by French modernism. The artist also converted to Catholicism in adulthood and regularly painted the parishioners at her Meudon church. 'She could create suspension, tension and intrigue with something very quiet,' says Topsfield.

Alongside small works on paper, watercolours and rare drawings, the exhibition includes a famous painting, ‘A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris’, which reveals John’s presence without showing her. The work features a simple table and chair placed by the window, a piece of clothing slumped casually over the arm.

'I love artists who are good at playing with the absent presence, and you feel the artist in the room through her possessions,' says Topsfield. Many of John’s paintings featured female subjects, some repeated in over 60 different works. 'There is so much depth to them and something slightly enigmatic. When you look at her female sitters you have a very strong sense of an interior life. You get a sense of these women as real people.' John also drew the orphaned children at her local church, later painting them in watercolour at her studio. The repeated motif of a black cat runs through her works, sometimes sitting or sleeping on children’s laps.

While her paintings suggest an enduring interest in women’s interior life and the community that surrounded her, Topsfield notes that a tension exists between the meaning we might read into her work now as a contemporary audience and John’s own drive. She was an avid follower of Cezanne, engaging with the Parisian avant-garde artists of the 1930s. John wrote hundreds of letters to Rodin and attended lectures on cubism.

'I think we instinctively want to know who her sitters are and have a strong sense of them, but at the same time, she was more and more influenced by modernist ideas and she was looking at the works as a pictorial challenge,' says Topsfield. The arrangement of forms and space were just as important as the individual within them. John famously wrote, 'a cat or a man is the same thing… it’s just an affair of volumes… the object is of no importance.'

The exhibition plays with ideas of strangeness, an idea that repeatedly came up in John’s notebooks. She described herself as 'God’s little artist, a seer of strange beauties, a teller of harmonies, a diligent worker.' As Topsfield sees it, 'I think she was trying to step back, look afresh and do away with preconceived ideas. She was very rigorous with everything, which can be slightly destructive as she was very intense with her emotions. She felt things very deeply and sometimes reacted to things in what could be seen as a strange way. At the same time, she had immense intellectual clarity.'

Gwen John at the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art until 4 January 2027

Gwen John is exhibited as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2026 edinburghartfestival.com

In an upstairs office of the Warburg Institute, we sit surrounded by books and records, listening to Elisabeth Welch’s version of ‘Stormy Weather,’ from Derek Jarman’s version of The Tempest. 'How did this ever come out?' Elaine Tierney, one half of the artistic DJ duo Time Is Away asks. 'I guess they were just friends with Derek,' her collaborator, Jack Rollo muses.

This conversation is a kind of office hours for the fictional university department that Time Is Away have developed with the Warburg Institute: The Department of Euterpe. An installation and sound piece, it imagines the history and afterlife of a department driven by research and speculation, the space itself somewhere between a listening room, study hall, and mixing lab.

At the core of this is Warburg’s own methodology, the Bilderatlas Mnemosyne: a vast, ever-changing collage of images that aimed to, as Tierney puts it: 'make an art-historical argument without words.' They place emphasis on Warburg’s associative practice, bringing disparate elements together to create something that’s more than the sum of its parts. Euterpe is designed to be an aural version of this methodology; with around half of the sound piece at the installation’s core – which stretches on to around seven hours in duration, which Rollo and Tierney don’t expect anyone to listen to in a single sitting – being 'quotation from various sources we gathered along the way,' stretching from the institutional records and reports of Warburg itself, to novelists like Penelope Fitzgerald and Barbara Pym, whose work is 'heavy with these institutional lives [and] the weirdness of work.'

The associative impulse at the core of the Department of Euterpe stretches beyond just the ways in which Time Is Away have approached the design of the institution itself, which gleefully subverts the ways in which we understand academic institutions like departments and libraries. 'Once you get to the most specific category level, there’s no order,' Rollo tells me. 'So if there are books on the Archangel Gabriel, for example, you just have to look through them. And the idea is you’ll find things you didn’t know you were looking for.'

Euterpe also winks at the limitations of the museum space itself. While some aspects are 'museum-waxed down,' much of what’s on the desks and shelves of the Department itself can be picked up, read, and thumbed through like a physical archive. While exploring the space, I stopped to read a pamphlet on the University of London PhD programme. The Department of Euterpe, then, gestures towards new ways of understanding and relating to academic institutions, as the pair acknowledge 'knowledge institutions are not necessarily comfortable spaces for everyone.'

By taking these objects – pamphlets, old laptops and mobile phones, and paperbacks ranging from Beckett’s Malone Dies to Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love – and placing them in the context of an installation and an academic institution is described to me as being 'a gesture that has quite a lot of power,' as the duo consider the way that 'meaning bleeds between objects.'

It seems impossible to talk about an installation like this without considering the way it intersects with the historical context of the Warburg Institute itself; with the institute exiled during the rise of fascism, it became a part of the University of London in 1944, before the Second World War ended. Now, the emphasis placed on the possibilities of an educational institution still have a sharp political edge, particularly when it comes to an education in the humanities, with Time Is Away stressing the role of empathy in this kind of education, what they call 'stretching beyond the circle of the self.' They look at Warburg as 'old-fashioned in a good way, because people have the time.' Exploring the institution is, fittingly, like listening to a record: it encourages taking the time to revel in what’s on offer, to search for details and surprises, traces of the lives lived and work done inside this fictional institution.

The conception of these characters began with the pair’s record collection, as they asked themselves: 'what would the reason be for these records to be here, if not for us?' It also allowed them to bring their own private collection into the public space of the Warburg/Euterpe, something expanded on by the institutions office hours, where visitors can book time to go into the upstairs office and listen to the record collection, a way past what they call 'the locked door,' as well as, more playfully, the idea that there shouldn’t be 'good toys on the shelf that nobody’s allowed to play with.' Even the constructed figures in the department are given public-facing lives and work; one of the researchers is writing a fictional PhD on the sonic elements of the department and, 'the last [public] radio piece will include some work on how they’ve finished their PhD.'

Time Is Away place an importance on the public-facing aspects of this work – perhaps in the same way that an academic institution prides itself on the research and publications of its real staff. Broadcasting the audio piece in condensed, multi-hour fragments not only allows the story to be told and to remain archived, but also expands the reach of this public knowledge and speculation. As the duo themselves stress: 'not everyone lives in London.'

