Marriott Bonvoy’s The Luxury Collection – fresh off the reopening of Madrid’s The Palace hotel – has revealed a quirky new collaboration with artist Michael McGregor. While it’s not the first time a luxury hotel has approached an artist to capture the essence of its properties through a creative lens (the partnership follows a 2024 collaboration with recent Wallpaper* guest editor Laila Gohar, who created cake-shaped candles inspired by the brand’s hotels; and Belmond, for example, has an ongoing series of books with photographers, including Coco Capitán, Letizia Le Fur, Rosie Marks, and Colin Dodgson), this project explores a niche medium.

Michael McGregor sketches his way through The Luxury Collection

Los Angeles-based McGregor was invited to illustrate his experience staying at three of The Luxury Collection’s properties: the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Perry Lane Hotel in Savannah, and Hotel Ivy in Minneapolis, using guest stationery. This is familiar territory for McGregor, whose book Room Service comprises snapshot-style drawings made on branded notepads and correspondence sets from hotels around the world, including Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles and the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai.

‘Hotels are a major intersection of lives. You’re only there for a short time, but it opens a world of possibilities. Stories emerge in a different way when you are out of your home context – new curiosities, unfamiliarity and wonder invite you to be a new version of yourself during your stay. These really connect with me and guide my practice as an artist,’ McGregor tells Wallpaper*.

McGregor’s vibrant, gestural sketches capture both the mundane and the extraordinary through simplified forms and bold, bright colours. It is this playfulness and an evident irrepressible curiosity that make his work so easy to connect with. For the artist's collaboration with The Luxury Collection, his illustrations portray the kinds of daily moments a guest might experience at the featured properties, such as sipping a martini at Perry Lane Hotel’s Peregrin Rooftop Bar or arriving at Hotel Ivy and taking in the surrounding urban sprawl.

‘I keep my eyes open and my mind as loose as possible, hoping to let moments throughout my travels find me, whether it’s the curve of an art deco lamp or the unique architecture of a hotel’s décor,’ McGregor explains. ‘It’s about quietly observing everyday life, discovering what feels striking or playful in that particular hotel, and following that impulse on paper.’

A limited-edition postcard set featuring five of McGregor’s works will be available for purchase online and at select properties, while additional sketches will be incorporated into the guest experience, appearing on everything from welcome notes to amenity cards. To celebrate the launch, the three flagship hotels are introducing creative workshops. In San Francisco, a guided tour concludes with a sketching session led by a local artist, while in Savannah, guests can sip cocktails and sketch city views from the rooftop.

‘I always carry coloured pencils with me everywhere I go. They’re portable and easy to access and stash in a tote bag. I also make sure that hotel stationery and short sketchbooks are within immediate reach throughout my travels, so I can quickly capture an idea, a moment, or a thought when it strikes,’ the artist adds.

the-luxury-collection.marriott.com

Ceramics and art have a companionship longer than most. The story began in the Palaeolithic period with a potent fusion of water, earth and creativity that has since evolved through many modes. Now, 21st-century ceramic artists are proving that the medium has as much potential for concept as function, lured in by its versatility, sensuality and role as a platform for provocation.

From artists upholding age-old techniques with a twist to those unearthing radical ways to push materials to their limits, explore our ultimate guide to ceramic artists: the trail-glazers, the mould-breakers and future-shapers on the cutting edge of clay.

Ceramic artists: a guide to the contemporary pioneers

Alfred Lowe

Alfred Lowe is one of our emerging designers for 2025. As an Arrernte person, growing up near Alice Springs in Australia, Lowe's ceramics are influenced by identity and landscape. Cocooning his work with the colours of his native country and environment, his work is a joyful expression of his experiences. In 2024, he was awarded the Shelley Simpson Ceramics Prize by the founder of Mud Australia.

Read our interview with Alfred Lowe

Jonathan Baldock

Jonathan Baldock's work is saturated with humour and wit, as well as an unsettling, macabre quality that channels his longstanding interest in myth and folklore. The British artist was partly drawn by the medieval architecture and carved wooden figures of nearby Wakefield Cathedral for his recent exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, but his creations are less about religious iconography than they are about what lies beneath. As some of the 500-year-old carved figures were concealed under folding seats, known as misericords, and thus hidden out of sight, those who made them had the freedom to carve what they liked, and their subject matter often relates more closely to nature or mythical beasts.

Inspired by the idea that their makers found pockets of joy in expressing themselves freely outside of the rules, Baldock riffed on these characters, creating large-scale textile sculptures that include a sphinx-like creature and a Green Man. As someone from a working-class background, he connects with the non-authoritarian voice of the craftsperson. As a queer person, he sees the misericords as objects that have survived the repressive ideals of history – they are subversive outsiders hiding in plain sight.

Writer: Anne Soward

Lindsey Mendick

Lindsey Mendick’s ceramic art was talk of clay-based town in ‘Strange Clay’, Hayward Gallery’s landmark show of ceramic artists in 2022. There, Mendick staged an environment that conveyed the intensity of domestic cohabitation. It was an astonishing example of the artist’s ability to use clay not only as a medium but as theatre, complete with props, protagonists and plot. In the process of creating these worlds – layered with candid personal anecdotes, myth, and pop culture references – Mendick subverts clay’s connotations with decoration and function, instead using ceramic art as a narrative device - at once witty, grotesque and beautiful.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Maxwell Mustardo

Maxwell Mustardo’s ceramic art appears as though its origins are from another universe. This is clay, but not as we know it. Last year, the New Jersey-based artist staged his first solo show in New York at Culture Object. Titled ‘The Substance of Style’, the exhibition comprised ceramic vessels sprayed with bobbled matte fluorescent colours and iridescent colour-shifting PVC. It demonstrated Mustardo’s knack for fusing the tradition of ceramics with an otherworldly approach that is simultaneously playful, uncanny and hyper-contemporary.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Sin-Ying Ho

In her deft cut-and-paste approach, Sin-Ying (Cassandra) Ho fuses together fragments of East and West. Self-described as a ‘global sapien’, Ho creates work reflective of the multicultural cities she’s inhabited, including New York, Toronto, her birthplace of Hong Kong, and Jingdezhen where she lives and works. Ho’s cross-cultural ceramic art is an amalgam of life experiences and observations; European and Chinese elements, decorative motifs and images from past and present collide to create concepts that are fundamentally contemporary.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Jonathan Baldock

Jonathan Baldock’s ingenious recipe of wit, grotesqueness, empowerment, mortality, and surrealism is as much ceramic art as theatre. The British artist’s multidisciplinary practice often merges ceramics, painting, sound, metal, textiles and performance to stretch the possibilities of his materials. Baldock – who recently created a striking window display for the Renzo Piano-designed Hermès Flagship store in Tokyo – is best known for incorporating biological forms into his work: disembodied ears, beckoning fingers, or contorted hands pushing and punching, which explore childhood fears, adult desires and the space occupied by the human body. As the artist has said, ‘All bodies are good bodies’.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Shawanda Corbett

American multidisciplinary artist Shawanda Corbett is breaking the mould of ceramic art. Her performative pottery – incorporating dance, music and poetry – is shaped by global histories and theories around a ‘complete body’. Corbett is a self-described ‘cyborg’ artist, drawing on Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1985). ‘I wanted to use [the book] but with my perspective: a Black woman, queer, disabled and all these other social identities that I have, whether decided or decided for me,’ the Oxford-based artist told us in an interview. Corbett’s ceramic works often comprise totemic, anthropomorphic vessels of different heights, shapes and glazes, their vibrant, glossy surfaces scored with traces of the music Corbett listens to as she works.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Fernando Casasempere

When Fernando Casasempere moved to London in 1997, he brought with him over twelve tonnes of his own mixtures of Chilean clay. The ceramic artist has always retained deep connections to the landscape of his native country, through which he confronts urgent global ecological and social concerns with links to the sensibilities of the Land Art movement. His abstract work blends clay with industrial matter, notably waste materials from copper mining (a principal export of Chile) and draws on classical and modern cultural forms such as Pre-Columbian art and Latin American architecture.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Martha Freud

The work of British ceramic artist Martha Freud is a bold fusion of wit, cultural critique, tongue-in-cheek wordplay and philosophical reflection. It was following a degree in furniture and product design that Freud discovered an affinity with ceramics, a moment she describes as ‘love at first sight’. In recent years, Freud has been focussing her energy on motherhood, an experience she has is now channelling into something of an art renaissance. ‘Mixed Messages’ at Nonemore Gallery, London, is Freud’s first solo show in more than a decade and features new works that blend technology and tradition. This includes delicate porcelain tableware and candles which feature witty slogans, life lessons and statements of empowerment: ‘Well, Well, Well If It Isn't The Consequences Of My Own Actions’, ‘Fuck This Shit’ and ‘My Body My Labels’ among them. It takes a certain vision to achieve an impactful balance of profanity, profundity, and poetry, but Martha Freud might have just cracked it.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

King Houndekpinkou

King Houndekpinkou’s otherworldly ceramic art blends ancestral pottery traditions with space-age video game aesthetics. The Paris-based artist, of Beninese origin, fuses seemingly disparate influences – from Japanese craft, African Voodoo and pop culture to form sculptures bursting with bold colour, playful spikes and cracked surfaces. As he told writer Minako Norimatsu in a profile for our September 2021 issue, ‘It can take a combination of hundreds of powders to obtain a particular colour or texture. Sometimes I rework a piece that is ostensibly finished, applying another layer of glaze and firing it again. Then a new piece is born!’

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Brie Ruais

Brooklyn-based Brie Ruais uses one primary tool to fashion her dynamic clay pieces: her own body. Each of her sculptures is made with the equivalent of her body weight in clay, resulting in pieces that uncannily mirror human scale. Each gouge, scrape and fold is evidence of raw physical engagement with her material, reminiscent of work by Ana Mendieta and Lynda Bengalis. Ruais’ often creates alone in the desolate desert terrain of Nevada's Great Basin, with no Wi-Fi or phone service. The intensity of solitude, and the charged intimacy with her material, as she rolls, pushes and pulls her body across it, results in works that blur sculpture and performance.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Ron Nagle 

It’s a rare trait in the arts, but acclaimed American ceramicist and prolific musician Ron Nagle has managed to master two very distinctive mediums with singular zest, conviction and unpredictability. Clay began as a rebellion for Nagle, both against his parents’ ‘closed-minded’ view of suitable vocations, and the conventional ceramic applications that ruled 1950s California. Gaining prominence in his 20s, he joined forces with other like-minded artists, such as Peter Voulkos and Ken Price, and soon found his rhythm. The results were small-scale, huge impact pieces that the artist has been perfecting for the last 60 years. An amalgam of hyper-polished and rugged surfaces combined with spicy, saturated hues, his works are imbued with the legacies of California: pop culture, the Finish Fetish movement and its sun-soaked vernacular.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Zemer Peled

The more you look at Zemer Peled’s work, the more there is to see. The the Israel-born, LA-based artist’s almost impossibly intricate ceramic sculptures are composed of thousands of porcelain shards to form small and large scale objects that resemble organic forms. Each shard is created from strips or slabs of raw or glazed porcelain that she rolls, smashes then affixes to her works. Often taking colour cues from the blue cobalt of Japanese pottery, the artist examines the beauty and brutality of the natural world and delves into themes of memory, identity and place. The resulting works – almost appearing soft from afar, and playful yet ominously spiky up close - resemble something between blooming flora, undulating sea anemones or something entirely abstract.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Magdalene Odundo 

Over a four-decade career, the Kenyan-born British studio potter and revered educator has made a tangible mark on ceramic art. Her restrained, often asymmetrical sculptures allude to the curvature of the female human form and affirm the inextricable and profound link between humanity and clay. As a young ceramic artist, she travelled to Nigeria, New Mexico and China, immersing herself in various approaches to craftsmanship. The artist’s hollow vessels carry a catalogue of global histories, technical approaches and cultures: graphic design - which she first trained in - diasporic identities, British studio pottery, ceremonial vessels from Kenya and Nigeria and Ancient Greek and Roman techniques. In place of the potters’ wheel, Odundo makes use of a coiling technique to hand-build her vessels, which she fires and burnishes repeatedly. The resulting objects have a surface akin to satin, and range in colour from flaming orange to subdued black, and sometimes a combination of the two.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Ai Weiwei

Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is just as famed for breaking ceramic art as making it. In 1995, in one of the most memorable and controversial moments of art-world theatre, he intentionally dropped an alleged 2,000-year-old Han Dynasty Urn, which shattered at his feet. A year before, Ai painted over another with the red Coca-Cola logo. This erasure of artefacts – and ergo cultural history - is a recurring theme in Ai’s work, with ancient ceramic vessels often his tools of choice to question who or what ascribes cultural value. In a different, but no less striking ceramic mode, Ai dominated Tate’s turbine hall with 100 million individually hand-crafted life-sized sunflower seeds sculpted and painted by specialists in Jingdezhen, China. It was an invitation to reflect on the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon, and more broadly, contemporary cultural exchange. Ai confronts the vast history of ceramic art, smashes it open and pieces it back together to astonishing, and explosive effect.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Grayson Perry 

A mere whisper of the term ‘ceramic art’ is usually enough to bring Grayson Perry’s work into the conversation. The artist’s command of the medium as a storytelling device is nonpareil, chronicling scenes of contemporary British life with wit, poignancy and nostalgia. At first glance, these pieces are alluring, playful and spirited. A closer inspection often brings with it a change in mood, as his sgraffito surfaces reveal loaded stories of prejudice, injustice, desire, disaster, religion, mass media and power. His work – which also extends across cast iron, bronze and printmaking – is dense with autobiographical references and unflinching societal statements. Perry simultaneously flips ceramics on its head to question the social status of the medium itself – turning its purity into a vehicle for fiery allegory.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Genesis Belanger 

In the work of Brooklyn-based sculptor Genesis Belanger, nothing is quite what it seems. Demure pastel hues and mundane objects are skewered with sharp wit and cultural critique - ingredients that make for uncanny visual consumption. Unlike many ceramic artists, Belanger eschews glazes in favour of a matte surface. Colours use either the natural tones of the clay or involve blending pigments into the stoneware or porcelain. Often involving mid-century furniture, pills, food, telephones, candles, flowers and displaced body parts, Belanger’s ceramic compositions are smorgasbords of surprise and conceptual depth. Each piece is packaged like a surreal novella, bound up in contemporary realism: feminist critiques of contemporary America, vanity, excess, consumerism, and in a 2020 show at The Aldrich, grief and loss.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Theaster Gates  

American artist Theaster Gates has a practice of many facets. Through his socially-engaged art, Gates delves into race, territory, and the history of objects. He trained as a potter, and maintains a deep affinity with clay. For Gates, the ceramic vessel is rooted in metaphor: a container of spirituality, ritual and universality, and architecture for shared experiences. Last year, Gates staged ‘Black Vessel’ at Gagosian New York, in which he created a space for contemplation through large-scale works in glazed and fired clay. The artist’s ability to unify age-old traditions and ceramic sensitivities with contemporary themes and aesthetics anchors him as a forerunner of contemporary ceramic art, and a great deal more. Read a full interview with Gates for our At Home With series.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Lubna Chowdhary

The work of London-based artist Lubna Chowdhary is all about tensions and hybridity: between manual and industrial, East and West, minimalism and superfluity. Born in Tanzania to Indian parents, the artist creates vivid hand-painted tiles, three-dimensional objects and spacial installations that defy easy categorisation. Chowdhary’s interests lie in the malleability of clay, its relationship with the human hand and colour’s capacity to generate visual and emotional responses. Through her bold lashings of colour, lustrous surfaces and gridlike geometric constructions, the medium is imbued with wide-ranging histories, geographies and cultures. Her new exhibition at Jhaveri Contemporary in Mumbai centres on the concept of code-switching, the act of shifting between linguistic codes and systems. This, in the context of Chowdhary’s work, means an interchange between different modes of production, cultural references and media, conveyed through tiled ceramic work, paintings and collages on paper.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Zizipho Poswa

The Cape Town-based ceramicist’s titanic totemic works, vividly hued and often of variegated parts, are deeply rooted in her experience as a Xhosa woman. In 2006, Poswa co-founded Cape Town ceramic studio Imiso, a leap that allowed her to translate her training in textile design into the ceramic sphere. Her relatively recent success as an independent artist came after two decades of dedication to clay as a vehicle for expression, and as a business. Her stoneware pieces, ambitious in scale and often composed of different parts, draw on Xhosa rituals and textiles, the water vessels carried by Xhosa women, and African hairstyles. Texture plays a central role in Poswa’s work: course surface treatments are often juxtaposed with silky smooth appendages (or vice versa), and other striking embellishments that bridge the gap between tradition and modernity.

Writer: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Finding the right art gifts for contemporary art lovers in your life is rarely straightforward. But on the Wallpaper* arts desk, we’ve thought outside the best art gift ideas box with those suitable for every budget, mood, and niche – ideal for Valentine's Day, or even those prone to a spot of self-gifting. 

From collectable art to luxury art accessories, explore our guide to the best art gifts you had no idea you needed, until now.

Mark Handforth’s Oyster Rose belt for J.Hopenstand

For the latest in its art belt commissions. Swiss bespoke leather brand J.Hopenstand has teamed up with artist Mark Handforth. The Oyster Rose belt reflects Handforth’s approach to site-specific interventions which fuse the codes of pop art and minimalism. His often-public installations take quotidian objects – such as telephones, bones and signage – and transform them into something altogether more uncanny. The artist’s belt, created in an edition of 20 and launched at ArtGenève this week, sees the shell become both a functional buckle and jewel in its own right, contrasting with the vivid green belt. Project A was conceived by brothers Rémi and Renaud Defrancesco as a tribute to their great-grandfather, Jacques Hopenstand. Previous artists given carte blanche on the brand’s flagship reversible belt include Vik Muniz, Dan Graham, Johan Creten and Sylvie Fleury. 

CHF 3000 each. jhopenstand.ch

Amen Picasso candles 

2023 marks 50 years since the death of Pablo Picasso. This has given rise to a large-scale commemorative programme spanning Europe and North America to mark the Spanish artist’s influence on contemporary culture. As part of the celebrations, a new collection of candles has been created by Amen for the Picasso Museum in Paris, in collaboration with Diana W. Picasso, curator of the recent exhibition, ‘Maya Ruiz-Picasso: Daughter of Pablo’. The limited edition collection – created in entirely natural materials including carbon-negative mushroom packaging – draws on four Picasso paintings between 1927 and 1932, which have been paired with four scents inspired by memories of the artist’s granddaughter. 

£97 each, amencandles.com

Martha Freud's tongue-in-cheek ceramic collections

British ceramic artist Martha Freud offers a bold fusion of wit, cultural critique, and tongue-in-cheek wordplay in her debut capsule collections – comprising porcelain tableware and candles – available to purchase via her website. If you’re looking for an art gift that balances profanity, profundity, and poetry, look no further. From slogans like ‘I run a tight shipwreck’ and ‘Well, Well, Well, If It Isn’t The Consequences Of My Own Actions’ to ‘For fuck’s sake’– Freud doesn’t mince her words, and we’re very into it.

marthafreud.com

Pablo Bronstein creates architectural box for X Muse vodka

For the first in its limited-edition ‘Reveal Series’, vodka brand X Muse has commissioned UK-based, Argentine artist Pablo Bronstein to create a gift box ahead of the festive season. Bronstein, known for masterfully-rendered illustrations rooted in 18th-century aesthetics, futurist fantasies; utopian and dystopian architecture and industry, has turned the X Muse box into a folly, accented by amethyst-coloured architectural ornamentation, a nod to the involvement of amethysts in the vodka’s creation process. 

£55 each, xmusevodka.com

Faunacrystopolis Monkey Candlestick by Baccarat and Jaime Hayon

One thing we learnt this year is that Baccarat and the fantastical universe of Jaime Hayon are quite the pairing. Within their Faunacrystopolis collection, we’re particularly smitten with the Monkey Candlestick, and Hayon’s reinterpretation of the brand’s Harcourt decanter into a fantastical bird sculpture - an art gift that hits the sweet spot between whimsy and refinement.

 $480 each, uk.baccarat.com

M+ x Yayoi Kusama phone cases 

We can never get enough of Yayoi Kusama’s art, and now we have the opportunity to carry it with us at all times. To coincide with the artist’s major new retrospective exhibition, Kusama and M+ Museum in Hong Kong have teamed up to create a range of dynamic phone cases (for iPhone and Samsung models) in collaboration with Casetify, available on the M+ online shop as the physical M+ store. They're perfect art gifts for the Kusama-obsessed (which, let's be honest, is most of us). 

shop.mplus.org.hk

Ed Ruscha's cashmere-blend to support (RED)

Acclaimed American artist Ed Ruscha and Gagosian gallery have once again teamed up to support (RED), the organisation created by U2 frontman Bono and activist Bobby Shriver in 2006 to help end AIDS. Building on the success of the charity silk edition last year, this new cashmere-blend scarf sees Ruscha’s iconic text-based work, Science Is Truth Found Out (1986) set against a scene of silhouetted trees in a field of glowing red. Produced in a limited edition of 500, each is signed and numbered and available for $1,200 each. Now on presale, this art gift for good sees 100% of sales go to (RED), with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation matching every dollar raised for the Global Fund. 

gagosianshop.com

Herman Miller prints offer a dose of design nostalgia

For decades, furniture brand Herman Miller has cemented itself as an industry leader, with universally recognised pieces including the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman. Lesser known, but no less iconic, are its graphics and advertisements, serving as brand nostalgia for design lovers around the world. For the first time, Herman Miller has launched a 15-print collection of archival posters by designers and illustrators, which make for ideal art gifts. Featured creatives include George Nelson & Associates, Armin Hofmann, Phillip Mitchell, Steve Frykholm, Irving Harper, and Linda Powell. 

hermanmiller.com

Take home a piece of ‘Strange Clay’ at the Hayward Gallery

The Hayward Gallery’s current exhibition, ‘Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art’ got the entire art world talking about the potential of ceramic art. Never have we seen the medium used to such potent narrative and visual effect. Five leading artists featured in the exhibition – Jonathan Baldock, Grayson Perry, Serena Korda, Salvatore Arancio and Lubna Chowdhary – have created a series of limited-edition artworks so you can take a piece of this acclaimed show home with you. 

shop.southbankcentre.co.uk

Turn heads with Rashid Johnson's collection for Hauser & Wirth

When it comes to inventive contemporary art gifts, we’re often left art-struck by Hauser & Wirth. This year's highlights include Rashid Johnson's Anxious Men collection – a series of luxury sweatshirts, t-shirts and a cap, and My Ally, a limited edition by Jenny Holzer – fabricated from similar precious metals to those used in the artist’s ‘redaction paintings – which will benefit FactCheck.org and CAMFED. Elsewhere, the gallery’s epic Marcel Duchamp book is a readymade art gift for any Duchamp devotee, and who knew that Cindy Sherman's work would make such a statement on a skateboard?

hauserwirth.com

Sip on David Shrigley's immutable wit

Nothing screams affection more than a mug that reads ‘Sorry I fell asleep whilst you were talking’, courtesy of artist and wordsmith David Shrigley. 

shop.balticmill.com

Break the ice over a Judy Chicago dinner plate

As dinner party conversation starters go, Judy Chicago’s ‘Bigamy Hood’ dinner plate could be up there with the most gripping. Available from Prospect at $195 each, the bone china plate depicts one of the feminist art trailblazer's earliest works, created in ‘macho’ automotive lacquer sprayed onto a car hood. Much like Chicago’s iconic installation The Dinner Party, Bigamy Hood was once greeted with derision, but now embodies her epic contribution to the evolution of feminist art. Art gifts also available from Prospect – the New York-based company known for top-tier art collaborations – are vibrant straws by Micha Kahn, and striking candles by Bonam Kim. 

prospectny.com

Reach creative enlightenment with Marina Abramović

Lady Gaga and Jay-Z are among those who have followed the Abramović Method to reach higher creative consciousness. The Serbian artist and titan of performance art has spent the last half-century stretching the human body to breaking point, offering herself for audience experimentation, and eroding the seal between body and soul. Now, the artist’s iconic approach is available in a set of 30 instructions. So what’s on the cards? For starters, you might try ‘complaining to a tree’, in which you ‘Choose a tree you like. Put your arms around the tree. Complain to the tree’, for 15 minutes. If tree-hugging isn’t your jam, perhaps you could try ‘holding a mutual gaze’ with a willing partner? If you don’t try, you’ll never know.

laurenceking.com

Rewrite art history with Caran d'Ache’s sustainable drawing pencils

For its 2022 collection, Luxury Swiss art manufacturer Caran d'Ache have unveiled objects of pure creative desire. The range includes the 849 Ballpoint Pen – Caran d’Ache’s iconic pen reimagined in two new limited edition colour combinations, the Ecridor Sunlight, a luxury fine-writing pen finely engraved with a gold-plated gem and a sun-effect diamond guillochage and the Prismalo Pencil Set offering 12 two-toned pencils with three new combinations – and the ideal art gift for the practically minded. 

carandache.com

Today, we welcome a new year, and with it, a renewed excitement for all things art in 2023. If ‘see more art’ found its way onto your New Year’s Resolutions list, look no further than our pick of the best global art exhibitions to catch in January 2023.

BEST ART EXHIBITIONS TO SEE IN JANUARY 2023

1. ‘David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)’ at the Lightroom, London

Legendary artist David Hockney will launch an ambitious, immersive art show in London this month, transforming his iconic paintings, rarely-seen pieces and newly created work into a multisensorial experience. ‘David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)’ at the Lightroom in London will use digital projection and audio technology to offer a journey through Hockney’s world. Until 23 April 2023

READ MORE

2. ‘Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces’ at the New Museum, New York

Theaster Gates’ first US museum show is a moving homage to the creative forces who came before, as well as his native Chicago. ‘Young Lords and Their Traces’ at The New Museum, is what Gates describes as ‘a personal pantheon’ and ‘a kind of memorial for different individuals who had an impact on my life and culture’. Until 5 February 2023

READ MORE

3. Monica Bonvicini ‘I do You’ at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 

Monica Bonvicini’s much-anticipated exhibition ‘I do You’ is nothing short of monumental. Through site-specific, architecturally transformative works which range from the 1990s until today, the show spotlights Bonvicini’s signature modes of feminist and architectural inquiry, specifically tailored to the Mies van der Rohe-designed building. Until 30 April 2023

READ MORE

4. ‘Art Here 2022’ at the Louvre Abu Dhabi 

For the second edition of the ‘Art Here’ exhibition, the Louvre Abu Dhabi presents a multifaceted celebration of contemporary art from across the UAE and wider GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region. ‘Art Here 2022’, coinciding with the museum’s fifth anniversary, features work by ten artists shortlisted for the Richard Mille Art Prize 2023. Until 19 February 2023

READ MORE

5. ‘Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now’ at M+ Hong Kong

‘Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now’ at M+ is one of the first major retrospectives of the Japanese artist’s work in nearly a decade. From early sketchbooks to iconic pieces (yes, there are Pumpkins) and work created during the pandemic, the show offers potent reflections on mental health, hope, and the enduring, universal power of Kusama’s art. 

READ MORE

6. Art commissions at the Sydney Modern Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales

To mark the opening of its Sydney Modern Project, the Art Gallery of New South Wales unveiled a series of nine site-specific art commissions (some on view permanently) displayed inside and outside the new SANAA-designed building. Commissioned artists include Francis Upritchard (who we spoke to ahead of the opening), Adrián Villar Rojas, Lisa Reihana, Lee Mingwei and Yayoi Kusama.

READ MORE

7. ‘In Search of the Present’ at Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland

What is intelligence, where it can be found, and where it can go? asks EMMA’s group show ‘In Search of the Present’. 16 artists including Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Refik Anadol, Raimo Saarinen and Sougwen Chung dissect the intersections of nature, technology and art. As well as cutting-edge AI, the show also spotlights the often underestimated power of intelligence in the natural world. Until 15 January 

READ MORE

8. Zizipho Poswa ‘uBuhle boKhokho’ at Southern Guild Gallery, Cape Town

Ceramic artist Zizipho Poswa is known for an expansive art practice that draws on ancient African traditions. Her latest show of ceramics and photography, continues her exploration of traditional African hairstyles, drawing inspiration from the elaborate art of hairstyling not just in her native South Africa but across the African continent and the diaspora. Until 2 February 2023

READ MORE

9. Laure Prouvost, ‘Above Front Tears Oui Float’ at The National Museum, Light Hall, Oslo

Turner Prize-winning artist Laure Prouvost has filled the cavernous space at the top of Oslo’s new National Museum. Prouvost’s is the first in a series of artist commissions and turns the iridescent marble space into an ethereal, experiential world that imagines nature taking over. Until 12 February 2023

READ MORE

10. Takashi Murakami at Perrotin Dubai, ICD Brookfield Place

Perrotin Dubai and ICD Brookfield Place have partnered to present Takashi Murakami’s first exhibition in the city, bringing together some of the artist’s most iconic works. Highlighting the artist’s signature blend of high and low culture, the show sees traditional Japanese painting techniques and aesthetics collide with the language of consumerism, nostalgia and childhood obsessions. Until 28 January 2023 

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Veronica Ryan, a New York- and Bristol-based sculptor who has used handcrafted works to address themes of history, belonging and identity, was named the winner of the Turner Prize 2022 earlier today.

The result was announced this evening at St George Hall in Liverpool, a stone’s throw away from Tate Liverpool – home to this year’s Turner Prize exhibition. Tate director Maria Balshaw presented Ryan with the prize alongside musician Holly Johnson, lead vocalist of the 1980s English synth-pop band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, in a ceremony that was broadcast live on the BBC.

Born in 1956 in Plymouth, then the capital of the British overseas territory of Montserrat, Ryan pursued her artistic education in the UK (at SOAS, Slade, Bath Academy of St Albans College of Art and Design), where she was inspired by the work of Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois and Barbara Hepworth.

A scholarship from the Slade enabled her to visit Nigeria, which inspired her interest in the adaptation of everyday consumables in her artwork. One can draw a through line from this visit to Ryan’s best known installation, a memorial to the Windrush generation that was unveiled outside London’s Hackney Town Hall in 2021. Ryan’s giant custard apple, breadfruit and soursop, rendered in marble and bronze, pay tribute to the people who arrived in the UK from the Caribbean between the late 1940s and 1970s.

‘I chose those particular fruit and veg because they’re what my mum ate when she was pregnant with me,’ Ryan explained in a video created for her Turner Prize nomination. ‘I like the idea that there's  this whole side of nurture and healing and mother-daughter relationships and intergenerational  information being passed on.’

Alongside the Windrush memorial, it was Ryan’s exhibition at Bristol contemporary art centre Spike Island, between May and September 2021, that earned her the nomination for the Turner Prize. Titled ‘Along a Spectrum’, the exhibition examined environmental and sociopolitical concerns, personal narratives, history and displacement, and the winder psychological implications of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key to the exhibition was Ryan’s research on the history of Montserrat, and her attempt to identify its early culture prior to the arrival of Europeans. Among the artworks were large groups of soursop skins and cocoa pods, cast in clay and glazed with volcanic ash.

In awarding Ryan the Turner Prize 2022, the jury recognised the ‘personal and poetic way she extends the language of sculpture’. She was selected from a shortlist of four artists, which also included Heather Phillipson, Ingrid Pollard and Sin Wai Kin.

Accepting the award with joyful exclamations of ‘Power’ and ‘Visibility’ , Ryan acknowledged her family – particularly her dad, whose hat she wore to the prize ceremony, and her siblings that didn’t survive, Patricia, Josephine and David.

The prize jury is chaired by Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, and Helen Legg, director of Tate Liverpool. Other members are Irene Aritsizábal, head of curatorial and public practice at Gateshead’s Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art; Christine Eyene, lecturer in contemporary art at Liverpool John Moores University; Robert Leckie, director of Spike Island; and Anthony Spira, director of Milton Keynes’ MK Gallery.

The Turner Prize 2022 exhibition runs until 19 March 2023 at Tate Liverpool. tate.org.uk

Textile artists have long used their medium as a vehicle for storytelling. Much like ceramic art, it has long trodden the foggy line between art and craft. It comes dressed in many forms: fibre art, tapestry, weaving, embroidery, knitting, and often spreads beyond the borders of art into fashion, design, science and technology. 

The last century has seen a renaissance in thread-based art. It was only during the Bauhaus years in the early 20th century that textiles began to enter the vocabulary of modern art, a move indebted to textile masters like Anni Albers, who turned her weaving loom into a vehicle for innovation. Albers saw the potential of textiles beyond a ‘women’s craft’ and has since influenced swathes of creatives including Sheila Hicks, who studied under both Anni and Josef Albers and myriad fashion designers. Other artists who took textiles to new heights in the 20th century include Sonia Delaunay, Judith Scott, and Louise Bourgeois.

In the 1970s, coinciding with the women's liberation movement, and the rise of feminist art, textiles underwent its own revolution. Fibre art was born: textiles was catapulted beyond the domestic space and unshackled from veiled art world snobbery. The medium took on a life beyond functional craft; it became textiles for textiles’ sake.

From immersive site-specific installations to work that reinterprets the codes of history, contemporary textile art is a conceptual and political tool, fuelled by postmodernist ideals and the experimental spirit of those who command it. 

Ibrahim Mahama

In his home country of Ghana, Ibrahim Mahama's contemporary art centre provides the social infrastructure for arts education; in his exhibitions internationally, he cultivates a collaborative focus. Recently, Mahama has unveiled possibly his greatest collaborative work - and certainly his largest scale public commission - in the UK yet. Purple Hibiscus, exhibited over the exterior of the Barbican, named after Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2003 novel, encompasses around 2000 square metres of billowing panels of pink and purple fabric, woven and sewn in collaboration with hundreds of craftspeople from Tamale in Ghana. On the panels, around 100 batakaris have been embroidered - robes traditionally worn by both ordinary people as well as northern Ghanaian royals - which Mahama has been collecting over the years, without at first knowing for what purpose. 

The project is a natural extension of his fascination with materials, building on previous work which saw him reflect on global exchange, communism and colonialism through jute bags. He became interested in their physical journey - originally created in India and Bangladesh, they became useful for the transmission of cocoa and became a commodity themselves, becoming stained and ripped and stitched back together. The transformation began a new life cycle triggered by human intervention. 

Writer: Hannah Silver

Rachel Scott

Rachel Scott’s approach to textile art is one of pure dedication. In her Pimlico studio, mornings are spent weaving and evenings are devoted to spinning wool for the next day. Since she started weaving in 1976, her wide-ranging practice has comprised everything from handwoven rugs and knitted patchwork-covered chairs to cushions, bags, scarves, dresses and even chess sets in her signature earthen palette and angular patterning. In a new show, 'weaving my world' at Make Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, Scott offers a snapshot of her prolific textile output, as well as early paintings dating from the 1960s. In addition to Scott‘s work, the exhibition will feature pieces by her husband, Frank Bowling and her daughters, Marcia and Iona Scott. As Scott says: ‘Making things by hand for me is the only way and has been since I was a child. What else would I do with my time?’

Richard McVetis

Repetition, ritual, rhythm and obsession, British textile artist Richard McVetis’ work has long been concerned with the subtle differences that arise in habitual, labour intensive making. His ‘Variations of a Stitched Cube’, shortlisted for the 2018 Loewe Craft Prize, examine the systems in which we measure time. These distinctive, often three-dimensional and cubic textile works seek to record human presence, time and decay through meticulous stitching, making a portrait of both the artist and the broader human condition. 

Sanford Biggers 

American artist Sanford Biggers draws connections between apparently disparate cultural practices and examines current socio-political events while unearthing the contexts that conceived them. Biggers’ works reference African American history, ongoing police brutality against Black Americans, and Buddhist spiritualism. The Harlem-based artist’s work spans film, performance, music and sculpture, and he has frequently turned to textile art to explore new narratives, with his quilt pieces often originating as antique heirlooms, which he acquires and alters. As the artist explained of the works: ‘My embellishment, erasure, defacement, and repair complicates the provenance and gender of these relics of Americana. They are remixed, chopped and screwed but their softness is ultimately their power.’ 

Faig Ahmed 

The work of Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed is interwoven with complex layers of historical, literary, mystical, and craft. He is best known for surreal, often psychedelic twists to traditional Islamic rugs. His carpets – like optical illusions in textile form – warp, melt, pixelate, unravel, and appear to spill from the wall and onto the floor like intricate pools of liquid. Despite the contemporary interventions, the artist’s textile art is created by skilled practitioners who follow traditional Azerbaijani weaving techniques. Ahmed, who represented Azerbaijan at the Venice Biennale in 2007, presented three new carpet works in his solo show, ‘Pir’ at Sapar Contemporary, New York. Each work is titled after poets and spiritual masters whose works had a lasting influence on the cultural history of Azerbaijan: Shams Tabrizi, Yahya al-Shirvani al-Bakuvi, and Nizami Ganjavi. 