They also hope to push up against what they describe as an issue in public culture, the sense that 'the listener needs to be handheld through something,' instead aiming to have the show explain itself – beyond the importance of acknowledging the fictional nature of Euterpe – very little and let listeners make sense of it themselves. When describing the installation, Time Is Away make reference to the 'transformative power of knowledge,' something that seems to be given a greater emphasis entirely because of how little is explained to a visitor or listener. Instead, the hope is that, through a context that gives people space and – maybe more importantly – time, they’re able to discover potential meanings and ideas for themselves through the objects in the installation and the recording itself. When describing the sound piece, Time Is Away tell me that 'you have to lean into it,' with this gesture revealing fragments of not just a fictional institution or an expansive record collection, but fragments of ideas and stories that can be held onto.

The Department of Euterpe (1926–2026), Time Is Away, at the Warburg Institute until 2026 until 3 October

War Child’s annual Secret 7” record auction, sitting at the intersection of art and music, has become a summer highlight. The concept is simple, with figures from across the creative industries asked to submit a design for a record sleeve. All of the 700 results will be on show at London’s 180 Studios in August, before being available to buy at an online auction, with all proceeds going to the charity.

Designs are kept anonymous until the record reaches its owner, who will then discover if they have a work from a big name or emerging artist. The artists creating work for the tenth auction span eclectic mediums, and include ceramicist Clare Twomey, French artist and muralist Thierry Noir, British Sri Lankan multidisciplinary artist MURUGIAH, British Congolese visual artist Joy Yamusangie, The Haçienda designer Ben Kelly, and The Maccabees’ frontman Orlando Weeks.

The record itself unites 7 songs from John Lennon, The Last Dinner Party, Gabrielle, The Maccabees, Skin, Glass Animals and Bastille. Every song is pressed 100 times onto the seven-inch vinyl, meaning there is a strictly limited run of 700 records.

‘Secret 7" continues to demonstrate the powerful role that creativity can play in driving positive change, even in some of the most dangerous parts of the world, and we're hugely grateful to the exceptional artists who have contributed their talent to this year's campaign,’ says Charlotte Nimmo, War Child’s fundraising and engagement director.

‘Once again, we have some incredible artists – both visual and musical – helping to shine a spotlight on War Child's mission to protect, educate and stand up for the rights of children affected by conflict. We're looking forward to welcoming visitors to the exhibition this August, celebrating the intersection of art and activism.’

Across the nine editions to date, Secret 7” has so far raised over £900,000, supporting War Child’s work in protecting and educating the lives of children impacted by war around the world, including Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, Afghanistan and DRC.

Adds Nimmo: ‘Our hope is that every artwork on display brings joy to the lucky people who win them in the auction, while representing meaningful change being made to the lives of some of the world’s most vulnerable children.’

Record sleeves will be exhibited at 180 Studios from 18 - 30 August 2026. Find out more at secret-7.co.uk

In our monthly series, we highlight the products, places and experiences we’ve bookmarked – and that you won’t want to miss.

The gallery circuit may be your best ally for escaping the ongoing London heatwave. Fortunately, August’s art calendar offers plenty of respite: from War Child’s Secret 7" project at 180 Studios, where seven musicians each press a track onto 100 vinyls and artists create a one-of-a-kind sleeve for every copy, to John Currin’s women with exaggerated physiques, set against Arcadian backdrops on Savile Row. When you get to lunch, skip the stuffy à la carte marathon – the snack of the summer is the Nepalese momo.

Escaped the city instead? A wise decision. We’re headed to Bali, where the Jia Curated architectural showcase takes over throughout August, and to Puglia, where festival season goes folkloric at La Notte della Taranta. If New York is on your radar, the season’s breakout star is Flaco, Central Park’s famously resilient escaped owl, now the subject of his own documentary, playing in select (air-conditioned) theatres.

The exhibitions: Secret 7”, ‘Portrait of a City’, John Currin

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

August is a great month to enjoy exhibitions usually missed due to the normal hectic schedule. Take this pause before the back-to-school chaos of September and the frantic run-up to Christmas (too early?) to catch some quieter yet brilliant London shows. I'm particularly looking forward to War Child's exhibition of 7" sleeve designs by artists including Clare Twomey, Thierry Noir, Murugiah and Orlando Weeks, which sits nicely at the intersection of music and art. Elsewhere, 'Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography' at Dulwich Picture Gallery promises to be a beautiful documentation of American urban life, and I hope to finally catch John Currin's masterful paintings at Sadie Coles.

The Secret 7" 2026 sleeves will be displayed at 180 Studios from 18-30 August

Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography' runs at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 4 October

John Currin: Opening Credits' runs at Sadie Coles until 12 September

The pick-me-up: ‘Wild Inside’

Anna Fixsen, US editor

Everyone and their brother seems to be gushing about The Odyssey, but my summer to-watch list is topped by a different epic: a documentary chronicling the life of Flaco, an intrepid Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo. Flaco, who was born and raised in captivity, went on the lam in February 2023. No one expected him to survive the mean streets of Manhattan – let alone fly and learn how to hunt. But Flaco defied expectations (and capture), going on to become a metaphor for a specific kind of New York City grit and resilience.

Award-winning filmmaker Penny Lane recounts the Flaco story in Wild Inside, a 90-minute film about the avian phenom and his against-the-odds transition into a wild creature. (I myself, during long summer runs in Central Park, would pause to search for Flaco in his favoured oak tree.) This documentary is heartfelt, sure (animal lovers may want to bring a hanky), but it touches on something bigger than New York’s orange-eyed feathered friend – the delicate boundary that divides our built environment and the natural world. Catch Wild Inside in select theatres beginning 31 July.

The dish: Momo

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

Our art editor swears by House of Momo, the Dalston Nepalese spot known for its half-moon dumplings stuffed with minced meat or vegetables and served with a fiery dipping sauce. A staple across Tibet and the Himalayan region, momo has recently cooked up a reputation as one of London's most satisfying snacks.