Tanya Aguiñiga

Textile artist Tanya Aguiñiga, now based in Los Angeles, spent a childhood in Tijuana, Mexico. During this time, she travelled several hours each day across the border to attend school in San Diego, an experience that would go on to have a profound impact on her work. Her furniture, textiles, wearable pieces, sculptures, and site-specific installations involve a spectrum of natural materials, from beeswax to human hair and stitch together complex ideas of gender and nationality. Beyond her individual practice, Aguiñiga frequently collaborates with artists and activists to create sculptures, installations, performances, and collective community-based art projects. These ‘performance crafting’ happenings explore notions of divided, transnational identities, political and human rights issues at the US-Mexico border, and the power of art to weave communities together.

Sheila Hicks

Sheila Hicks’ name is almost synonymous with fibre art. Over more than half a century, she has removed the seams between art, architecture and design with bold, groundbreaking work, often dominating public spaces. The American artists’ extensive travels across several continents and studies of vernacular textile traditions informed an expansive, yet unmistakable practice that ranges from intricate wall hangings (or ‘minimes’) to cascades of vibrant fabric balls and maximal site-specific installations which envelop viewers and overwhelm senses. Hicks’ work draws on everything from Peruvian and Bolivian archaeological sites to pre-Columbian textiles. She was also deeply inspired by her former Yale tutor Josef Albers’ approach to colour and the pioneering structures in the work of his wife, Anni Albers. American design firm Knoll became one of Hicks’s first major commercial clients; together they created Inca, inspired by Andean patterns. In Hicks’ work, textile art is sculpture, painting, architecture and an independent discipline in its own right. 

Chiharu Shiota

Chiharu Shiota's elaborate entanglements are difficult to forget and easy to get lost in. Her labyrinthine installations are vast, surreal waves of blood-red, black or white threads, and appear almost as though humans could weave webs. Within these environments, the Japanese, Berlin-based artist often traps objects of personal significance such as clothes, keys, boats, suitcases, and even herself. Shiota’s work is deeply rooted in performance art; the artist studied under Marina and holds a deep affinity with late Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta. Her textile installations are both performative and painterly; as the artist told us, ‘The single line of thread is like a line in a painting. With the thread, I am drawing in the air, in an unlimited space. With the material, I can create new spaces. They might be deconstructed after the exhibition, but they will live in the memory of the visitors forever.’ 

Billie Zangewa

South African–Malawian artist Billie Zangewa is well known for creating moving stories of femininity, domesticity, motherhood and the exploitation of the Black female body rendered in delicate hand-stitched fragments of raw silk. Within these scenes, often figurative, urban and referencing themes of everyday life, Zangewa explores gender stereotypes and socio-political notions around the undervaluing of women’s labour. Through self-portraiture, the artist also critically confronts the male gaze, and conversely, explores what a female gaze on womanhood might look like. 

Gabriel Dawe 

Best known for his dazzling Plexus series, Mexican artist Gabriel Dawe is well versed in pushing textile art to its extremities. His vast installations explore the intersection of fashion, architecture and optical illusion. Dawe takes the core component of clothing, and augments it on an architectural scale, creating hypnotic work which seems to make the tangible appear intangible. The artist uses ordinary polyester embroidery threads to create extraordinary illusions which resemble something close to vivid, laser projections. Beneath his work's obvious aesthetic appeal, Dawe speaks to something deeper: the human need for shelter and protection, and the hyper-masculine ideals prevalent in Mexican culture. gabrieldawe.com

Anna Ray

Anna Ray has a knack for harnessing the emotive power of her materials. Through large-scale, handmade work and avid experimenting, she blurs the boundaries between the two- and three-dimensional with wall-based pieces that almost assume the quality of sculptural reliefs. Predominantly fibre-based, the artist’s work spans silk, cotton, velvet, wool and paper, often using humble, domestic materials such as a sewing machine, scissors, pliers and a needle. Earlier this year, Ray became the second recipient of the Brookfield Properties Crafts Council Collection Award at Collect 2021. The artist charmed the judges with her ability to exude joy, optimism and energy through her sculptural works. As part of the award, her striking pieces, Capture and Weave (made during and directly after the first UK Covid-19 lockdown) was exhibited at 99 Bishopsgate and Aldgate Tower in summer and autumn 2021.

Diedrick Brackens

Texas-born Diedrick Brackens’ rich tapestries interweave personal stories, American history and narratives of African American and queer identities. Fusing techniques and traditions from West African weaving, quilting from the American South and European tapestry-making, he creates intricate, often vibrantly-coloured visions of history, folklore and contemporary American life. Created in hand-dyed cotton, his pieces are charged with a consciousness of the material’s complex and barbaric history. Since receiving the revered Studio Museum in Harlem’s Joyce Alexander Wein Prize in 2018 (an honour previously awarded to the likes of Simone Leigh, Lorna Simpson and Glenn Ligon), the artist has become a pivotal figure in the contemporary fibre art renaissance.

The Audley, in Anglo Saxon, means ‘the old friend’, an apt name for a pub that has proudly occupied a prime corner plot in the heart of London’s Mayfair since 1888. 

Now, this old friend has been given new life by Artfarm, the hospitality and development company founded in 2014 by gallerists Manuela and Iwan Wirth, and whose rapidly-expanding portfolio now includes The Fife Arms in Braemar, Scotland, the Roth Bar & Grill at Hauser & Wirth’s art centre in Somerset, the Manuela restaurant in Los Angeles, and the upcoming revival of London’s storied Groucho Club. 

Far from a run-of-the-mill facelift, The Audley will offer three distinct, art-led experiences: a street-level public house (now open), the first-floor Mount St Restaurant and four spaces on the upper three floors which will be available for private hire and will open this Autumn. 

For Ewan Venters, CEO of Hauser & Wirth and Artfarm, the listed Victorian building was a natural fit for Artfarm’s first London project. ‘We had wanted a London venue for some time, preferably within walking distance of the gallery in Savile Row, so when The Audley came up, we jumped at it’, he says. ‘We consider the building to be a tremendous piece of architecture with so much character and history attached.’

Food at The Audley will be helmed by Jamie Shears, with the Mount St Restaurant offering a refined classic-contemporary fusion menu drawing inspiration from London's culinary history. Downstairs, the bar will supply a sophisticated twist on pub grub. 

Naturally, art is the backbone of the project, with a revolving showcase of important works throughout, as well as interventions by Hauser & Wirth’s roster of leading international artists. These include Phyllida Barlow’s ceiling installation in the pub, Rashid Johnson’s floor mosaic in the Mount St Restaurant, and Anj Smith’s ceiling fresco which occupies the top-floor turret. ‘It’s a rare thing to be able to commission site-specific art for a project of this scale, one that will help write the next chapter of the building and outlast us all’, says Venters. ‘I believe these works contribute massively to The Audley becoming a glorious and exciting conversation, with an interior that is full of possibilities and inspiration.’

The Audley’s contemporary art pièce de résistance is impossible to miss. British artist Barlow’s abstract ceiling installation crowns the ground-floor pub in a zesty sky of collaged colour, the permanent mosaic of hand-painted paper framed by the pub’s deep mahogany panelling. 

For Barlow, the invitation was a ‘thrilling offer’. ‘I said yes immediately, even though I have never done anything like this before,’ she explained. ‘But [architect Luis Laplace] and I had a very brief conversation where he said, “you've got to be as bold as you want to be and as free as you want to be.”’ Bold and free is an accurate characterisation of Barlow’s installation, which offers an illusion of kinetic three-dimensionality. ‘It's very active in its relationship to the pub environment, but not in a way that somehow spoils it.’ she continues. ‘I love the idea of it impacting the environment, and making people feel that it was almost natural that it was there.’

Like many of Artfarm and Hauser & Wirth’s previous restoration projects – including Hauser & Wirth Menorca and Durslade Farmhouse in Somerset – architectural renovations have been headed up by Paris-based Laplace, who has put his stamp on The Audley’s original design by Thomas Verity, best known for the pavilion exterior at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Laplace deployed his signature sensitive approach within the constraints of the Grade II listed structure, allowing art, and the building’s treasured history, to take centre stage. 

Among these treasures are The Audley’s original ceiling clock keeping time on last orders, and the original wooden fireplace, inscribed with the Latin ‘salve’ (welcome). It’s a fitting greeting for a pub that has community and tradition in its DNA, sentiments Artfarm hopes to fervidly maintain. ‘This area is so rich in culture and history, and where better for those stories to continue than at the local pub?’ says Venters. ‘Everyone is welcome!’

In the larger landscape of art-meets-hospitality enterprises, Artfarm is undoubtedly tapping into something. Its recipe is proving, again and again, that there is an appetite for the intersection of these worlds. ‘Art inspires, excites and intrigues, it sparks conversations’, says Venters. ‘Restaurants, hotels and bars give people a space to have those conversations, away from their day-to-day lives.’

INFORMATION

theaudleypublichouse.com; artfarm.com

Daniel Arsham is the sort of creative who flies in the face of pigeonholes. Over two decades, the New York-based artist has gained meteoric global attention through a rule-bending blend of architecture, art, design, performance, sculpture and satire. 

Arsham’s inimitable breed of futurism is alluring yet apocalyptic, prophetic yet playful. From Pokémon to Porsche, Pharrell Williams’ keyboard to Wallpaper’s 25th-anniversary cover, little has escaped Arsham’s divine erosions.

His sculptural work shows how manmade fragility can collide with the tenacity of geological material. It imagines a future too close for comfort: when humanity’s turbo-charged industrial and technological world implodes in the wake of digital dematerialisation. 

Beyond institutional and gallery shows, his prolific output has involved collaborations with an eclectic mix of brands (among them Tiffany’s, Heinz, Adidas, Rimowa, and Dior), alongside ambitious spatial interventions under Snarkitecture, the collaborative design studio he co-founded with Alex Mustonen.

On Arsham’s characteristically full agenda is a carte blanche at Marseille’s MAMO Cité Radieuse Arts Center, upcoming solo shows at Perrotin Tokyo and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, as well as the opening of the artist’s new exhibition space in Bridgehampton. 

At home with Daniel Arsham

Wallpaper*: Where are you right now? 

Daniel Arsham: I am currently in my studio in New York preparing for the opening of my newest exhibition at Perrotin Tokyo (from 27 August), entitled: ‘31st Century Still Lifes’.

W*: Where and when are you most productive?

DA: My office at home or in the studio, generally with music playing and lots of visual inspirations in front of me. For example, in my studio many works are hanging from the ceiling or on the walls, there’s lots of movement everywhere.

W*: What’s the last thing you watched? 

DA: The latest Star Wars series, The Mandalorian.

W*: What do you love about intersections and the exchange between creative disciplines?

DA: I love the possibility for nuance when things you might not first consider to be paired are blended or in collaboration with one another.

W*: Who is your dream collaborator? 

DA: I’ve been lucky enough to work with several of my dream collaborators, however, it would be incredible to work with Apple.

W*: How do you switch off?

DA: I am quite busy, there’s not much time to switch off. Finding moments of calm or moments of inspiration during travel is generally how I relax.

W*: What one piece of advice would you give to the next generation?

DA: Don’t let discouragement stop you from trying and failing, over and over. 

INFORMATION

’Le Modulor du Basketball ’at MAMO Centre d’art de la Cité Radieuse, Marseille runs until 25 September. mamo.fr

’31st Century Still Lifes’, 27 August - 15 October 2022 at Perrotin New York. perrotin.com

’Relics in the Landscape’, from 1 October, Yorkshire Sculpture Park. ysp.org.uk

Russell Tovey's ascent in the art world has been meteoric, which might have something to do with his remarkable career as an actor and the celebrity this entails. But it only takes minutes of conversation to realise his infectious enthusiasm for art, his impressive grasp of art history, and his generous championing of emerging talents, which have surely played a more important role in his popularity among artists, institutions and audiences alike.

He has curated an arts festival for the English seaside town of Margate, organised exhibitions with illustrious galleries (among them David Zwirner), put his personal art collection on view at London’s The Perimeter, and served on the judging panel of the 2021 Turner Prize. His much-lauded Talk Art podcast series, a collaboration with gallerist and long-time friend Robert Diament, is now in its 13th season, with recent guests including Tracey Emin, Sonia Boyce and Hew Locke. The accompanying Talk Art book, published last May, is a best-seller and boasts a foreword by none other than Jerry Saltz, arguably the most influential art critic of our time.

Tovey’s latest curatorial collaboration has been with artist Navot Miller, for whom he has curated solo shows in London and now New York (at 1969 Gallery on the Lower East Side, until 28 July). Captivating, exuberant and proudly queer, Miller’s output seems to embody the kind of art Tovey is fondest of. As Tovey writes evocatively in the exhibition introduction, ‘it’s as if David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield met and birthed [Miller] on the dance floor of a sweaty nightclub in Berlin (where the artist lives and works); midwifed into a second term by Ken Price and reaching full term – pulled into the world giggling, spinning, sparkling and twinkling through the efforts of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol’.

As part of our ‘At home with’ interview series, we catch up with Tovey – usually London-based, but currently in New York to film an as yet unannounced TV series – on his projects with Miller, the joys of being part of an artist’s journey, evolving public attitudes towards queer art, the podcast guests on his wish list, his dream curatorial assignment, and his favourite art institution in the world (hint: his love of dogs factors into the decision).

Wallpaper*: Where are you at the moment?

Russell Tovey: I’m in New York for the summer, doing a TV show. The last time I was here, I was doing an Edward Albee play on Broadway, called Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? We did eight previews and then it got shut down because of Covid, and I haven’t been back since. I love this city, and I was coming back this time with slight trepidation. But actually, the city feels completely alive again. And obviously, the art scene is just the best. I’m an art nut, and I’ve been able to see a lot of shows, go to the Whitney Biennial and to MoMA, and then all the galleries in Chelsea. I’m very happy here.

W*: What can you tell us about the latest show you have curated, with artist Navot Miller?

RT: You’ll never meet anyone like Navot Miller. He’s kooky, unique, brilliant, flamboyant, and proudly queer. His work is about the connections between us. With what we’ve all been through, being kept apart from one another because of the virus, it’s great to see work that’s a celebration of connection, whether that be a one-night-stand, a dear friend, a regular lover, or a family member. It’s full of joy and love, and with a flash of Keith Haring. 

I met Navot through a friend of mine. We went to the Tate together, and we instantly clicked. And then Rob [Diament] and I invited him to come on to Talk Art. That’s when I started to get closer to him on a curatorial level.

The exhibition is at 1969 Gallery, on the Lower East Side. It follows on from a show that I did with Navot in London, at Grove Collective. Around that time, he said to me that his dream was to have an exhibition in New York, so I took his work to Quang Bao [owner of 1969 Gallery] and said, I really want to do a solo in your space with this guy. These shows are hopefully among many things Navot and I are going to do together.

W:* The title of the show is ‘Coming Back Homo’. Can you tell us about the conversations around the theme, and how the two of you worked together to decide on the artworks?

RT: ‘Coming Back Homo’ is very personal to Navot. He has family members who are from the States, so it’s like a homecoming. It's a love letter to New York, saying, you have been my aspiration, and here I am. 

He’s one of those guys who is really incredibly passionate and talented, and excited about life. He’s made seven paintings for the show. I asked him to do some wall drawings too, and he responded with a big yes. He brought all of his oil sticks and just started drawing on the walls while I was hanging the paintings. I said, ‘there’s a gap here, and I want you to take up the space.’ And he went at it.

There’s also one of his films. He makes these by splicing together his own video clips with sound – whether it’s music, a voice note someone sent him, or something he’s overheard – they feel very nostalgic, very pop and true to him. They make me love my friends more. They make me appreciate my life more. And they make me want to travel more.

W*: You've spoken about the importance of supporting emerging artists in the past. Are there particular incidences of artists whose careers you’ve been able to nurture, or long-time relationships with people you discovered when they were up and coming?

RT: Through Talk Art, I’m privileged to have been in a position to meet artists who are on the cusp of incredible, exciting moments, like Salman Toor. When the Talk Art book came out, we were doing a piece for The New York Times, and they observed us doing a podcast with him. At that time, he was just about to open at the Whitney, and that was his game-changing moment. Now he’s soaring. To know that you’re one of many cogs in this is an absolute privilege.

When I first got into art, when I was really young, I looked to Pop artists like [Roy] Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol, but they’d all died. I'd look at a picture of Andy Warhol's Factory and wish I could be part of that. Talk Art has made me realise that I could be part of today’s Warhol Factory – I can go into artists’ studios and be part of their conversations. I’m able to fangirl, and be around history.

There are many people who now come to me for art advice, and I always say to them, that you should be finding emerging artists you love. When you buy their work, you’re paying for their studio fees for that month, you’re buying materials, you're paying for their canvases, or whatever it is their medium is, and you can grow with them. There’s nothing more satisfying than being there, being a friend, and watching what happens. It’s the most wonderful thing.

W*: You’ve also been a notable champion of queer artists, for instance through the group show ‘My Reflection of You’ at The Perimeter, and through your work with Navot Miller. What was the first queer artwork you collected? And how has the appreciation for queer art grown in the years you’ve been in the art world?

RT: The first queer artist that I fell in love with was Wolfgang Tillmans. I was introduced to his work when I was around 22, and I was completely obsessed. There was one work in particular that I’ve always coveted, called Sportflecken (1996), which shows some dubious staining on a white t-shirt. You project your own story on Wolfgang’s works and facilitate your own dreams and fantasies. As a queer person, seeing yourself represented in photography in that way is incredibly important.

Queer art was once seen as separate from the mainstream. What’s been incredible in the last four years is that queer art, and art by minoritised communities, has come up front. Seeing queer characters interact in figurative painting, photography, and sculpture has been exciting. At the same time, queer art is commanding big prices in the auction market, and that’s trickling down. It’s no longer just ‘I’m a queer collector, so I’m going to collect queer art.’ It’s more like, ‘I’m a collector and I want to collect the best art. I want to have art that shows me what the world is, and what it can be.’ The change has been phenomenal.

W*: Has it been a priority from the start for Talk Art to champion emerging artists and queer artists?

RT: We decided to make a show that was as diverse and international as possible, and was representative of many opinions and voices. We talk to both established and emerging artists. People come to Talk Art from different angles – someone may come to the show for Jeff Koons, and then stick around and find Navot Miller. Some people are coming because they’re obsessed with Tracey Emin. Others because they’ve discovered Louis Fratino. And they will stay because there’s so much to discover. 

W*: There have been 13 seasons of Talk Art to date. Are there still dream guests you haven’t yet talked to? Dream combinations that you’d like to bring together?