So when I heard that Eat Momo – the no-frills Borough Yards canteen founded by sisters Trishna and Dipa Chamling as a tribute to the food they grew up with – had set up shop at my local pub in Leyton, I decided to check it out. Try these pillowy pockets of goodness at Coach and Horses on Leyton High Road, where they’re in residency for the foreseeable future.

The music festival: La Notte della Taranta

Gabriel Annouka, art editor

Forget beach clubs: this August, I'm heading to Puglia for La Notte della Taranta, where the best summer nights happen in small Italian towns rather than crowded resorts. I’m dreaming of hypnotic tambourines, a sea of people dancing pizzica, and a night in Melpignano with Ermal Meta at the helm of this year’s legendary Concertone.

La Notte della Taranta runs until August 23, with 20 stops in different towns across Salento

The cultural event: Jia Curated

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

If I were going to Bali this summer – I am sadly not! – I'd love to visit Jia Curated, the Bali-based annual gathering founded in 2022 by Budiman Ong, Rudi Winata and Yang Yang Hartono. This year's theme is 'Nature Weave', and, fuelled by the festival's community spirit, one of its architectural offerings, 'Architecture in Scale', zooms in on the work of a selection of architecture studios that consistently weave biophilia into their practice. The exhibition includes 25 models from studios across Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan, including Kengo Kuma + Associates, Andramatin, Elora Hardy's Ibuku Studio and Cheng Tsung Feng. A Wallpaper* story by our Singapore editor Daven Wu will follow later this month. Watch this space.

Jia Curated 2026 runs from 13-17 August at Pengembak Beach, Sanur, Bali

'It’s going to be alright, just imagine you’re a country,' said the architect to Baby Grecia. So begins Once upon a time in Grexia, a myth-making catalogue text by Andreas Angelidakis, written to accompany his show, ‘Escape Room’, at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Taking over the Greek Pavilion, architect-turned-artist Angelidakis reimagines the building as a drag queen in the throes of an identity crisis, desperate to shed her role as a national subject. Like drag, Angelidakis suggests, nationality is a performance, and for Giardini’s Baby Grecia, becoming an escape room is one way of slipping out of costume.

Stepping inside the pavilion feels like entering the glitch-ridden vortex of the early internet. Maybe also a kink dungeon. Or a queer goth disco. Or a souvenir shop. For Angelidakis, it’s also a cave, a metaphor for Plato’s famous allegory where all of these typologies collapse into one another like an oven-baked moussaka. There are neon lights, light-up floors, soft chain-wrapped columns hanging from the ceiling and a soundtrack that includes Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s 1980s anthem ‘Relax’, playing over and over in dizzying loops.

It’s fun, light, and even a little camp, but this head-spinning sensory ‘pleasure dome’ is underpinned by a serious critique of nationhood. Using the building’s architecture as a starting point, Angelidakis studied the details of its symmetrical, neo-Byzantine façade, and found within it a snapshot of Greek modernity. Notably, he discovered the building’s exterior columns are simplified replicas of those in Hagia Sophia. 'Byzantium was not a random choice for a Greek pavilion,' Agenlidakis explains. Rather, these architectural flourishes functioned as a state-sponsored act of imperial yearning mirrored by the right-wing sentiment to ‘make Istanbul Constantinople again’.

The parallels between modern-day MAGA are not lost in the show, which features a series of sculptures that approximate the movement’s infamous red caps, each more incoherent than the last as random letters disappear and reappear.

'The event that inspired this [exhibition] is the 6 January storming of the Capitol,' Angelidakis told me, smoking a cigarette on a printed column-turned-beanbag outside the pavilion. 'We saw this internet culture, people who were dreaming of crazy war, spilling out onto the Capitol.' By making physical the hyper-stimulus of our mediated reality — a space where images and events both past and present fracture into replicas, projections and in some cases sheer illusions – ‘Escape Room’ updates Plato’s allegory of the cave for our algorithmic age. While the original story describes a struggle to see past illusions to the truth, ‘Escape Room’ presents a hall of mirrors where history itself is the prisoner. 'Don't believe anything,' Angelidakis warns. 'We live in the fake news mode. That's why in the catalogue it says in Greek; free errors, free mistakes.'

Curated by George Bekirakis, the exhibition itself is split into two parts, each operating as a reality-building mechanism. The first space references the nation and is built like a stage with an LED-flashing dancefloor and a 21m-long screen whose mind-bending video effect is created by surveillance cameras turned in on themselves to create a kind of tautological panopticon – a closed loop, like a bathroom-mirror selfie that goes on forever. Soft sculptures resembling the pavilion’s columns lie slumped across the floor, as if exhausted by the labour of upholding Grecia’s conflicting national narratives. By turning marble into plush, Angelidakis flattens the hierarchies they are built to uphold. By inviting people to sit on them, he domesticates them, too.

The second part of the exhibition resembles a more commercial space, riffing on the typology of the periptero, a Greek street kiosk, which is a direct translation of ‘pavilion’ in modern Greek. Typically found on urban corners selling everything from cigarettes to ice cream, these local hubs are reimagined here as a distribution point for national myths. In this neon-lit market, display cases are filled with distorted plastic trinkets, 3D-printed figurines that resemble classical sculptures chewed up and spit out by a computer. Nearby, giant plush books rest open on fetishistic metal frames, while racks hang heavy with oversized plush T-shirts. Both are printed with ‘clues’ – a collage of newspaper clippings, Wikipedia entries and fragments from Angelidakis’ own archive. 'Modern Greece was literally a souvenir of ancient Greece, arranged to be a country by the British, French and the Russians. We are a bibelot of antiquity, of all those ancient ideas,' Angelidakis contends. 'I'm trying to restate modern Greece in a way that makes sense, not as a fabricated national story.'

Koyo Kouoh, the curator of this edition, who sadly passed away in 2025, chose ‘Minor Keys’ as the Biennale’s theme, a musical modality that casts a shadow across ‘major’ notes. Angelidakis leans into this register by weaving overlooked histories into his disruption of larger national narratives. He foregrounds figures like Zak Kostopoulos, the queer activist and drag artist brutally killed in Athens in 2018, and Andreas Nomikos, the city's legendary ‘feather lady’, a street hawker and formative figure for Angelidakis: 'That was the first time in my life I heard someone outside of me who I understood was gay.' Though this minor attunement manifests most poetically at the entrance, where a heavy black veil hangs in homage to the artist Vaso Katraki, who won an award at the 1966 Venice Biennale before being imprisoned the following year for her political beliefs.