RT: There’s a wish list of superstar artists that we would love to converge with: including David Hockney, Marlene Dumas, and Nicole Eisenman. But there’s our love of the emerging too. We’re constantly looking for and finding new voices that are changing the game, that are saying something different. I would love to do a whole season on gallery directors, where we’d go and talk to David Zwirner, and then to an emerging gallery director.

It’s gratifying to get an endorsement from a major figure in the art world. But when my mum, who listens to every episode, texts me afterwards and goes, ‘I liked that’, and then goes and finds something online, or buys, that’s an indication we’re doing our job. Because Talk Art is for people who feel not invited to the art party, and we’re going, ‘no, here’s a side door. You just need to be willing to listen and see.’

You have to remember that artists don’t make art just so rich people can buy it and put it on their walls. They want to communicate their message to as many people as possible. So you shouldn’t feel intimidated in museums and commercial gallery spaces – the artists want you to be there. They want you to know who they are, and to connect with them. 

Tovey is pictured with Talk Art co-host Robert Diament (left), and Sonia Boyce (centre) shortly after the British artist was awarded the Golden Lion at the 59th Venice Biennale

W*: Lowering the barriers of entry to the art world and reframing art as something that is accessible to the general public has been key to the success of Talk Art. Does it also motivate your curatorial approach?

RT: When it comes to group shows, my approach is a lot of emerging art; artists who I just want more people to be aware of. The first show I curated was at Carl Freedman Gallery in Margate, called ‘Breakfast under the Tree’. I went to all these artists and asked them to make works inspired by Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863). It was artists that a lot of people at the time hadn’t heard of. The show was delayed by the pandemic, but when it finally opened a year and a half later, some of these artists had become superstars: Toyin Ojih Odutola, Doron Langberg, Salman Toor. The opportunity to do that now with these artists just wouldn't exist, because there's no way that they had space in their schedules.

It’s exciting to work with emerging artists, and then see where they go and what happens. It gives me a proud dad moment to know that I might have had a tiny influence on where an artist’s career could go.

W* What is your dream curatorial assignment?

RT: I would love to do a show of historical queer art. A lot of artists who died of AIDS have been overlooked. Some, like Derek Jarman, are now being rediscovered, but many still haven’t been. I did a show at David Zwirner in Paris on Hugh Steers. And I’m making a documentary at the moment on David Robilliard, who is my ultimate hero. He was a poet-artist, and I always select his poetry when I’m asked to do readings. There's something fascinating in making sure that the gaps in our history are filled.

W*: What is your favourite art institution in the world, and why?

RT: It would probably be the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. It’s her former home, an incredible building right on the water. She apparently bought a painting a day – if I could do that, I probably would! As a collector, being able to walk around someone’s art collection in their private residence is always a major treat. So there’s nothing more satisfying than going into her house and seeing the most incredible Picassos and Dalís and Ernsts, and learning about her stories. It’s a special, powerful, palpable place because I relate to her addiction to art.

I'm obviously a dog fanatic; I love my dogs, Rocky, Cooper and Archie. Peggy Guggenheim was a dog fanatic as well. There’s a little pet cemetery at the museum, and all her dogs have these little headstones with their names. That kind of affinity for animals, that absolute respect for an animal’s life – to give them a proper burial, and a real sense that they existed – is incredibly moving. The whole place is always an amazing experience.

INFORMATION
‘Navot Miller: Coming Back Homo’, curated by Russell Tovey, until 28 July 2022, 1969 Gallery, 103 Allen Street, Lower East Side, New York, 1969gallery.com

It was a well-worn condition of 20th-century art: the creativity of women eclipsed by the fame of their husbands. But in New York, an exhibition at Pace Gallery is seeking to remedy one of these historical imbalances: Coosje van Bruggen’s vital yet historically unsung role alongside Claes Oldenburg in the Pop Art powerhouse that is Claes & Coosje. 

‘The exhibit as a whole is a beautiful, intelligent and compelling elucidation of artistic partnership in celebration of multiplicity over reductive views of authorship,’ the duo’s daughter, Maartje Oldenburg, tells Wallpaper*. 

The pair met in 1971, when Coosje was a young curator at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and Claes was a subversive and prominent force in Pop Art. They married six years later and Coosje soon turned from interlocutor into fully fledged artist and collaborator in her own right. She brought a lot to the table: the intellectual rigour of a critic combined with the poetic sensibilities of a sculptor. The results were sometimes controversial, instantly recognisable public artworks that prove difficult to forget. 

Augmented, uncanny replicas of familar objects were Claes & Coosje's bread and butter. The Pace exhibition spans from their early collaborations in the 1980s to their final works in the late 2000s, including studies, original artefacts, soft sculptures and drawings relating to their most famed works. 

The beauty of Claes & Coosje’s work is that you never quite know what’s coming: perhaps it will be a blown-up shuttlecock, a deflated, sagging viola, a disorientingly large fork affixed to a pasta-covered meatball or perhaps even an ominous penknife splayed to resemble a boat. The latter sculpture relates to Il Corso del Coltello (The Course of the Knife), a colossal site-specific performance project for Venice, Italy, commissioned and conceived with the writer Germano Celant and architect Frank Gehry. Elsewhere, in a harmonious déjà vu, is a suite of gloriously warped musical instruments that Claes & Coosje created around the time of their last major solo show, ‘The Music Room’, presented at Pace Gallery, New York, in 2005. 

The show captures all the wit, whimsy and subversive spirit of Claes & Coosje’s remarkable collaboration, but it’s also intensely moving. With 31 Flowers, the mood changes from amused awe to reflection. Over the years, Claes presented his wife with small sculptural works as tokens of affection. Shortly before Coosje passed away in 2009, Claes created 31 intricate paper flowers for her as an anniversary gift, one for each year of their marriage.

Flowers spring up as a recurring theme in their work, and formed the basis of their final project together. Dropped Bouquet – an enormous painted aluminium sculpture created this year and on display for the first time – was initially conceived for a grassy, sloping hillside in the sculpture garden of Indianapolis Museum of Art, but the original commission was never realised. ‘It is personally meaningful to realise Dropped Bouquet today to bring Coosje into a present with growing awareness of and appreciation for the too often minimised contributions of women,’ Maartje says. 

The exhibition offers rare insight into the fantastical world of Claes & Coosje. A world where high and low art converge, imagination roams free, love doesn’t wane, and where, ultimately, it takes two. 

As Maartje concludes, ‘When my eyes first skipped across more than 40 images of large-scale projects, displayed chronologically on a single wall, I cried, because they represent my childhood but also my parents’ lived commitment to the immanence of art that, moving between personal and public spheres, can sustain a duet for all.’ 

This article was first published in spring 2021

INFORMATION

‘Claes & Coosje: A Duet’ ran at Pace New York in spring 2021, pacegallery.com

oldenburgvanbruggen.com

Lean back into an audial world of art history and art futures with our pick of inspiring culture and art podcasts. From the personal anecdotes and witty repartee of art advocate Russell Tovey's Talk Art, to meetings of creative minds in Chanel Connects, the conversations start here.

Chanel Connects

Now in its fourth season, Chanel Connects pairs the best minds in the creative landscape to delve into the future of film, art, dance, music and far beyond. Some featured figures are old friends; others are meeting for the first time, and all are trailblazers across their respective fields. Spearheaded by Chanel Arts & Culture, season two sees photographer Misan Harriman and artist Kehinde Wiley unpack ‘Myth Making’, while actor Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) and musician Grimes go deep ‘Into the Metaverse’, and artist Anicka Yi discusses what makes us human with filmmaker John Akomfrah. The most recent season of the podcast went behind the scenes at the Venice Biennale to meet the artists and thinkers shaping culture today.

The Art World: What if...?

From the team behind Hope & Dread – another art pod we love – comes 'What If...? Hosted by art advisor Allan Schwartzman and art journalist, Charlotte Burns, the episodes asks museum leaders, collectors and artists; what if we reimagined everything in culture? Expect big thinking conversations with no boundaries, delivered with humour and wit.

Prix Pictet’s: A Lens on Sustainability

In Prix Pictet’s ‘A Lens on Sustainability’, creators and thinkers share ideas on photography’s relationship and responsibilities towards our world, positioning photography as an influential and responsive medium. The prize is positioned as the global award in photography and sustainability and episodes are themed accordingly: Power, Oceans, Workspace, Food, and Regeneration, featuring on-location interviews and panel discussions. Featuring the likes of Don McCullin, Hannah Starkey, Sebastião Salgado and Taryn Simon, this is an innovative look at contemporary issues through an ever-evolving field.

Are We On Air?

The inner lives of artists; it’s a constant subject of fascination and mystery. Music has long been a means of charting lives and anchoring memories and forms the foundation of the podcast Are We On Air?, created by music curator Arman Naféei. His guests – as star-studded as they are varied – span the intersecting worlds of music, art, film, design and science. Seasons one and two welcomed the likes of Michèle Lamy, Dua Lipa and Marina Abramović. The final episodes of 2024 featured an equally eclectic mix of artists and voices including Willem Defoe, Alexa Chung and Sir Paul Smith

Intersections: The Art Basel podcast

Spanning art, architecture, music, fashion, design, literature, the new podcast by art fair Art Basel offers listeners access to the voices at the forefront of the creative industries. Presented by UBS, bi-weekly episodes will be hosted by Marc Spiegler, Art Basel’s global director who will invite industry-leading guests to take part in one-on-one conversations. The podcast launched with renowned Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, and another with producer, rapper and collector Kasseem Dean, aka Swizz Beatz. Other guests have included Lisa Spellman, Kim Gordon and Pamela Joyner.

Creative Characters

Creative Characters by font and technology specialists Monotype goes behind the typeface to share stories of those shaping the future of design and creative culture. The bi-monthly series features experts across the creative industries who delve into the evolution of design and offer tips for navigating a career in the field. The launch comes after Monotype unveiled ‘Up and Coming’, a series spotlighting new and upcoming voices in the world of typography. Guests so far have included Scott Starrett, co-founder and Principal of NYC design firm Tandem and James Sommerville, lettering artist Jenna Blazevich and James Sommerville co-founder of Known_Unknown and former VP of global design the Coca-Cola Company.

Listen here

This Being Human 

This Being Human explores the global, kaleidoscopic experiences of contemporary Muslim life through the lens of arts and culture. Conceived by Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum and hosted by journalist and educator Abdul-Rehman Malik, the podcast aims to amplify cultural luminaries who are redefining what it means to be Muslim today. So far, the podcast has seen interviews with the likes of Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and art collector and founder of the Sharjah-based Barjeel Art Foundation Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi.

Listen here

Talk Art

This is a podcast with one core goal: to make art accessible. Talk Art was founded in 2018 by actor and avid art collector Russell Tovey and gallerist and former electro-pop band frontman Robert Diament. Through witty, personal and anecdotal insight into the lives of the hosts and their guests, listeners can navigate the important themes and the curiosities of the art world and its relationship to contemporary society. As for the guests, it’s unsurprisingly a world-class, cross-disciplinary roster: from Alice Rawsthorn, Paul Smith and Vik Muniz, to Tracey Emin and Edward Enninful. Now a global sensation, the podcast offers all the familial tone of zesty enthusiasts relishing the opportunity to exercise their infectious passion for art. Talk Art: Everything you wanted to know about contemporary art but were afraid to ask, published by Ilex Press.

Listen here

The Great Women Artists

The Great Women Artists Podcast, as its name suggests, is a jubilant, varied and insightful celebration of pioneering women in art. Founded by London-based art historian and curator Katy Hessel, the podcast was created off the back of The Great Women Artists Instagram account and invites curators, writers, artists and art enthusiasts to discuss the female trailblazers who have inspired them. From deep-diving into war photographer Lee Miller’s career to interviews with leading female contemporary artists including Cecily Brown, Cornelia Parker and Shirin Neshat, the platform highlights how women, past and present, have shaped visual culture. Season five kicked off with the ‘Legends’ series, which promises episodes on painters Helen Frankenthaler and Pauline Boty and an interview with American painter and mixed-media artist Howardena Pindell.

The Messy Truth

Setting out to bring the mysterious inner workings of the photography industry into open conversation, writer and photo director Gem Fletcher launched The Messy Truth art podcast in 2019. Following acclaim from both photographers and the wider creative community, Fletcher has now launched the fourth season, beginning with Farah Al Qasimi then Quil Lemons. Laia Abril is a recent guest, with Ekow Eshun, Coco Capitan and more to come. In the meantime, we recommend exploring previous seasons for conversations with the likes of Carmen Winant, Antwaun Sargent and Eva O’Leary as they discuss visual culture and what it means to be a photographer today. Fletcher sums it up as ‘a framework to explore, share, question and debate and most importantly embolden curiosity’.

Kunsthalle Praha, a major new not-for-profit arts and culture organisation has opened its doors to the public in the Czech capital. 

The building housing the new institution began as the Zenger Electrical Substation in the 1930s, generating electricity for the city’s tram and trolleybus network. The station became defunct as technology evolved, but was acquired by the Pudil Family Foundation in 2015 with the intention of giving the building a new life as Kunsthalle Praha. The institution focuses on 20th-century and contemporary Czech and international art and will function as an ‘open meeting point’ where art lives but also engages a wide audience.

Czech architecture studio Schindler Seko was tasked with reimagining the building as an art destination, which now comprises three large galleries, a bistro, a café and an extensive retail space. But it wasn’t without challenges.

Structural issues and contamination rendered the building’s original skeleton unfit for purpose; it was gutted and replaced with a monolithic concrete structure with the monument-protected facade kept intact. ‘It’s hard to create a good contemporary art space in a building that’s not purpose-built,’ says Ivana Goossen, director of Kunsthalle Praha. ‘[But] it gave us an opportunity to create a space that was really made for art.’

While the collection is important to the identity of the institution, it won’t form the primary focus. ‘From the beginning, we never wanted this place to be a temple for the collection,’ Goossen explains. ‘[The collection] allows us to exchange; when we request something on loan, we’re able to give something on loan. So it is a very important part of what we do, but we never intended to have a permanent show of the collection. We wanted to live the “kunsthalle” concept.’

This has created a model built on cooperation and a diverse mix of thematic and solo exhibitions, for which Kunsthalle Praha often partners with external curators and artists to develop a vision for each show. ‘Depending on the exhibition, the artists, and the opportunity, we will support the creation of new work. It’s a larger story we want to tell. I think it’s so important for artists to have the support to venture into a new area,’ says Goossen. 

Kunsthalle Praha inaugural show: ‘Kinetismus: 100 Years of Electricity in Art’

The opening exhibition ‘Kinetismus: 100 Years of Electricity in Art’ is an ode to the original fabric of Kunsthalle Praha. On view until 20 June 2022, the show surveys how electricity has transformed movements and artistic practices from the start of the 20th century to the contemporary era. 

Though the show is international and multi-generational, at its heart is a tribute to the work of Czech avant-garde art pioneer Zdeněk Pešánek. In 1936, the artist created a kinetic light sculpture titled 100 Years of Electricity for the facade of the Zenger substation, yet the installation mysteriously vanished before it got the chance, surviving only in the form of models. The Kunsthalle Praha team, spearheaded by guest curator Peter Weibel, chose to focus on bringing Pešánek’s ideas back to life, in dialogue with a century of electricity-driven art. 

This optically dazzling and comprehensive exhibition involves more than 90 works organised into four categories: cinematography, kinetic art, cybernetic art, and computer art. Visitors will encounter everything from the trailblazing experiments of Bauhaus-affiliated figures to cutting-edge immersive technology by teamLab. The show will include the work of pioneers such as Mary Ellen Bute, Carlos Cruz-Diez, László Moholy-Nagy, Martha Boto and Marcel Duchamp; established living icons such as Julio Le Parc, Cerith Wyn Evans and William Kentridge; and other leading contemporary names including Ryoji Ikeda, Refik Anadol, Shilpa Gupta, Olafur Eliasson, Xavier Veilhan, Random International, and Angela Bulloch. 

Alongside the inaugural show, Kunsthalle Praha has also unveiled a permanent commission by conceptual artist Mark Dion titled Cabinet of Electrical Curiosities, as well as a separate exhibition, ‘Electrical Substation: Electricity in Architecture, Electricity in the City’ which explores the building’s rich industrial past, and Prague’s history more broadly.

INFORMATION

’Kinetismus: 100 Years of Electricity in Art’, until 20 June 2022, Kunsthalle Praha. kunsthallepraha.org

Andy Warhol is one of the most disseminated, duplicated, misinterpreted, fridge-magneted artists of all time. We’ve all heard many of the stories ad nauseam: The Factory, the 15 minutes, the Brillo, the Campbells, the Marilyns and the Elvises. Andy Warhol is everywhere. Well, the Andy Warhol we think is Andy Warhol.

Almost exactly 35 years since the famed pop artist died, Netflix has released The Andy Warhol Diaries, a new documentary that scratches beneath the surface of the artist’s enigmatic life and work. Ryan Murphy’s six-part series is steered by the best-selling book of the same name, compiled by editor Pat Hackett via a series of transcribed calls with the artist over more than a decade. 

Warhol had a vision of the world that ended up fashioning an entirely new one, where celebrities were icons, profundity masqueraded as shallowness and mass-produced consumerism was high art. Andy Warhol was misunderstood. But this misunderstanding was engineered, perpetuated by the artist through artfully deployed red herrings surrounding his sexuality, approach to work and depth of thought – this is the Warhol mystique, and it remains insatiable. 

The Andy Warhol Diaries – tender and mesmerising – lifts the curtain on Warhol’s ever-fascinating (and indistinguishable) life, work and loves, told in his own voice (well, a specially-programmed AI version – it seems the artist finally got his wish ‘to be a machine’). 

Through interviews with friends such as Debbie Harry and Rob Lowe, and artists Glenn Ligon, Jamie Wyeth and Julian Schnabel, it highlights Warhol’s prophetic view of culture as we now know it, drenched in celebrity, self-obsession and image-saturation, but also increasingly fluid views on sexuality and creative collaboration. 

Three contemporary artists inspired by Andy Warhol 

Glenn Ligon

American conceptual artist Glenn Ligon first saw Warhol’s work on a high school trip to Soho, New York. Although now one of the leading voices of his generation, at 16, becoming an artist wasn’t yet on the cards. ‘I don’t think I knew what that work was about, but somehow I knew it was important. It seemed fun in a way. It was glamorous too,’ Ligon says in The Andy Warhol Diaries. ‘Seeing Warhol somehow triggered some desire. So even in my 16-year-old brain, I knew I was seeing something that was hugely powerful. A kind of way forward.’ 