In its heady collision of political history and queer pop culture, ‘Escape Room’ gamifies the idea of the nation, presenting the visitor – or player – with clues that reveal the conditions of its development and the contradictions that exist within it. Only here, the goal isn't to win but to navigate a confusing system that lays bare the architecture of the fictions we inhabit. 'The moment we start asking if an event is real means we have passed believing images and video as evidence. Now, we’re in a time of post-truth.' He shows me a tattoo on his hand: another hand, throwing dice into the air. It is a fitting motif for the exhibition, a delirious meta-environment where ‘truth’ is up for grabs.

The Venice Art Biennale until 22 November 2026, labiennale.org

A few weeks before their 69th birthday on 26 July – a date shared with Carl Jung, James Lovelock and Sandra Bullock – Del LaGrace Volcano gives me a video tour of their Swedish apartment. The white walls are filled with photographs, primarily their own, but also by friends, while a stack of magazines includes issues that feature their 1995 work, Portrait With Blue Beard, on the cover.

‘I surround myself with my people,’ explains Volcano, who resides in an area they characterise as distinctly un-queer, just outside Örebro city centre. The adorned walls, essentially a gallery of their communities, are a necessary tonic.

An early instigator of LGBTQI+ visual culture, Volcano started taking photographs in the 1970s, and spent the subsequent two decades developing a reputation for their powerful, oftentimes intimate, bodies of work examining sex and identity, made in and around the queer spaces they inhabited at the time. ‘I'm a bit of a sociologist, and just constantly curious,’ they say.

In 2019, their portraits of drag kings – published as a book with Jack Halberstam 20 years earlier – appeared in the group show ‘Kiss My Genders’ at the Hayward Gallery, while in 2023 the Tate exhibition ‘Women In Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990’ brought new eyes to their Queer Dyke Cruising pictures: chief amongst them was Isabella Burley of Climax Books, who published the series in full last year.

The Tate show, via curator Linsey Young, additionally introduced the artist to Dr. Maggie Matić, director of London gallery Auto Italia, where their major new solo exhibition has just opened. ‘Sensual / Mutual’ runs through 25 October with a sister show, ‘Love Bites Back’, following at Edinburgh Art Festival from 14-30 August. While the former focuses on America and the dyke scene Volcano was part of in the 1970s and '80s – the lesbian biker bar Scott’s P.I.T. and the artist-run Goodman Building in San Francisco both feature, as well as ARF, or Asylum for Rowdy Females and Dogs, in Santa Fe – the Scottish show draws from their Queer Archive of Resistance, highlighting work made in England and Scotland between 1982 and 1995.

‘Everything I make work about is something my heart is attached to – it’s not possible to separate,’ says Volcano (their very first photographs were of their sister, while past lovers appear frequently in their pictures). ‘I have no imagination, really, only the life I lead. This thing of looking at gender, it's not just because it's interesting, it affects me personally.’

Until their teens Volcano, who is intersex and employs the term 'hermaphrodyke,' was socialised as a girl; the 1995 blue beard portrait, made when they were in their late 30s, was the first time they had grown out their facial hair.

‘I love landscape [photography], but if a person, especially a queer body, doesn't disrupt a kind of normative space, what is it?’ they continue. ‘My life and the people I draw into my orbit are all part of my work. There’s lots of mirrors in it, people reflecting back at each other and literal mirrors, which I now understand is a way of looking at myself, making avatars for people.’

Leather biker jackets are one such device in this vein, and feature in one of the more, otherwise traditional, portraits in ‘Love Bites Back’. Volcano’s then-girlfriend, Sylvia McFarlane, sits on a patterned sofa in Edinburgh in 1989; her arm is around her grandparents, who sport warm, knowing smiles and the younger couple’s chunky black jackets, lapels full of badges.

It’s not lost on Volcano that the new shows concentrate on their early work, despite their career straddling five decades. ‘It does seem like there's been a renaissance. The time I was most active doing this work – the '80s, '90s, early 2000s – is really resonating with people now,’ they note, negotiating the cycle of generational nostalgia aloud.

It’s worth mentioning also, how the politics of those core decades correlates with the contemporary landscape, from the homophobia encouraged by Section 28 and the AIDS crisis, to today’s growing confidence in anti-trans and far right ideology. Volcano’s work, with its depictions of queer sex and attention to lesbians and gender-non conforming people specifically, has largely failed to break into the mainstream.

‘I was good friends with Derek Jarman the last two years of his life. We would have lunch and he would drag me to his gallery,’ says Volcano, relaying their relationship with this version of the art world. ‘He tried so hard to share his access, but people were absolutely not interested in anything to do with lesbians’.

This conversation around visibility extends also to funding, and for their part Volcano says this has transformed really in the last five years. With financial support from the Swedish Arts Council for example, they were able to have a residency in Berlin, where they had the space to truly study their archive (this no doubt contributed to the way ‘Sensual / Mutual’ and ‘Love Bites Back’ came together).

In Edinburgh these ideas will be further expanded, as Volcano’s material presence is amplified when their work spills out of the gallery space across billboards that are planned for the city centre. Typically concerned with foregrounding ‘communities that are not especially seeking recognition, but are considered either illegal, illegible, invalid’, as their practice has long been, this kind of engagement with urban architecture feels properly exciting.

'Sensual / Mutual' at Auto Italia is in London until 25 October. 'Love Bites Back' is on view in Scotland as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival from 14-30^tAugust.

‘Canicula’ – meaning the ‘dog days’ of summer, or the peak of a heatwave – is an appropriate name for Fondazione In Between Art Film’s current exhibition in Venice (until 22 November 2026).

The institution’s exhibitions of commissioned film works are unique, not only in their support of a tough medium, but also for their unflinching response to world events. ‘Canicula’, curated by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi – respectively, the artistic director and the curator of Fondazione In Between Art Film – seeks to give a litmus test of how artist filmmakers are parsing the contemporary global landscape.

‘I think the shows are largely inspired by the time we're living in, but also try to make room for the work of the artist,’ says Rabottini. ‘[They] sit in a context. And in the last few years, the physical, emotional and psychological temperature [of that context] has risen so much.’

‘Canicula’ is held at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, a former hospital, hospice and respite space dating from 1527. An apocalyptic orange hue permeates the space, as the scenographers use light to seemingly pull the artworks off the screen and into the physical space.

‘The idea with this third show was to end a trilogy about atmospheric metaphors, but also provide a different mood, a different feeling,’ Rabottini adds. ‘The first two shows had a melancholic tone in a way, and we thought that we needed more of an aggressive feeling, because the metaphor was about excessive light and heat.’

The first film is installed in the property’s majestic 16th-century chapel, with the burning light searing through the towering windows, highlighting its baroque features and the single-channel work playing in the centre. Baby I’m Yours, Forever, (2026) is shot in a meat-packing plant and we see racks of meat hooks before we see bodies, naked, folded, combined and then dancing. Are we in a sauna or a nightmare?

'It is an allegory of sacrifice. So, you see a sequence of scenes that deal with this idea that life, in order to film itself, has to consume other forms of life,’ says Rabottini.

‘It's literally moving-image architecture within the architecture of the church. So it's basically like it's a work made of spaces and bodies,’ adds scenographer 'Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli.

The second work is Boring Billion by Yuyan Wang, which explores the inner and outer life of robotics and machines through thousands of spliced found images. Liquid moves through pistons and screws while rubberised outers are placed over mechanical bodies; we see the flow of the making of robots and how they exist in the world. The results are both meditative and sobering.

‘It really deals with this overabundance of information and, in this case, the structural obsolescence of technology. It starts [with] current attempts to humanise technology,’ says Rabottini.

Further along is Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s 450XL: The Story of Fugitive Sound, which was a standout work for many people attending the preview week of the 2026 Venice Art Biennale in May, when the exhibition opened. Known for his sonic investigative work – he uses aural witness accounts and audio analysis in his investigations of human rights abuses – in Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, the artist turned his attention to anti-corruption student protests that took place in Belgrade in spring 2025. During the silent vigil, the crowd was attacked with a sonic weapon, LRAD 450XL.

‘I did not choose Belgrade; the student movement chose us!’ says Abu Hamdan. ‘[After] the attack happened, our inbox was flooded with requests from many individuals who were attacked to investigate the incident.’

In the resulting work seen here, screens shaped like placards are staggered through what was once a hospital musical therapy room, and the gridded floor vibrates as viewers are encouraged to walk through the installation, as well as watch it at a remove. The students’ accounts of what happened combined with some simulations of the sounds used spell out the use of this sinister form of oppression.

‘At the core of our investigation were 15 “earwitness” interviews that helped produce the sonic identikit of the [artwork’s titular] fugitive and negated sound. Each of these witnesses occupies a screen in this installation; in this way they speak both as a collective and in their individuality. The installation is designed to use the screens/protest placards as a scenography for thinking through the power of collective silence and the emergence of new kinds of weaponry that seek to atomise its subjects,’ says Lawrence Abu Hamdan.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian duo Roman Khimei and Yarema Malaschuhuk present Wishful Thinking, 2026, an installation across three rooms in which we see Ukrainian actors enact the future regrets of Russian soldiers. Each of the rooms is made architecturally awkward and oppressive as the films play out tropes of regret from each soldier, at the end of their life, which vary from explanations to silent acceptance.

‘We thought conceptually that the future is not interesting anymore, that the future is boring, essentially. We know what will happen, everything will be good, whatever good means; we will still have these documentaries about these war criminals saying these boring things…’ they say of the work. ‘We usually deal with it after things have happened. What if we already know how this will be treated in the future? For now, there is no dialogue.’

Until 22 November 2026 at Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice, inbetweenartfilm.com/en/canicula

LA-based Turkish-American digital artist Refik Anadol is one of a relatively small coterie of practitioners working at scale and with credibility in the Wild West of generative art. Overshadowed by rapid advances in AI image generation, the work of Anadol and his peers has endured thanks to the level of craft, technical skill and engagement with physical space that simply can’t be found in tossed off, machine-made slop.

Anadol’s debut installation at his new Dataland museum of AI arts in LA, created with his partner and museum co-founder, fellow artist Efsun Erkılıç, leans heavily into the tropes of dizzying, cascading waterfalls of vivid CGI, but somehow rises above the clichés to create what our reviewer called an ‘omni-sensual experience’.

A new book seeks to capture this inherently dynamic artistic vision on the printed page, and accompanies Anadol’s exhibition ‘Latent City’ at Brusk in Bruges (on until 8 November 2026). It goes without saying that Anadol’s work is probably best experienced in person, rather than through a traditional book, such is the importance of movement, flow and the visual representation of data and computation. Aside from having your own in-house installation courtesy of a device like the Layer, taking a trip to Belgium or California is probably the way to go.

However, the book – Anadol’s first – is an informative journey through his practice and previous work. Although there are plenty of highfaluting soundbites (‘Data is the pigment of our time’), the format does a good job of capturing the rich, painterly textures of what are, after all, dynamic, moving works.

The book also delves into the process of creating the Bruges exhibition, using the city as a canvas, with millions of points of data interpreted, decoded and reshaped by Anadol’s custom AI processes. AI is very much at the forefront of the artist’s practice, unashamedly so, especially as the scale of Anadol’s datasets would be impossible to process without the use of the technology.

How enduring this form of creativity will prove to be is hard to say, yet by placing his work in a physical format, Anadol has broadened the perception and reach of digital art. For those looking for a primer on the movement, this is a good place to start.

Refik Anadol, €39.95, Hannibal Books, HannibalBooks.be, RefikAnadol.com, @RefikAnadol, RefikAnadolStudio.com

The exhibition ‘Refik Anadol – Latent City’ runs until 8 November 2026 at Brusk in Bruges, bruskbrugge.be

Never Alone: 1997–2004 Raving in Europe brings together analogue photographs documenting the nomadic techno-punks that free-partied their way across Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic and beyond. It presents an insider’s perspective from Italian photographers Cheyenne Clementi and Valentina Morandi, who started capturing the ‘teknival’ scene where they embedded themselves during rave culture’s European golden age while they were still teenagers. 'It was our daily life,' Morandi says, 'from organising everything and scouting for venues to setting up the sound systems.'