Ligon’s much-cited essay Pay It No Mind, appears in the catalogue for the 2018 Whitney Museum show ‘Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again’. It’s a critical examination of Warhol’s 1975 series Ladies and Gentlemen, which features almost two hundred portraits of transgender women of colour. ‘Did Warhol know any ordinary Black people’? Ligon asks, going on to question the liberties Warhol took in depicting these individuals. In spite of his criticism, Ligon has noted his appreciation for Warhol’s work, partly in deceptive depth as an artist, and his ‘genius’ use of colour. In 2000, he explored the force of colour to staggering effect in the series Colouring, for which children were asked to colour pictures of Black icons in 1970s-era colouring books. Without understanding their historical gravity, the children deployed colour freely. In Malcolm X, the Civil Rights leader is depicted with a white face and wearing lipstick, blusher and blue eye shadow.

Deborah Kass

The flat, pop-coloured shapes, the grids of familiar faces, the variations on a colour scheme; Deborah Kass’ early work has Warhol’s visual language running through its veins. But there’s a twist, an important one. Kass focused on the deft appropriating and reworking of signature styles of leading 20th-century male artists. Part searing critique, part homage, her interest was in confronting the glaring omission of leading women in art history, and in society more broadly. 

In 1992, Kass began her ‘Warhol Project’, in which she subverted the pop artist’s ubiquitous celebrity paintings, revising these groupings with self-portraits and images of her own heroines, such as Gertrude Stein, Barbra Streisand and Cindy Sherman. 

Blue Deb, at first glance, resembles a piece from Warhol’s 1960s series ‘Liz’ depicting the actress Elizabeth Taylor. But this painting, like many others, outwits the viewer’s complacency towards Warhol’s work – inimitable he may be, but he’s not exempt from reinterpretation. 

By drawing on, and rewording the visual language of the past, Kass asks us to consider an alternative storyline in 20th-century art, in which the work of female artists was iconised as much as men’s, and the ‘tragic muses’ had autonomy. As she told filmmaker John Waters in 2007, ‘It’s always been my impulse to use art history as almost a ready-made.’

Jeff Koons

Koons has made a USP from hoovering up art history – executed in literal terms with his 1980s vacuum cleaner readymades, and in a Duchampian vein, revising it into something entirely new. 

Through Koons’ cut, pasted and reimagined motifs from pop culture and art history, we can identify the parallels between Warhol’s time and ours; the mass-consumerist, voyeuristic, self-obsessed banality reflected in, and often on the surface of his work. Like Warhol, it’s not so much about the artist, but about us. 

On the face of it, the parallels between Koons and Warhol are easy to draw: they are both Pennsylvania natives, they both work in

visual hyperbole, in liberal depictions of sex, flowers, celebrity, have mainstream appeal and mask profundity with banality. But Koons has only openly referenced Warhol in one piece: Hulk Elvis I (2007), in which the Marvel character Hulk is positioned in the same stance as Warhol’s Double Elvis (1963), itself a riff on a publicity still for the 1960 film Flaming Star.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, each day has brought a new, devastating development. Thousands have died, millions have fled, and endless uncertainty remains. 

Many around the world who are not currently at risk are seeking ways to help those who are. Among them is an informal group of international contemporary artists who have banded together to offer emergency support to their peers caught up in the spiralling humanitarian crisis initiated by Russia’s offensive.

A new solidarity print sale featuring leading artists has been organised by Johannesburg-born artist Adam Broomberg in partnership with Artists at Risk (AR), a non-profit organisation operating at the intersection of human rights and the arts. 

For the initiative’s first round, each artist has donated a piece of art as an open edition print that will be available to purchase until 30 April 2022 via the Solidarity Prints website. Each edition is priced at €200 per edition, with all proceeds from sales helping to facilitate emergency travel, shelter and financial support to enable affected artists in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and beyond to find safety. A special edition box containing all 70 prints is available for €14,000. 

Featured contemporary artists include Hito Steyerl, Pierre Huyghe, Nan Goldin, Isaac Julien, Thomas Struth, Tacita Dean, Rosemarie Trockel, Luc Tuymans, Elizabeth Peyton, Thomas Demand, Matthew Barney, Jeremy Deller, Laure Prouvost, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lisa Brice, Julian Schnabel, Camille Henrot, Subodh Gupta, Sam Durant, Fiona Banner, Anne Imhof, Cyprien Gaillard, and Thomas Hirschhorn.

The pieces on offer are wide-ranging in subject matter and media. Some specifically reference Ukraine, such as Hito Steyerl’s The Tower, 2015 (about a 3D company in Kharkiv) and Cyprien Gaillard’s poignant (Untitled, Kyiv), 2005. 

Artists at Risk (AR), is a non-profit human rights advocacy organisation working to provide artists from Ukraine and in other crises with emergency resources, travel aid, and residencies. AR is at the forefront of the refugee crisis as it affects artists and cultural workers. It is focused on helping artists to safety in nearby countries and placing them in welcoming communities. All artwork purchases will directly benefit artists fleeing war and persecution.

INFORMATION

Prints for Artists at Risk will be available to purchase until 30 April 2022 via solidarityprints.artistsatrisk.org

When George Balanchine, legendary choreographer and co-founder of New York City Ballet, spoke about his work and legacy, he said: ‘I don’t have a past. I have a continuous present. The past is part of the present, just as the future is.’

In a similar spirit of melding time, Van Cleef & Arpels will be presenting the inaugural edition of its Dance Reflections festival in London, 9 – 23 March, a programme looking back to seminal postmodern works and to the current moment with new contemporary pieces. Performances will take place in the capital’s pre-eminent dance theatres, Sadler’s Wells and the Royal Opera House, as well as at Tate Modern and multi-arts space EartH. 

Van Cleef & Arpels: a legacy of dance

Van Cleef & Arpels’ relationship with the dance community stems from the passion its founding family had for ballet. Claude Arpels met Balanchine in the early 1960s, prior to the choreographer creating one of his best-known works, the 1967 Jewels. Today, the maison has ongoing partnerships with several major ballet institutions, including Australian Ballet and Boston Ballet, as well as contemporary companies like Benjamin Millepied’s LA Dance Project. 

The London festival is its most high-profile initiative in the field to date and has been curated in-house by Serge Laurent, Van Cleef & Arpels’ dance and cultural programme manager, and previously head of live performance programming at the Centre Pompidou. Both Laurent and Nicolas Bos, president and CEO of the jeweller, are resolute that the event should attract a wide audience and have an impact that furthers our understanding of dance as an art form.  

‘Leaning on our history, we wanted to continue writing the story of our connection to dance, but with a holistic approach,’ says Laurent. ‘We wanted to create a programme that would be useful for the dance world.’

The 17 performances selected span from important examples of postmodernism by Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker to boundary-pushing contemporary creations by artists including Christian Rizzo, Alessandro Sciarroni and Gisèle Vienne. The intent is to show choreographies from the past 50 years that have brought something new to the genre and, in some cases, have not perhaps been widely exposed beyond dance circles. An awareness of legacy and the transference of ideas between different generations of dancers and choreographers were also guiding curatorial themes. 

‘When you approach a contemporary art piece, in any art form, there is always a link with previous works,’ says Laurent. ‘That link can be a deliberate break or a continuity, but it is always a reference to the past. The 20th century is such an exciting period in the history of dance, and I wanted to talk about this through the programming.’

Dance Reflections: a stage for interdisciplinary experimentation 

In their interdisciplinary and conceptual nature, many of the works in the festival are as much pieces of theatre as they are dance performances. Borne from the highly experimental American postmodern scene, Lucinda Childs’ 1979 Dance and Trisha Brown’s 1983 Set and Reset were hugely influential in the way they incorporated the contributions of other leading artists in their creative fabric. For Dance, Philip Glass supplied the score and Sol LeWitt made a film of the dancers, which is shown simultaneously on stage alongside the live performers. In Brown’s Set and Reset, Robert Rauschenberg designed the set and costumes, Laurie Anderson wrote the music and Beverly Emmons originated the lighting. Viewing both works decades on, it is still thrilling to see how the collaborative elements blend to form a harmonious whole.

Franco-Austrian Gisèle Vienne is a contemporary choreographer-director (and also photographer) who, like Brown and Childs before her, has taken a multi-dimensional approach to her practice. Her dramatic 2010 work This is how you will disappear unfolds in an installation resembling a forest and features a ‘fog sculpture’ by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya. The design is intended to represent both a naturalistic and symbolic landscape that mirrors the performers’ inner experiences as expressed through dance. The piece also incorporates lyrics by Dennis Cooper, and atmospheric video and lighting designs. 

A fresh interpretation of dance: past, present and future

Like the work of the other contemporary practitioners featured (Katerina Andreou, Boris Charmatz, Ruth Childs, Ola Maciejewska), the two performances bookending the programme are, in discrete ways, both celebrations of the transformative power of dance as an art form. Opening the festival, Neighbours sees LA-based b-boy artist Rauf ‘Rubberlegz’ Yasit and Albanian contemporary dancer Brigel Gjoka mesh their respective styles and techniques to find a new vocabulary of movement. Closing the programme, with their new piece When we speak I feel myself, Opening, SERAFINE1369 (Jamila Johnson-Small) is a London-based artist-dancer who incorporates film, sound and text in installations that investigate the politics of the body. As much a visual as a movement practice, their work is a synthesis of media and artistic collaborations that invites a fresh interpretation of dance as a performance art.  

In Laurent’s words, viewers of Dance Reflections will be led on a ‘parcours’ (journey) through a dynamic period of the art form’s recent history. With post-show artists’ talks, workshops and film screenings embellishing the live programme, it’s a content-rich event that will likely draw a broad and curious audience, and offer a compelling chance to think about dance – past, present and future – in a new light.

INFORMATION

Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival, 9 – 23 March, London. For programming information, visit dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com

What exactly would a normal year in the art world look like? New-normal, paranormal and business as (ab)normal – this year had it all.

There was a tentative transition from URL to IRL. Exhibitions got physical again, and art fairs – along with the rest of us – were freed from the pixelated confines of OVRs (online viewing rooms). 

Artists dissected recorded histories and rediscovered those overlooked. They sparked socio-political debates, squared up to social injustices and shed a stark and critical light on the future of our planet. 

The Turner Prize 2021 brought more firsts, ‘immersive art’ reached new depths, and we all, at least once, took to Google and typed: ‘what is an NFT?’ 

Here’s a snapshot of 2021 in ten art stories: 

01. Sexual taboos, myth and montage: Linder’s provocative collages

In a show of new work in Stockholm, Linder plunged viewers into a world of Greco-Roman mythology, autoeroticism, and sexual taboos. We were smitten. Disparate clippings rubbed up against each other in an orgy of desire in its many guises as Linder discussed the almost undiscussable. There was a lot to digest between the creases of these photomontages, but perhaps the overriding myth here is not that of taboo classical exploits, but a myth of heteronormativity. 

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02. Theaster Gates: London, urban reform and exemplars of Black excellence

Ahead of a multi-faceted cultural takeover in London, Wallpaper* editor TF Chan spoke to Theaster Gates about the history of clay, art as a social force, and nurturing the next generation. As part of Wallpaper’s 25th-anniversary project ‘5x5’, Gates also put forward five of his creative leaders of the future – all of them creators of elegant, distinctive forms who are advancing a social message with equal confidence. 

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03. Ryoji Ikeda exhibition review: a sensory assault course

Emerging from the industrial brutalist labyrinth that is London’s 180 The Strand, it’s customary to feel like your senses have been through the wash a few times. But after Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda’s solo show, your eyes could hear, and your nose could see. Ikeda didn’t politely request our attention, he got inside our heads and played our eardrums like snares. This did not feel like an exhibition, it felt like a sensory assault course that one does not view, one survives.

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04. Judy Chicago on revolutionising art history: ‘I just didn’t fit’

At the age of 82, and after 60 years of spearheading feminist art, Judy Chicago received her first retrospective in 2021. Puzzling, perhaps, that it took so long, but in understanding Chicago’s relatively recent institutional acclaim, one must first appreciate what it took to arrive there. We spoke to the art icon about an epic career, filled with patriarchal battles, fierce self-belief... and a lot of smoke. 

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05. Mark Bradford’s epic show put Hauser & Wirth Menorca on the map

Mark Bradford excavates the past through art. His works, larger than mere wall maps, vibrate with crisscrossed gestures that simulate the energy and urgency of global matters. In 2021, Bradford inaugurated Hauser & Wirth Menorca with ‘Masses and Movements’. The artist was profiled by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp in the July issue, for which he also designed the limited-edition cover: ‘With everything that I was experiencing and especially with the protests and the much-needed conversations around race in this country, I chose a map that said for the first time, “America,”’ he said. ‘What does the word America mean for an African American? It is all there.’

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06. Photography series shed new light on Apple packaging 

Clean lines, whiter-than-white elegance and direct, no-fuss minimalism. These are the qualities that give Apple its unmistakable Apple-ness. But Apple’s product packaging seems to involve almost as much artistic consideration as the device it shrouds: superfluity is a sin, and simplicity is ecstasy in a messy world. This formed the subject of an intriguing photo series by Johann Clausen, who gave Apple’s packaging, not its products, the floor. 

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07. At home with Ai Weiwei

Experiencing the art of Ai Weiwei is like biting into a scorpion. Plenty of sting, searingly sharp, and hard to swallow. And so it should be. The Chinese artist has dedicated his life, career and freedom to some of the most pertinent issues facing humanity. From his bold and unwavering criticism of censorship and authoritarianism in China to documenting the escalating migrant crisis, cultural stereotypes, and the darker caverns of history. For our ongoing ‘At home with’ profile series, we interviewed the artist about his life, work and blending the two in his much-anticipated memoir. 

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08. Marina Abramović: death, Maria Callas and breaking the rules of Opera

During Frieze London 2021, Marina Abramović staged a dramatic operatic takeover. The artist opened a duet of solo exhibitions across Lisson Gallery’s spaces, focusing on her lifelong preoccupation with Greek American opera singer Maria Callas. Writer Jessica Klingelfuss interviewed the artist ahead of her London moment, which offered a tantalising prelude to her 2023 survey opening at the Royal Academy, where she will be the first female artist to have a solo show across the entire Main Galleries. 

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09. Jakob Kudsk Steensen on how VR can bring us closer to nature

In July, Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen took over the hallowed halls of Berlin’s Berghain (yes, that one) with his immersive VR installation Berl-Berl, a vast virtual swampland. Drawing from meticulous fieldwork in Germany’s Spreewald, archival research and collaborations with biologists, linguists, sound artists and creative technologists, Berl-Berl encouraged viewers to contemplate the forgotten complexity and beauty of wetlands. As Kudsk Steensen told Wallpaper’s TF Chan, ‘I want to direct the eyes at the world beyond our human domain, to bring a sense of mystery, imagination and fascination.’

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10. At home with Jeff Koons

2021 has demanded reflection, and no artist has used this motif in more variety, or notoriety, than Jeff Koons. The artist has a knack for reflecting the idealism in human history; reflecting contemporary times, in all their mass-consumerist, superficial and voyeuristic banality; and making work that literally reflects, consumes and warps its surroundings, and all those who observe. We Zoomed the artist ahead of his major show at Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi titled ‘Shine’. 

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INFORMATION

wallpaper.com/art

Cause-driven cash-gifting platform Double Dutch is a new initiative responding to a big problem: gifts cause waste, and lots of it. Spurred on by alarming research data that last year Americans threw away $16 billion worth of holiday gifts, Dutch artists Inez and Vinoodh proposed a solution. 

Their initiative bypasses wasteful wrapping and unwanted presents through artist-designed digital greetings cards for cash gifting. ‘We asked ourselves “What is the perfect gift to express love and gratitude and how do we bring that to a larger scale? How does showing one person you care about them benefit all of us?” We figure that by combining art, message and money we can eliminate waste and really contribute to “the bigger picture”’, say Inez and Vinoodh, who founded the initiative alongside Laura Bailyn, founder of Kidfund and Piyusha Eluri, former executive of Rent the Runway.

The renowned photography duo – known for work on the intersection of fashion and art – called on their creative network, including the likes of Urs Fischer, Maurizio Cattelan, Derrick Adams, Gigi Hadid, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince and Es Devlin, as well as emerging artists, to create greetings cards. The process is simple: users pick the card design and cause of their choice. Sales revenue is then split 50-50 with the artist who, in turn, has the option to donate their proceeds to a charity of their choice.

Double Dutch is powered by the no-fee charitable donation feature Adyen Giving, in which payments platform Adyen absorbs the full cost of the donation. The social and environmental impact causes set to benefit from the initiative include Knot on my Planet, Save The Music Foundation, charity: water, Every Mother Counts and Parley for the Oceans. 

In a nutshell, Double Dutch is a simple concept with big ideas: to minimise waste, fund impactful charity efforts, and put the cool back into cash gifting – all through the power of art.

INFORMATION

doubledutch.cash

In partnership with Veuve Clicquot

‘What makes me bloom?’ That’s the question the Veuve Clicquot Creative Makers programme asked its talented array of collaborators at the start of an uncertain 2021 – the answers were a chance for creative people from all over the world to share inspiration, joy, hope and optimism for the year ahead. 

Conceived as an homage to two visionary women, the programme began back in September 2020, when Veuve Clicquot joined forces with the artist Yayoi Kusama to celebrate the house’s new vintage, La Grande Dame 2012.  

Kusama’s creative contribution – a gift box and a floral sculpture – was the artist’s vibrant tribute to ‘la grande dame’ of champagne, Madame Clicquot herself (who took over the family business after her husband’s untimely death in 1805, and who, like Kusama, always pursued a quest for excellence and the avant-garde). Through its flamboyant colours, the collaboration offered a cheerful message of hope and optimism to the world. Veuve Clicquot’s La Grande Dame, an iconic cuvée created in 1972, stands for vital energy, love and a celebration of life. It resonates with Kusama’s artistic expression, which is both generous and deeply optimistic.

Inspiration In Bloom Series: a curated message of optimism by Creative Makers

In January 2021, Veuve Clicquot announced its creative programme, ‘Inspiration In Bloom Series’, based around the La Grande Dame x Yayoi Kusama collaboration. Driven by the notion of La Grande Dame being not just a bottle, but a conduit for positive ideas and emotions, ten creative talents were invited to express their vision around this collaboration by responding to the question, ‘What makes me bloom?’ 

The participating talents spanned diverse creative fields, and gave a multidisciplinary response through dance, photography, painting and film, enriching the creative expression surrounding La Grande Dame.

The line-up comprised: Mike Tyus, who has been performing and creating dance for the stage, print, and screen for over 15 years; Alice Gao, a still-life, interiors and travel photographer; Minh T, photographer and creative director; Shini Park, art director, photographer, consultant and founding director of digital atelier Cube; Simon Schmidt, multidisciplinary artist and digital media consultant; Marcelino Sambé, principal dancer at The Royal Ballet; Alice Kong, fashion photographer; Laurent Castellani, photographer; Jiawa Liu, producer, photographer, filmmaker, and contributing editor of Harper’s Bazaar Singapore; Tondabayashi Ran, multidisciplinary creator.

Veuve Clicquot Creative Makers and blooming intentions

Now, as 2021 comes to an end, some of those same talents and more have been asked to reflect on their year, share their ‘blooming intentions’, and answer the question, ‘What’s your blooming wish?’

‘To love fiercely. Give graciously. Create relentlessly,’ replied Shini Park, an art director, photographer, consultant and brand ambassador. Born in Seoul and now based between London and Warsaw, Shini is the founding director of digital atelier Cube and the storytelling platform and biannual hardcover book series, Cubicle. ‘Whether in flight or in descent, the sun burns as intensely.’ 

Mike Tyus, born in Seattle, Washington, and raised in Los Angeles has been performing and creating dance for the stage and screen for over 15 years, working with Cirque Du Soleil, FKA Twigs and Sia. ‘True interconnectedness beyond differences and borders’ is Tyus’ blooming intention. ‘A bold dance community that supports, encourages, and inspires a new generation of visionaries.’

Singer Kom I’s answer lies in her dreams, ‘dreams that we saw in this long sleep’, says the vocalist for Japanese art pop band Wednesday Campanella. ‘And not forgetting any of them, make it real one by one. May a brilliant season come to all of us next year.’ Her wish: ‘Nourish yourself. Celebrate yourself. Get ready for your next surprising chapter.’

Argentine model and influencer and digital creative director Candela Pelizza has worked with photographers including Bruce Weber, Deborah Tuberville, Michel Comte and Nathaniel Goldberg. As a contributor to Redmilk Magazine, she wrote a fashion column entitled ‘Candela Meets…’, where she interviewed personalities from the worlds of art, fashion, music and design. Her blooming intention? ‘Uniqueness in all its manifestations is my deep blooming intention,’ she says, adding a playfully invitational coda: ‘Shall we?’ 

Chloe Wise is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her work captures the strange times in which we live diverse media – painting, sculpture, video, and installation art – and has been shown at institutions and events such as The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Art Basel Miami Beach, and Fiac Paris. Her intention is unwritten but exciting. ‘I don't know the future,’ she says. ‘But I can't wait to meet it.’ 

Sisilia Piring describes herself as a 360-degree talent – a content creator, photographer, videographer and creative director, with a strong penchant for travel, film photography, and all things vintage. While working for luxury brands such as Givenchy, Gucci, and Burberry, her image-making work has cultivated a strong sense of fashion and a peculiarity, oscillating between the sharpness of photography techniques and the grainy and conceptual feeling of analogue cameras. ‘My blooming wish is to spread light, inspiration, and optimism,’ she says. 

‘What’s your blooming wish?’

Now it’s over to you. ‘What’s your blooming wish?’ Veuve Clicquot invites you to share wishes that will pave the way for the year to come; to step back, review, relive and cherish the year’s bright memories and celebrate those of tomorrow.

Make your own blooming wish of joy, hope, optimism, energy, laughter, flamboyance and life for the new year. #YayoiKusama #LaGrandeDame #ClicquotCreativeMakers #BloomingIntentions #InspirationInBloom.

INFORMATION

veuveclicquot.com

Brian Eno is many things: composer, writer, record producer, visual artist, musician and self-described ‘non-musician’. 

One of experimental pop’s most innovative figures, he’s been a member of Roxy Music, collaborated with David Bowie, U2, Coldplay, Laurie Anderson and Grace Jones, and invented the term ‘ambient music’. 

Since the 1970s, Eno’s visual art has been dedicated to the potential of light. Drawing on Light and Space motifs, Mondrian, Suprematism and the early-20th-century Russian avant-garde, Eno’s sense-saturating work plunges viewers, and listeners, into a meditative, detached state. He’s installed work on the sails of Sydney Opera House, the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank and created healing music and light installations for hospitals. 

Alongside etchings, lenticular printing and sound works, Eno is known for his kaleidoscopic light boxes – which sit somewhere between the soul-snatching awe of a Mark Rothko and the optical seduction of a James Turrell – seamlessly drift through infinite combinations of seductive self-generated ‘colourscapes’ using a series of interwoven LED lights. 

Brian Eno’s new limited-edition turntable 

In a similar vein, the artist has just unveiled a new turntable with London’s Paul Stolper Gallery. ‘The light from it was tangible as if caught in a cloud of vapour,’ Eno said of the turntable. ‘We sat watching for ages, transfixed by this totally new experience of light as a physical presence’. Released in a limited edition run of 50, the turntable is a psychedelic and evolving blend of sound and vision, and a piece of art in its own right. 

‘One of the great breakthroughs of evolution theory is that you can start with simple things and they will grow into complexity. This is very unintuitive — it’s one of these things that the human brain isn’t immediately capable of grasping. It doesn’t make sense until you see it,’ Eno continued. ‘You have the idea that this small thing, which can’t contain that many instructions, produces this hugely complex interwoven, interdependent world. One of the things I like about this piece of work is that it stands as proof of that.’ 

INFORMATION

paulstolper.com

Marcel Duchamp means different things to different people. To some, he fathered the readymade, to others, he turned the role of the artist on its head. To Willem de Kooning in 1951, he was a ‘one-man movement’. 

Published in 1959, the book Marcel Duchamp soon became the bible of the artist’s work. It was the result of years of Duchamp’s collaboration with its author, art historian and critic Robert Lebel, and offered a comprehensive and penetrating study of the artist: from his early painting, subsequent farewell to painting, and invention of the readymade to his fixation on the fetish, a subject explored in a show at Thaddaeus Ropac. Witty, sensual, absurd, ‘Please Touch’ (curated by Paul B. Franklin and now on view at the gallery’s Paris Marais space) emphasises how, through Duchamp’s lens, and with the right, or wrong, state of mind, almost any conceivable object could be a fetish. 

Marcel Duchamp went out of print for 60 years, but the Grove Press English edition is now back in circulation with Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ authorised facsimile of Duchamp’s first monograph and catalogue raisonné, brought back to life with Jean-Jacques Lebel (Robert Lebel’s son) and Association Marcel Duchamp. To this day, the book’s texts, which include chapters written by Duchamp, HP Roché, and André Breton, remain uncannily contemporary, as does Duchamp’s own book design. 

Marcel Duchamp in the words of five leading contemporary artists

To mark the occasion, we gathered the thoughts of five contemporary artists who have directly, or indirectly, cited Marcel Duchamp in their work. From an appreciation of the artist’s non-exclusive relationships with media to a first-hand anecdote about the way he held his cigar, this is what they had to say:

Ed Ruscha

‘When Duchamp came along in the early part of the last century, he hit upon things that were profound and sublime. It was as though he had discovered or invented a completely new musical instrument.’

Gillian Wearing 

‘Duchamp made me realise you do not have to be faithful to any one medium, you can embrace them all. More radically, you didn't have to make work with traditional mediums, art could be made from anything or could have been made already (found objects), then recontextualised. More personally, his shapeshifting photographs had an impact on me; one where he appeared as a much older version of himself via a trick of a light bulb, and others where he became his alter ego, Rrose Sélavy. The latter inspired me to become both Duchamp and Duchamp as a woman in my photographic work Me and Madame and Monsieur Duchamp, which added further layers to his disguise.’

Larry Bell 

‘My memories of Duchamp are brief. He came to my studio in 1962 with English artist Richard Hamilton and American surrealist William Copley. They had come to Los Angeles to look at where Marcel was going to have his first retrospective [the Pasadena Museum of Art]. The museum director was Walter Hopps, who was previously my dealer. 

‘These three guys descended on my studio and gently knocked on the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come, and none of my friends would ever come to the front door, so these were unknown intruders. I had a little peephole at the front and I saw these guys dressed in neckties and suits. I was positive they were city inspectors. During that time, there was a lot of pressure on people who lived in storefronts; it wasn’t legal. This was my studio, but I lived there also. 

‘They knocked for about 20 minutes. I finally opened the door and before I could say hello, one of the guys said “Walter Hopps sent us”, so I let them in. At that point, I had very bad hearing, and I didn't hear the names, apart from Copley who introduced me to the group. I thought they might be collectors, and showed them around. One of them had an English accent. The older guy didn't say much, but he smoked a cigar. I smoked cigars too, but I’d never seen anyone hold a cigar between his little finger and ring finger before. The English guy was explaining to the older fella what I was doing, and it was not correct, so I tried to correct the older guy’s understanding. Then Copley said something like, “Marcel, didn’t you do something like this a long time ago?” When he said Marcel, I realised who the older guy was, and I fucking freaked. I couldn’t talk anymore. I was totally catatonic and threw myself against the wall. All of a sudden the atmosphere had changed. They thanked me for letting them come, and they left. On your question about influence, I tried to hold the cigar as Duchamp did, but it didn’t work for me.’ 

Monica Bonvicini

‘Duchamp's use of unusual materials, as well as his choice of productions, is such a fetish, expressing a male desire typical for someone coming from his background. His desire to escape classification of any sort made his own art and his own persona ungraspable, turning himself into fetish subjects. I always found his dealing with erotica and sex not only beautiful but funny and irreverent as no male artist of his generation did.’

Mika Rottenberg

‘[Duchamp is] a huge influence [in] his seriously playful approach to art as a game of logic constructs and values. [Also] his titles, and the way he made viewers complete and participate in the work with no pretence.’

INFORMATION

Marcel Duchamp, £100, Hauser & Wirth Publishers. shop.hauserwirth.com

‘Please Touch: Marcel Duchamp and the Fetish', until 29 January 2022, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Marais. ropac.net

Niki de Saint Phalle enjoyed blowing things up, whether it was the plaster sculptures she filled with paint and then shot with a .22 rifle to create her Tirs series in the 1960s, or the life-size bull she once exploded with dynamite in honour of Salvador Dalí. 

She certainly detonated gender norms as the only female member of the Nouveau Réalisme movement – a French artistic group that included Yves Klein and Christo, among others – and obliterated artistic conventions through her audacious and often monumental artworks, which offered a radically feminist vision of the world.

As Saint Phalle herself put it: ‘I'm not the person who can change society except by offering some kind of vision of these happy, joyous, domineering women.’

Many will recognise ‘these women’ from Saint Phalle's signature Nanas series, sculptures of extravagantly voluptuous, joyfully dancing women that recall the ancient Venus of Willendorf, but reimagined for our modern world with a psychedelic colour scheme and colossal proportions. Most notable of all, however, is Saint Phalle’s remarkable Tarot Garden, an expansive sculpture park in Tuscany populated by awe-inspiring, mammoth female figures. 

Niki de Saint Phalle x La Prairie at MoMA PS1

The Niki de Saint Phalle retrospective currently on view for one more week at MoMA PS1 is a celebration of this explosive life, and work produced from the 1960s until the artist's death in 2002. 

It is supported by the Swiss skincare brand La Prairie, which has a history of patronising the arts. For years, the brand has commissioned artworks for Frieze and Art Basel, funded the Mondrian Conservation Project at Switzerland's Fondation Beyeler, and also supported the mentorship of ECAL students by Wallpaper* Designer of the Year 2020, Sabine Marcelis.  

La Prairie's decision to support the Niki de Saint Phalle exhibition is particularly notable, both because it reveals a little known aspect of the skincare brand’s history, and also opens up the discussion on a lesser examined branch of Saint Phalle’s work. 

Niki de Saint Phalle’s influence on the beauty industry 

Large-scale art needs funding, as La Prairie’s own patronages over the years attest, and at the apex of her career, Saint Phalle realised she would need an alternative source of income to support her monumental, architectural projects. One of her solutions was the creation of her eponymous perfume, Niki de Saint Phalle, a peculiar chypre floral fragrance that blended notes of carnation and patchouli, with artemisia, mint, leather and sandalwood. 

In 1980s New York, Saint Phalle was working on the fragrance in the same design studio as La Prairie's development team. It was in there that La Prairie first encountered the striking cobalt blue that Saint Phalle used for the packaging of her perfume, and which the brand eventually adopted as a signature shade of its own, most notably using it for the packaging of its Skin Caviar collection.  

Speaking about the hue, Saint Phalle said, ‘I chose blue for the colour of the perfume bottle because I love blue. First of all, it’s my favourite colour. It’s the colour of the sky. It’s the colour of joy; it’s a spiritual colour. And I feel like the Greeks do, that it brings good luck.' 

Although the fragrance did bring Saint Phalle some of the good fortune she needed to continue working on the Tarot Garden, she received criticism at the time for creating work with overtly commercial aims. 

Yet it's fair to say that Niki de Saint Phalle perfume is just an example of the artist's pioneering vision. In recent years, a number of high-profile visual artists have experimented with perfumery, with female artists, in particular, using scent as an alternative way to examine women's place within society.

When creating her perfume, Saint Phalle was open about the fact that she was trying to make money, but she also hit on an important, and increasingly more evident point – that perfumery has a unique ability to translate across disciplines and, ultimately, make art more accessible. A topic that many artists may continue to explore in her stead

Information

‘Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life’ is at MoMA PS1 until 6 September 2021

moma.org/ps1

laprairie.com

The story of X Muse begins in an ancient aquifer, an underground layer of rock that holds groundwater, beneath the Jupiter Artland sculpture park near Edinburgh. This water source had already inspired American cultural theorist and landscape designer Charles Jencks to create Cells of Life, eight site-specific, otherworldly landforms that form the park’s utopian centrepiece. 

In 2016, Robert Wilson – who had co-founded Jupiter Artland with his wife Nicky in 2009 – was looking for another use for this precious water. It took synchronicity and serendipity. Both arrived in the form of a dinner invitation from Vadim Grigoryan, an alcohol industry expert and former global director of creativity and luxury at Pernod Ricard. In his career, Grigoryan witnessed the most exciting and frustrating sides of the alcohol industry. ‘Things were frequently driven by financial aspects rather than an honest desire to bring something new,’ he says. ‘One thing that always surprised me was the emphasis on yield, rather than the quality of the ingredients, such as water and grains for distillation.’ Grigoryan wanted to transcend consumer trends and transactional value to create a brand that would be culturally enriching and respectful of its ingredients.

Synchronicity was served over dinner. Ideas began to germinate when Wilson and Grigoryan found common ground in philosophy, creative spirit and actual spirits, which often comprise 60 per cent water. Cue serendipity: ‘Bingo,’ says Wilson. ‘I had a use for my precious, energetic water, and the idea of creating a luxury vodka brand with art and art practice at its centre.’ 

The result is X Muse (pronounced ‘tenth muse’). Three key artworks give the new-generation vodka brand life, all of which live at Jupiter Artland. The brand’s name is derived from Ian Hamilton Finlay’s sculpture X Muse, created in 2005 and installed and sited posthumously in 2008. It depicts the head of Sappho, the Greek lyrical poet whose extraordinary creative gifts led Plato to dub her the ‘tenth muse’, thus ranking her alongside the Nine Muses of Greek mythology. 

Jencks’ Cells of Life serves as both the gatekeeper for the vodka’s water source and also the inspiration for the bottle shape, which was conceived by packaging designers Stranger & Stranger. It ‘echoed the ridges and gentle sweeping lines of Jencks’ artwork,’ says Wilson. Meanwhile, Anya Gallaccio’s The Light Pours Out of Me, a subterranean grotto lined with dazzling purple amethysts, inspired the processing of the water through an amethyst vortex to increase the energy within it. 

In his role as artistic and brand director, Grigoryan developed a mission statement for X Muse based on ‘the values at the intersection of genuine craft, contemporary art and the alchemical origins of spirit making,’ he says. This would require not only a meeting of artworks but a meeting of creative minds.

London-based graphic design studio APFEL took the reins on the multi-element brand identity, inspired by alchemy, sacred geometry, and the art on show at Jupiter Artland. The main logo draws on the lettering carved into Finlay’s sculpture, with ‘high contrast between the thick and thin strokes and a mixture of serif and sans serif lettering,’ explain APFEL founders Kirsty Carter and Emma Thomas. ‘For the brand illustration, we researched the alchemical symbols that were used in hermetic texts as a form of notation. The Monas Hieroglyphica is an esoteric symbol invented and designed by John Dee in the 16th century, and its meaning is linked to the essence of X Muse – distilling the sun, moon, elements and fire.’ 

X Muse’s outlook is international, but its heritage is rooted in Scotland, with the founders aiming to bring Scottish spirit-making traditions – synonymous with whisky and gin – to the world of vodka. It required science, research and help from experts at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University. Less conventional still was the base ingredient for the drink – not potatoes or wheat, as one might readily assume, but two varieties of heritage barley, Plumage Archer and Maris Otter, inspired by whisky making. ‘Together with a group of experts in a blind tasting, we proved my hypothesis that different varieties of barley have

different tastes,’ says Grigoryan. ‘In vodka, unlike brown spirits or gins, there is nowhere to hide. We wanted to make a sipping vodka that is also great in classic cocktails such as martinis. This is a tremendous task.’ 

Beyond its alchemic innovations, visual appeal and historical significance is the art of ceremony, or what the brand calls ‘ambromoments’. ‘With X Muse, we have involved collaborators of the highest artistic quality, who fully understand the importance of detail, design and creativity,’ says Wilson. To enhance this idea of ceremony, the brand created the Helicon vodka-tasting workshops, which take their name from Mount Helicon, a source of poetic inspiration and the site of two springs sacred to the Muses in ancient Greek mythology. ‘Our Helicon workshops will attempt to recreate that creative blend of experience and pleasure,’ explains Wilson.

Design research studio Formafantasma – Wallpaper* Designers of the Year 2021 – teamed up with crystal glass manufacturer Lobmeyr to bring the X Muse Helicon tasting workshops to life, creating elements such as glassware, bottles, glorifiers, tableware and containers for presenting ingredients. The studio also created the X Muse Temple, the physical embodiment of the brand. Founders Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin sought to avoid ‘certain clichés in the world of alcohol’ and instead sensitively ritualise the ‘good side of drinking’. ‘There is this part of alcohol that should be recognised and not necessarily seen as evil. This is a way of celebrating this,’ says Farresin.

‘We commissioned Formafantasma to imagine our ideal tasting experience, full of hidden cues, artistic references and storytelling. What Simone and Andrea did is a perfect example of showing without saying,’ adds Grigoryan, nodding to the brand’s motto, Plura Latent Quam Patent (more is concealed than revealed). 

The brand’s draw is also its subtlety. Like any great art, it doesn’t give too much away. The creation of X Muse has required many ingredients. It was born from water but brought to life through art, science, design, chemistry, physics and a shared zest for collaboration.