Morandi and Clementi were young when they met. Growing up, they went to the same liceo artistico, a type of arts-focused Italian secondary school. But they officially met at a rave, back when the scene was smaller and everyone got to know each other. It was a diverse community, united under a shared vision for the future – one of creative expression and freedom. ‘It was an escape from imposed values, that’s how I’d sum it up,’ Clementi says.

Being such a cohesive project, it’s surprising that the curation of these photos, taken nearly three decades ago across eight years, wasn’t initially planned. 'It was simply our way of observing the world and preserving memories of the life we ​​were living.' Clementi explains. Her father was a photographer, too, so 'documenting those years felt natural'. It was only more recently that she and Morandi decided that their tranche of photos was 'historically significant', and that the time was right to share them.

The images are off the cuff. Snapshots of anarchic warehouse partying are paired with quotidian scenes of communal on-the-road living, so that towering rigs and crowds of police intermingle with vistas of camper vans and trucks parked up in forests and fields, and portraits of children playing with their pets. It becomes clear that these diametrically opposing sides of this lifestyle – the ecstatic and the domestic – are in fact one and the same. One image captures the striking, shadowy figure of a dog backdropped by a sky-high soundsystem. In another, amid an eccentrically dressed crowd gathered for an al-fresco wedding ceremony, a toddler is seen sitting on a pair of shoulders.

It was in 1994 that the free-party movement began to spread from the UK to mainland Europe; when raves were essentially criminalised. Increasing police crackdowns encouraged British soundsystem collectives – notably Spiral Tribe and Desert Storm – to spearhead a move to European countries where, in those early days at least, there were few-to-no restrictions. While equipment was at times seized, interactions between ravers and police generally remained peaceful. As Clementi and Morandi recall, it was only following the millennium that relations began to sour. (One photo from summer 2004 captures police disbanding ravers from CzechTek, an annual teknival which, by then, had been deemed illegal.)

Morandi recounts a 'surreal' memory that has since become legend, when in the summer of 1999 police helped to escort a convoy of ravers’ vehicles to the site where their days-long party was due to take place by Lake Bolsena in the Tuscan countryside. 'It’s almost impossible for something like that to happen today without clashes or other issues,' she says, describing the period as a 'magical time'. It’s true that many candid moments documented in Never Alone frames this bohemian way of life as akin to a sort of utopia. 'There was a real buzz, a tremendous energy, and a sense that living life differently was actually possible,' says Morandi.

She adds: 'Nearly 30 years later, we looked at each other and realised we can't keep this just to ourselves. [The photographs] are a piece of history from a movement that has proven incredibly enduring – all from an era before social media and phones, before the obsessive documentation we see today.' Not only representing a formative experience for the two friends and photographers, the images are a doorway to a bygone era – when counter-cultural communities had the freedom to prosper on the fringes and young people felt empowered to stay present in their lives. Never Alone captures the radical beauty of what has been lost, and what collective resistance has the power to reignite.

neveralonebook.it

Earlier this year, in a studio in London, creative director Ben McLaughlin found himself in a room full of Ukrainians. There were boxers from a local gym, a grandmother with her family, a Ukrainian make-up artist and a group pulled together from the city's Ukrainian community by casting director Julia Gilmour. Behind them hung enormous prints of landscapes shot 1,500 miles away, along the Dnipro river.

Dnipro Fotostudiia, a 38-page portfolio made over a single weekend, sits at the centre of Dnipro, The Plunging Shore, the first edition of Unofficial, a new publishing series McLaughlin launches this month through Officialzine. Each edition will be made with an artist or image-maker creating work about the place they grew up, with a deliberate focus on places that don't register as cultural centres. 'I find the more unexpected the place, the better,' McLaughlin says.

Up first is Eugenia Skvarska. The Ukrainian stylist and art director grew up in Kyiv, on the banks of the Dnipro, and after Russia destroyed the Kakhovka Dam in 2023, she felt an urgency to document the river. 'It's impossible to separate it from the history of Ukraine,' she says.

She travelled it between the sites of her childhood with photographer Kalpesh Lathigra in a tiny Smart car donated by a concrete company: guiding, driving, translating, telling the stories of the places they passed through.

The landscapes they came back with, shot on large-format film, are full of summer light. 'A lot of work I see from this region can feel a little cold,' McLaughlin says. 'I hope this project turns that perception on its head.'

Skvarska is more direct. 'We knew this project shouldn't be about documenting destruction. Kalpesh has photographed wars before, but this time we wanted to photograph the soul of the country. The war is still present, but only through subtle details: anti-tank hedgehogs, traces of grief, or a quiet sense of uncertainty in the background.'

She describes her boyfriend's mother spending a night in a bomb shelter, then the next afternoon at the river among families and friends. 'People are constantly trying to hold on to moments of normalcy,' she says.

Rather than presenting the road-trip material as straight documentary, McLaughlin printed Lathigra's landscapes as vast studio backdrops and staged the London portrait shoot against them, with Skvarska styling the cast in garments by young Ukrainian designers, alongside vintage clothing sent from Kyiv by her assistant. 'I wasn't interested in creating costumes, or a romantic image of Ukrainian identity,' she says. 'I wanted the styling to feel honest and contemporary, while still carrying traces of memory and home.'

The portraits sit at the heart of the book, bookended by the landscapes and combining the two collaborators' hands into a single visual language.

The format is difficult to place, which is the point. 'It's not a magazine, but it's not an artist book. It sits in this kind of funny space between,' says McLaughlin, who spent his early career making artist books, then commissioning for magazines.

Unofficial is, in part, a response to what he sees as a glut of both: too many photography books, too many image-led independent magazines with no tone of voice. His answer is to extract the single story and give it everything, an edition at a time. Each is printed in a run of 450 by Grafiche Veneziane and the production shifts to fit the project - an insert, a poster, or a piece of tipped-in ephemera. 'It's not neat,' he says, approvingly.

What began as a set of scans took two years to edit, in printed-out sessions with Adam Murray, a curator and course leader of the MA Fashion Image programme at Central Saint Martins (where Skvarska first began the project as his student) and a close collaborator throughout. Across the book, the river resurfaces in unexpected places - in a painting hanging in a photographed interior, in wedding-venue curtains that gather like waves. 'There's a strength in taking a bit of time,' McLaughlin says. 'I don't think the project would have got to this point without it.'

Two editions a year are planned, and the next two are already in motion. Though McLaughlin is keeping them under wraps, he hints that one draws on a small-town photographic archive spanning half a century. Future editions may loosen the format further still: he's interested in hometowns curated by contributors who aren't image-makers at all. The series grew partly out of conversations about authenticity, and about how often the image of a place has been made by people who aren't from it. It’s what he hopes every edition will share: work made from the inside, in places the world rarely looks.

'Unofficial Dnipro: The Plunging Shore' is now available through Officialzine's website.

Tomás Saraceno is preoccupied with the essential in life. For the Argentinian-born artist, elements such as water and salt – and the less welcome dust and spiderwebs – form the basis for epic, community-minded projects at the intersection of art and science.

With past projects, including 2015’s Aerocene Foundation, a movement that saw aerosolar sculptures rise in fossil-fuel-free flight that set 32 world records in the process, Saraceno has prioritised a focus on eco-social justice. He examines all his works in context, weaving links with local communities throughout and welcoming community participation.

Saraceno, who has had solo exhibitions at the Serpentine, Palais de Tokyo and SFMOMA, now unveils a major takeover of Munich’s historic Haus der Kunst museum. 'Ancestral Futures' builds on several facets of Saraceno’s thought, from his work into the behaviour of spiders to an exploration into the possibilities of air.

‘We are looking at pluralistic futures, with an s at the end,’ says Saraceno on the exhibition’s multi-faceted nature. ‘There are many futures - the futures of the spiders, the futures of the community, the futures of other forms of knowing.’

The exhibition’s subject matter may be disparate, but it is united by a sense of connection, epitomised most literally in Algo-r(h)i(y)thms (2019), an installation made up of suspended ropes that vibrate in deep and satisfying tones when pinged or flicked. Truly immersive, it is strictly hands on, and visitors are encouraged to crawl, hop or navigate their way through the sensory maze. It is an accumulation of Saraceno’s research into the habits of spiders, and an immersive and effective tribute to their collective way of existing.

Water, too, is central to Saraceno’s vision here, and the exhibition marks the unveiling of a permanent piece of land art created by Saraceno, working in close collaboration with the Indigenous communities of Red Atacama, Las Salinas Grandes in Northern Argentina, in their fight against the rapid depletion of ground water. Whether gently pooled in immersive other worlds Saraceno creates here, or contained in mountains of salt crystals which crunch underfoot, water is omnipresent.

‘The community have been trying to strongly convey the message, telling me for almost 15 years, all you do for the air is wonderful, but watch the water,' says Saraceno, 'focus on what is really important. Without water, nobody can live. It is fundamental for everybody, and not only for us as humans, but for the whole ecosystem we are part of.’

It was crucial for Saraceno to draw attention to the water crisis in an immersive, almost playful way. In the vast halls of the Haus der Kunst, visitors – adults, children and dogs – are encouraged to touch and to play.

‘When you stop playing, you stop learning and usually we stop playing at a certain age,' the artist says. 'Artists allow us to keep playing for longer. Let's enjoy it. Let's build something with joy and hope, and then hopefully we will learn something.’

'Tomás Saraceno. Ancestral Futures' is on view at the Haus der Kunst until 7 February 2027

I came to scoff and stayed to praise. Dataland, the museum of AI arts in Los Angeles by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, is their supernatural fantasy of gorgeous data. Unlikely as it seems, with multi-coloured lights swirling overhead, underfoot and patterning the body, it is all drawn from the natural world.

The Turkish artists, who are married, first conceived of it during the 2019 Covid pandemic when they felt deprived of actual nature due to the parks and trails that were closed. Working indoors, they created their own out-of-doors, an AI realm that evolved as the new Machine Dreams: Rainforest.

Immersive art installations are commonplace now, but Dataland is a world apart, literally.

Eighty-four 4K Epson projectors and 50 billion pixels deliver images from the Amazon selected from the Smithsonian’s Encyclopedia of Life, a digital resource at the National Museum of Natural History. These are not films but the multicoloured, photographic essences of butterflies, orchids, ferns and fauna. It evolved from Anadol’s own choice to take ayahuasca (a psychedelic) with a spiritual leader and discover profound connections to the rainforest. Here, the journey through the galleries concludes with one called the Sanctuary and a sacred healing song of the Yawanawá people.

Is this recreated world a hallucinatory experience? Pretty much, and doubtless many visitors will enhance their 20 or more minutes of wandering or dancing to light and music.

An omni-sensual experience, it was designed by Anadol, Erkılıç and his collaborators to respond to your responses. At the entry to the 25,000 sq ft structure on the lower level of a Frank Gehry-designed high-rise in the downtown arts district, visitors are given wristbands that convey their physiological and emotional responses. A padded collar around the neck wafts a series of individualised odours, a collaboration with L’Oréal. I got sweet moonflower.

Walking through towering rooms radiant with patterns as well as specific images of foliage and fluidity, with birds and lightning bugs flittering about, my own response was astonishment. The music leans towards techno-pop with bird song from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. During my visit, a long passage from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.3 added to the sense of being in a meadow dappled with sunlight. The romantic theme was suggested by Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor laureate of the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall, which stands across the street. This integration of past, present and future may be key to some sense of wellbeing within the unprecedented presentation. Far from jarring, the Infinity Room is an Avatar-like virtual landscape and fable about a glass hummingbird based on Anadol’s own dreams. But the haunting sound of a mating call is that of a now-extinct bird in Hawaii. It is the last known recording of its call.

Anadol is the most advanced and sophisticated of artists using AI. His pulsing flat screens appear to morph from two to three dimensions and have been shown in many galleries and museums. Art critics were unconvinced and made unflattering comparisons to lava lamps. Anadol accelerated into the challenge by using AI to build his Large Nature Model – ‘the world’s first open-source AI model based solely on nature data’, trained on datasets drawn from 'ethical sources'. As he walked among visitors to this creation, he explained, 'Everything here was designed from the beginning. There are no cables. Intentionally, everything is just art and technology. It’s a first, never been done before. This is ten years of practice.'