INFORMATION

To buy X Muse vodka (£57 for 70cl), or to find out more about the Helicon vodka-tasting workshops, visit xmusevodka.com

On a bright white stage in a black room at Tate Britain, the frail, white silhouettes of creatures – a penguin, a flamingo, a dog, a shrimp and a fish – fade eerily into the backdrop, accompanied by the quiet, expectant gargle of water. It’s a haunting sight, devoid of colour, movement or life, frozen in a desolate seascape. 

As we reflect on how it came to this, a voice begins to speak. Its script reveals that this scene is a metaphorical representation of the exploitation of salmon through industrial farming in Scotland. Farmed salmon – which are denied a natural diet of krill and shrimp – are deprived of astaxanthin, which gives their flesh its pink or reddish colour and protects them from solar radiation and stress.

They are genetically modified, subjected to year-round summer-like atmospheres so they grow faster, and often suffer from physical deformities and parasites. We are told that ‘salmon is the colour of a wild fish which is neither wild, nor fish, nor even salmon’.

Fusing design, art, activism and community work, the founders of Cooking Sections, Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe, explore how and what we eat, as well as ways in which we can do so more sustainably in the interests of wildlife, our own health and the ecosystems we inhabit. Their solo exhibition at Tate Britain, titled ‘Salmon: A Red Herring’, ‘is a continuation of the project we’ve been doing in Skye in Scotland for the past five years’, says Pascual. ‘We started looking at the impact of salmon farms across the island, and creating a structure to rethink agricultures, but also to start transitioning from salmon farming to other ways of eating.’

In 2017, Schwabe and Pascual launched a public installation on an intertidal zone just outside Portree, on the Isle of Skye, consisting of an underwater oyster table that turns into a community dining space at low tide. Here, they invited politicians, residents, activists and environmentalists to come together and rethink the way salmon is farmed. They also persuaded a network of local restaurants to remove farmed salmon from the menu, and introduce more sustainable alternatives from a diet they term Climavore, which is rich in ingredients such as oysters, mussels and seaweeds (selected for their environmental properties – the ability to purify polluted or acidified waters, or resistance to drought). For their project with Tate Britain, they persuaded the gallery to remove farmed salmon from menus at all of its venues and substitute it for Climavore dishes, such as pasta salad with seaweed pesto and nettle soup with buckwheat. 

As featured in the August 2021 issue of Wallpaper*, on newsstands and available for free download

At Tate Britain, the white seascape fills with coloured lights, ‘the 15 Pantones of salmon’, indicating the juicy pinks of Britain’s farmed fish are about as natural as synthetic paint

The installation takes us to what Schwabe describes as ‘a colour sphere that we are passing through, or that is passing through us’. The white seascape fills with coloured lights, described potently as ‘the 15 Pantones of salmon’, indicating that the juicy pinks of Britain’s farmed fish are about as natural as synthetic paint. To replicate the colouring effects of astaxanthin, they are fed engineered fish food that contains similar pigments. The flashing lights, in shades of salmon ranging from oranges to reds, alert us to the state of a food industry in which animals are commoditised and injected with chemicals, which we then consume.

Schwabe and Pascual started working together in 2013, having met while studying architecture at Goldsmiths. As Cooking Sections, they are preoccupied with the politics of food and the environment. They began to focus on salmon farming in 2016, initially as community activists and researchers in Scotland. Since then, they have experimented with sustainable agriculture through numerous interventions, including a drought-resistant garden shown at the Sharjah Architecture Triennial in 2019. 

They are aware that in order to change the way we consume and produce food, their work will need to straddle different spheres. Some of their most effective work is in communities, such as an apprenticeship programme they set up in Skye to train the next generation of cooks. ‘We are very concerned with education and growing food, as much as we are concerned with engaging with cultural institutions,’ explains Pascual. ‘But one is no more important than the other. That is something we spend a lot of time thinking about: how do you bring all of these different spaces together that could be seen as very discrete or separate from each other?’

Cooking Sections has recently been nominated for the Turner Prize, which this year honours five art collectives that have worked with communities to inspire social change through art. In doing so, the prize has taken under its wing practices that may not self-identify as ‘artists’. Architects by training, Cooking Sections has exhibited in design and architecture forums, visual art institutions and also in public spaces.

The pair are currently showing at Salt Beyoğlu in Istanbul, an organisation that bridges contemporary art and design with research, exploring how the climate emergency is shifting productive regions for food and agriculture in Turkey and tackling the role of food in the fertility crisis (globally, men’s fertility rates are falling 1.4 per cent on average every year), an issue that they explain is closely connected with our culture of food. ‘The more the soil has been made fertile through agrochemicals, insecticides, herbicides, pesticides, you name it, over the 20th century, the more infertile humans have become because of the absorption of these substances that flow into rivers and seas,’ Schwabe explains. 

It is impossible not to wonder what the role of governments is in a food industry centred around mass production, minimising costs at the expense of the wellbeing of animals and the safety of the food we consume. Is a Climavore diet a realistic way to tackle what is a systemic problem? ‘Yes. But for us, it’s not so much about the kind of decisions people are making as individuals,’ says Schwabe. ‘I think it’s one of the biggest problems of the food industry – that the responsibility and ethics of consumption has been flipped onto the consumer, whereas it should be the responsibility of governments, producers and market distributors.’ 

Cooking Sections aspires to ask questions, change existing food systems, and respond to the local context in which it works through collaboration. The Turner Prize, which will be presented at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry this September, is bound to amplify the duo’s ideas, but hopefully will not subsume their work into the art world machine. To my mind, their interdisciplinary approach, drawing on their design background as a lens through which to explore structural issues, is what will enable their work to hold its own. If, as a post-industrial modern society, we’ve been obsessed with how to harness foods, objects and materials as consumable goods, then today it is increasingly up to designers to undo those structures of consumption and find an ethical and safe way out.

INFORMATION

‘Salmon: A Red Herring’ is showing until 31 August at Tate Britain, London, tate.org.uk

‘Climavore: Seasons Made to Drift’ is showing until 22 August at Salt Beyoğlu, Istanbul, saltonline.org 

Turner Prize 2021 is showing 1 October - 10 January at Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, theherbert.org

cooking-sections.com

On Sunday 11 July, it will be England vs Italy in the Euro 2020 Final football match at Wembley Stadium, so you might want to have your favourite football shirt close at hand. 

While many ponder the burning question of the moment: ‘Is – or isn’t – football coming home?’, Max Siedentopf is busy answering another: ‘How do you make art for people who usually don’t like art?’ 

This question prompted the Namibian-German artist to orchestrate one of the most unusual collisions of worlds known to creativity. It began with a theory: those who avoid museums and galleries just might be in the same demographic as those who spend time watching football matches – an interesting (and possibly divisive) hypothesis. 

He needed a creative solution that would cater for both the most refined of art enthusiasts and the most dedicated of football fans. Attempting to score two goals with one ball, the Paintings League series was born – a marriage of classic football shirts and contemporary abstract art. 

A creative homage to legendary team football shirts

The series – published in a new book by Hatje Cantz – pays homage to iconic football teams including Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Barcelona by turning their team football shirts into acrylic-on-canvas colour-field paintings on canvas. 

A conceptual artist, photographer, director, publisher and former creative director of the ‘unorthodox’ creative agency KesselsKramer, Max Siedentopf is well known for surreal interventions that are tricky to forget. This could be said for his piece Toto Forever. In the middle of the Namib desert, Siedentopf staged a sound installation consisting of six speakers plugged into an MP3 player with just one song on it – you guessed it, Toto’s Africa. Siedentopf said of the piece: ‘The song is put on loop and the installation runs on solar batteries to keep Toto going for all eternity.’

Echoing the icons of abstract art 

Back in the Paintings League, things are no less surreal. Stare for long enough, and the colour-field painting icons begin to emerge. At first glance, what appears to be a Frank Stella painting is, in fact, an Arsenal shirt. Elsewhere, an Ellsworth Kelly-esque formation turns out to be Manchester United, and we find literal parallel lines between Juventus and the work of Daniel Buren. But perhaps the most absurd and revelatory comparison of all might be an Agnes Martin-like grid emerging from a Barcelona shirt.

In this book, art aficionados can lose themselves in Siedentopf’s minimalist approach to abstract painting, while lovers of the beautiful game can admire their football team colours immortalised on canvas.

Whatever the result of the England vs Italy Euro 2020 Final, the long-term results of Paintings League remain to be seen, Siedentopf has proved that this distinctive art-versus-football experiment isn’t necessarily a game of two halves.

INFORMATION

Max Siedentopf, Paintings League, € 20.00, Hatje Cantz. hatjecantz.de

The inaugural Helsinki Biennial was more hotly anticipated than most. Due to make a bold entrance on the art calendar in 2020, it was pegged as an eco-aware alternative to the usual carbon-diffusing biennial format. 

But like many art events of 2020, it fell victim to postponement as the world grappled with the onset of the pandemic. Despite a turbulent start, this biennial with a twist has bounced back with zest. Titled ‘The Same Sea’ and curated by Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola, the biennial brings together 41 Finnish and international artists and artist collectives. Three-quarters of the work comprises new commissions and site-specific installations that engage directly with Vallisaari’s cultural history, geopolitics and rich biodiversity.

‘After years in the making, we are thrilled to finally open the biennial to our audiences and reveal this outstanding exhibition.’ says Maija Tanninen-Mattila, director of the Helsinki Biennial and Helsinki Art Museum (HAM). ‘We are indebted to all our team, collaborators, and especially our artists, who have worked tirelessly to make it happen.’ 

A moment in history for Helsinki

The Helsinki Biennial 2021 opened on Helsinki Day (12 June), marking the date that the city was founded, and will run until 26 September. Vallisaari island, a 15-minute boat ride from the centre of Helsinki, harbours its own history and relationship with ecology. The island has played host to seal hunters, seafarers, pilots, residents of the neighbouring islands, Russian military personnel and Finnish Defence Forces personnel and their families. The last remaining inhabitants left the island in 1996, and the site lay closed off until spring 2016. Though humans' occupation of Vallisaari was relatively fleeting, the island still bears battle scars. At the beginning of the 20th century, almost all its trees had been felled, and explosions and construction left the island’s surface mangled. But it's Vallisaari’s rich history and idiosyncrasies that have provided fertile sources of inspiration for the biennial’s artists. 

Art highlights at the Helsinki Biennial

Though the majority of the action takes place on the Island, some biennial artworks extend to mainland Helsinki. These include Janet Echelman’s aerial sculpture 1.78, which will be suspended above the city’s central Senate Square in August. At HAM, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and Finnish food visionary Antto Melasniemi will present an installation and one-week event in collaboration with furniture company Artek. Radical German artist Katharina Grosse’s work will span both the island and mainland. At HAM she will stage her first solo exhibition in Finland and has also created a vibrant and transient new site-specific painting that sweeps across the island’s old wooden schoolhouse and the surrounding foliage. 

On Vallisaari, many of the works make use of the island’s existing structures. Dafna Maimon has turned a cellar vault into a digestive system, and Tadashi Kawamata has constructed a towering temporary lighthouse made from scrap material found on the island. 

Other artists directly confront humanity’s relationship with the natural environment. Alicja Kwade’s Big Be-Hide is sited on a narrow strip of land connecting Vallisaari with its neighbouring island Kuninkaansaari. Two large stones, one found locally, and another a man-made replica, sit either side of a mirror – a commentary about our position in the universe, and a face-off between natural and artificial forms. 

Art with an ecological mission

In ‘The Same Sea’, each artwork engages with both local and global consequences of human activity but also with alternative views for the future. Helsinki Biennial itself was conceived with a future-orientated vision and a commitment to responsible exhibition-making. ‘We want to encourage innovation and responsible action. So we are trying to think and act in new ways,’ says Tanninen-Mattila. ‘Our team includes an environmental coordinator and we are also using the world’s first carbon footprint calculator especially tailored for non-governmental organisations. No art will be left on the island after the event. For example, during the de-installation process in September, all the material from the artworks will either be recycled, reused or collected back by the artists themselves.’ Additionally, all work on the island has been executed during the daytime to avoid disrupting the native bat community with artificial lighting. 

Social change and social distancing

As the pandemic continues to grip the world, art events have been forced to radically rethink existing patterns of behaviour and create safe experiences for engaging with art. The Helsinki Biennial has implemented a hybrid model, including a comprehensive digital offering for those unable to attend in person. VR experiences, titled Quest Virtual Helsinki – Vallisaari Island, and available from the Oculus store, have been developed to transport global audiences to the heart of the excitement. 

Around a third of the artworks on Vallisaari island will be located outdoors, along pathways amidst the flora and fauna of the island, while indoor spaces will implement a carefully controlled visitor flow. ‘We are planning the biennial as a hybrid model, which will enable us to open the event in stages if necessary. We have planned various potential scenarios, including periods of closure and flexible openings,’ says Tanninen-Mattila.

INFORMATION

Helsinki Biennial 2021: ‘The Same Sea’,  until 26 September 2021, helsinkibiennial.fi

Founded and curated by Alexander May, the brains behind creative enterprise Offsite.Studio which focuses on artist collaborations, the inaugural Los Angeles exhibition ‘Sized’ will feature works by over 40 artists and designers; all individuals and friends that May has known or admired for some time.

With all items available to purchase, the ‘collision of art and design’ will address our desire for collecting, says May. The eclectic mix of objects on display includes a pair of vintage stools on loan from Neutra’s VDL House on the same stage as a Sterling Ruby contemporary piece and a pre-Columbian urn.

Other highlights include a stickered chair by Jordan Wolfson; a sculpture by Sterling Ruby / S.R. Studio. LA. CA; glassware and candleholders by Permanent Collection; a Gallic chair by Michèle Lamy for Rick Owens Furniture; a selection of Lykke Li’s musical instruments from her personal collection; unique hand-crafted garments by collective No Sesso; and a book, Dižà Nó Ole, by Cielo, the Indigenous-women-led nonprofit dedicated to Indigenous communities in Los Angeles.

Several key design launches are simultaneously happening on-site, including the debut of bi-coastal horticultural operation Cactus Store premiering its furniture and the unveiling of Studio Shamshiri's chair in collaboration with John Williams. Pamela Shamshiri extols the power of in-person events, saying, ‘Even before the pandemic, we were living more and more in virtual worlds, but a digital photo can never show the way that sunlight changes the shadows on a painting, or the way it feels to be in the presence of a Rodin, or how you can be blown away by the incredible craftsmanship in a piece of furniture just by spending time exploring its details in front of you. I think that feeling is very primal and human, and something we’ve been hungry for. Also, so many people have spent quarantine making amazing things, and it’s exciting to see what everyone has been up to.’

Tantalising all the senses, the physical experience will be enhanced by a pop-up installation space by Alex Tieghi-Walker of Tiwa Select that will operate as a tearoom by day, serving a custom blend by California-based Leaves and Flowers, and as a mezcal bar on special evenings, with pourings of Yola Mezcal. Guests can enjoy their drinks under the indigo-dyed canopy by artist Megumi Shauna Arai, around a 12-foot oak table created from salvaged Victorian floorboards while seated on Vince Skelly stools. ‘During a year in which we have been so isolated from each other, I want to create an experience that unites people in a way that feels personal, intimate, and tactile – albeit on a modest, friendly scale,' says Tieghi-Walker.

‘There’s no comparison', says May of the importance of physical experiences. May previously founded Fondazione Converso, the non-profit arts space housed inside the 16th-century Church of San Paolo Converso in Milan, committed to fostering the dialogue of art and architecture through performative exhibitions – so he knows a thing or two about the impact of in-person events. ‘Coming out of a year where we’ve all experienced so much through digital mediums, creating a physical environment that people can enjoy — and reconnect with one another — is exciting. There’s something that happens in a room when all the right elements come together; there’s a knowing that occurs.'

INFORMATION

All pieces on view at 'Sized' will be available for purchase during the show and online. sized.studio

'Sized' runs from 15 - 27 June 2021 (with VIP appointments from 10 June)

ADDRESS

619 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004

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Today (24 May 2021), Bob Dylan turns 80 years old. 80 years is a long time, but when reflecting on the output this singer-songwriter, activist, poet, visual artist and cultural icon has accomplished, one can’t help but wonder whether we’re counting in calendar years, or light-years. 

Coinciding with Dylan’s milestone birthday, Halcyon Gallery – which has represented Dylan’s visual art for 15 years – opens the monumental double-gallery show ‘Bob Dylan: 60 Years of Creating’ combining work from his robust archive, and brand new pieces. 

Dylan’s non-exclusive relationship with creative disciplines has seen him shift from singer to painter with unnerving naturalism over the years. The exhibition spans his creative achievements across media, from his first studio album release in 1962 to the recent announcement of his forthcoming museum retrospective at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Art, Miami, in November 2021.

Among the works in London are figurative paintings from 2020-21, in which Dylan confronts the American landscape with a renewed and profound consideration of its people. Among these new works is East Harlem Elevated, and Subway Cityscape Triptych (both 2020), the latter over 1.8 meters high by 2.7 meters wide. These form part of Dylan’s monumental tributes to New York, the city that shaped his early music career. Dylan emerged on New York City’s Greenwich Village folk music scene in the early 1960s, pricking up ears with his thematically complex songs that soon became anthems for the civil rights and anti-war movements. 

As anyone who’s listened to a Dylan album from the last 60 years might imagine, the show’s subject matter is wide-ranging: from boxers to sunsets, dive bars and highways. Much is anchored in a clear sense of place: The Brazil Series (2010), The Asia Series (2011) and The New Orleans Series (2013) – drawn from life, memory, archival film and photography.

Others are more cryptic. Dylan grew up in an area known as ‘Iron Range' in Hibbing, Minnesota, an industry-rich region where the artist first absorbed the country and blues music wafting up from the south. His Ironworks series resembled gates, screens, furniture and wall hangings, but also sculptural poems. They comprise repurposed industrial parts – spanners, vices and brackets - which Dylan turns into symbols, allusions and punchlines that still inhabit the rawness and history of their origins. 

In Mondo Scripto, creative threads meet head-on. The series features the songwriter’s curation of his most renowned songs, each handwritten in pen on paper and paired with a graphite pencil drawing. 

In his live performances, Dylan often returns to historical songs, perplexing Dylanphiles with wildly revised versions of his most acclaimed works. In Mondo Scripto, some songs have had a few lines altered; others see verses completely rewritten. These compositions demonstrate the artist’s ability to tirelessly mine from the past while creating something fundamentally novel.