He points out that for thousands of years, we have looked at art and had feelings. 'Our model is asking, can art feel us back? Our heartbeat, our emotions, our goosebumps? If it feels, what does that mean? We can hear, touch, smell, feel, even taste, so it's truly exploring the five senses.'

On the taste front, various types of chocolate – 'data sculptures' – are given to visitors at the conclusion of their wander through different galleries. The LA chocolaterie Valerie Confections used data from the show to make the sweets, some being fruity, another with an ashy, woodsy flavour.

About that data: Refik Anadol Studio claims it is erased after 30 days. Visitors can choose to keep their data, which can be used to decorate a T-shirt, available in the gift shop, of course. There are Dataland memberships offering priority visits as well as NFT options. At the conclusion of the show, there is an ironic moment. A gallery with an enormous robotic arm can use your data to produce paintings. The kind that hang on your wall as, well, art.

dataland.art

Transport for London has revealed the latest in its ongoing series of Art on the Underground commissions for the cover of the pocket Tube map, courtesy of American artist Ellen Gallagher. Her piece, Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, 2026, is the 42nd commission in the series and is an exploration of the capital’s long maritime history.

The Art on the Underground programme has been giving collectable visual impetus to the pocket Tube map – the classic ‘journey planner’ – since 2004. The maps themselves date back to pre-Harry Beck days and represent a beautiful chronicle of the evolution of the design presentation and physical reach of the underground network.

Gallagher lives and works between Rotterdam, the Netherlands and New York, building up richly layered multimedia works that draw on the natural world – particularly water – history, and mythology. Even when reduced down to the compact tube map format, Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish reveals the evidence of work and rework across the surface of the image.

The result is an abstraction that teeters on the edge of figuration, and vice versa, a miniature world of interlocking forms. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish is a reference to Pip, the ill-fated young Black cabin boy in Melville’s Moby Dick, who fell overboard and was then rescued but left traumatised. The piece ‘imagines the underwater world Pip experiences; the skeletal form of a whale lying on the seabed forms the central composition and brings together themes of marine life, transatlantic history and memory’.

London was once the focal point of the country’s role in the whaling trade, with locations like Greenland Dock receiving carcasses to transform into oil, and bones to be turned into corsets. Gallagher’s commission is a mental map of this long-forgotten and bloody trade, with the skeleton shown intertwined with strands of seaweed that evoke the famously abstracted London Tube map itself, created by Harry Beck in the 1930s.

Another layer of meaning comes courtesy of London’s hidden and covered waterways and historic wells, such as Sadler’s Wells and the River Fleet. As we travel under London, all these histories are bound up in the soil that surrounds us.

As well as gracing the cover of the pocket Tube map, Ellen Gallagher’s artwork will also be seen on posters put up around the network, part of an ongoing commissioning project that has placed art in front of billions of tube passengers over the last two decades.

Art.TFL.gov.uk, @ArtontheUnderground

Artist Benjamin Slinger captures millennial nostalgia in a new body of work entitled ‘Empire’. Here, the British visual artist creates a series of wire-frame paper lamps constructed from vintage fast-food paper bags. Launching with a show in London (23-25 July at 96 Robert Street, London NW1 3QP), the series of lamps will be available from the artist's online store.

The McDonald’s and Burger King bags were collected over the past three decades, and the resulting lamps sit somewhere between sculpture, design objects and cultural artefacts.

Discover 'Empire' by Copyright Slinger

For the 'Empire' series, Slinger was inspired by the classic ‘Akari’ paper lanterns designed by Isamu Noguchi and the graphic identities of multinational fast-food corporations.

While the lanterns are functional objects, the artist’s swapping of washi paper for fast-food bags, with their corporate and consumerist graphics, is a critical reflection on brands within contemporary life – bold and demanding attention. Through the evolving bag designs, the series also documents changes in popular culture over time.

Such dives into design and socio-economic history are not unusual in Slinger’s practice, which spans sculpture, painting and writing. However, ‘Empire’ emerged from one question: ‘How can one produce a design or mass-market object as a work of art?’

Slinger has lowered the boundaries between quality design and mass consumption. The viewer is invited to consider how something of value is produced, how certain objects acquire cultural authority, and how consumerist imagery is embedded in daily life.

An initial edition of 50 lamps will be released across three sizes and more than 25 individual designs. Each lamp is stamped, numbered and signed according to its edition.

‘Empire’ is on show from 23–25 July 2026 at 96 Robert Street, London NW1 3QP, slingercopyright.com

For Keith Haring, New York was a blank canvas, becoming a central piece of his artistic identity after he moved to the city in 1978. It shaped an aesthetic located at the intersection of urban art and activism, which Haring cultivated in the 1980s alongside peers Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. They led a movement that brought art into the public space, in murals or on the subway, a crucial factor for Haring in raising awareness for fraught and urgent topics such as AIDS and education about drugs.

Born in New York, it was an energy that spread around the world, taking shape in an instantly recognisable shared visual language, a fluidity celebrated now with an exhibition, ‘Keith Haring: A World in Motion’, at New York art space 60 White.

‘Haring did not simply travel the world, he entered into dialogue with it,’ says Carlo McCormick, who curated the exhibition in collaboration with Lio Malca. ‘His work pulses with the energy of New York street culture while reflecting the histories, images, and rhythms of the places he encountered. The result is a global conversation, joyful, immediate, and profoundly connected.’

Recreated in 60 White’s multistorey space is San Francisco nightclub DV8, a hedonistic playground of the 1980s-90s that featured murals painted by Haring. This kind of community element is central to Haring’s work, and is also epitomised in his chalk drawings on black paper, which became familiar sights on the New York subway, and the Sister Cities – For Tokyo painting that he created in 1985, marking the friendship between New York and Tokyo, a bold and brilliant tribute to two cities he loved.

Adds Malca: ‘Keith Haring’s work is rooted in New York, but it belongs to the world. This exhibition highlights his ability to connect people through a shared visual language that remains as immediate and powerful today as it was in the 1980s.’

‘Keith Haring: A World in Motion’ is at 60 White, sixtywhite.com