When it comes to art forms, Dylan has perhaps mastered more than most. But beyond the greatest hits, literary feats, political activism and unrivalled recipes of words and music is a life tangled up in the art of reinvention.

INFORMATION

'Bob Dylan: 60 years of creating', until 2 July, Halcyon Gallery. halcyongallery.com

ADDRESS

144-146 & 29 New Bond Street
London W1S 2PF

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As the sun rises over Manhattan tomorrow, Mexican artist Bosco Sodi will begin to install 439 small-scale clay spheres at Washington Square Park. Each about the size of a grapefruit, these pieces are the building blocks of his new public artwork and performance, titled Tabula Rasa. Over the course of the day, Sodi will invite members of the general public to claim a piece of the installation, until, at dusk, the last piece will be taken away.

The clay spheres won’t exactly offer a visual spectacle, but behind their humble appearance is a message of hope. The number 439 refers to the number of days since New York City was first struck by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the installation takes place just as the city roars back to life, with the giveaway element highlighting how solidarity and mutual assistance have been vital to survival and recovery. 

The choice of location, too, is significant – Washington Square Park has long been a locus for activism and social justice in the city, having hosted everything from protests against Nazism and the Vietnam War, to demonstrations against the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, and to the Black Lives Matter rallies of 2020. It was here that Sodi presented his public installation Muro in September 2017, a wall of 1,600 made-in-Mexico clay bricks that passers-by were invited to dismantle and take home, a symbol of how political and mental hurdles can be overcome by a united community.

Artist Bosco Sodi, photographed in his Brooklyn studio on 18 September, in front of an untitled white painting now on view at his solo exhibition, ’Vers l’Espagne’ at Kasmin Gallery, New York

Then as now, Sodi created his artwork using clay from his Casa Wabi art centre in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Whereas the clay bricks used in Muro (and the monumental sculptures for which Sodi is known) are fired in a traditional kiln to achieve terracotta-hued, cracked and scorched surfaces, the constituent clay spheres of Tabula Rasa have been left deliberately unfired. Instead, each contains three types of seed – corn, squash and bean, symbiotic species that have a special place in Central American agriculture. The spheres’ new owners are encouraged to plant them in soil, so the seeds will germinate, nourish one another, and continue on into the cycle of life and death.

As the title Tabula Rasa (Latin for 'clean slate') suggests, this is a time for New York to start afresh, unencumbered by the scars of the past. Though transitory, Sodi’s installation will live on in the backyards and balconies of New Yorkers, celebrating transformation and creative possibility, and offering a poetic reminder that life will always prevail. 

INFORMATION

Tabula Rasa is at Washington Square Park, New York from dawn to dusk on Sunday, 23 May 2021, kasmingallery.com

Today (5 May), Frieze New York will boldly open as planned, the first fair in the city to do so in more than a year. Over 60 international galleries will occupy the brand new location of The Shed in Hudson Yards – a glimmering sign that the city is inching back to normalcy.

In pre-pandemic times, May was undoubtedly one of the busiest months on the New York calendar. Traditionally kicking off with the Met Gala and the concurrent opening of the Costume Institute’s fashion exhibition (both of which will be held in September this year) and ending with the close of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (now scheduled for November), this dynamic confluence of culture means the Frieze New York atmosphere will, no doubt, feel a little different.

With strict health and safety protocols in place, and a powerful social justice message that 50 galleries have chosen to participate in, this year’s edition promises to be like no other. Read our top tips for a safe, immersive, and memorable Frieze New York 2021, whether you're in the physical or digital space: 

Frieze New York takes to The Shed 

Frieze New York 2021 is excitingly being staged at The Shed, leaving its Randall's Island venue for the first time since the fair launched in 2012. Specifically designed to produce and foster innovation and creativity in all forms, the Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed space is one of the best-equipped venues in the Big Apple to meet the needs of a major event during these times.

The Shed boasts a modern ventilation system that has already been fitted with Merv-16 filtration, and ambient air turns over at least once every hour. Timed entry tickets, along with the requirement for proof of a negative PCR test within 72 hours before arrival, a rapid antigen test within 24 hours before arrival, or proof of vaccination, are part of a multi-tiered approach that aims to assure guests and exhibitors of health and safety. Wherever possible, a one-way traffic flow has been instituted and hand-sanitising stations have also been installed throughout the venue. 

‘This is a time for creativity, flexibility and collaboration, all of which have led us to an exciting opportunity to hold a smaller fair at The Shed, alongside Frieze Viewing Room online that will connect galleries and audiences all over the world,’ says Victoria Siddall, Frieze Art Fairs’ global director. 

Vision & Justice Project honoured with commissions by Carrie Mae Weems and Hank Willis Thomas

One of the most significant cornerstones of this year’s fair is the tribute to the Vision & Justice Project, founded by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, associate professor at Harvard University. The educational initiative is dedicated to expanding visual literacy and examining the role of art in understanding the relationship between race and citizenship in the United States.

At its heart are two new commissions by Carrie Mae Weems and Hank Willis Thomas, who have each created homages to the project. Weems’ work comprises monumental images of unique book covers for the artists and scholars originally involved in the Vision & Justice Project in 2016. Thomas, co-founder of artist activist platform For Freedoms, recreates his iconic Who Taught You To Love? (2020), from the group’s billboard campaign, while, also realised with For Freedoms, artist Mel Chin reveals a new billboard in solidarity with the Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. 

More than 50 participating galleries in the fair have pledged their support to the Vision & Justice Project’s cause by having their programming respond to the question: ‘How are the arts responsible for disrupting, complicating, or shifting narratives of visual representation in the public realm?’

‘The question of how visual representation functions in a representational democracy to expand our understanding of who counts requires all of us,’ reflects Lewis. ‘So this collective engagement with the mission of the Vision & Justice Project by [this number of] galleries at Frieze feels significant. It is also fitting, since the work of artists is central to the mission. In the end, the tribute raises fundamental questions about the new potential of art fairs for social engagement, and highlights the relationship of the private act of looking, even at an art fair, for the public work of justice.’

Precious Okoyomon wins 2021 Frieze Artist Award

New York-based multidisciplinary artist Precious Okoyomon is the winner of this year’s Frieze Artist Award, which provides an opportunity to present an ambitious commission at the fair. Supported by the Luma Foundation, Okoyomon will present a performance-activated installation conceived specifically for The Shed. This work extends Okoyomon’s practice by bringing together poetry, sensory elements, sculpture, light and sound in a celebration of self-expression and the value of the collective shared experience. Aiming to create what the artist describes as ‘a portal for a space of fragilisation’, the performance will be filmed and streamed online from the fair’s opening date for viewers around the world to experience.

Jenny Schlenzka, executive artistic director at Performance Space New York and one of this year’s jurors, says, ‘Simultaneously playful and critically inquisitive, this singular artist-poet’s work highlights the inevitability of change, decay, death, and rebirth. By extending poetry into the organic world, Okoyomon reminds us that apocalypse and utopia coexist and always have.’

Editor's picks: what not to miss at Frieze New York 2021

Aside from heralding significant milestones, Frieze New York will push the envelope on several other fronts:

Frame

The section of the fair dedicated to young galleries and emerging artists has been assembled with the advice of gallerists Olivia Barrett and Sophie Mörner. It sees exciting talents presented by galleries that have been in operation for less than ten years, from Shanghai, Lisbon, Bogota, Los Angeles and New York.

La Prairie artist commission

Luxury skincare brand La Prairie, an ardent supporter of the arts, unveils a time-focused work by Hong Kong-based artist Carla Chan, inspired by her artist’s residency at the Monte Rosa Hut near Zermatt in the Alps. The specially commissioned piece celebrates La Prairie’s new partnership with Frieze New York and Frieze London, expanding its commitment to investing in art and culture. 

Augmented reality

In a nod to the ever-converging worlds of technology and art, ‘The Looking Glass’, is an exhibition of augmented reality artworks curated by Acute Art’s artistic director Daniel Birnbaum and The Shed’s chief curator Emma Enderby. It premieres works by Kaws, Cao Fei and Precious Okoyomon that spring to life on a smartphone when viewers arrive on site. Also visible through the Acute Art app, these works blend the physical and virtual worlds with an element of surprise.

Frieze Viewing Room

For those unable or not yet ready to visit the fair in person, the Frieze Viewing Room, now in its third edition, beams works from 160 galleries from six continents directly to your screen. Built to facilitate discovery and boasting improved image loading times, mobile functionality and user experience, the platform showcases a wide cross-section of works at all levels of the market. 

INFORMATION

Frieze New York at The Shed and online, 5 – 9 May 2021
frieze.com

ADDRESS

545 W 30th St
New York, NY 10001

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Since emerging from Manchester’s punk scene in the 1970s, Linder Sterling has been dragging the underbellies of consumerism into plain sight. Using the visual language of pornography fused with images of banal domestic interiors in neo-Richard Hamilton twists, she has deployed unflinchingly feminist celebrations of sexuality and questioned society’s deeply-rooted perceptions of it. 

From Orgasm Addict – her big-break cover for Buzzcocks’ first single in 1977 – to her first major retrospective at Kettle’s Yard last year, Linder has subverted the very mechanics of popular culture, destabilised conventional ideas of sexuality, and brought the inner workings of the mass media into question. 

As with her best-known work, Linder’s new show ‘Someone Like You’ at Andréhn-Schiptjenko gallery in Stockholm sees fragments of printed media from 1910 onwards fused into elegant photomontages. Disparate clippings rub up against each other in an orgy of desire in its many guises. 

In this latest body of finely scalpelled works, Linder discusses the almost-undiscussable. She delves into the triad myth of Pygmalion, Myrrha and Adonis – this is Greco-Roman mythology, but possibly not as you know it.

Over the last five years, Linder has deep-dived into the Myrrha myth, consulting with classicists for opinion, inserting the story into contemporary studies on the queer body and heteronormativity, and researching the biases within classics and ancient texts. 

To synopsise, the myth in question, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Book X, emerges out of the warped sexuality of Myrrha’s great-grandfather, Pygmalion, who, in a moment of autoeroticism, falls in love with a statue of an idealised female that he’s carved from ivory. 

There’s no skirting around it, the Myrrha myth explores female incest, in contrast to the more widely-known myth of Oedipus, synonymous with male incest. As punishment for her incestual sins, Myrrha is transformed into a tree, giving birth to Adonis from her trunk nine months later. As she weeps in remorse, her tears transform into the aromatic resin, myrrh.

There’s a lot to digest between the creases of these low-tech photomontages. But perhaps the overriding myth here is not that of taboo Greco-Roman exploits, but a myth of heteronormativity.

INFORMATION
Linder, ‘Someone Like You’, until 22 May, Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm. andrehn-schiptjenko.com

ADDRESS

Linnégatan 31
114 47 Stockholm

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Known for her emotionally sensitive works, British photographer and director Bex Day has recently turned her lens to a cohort often overlooked in a new series, Children of Covid. 

As in many countries, during the pandemic, schooling in the UK moved from bustling classrooms filled with friends to staring at screens from home. While parents, under their own strains, undoubtedly did their best, the impact this isolation may have on the rest of children’s lives cannot be ignored. For those who have lost loved ones, life has been even harder. 

After looking inward to process the first wave of hardship within the context of her struggles with OCD, Day was yearning to connect with others. After a friend’s child experienced delays in speech development due to lack of social contact at playgroups and nursery, Day was keen to learn more of how this time has affected children’s psychology, while retaining mental health as a key theme. As restrictions eased over the summer, the artist worked with children aged between four and 13, providing a condensed survey of the impact the pandemic has had on their formative years.

Collaborating with stylist Adam Winder, and hairstylist Tommy Taylor; the team created a platform for these children to have a voice. Accompanying the sometimes surreal portraits are writings by each child or their parents.

Day explains that while boredom was a common theme, the children also described having more time to be curious about the world around them. ‘I loved their honesty and how you really had to work to keep their attention and focus on you. If you aren’t interesting enough then they won’t give you much leeway’, Day explains. Anger, impatience, boredom, sadness and loneliness are all mentioned by the children, but so are patience, maturity and gratefulness. 

As an extension to Day’s series, Channel 4 has created a micro-documentary with some of the featured children, adding another dimension to this compelling project. Here, these children and their parents share their unique stories.

INFORMATION

Bex Day's exhibition, 'Children of Covid' will be on view from 9 July - 25 July 2021 at Offshoot Gallery, London. offshootgallery.com

bexday.com

Shirazeh Houshiary’s ‘A Thousand Folds’ is a game of laws: the laws of nature and the laws of physics that underpin works that are laws unto themselves. It’s all contradiction and paradox: transparency and opacity, sound and silence, physicality and intangibility. 

As the show’s title suggests, the London-based Iranian artist’s latest work explores the many folds of the artist’s practice and the thousand dimensions it occupies. 

Houshiary’s work has the rare attribute of offering viewer’s two, very distinct experiences. For the first, it may be worth summoning on Rothko’s recipe for viewing his own abstract works: at a distance of 18 inches. At this proximity, Houshiary’s work is the cosmos in our field of vision: a universe of undulations, swirls and hypnotics. The second experience requires a closer inspection, through which viewers can absorb the true magnitude of meticulousness the artist has envisioned, which include a web of hidden Arabic phrases which translate as ‘I am’ and ‘I am not’ – Houshiary’s work creates ample intrigue and few conclusions. 

With each work, Houshiary attempts to make visual the intangible: an echo, a breath or a memory. The artist describes water as her collaborator. Her distinctive painting technique involves the successive layering of water, pigment, and line drawing, an intense method that often takes several months to complete. Through this process, the artist gives water the autonomy to express itself, movement is organic and free without being mastered by the artist’s hand.

Elsewhere, A powder-coated aluminium piece, The Order of Time, (2019) offers more plot twists. Polychromatic lines curve and weave in rhythmic loops. Elsewhere, her new digital animation A Cup and a Rose muses on 17th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán’s still-life painting A Cup of Water and a Rose (1630) and set to a musical score by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt titled Cantus in Memoriam. ‘The cup breaks as the pressure of the water within it intensifies and the rose ages only to eventually pulverise as the cup shatters,’ says Houshiary. ‘This video installation echoes the theme of fragmentation and fission to reveal that space where infinity appears fleeting and vanishing only to revert to a plenitude of water and to appear as though all comes and goes again and again with no end to it.’ 

Emerging as if rooted in the floor are Houshiary’s dazzling and dynamic sculptures Aura and Twilight (2019), which see Murano glass bricks stacked in a spiralling helix. Each fragment echoes the original shape at its footprint with precision, in this case, a seedpod incrementally rotated to the maximum degree the form will allow before the structure reaches instability – just another example of Houshiary pushing materiality, and viewers’ optical capacity to their physical limits. 

INFORMATION

Shirazeh Houshiary, ‘A Thousand Folds’, until 28 May, 2021, Lehmann Maupin, New York. lehmannmaupin.com

ADDRESS

501 W 24th St
New York, NY 10011

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The Dia Art Foundation might always be first known for its idyllic premises upstate in Beacon, New York, but now it welcomes a new chapter in New York City with the reopening of its Chelsea foothold following an extensive two-year renovation. Armed with an expanded footprint that brings three of its former buildings together into one cohesive space, the new Dia Chelsea continues the institution’s history of repurposing and revitalising existing buildings. 

Designed by Architecture Research Office (ARO), Dia Chelsea retains the character of the original Chelsea neighbourhood which Dia has been a part of since the 1980s. Coming in at 32,500 sq ft, the gallery not only offers a substantial amount of street-level exhibition space (20,000 sq ft to be exact), but also has the capacity to host public performances and educational programmes (which it will conduct both in person and online). It also sees the return of the celebrated Dia Bookstore to New York City.

With such rare and dramatic environs on hand, Dia Chelsea suitably reopens with two new large-scale commissions by American artist Lucy Raven. Comprising a film Ready Mix (2021), and an installation from her Casters series (2021), the two projects address the formation and depiction of landscapes and civic spaces, specifically of the American West, and use abstraction as a means of giving them a fresh perspective. 

‘Dia’s mission has always been to help artists achieve ambitious projects. In a “post-pandemic” world where funding is scarce, this goal seems more important than ever and we have been expanding our collection and exhibition programme to include a greater breadth of artists,’ shares Dia’s director, Jessica Morgan. ‘The inaugural exhibition of new work by Lucy Raven has stemmed from more than four years of working closely with Raven and the resulting show is an investigation into film, perception, and the mythologies of the American West. In fact, all of the first exhibitions in Dia Chelsea are all with artists who are women, including Camille Norment and Delcy Morelos, which will similarly be the result of many years of collaboration. The approach of long-term conversation and support of artists remains our greatest priority.’

She continues, ‘Having exhibitions on view for extended periods offers the opportunity for long-term engagement; our exhibitions at Dia Chelsea will be on view for around nine months. We have also eliminated the admission fee at Dia Chelsea, so exhibitions will be permanently free to the public like all of our NYC sites. We felt this was incredibly important, both to encourage new visitors from the New York community, and to inspire repeat visits.’

‘We also have a distinct architectural approach in so far as we made a conscious decision with Dia Chelsea to preserve the unique qualities of these industrial buildings and not to build anew,’ she adds. ‘Our architects, ARO, have taken a ‘light touch’ approach to the buildings, retaining the natural light in the single-storey galleries from the skylights, as well as respecting the vernacular of the neighbourhood.’

‘The most challenging aspect of the Dia Chelsea renovation was designing three new facades to create an ensemble of distinct but related buildings,’ share ARO’s Kim Yao and Adam Yarinsky. ‘The design engages the scale and organisation of the internal spaces, addresses the functions of the openings for people and art and expresses the detailing of the brick walls. All of this comes together to present Dia’s identity, which is grounded in the character of the neighbourhood and the qualities of the existing buildings.’

In ARO’s hands, Dia’s legacy of creating exciting dialogues between art and architecture takes a more contemporary turn, particularly against the neighbourhood’s larger backdrop of soaring luxury residences that have sprung up in recent years. ARO’s work on Dia Chelsea is part of a longer-term collaboration, which includes the creation of Dia Soho, a new 2,500 sq ft exhibition space on Wooster Street, the revitalisation of two iconic Walter de Maria works, ‘The New York Earth Room’ (1977) and ‘The Broken Kilometer’ (1979) next door, and the expansion of the lower level at Dia Beacon and its surrounding landscape

‘For Dia (and in all our work) we believe that ‘design-centric’ means being strategic about what design means for Dia in terms of its history and mission and thereby define the role of architecture in the project,’ Yao and Yarinsky explain. ‘All our projects for Dia are connected by the fact that we frame our design approach to support Dia’s mission, which is centred on supporting the artists’ visions. The most visible thread is adapting and renewing the structure, materials, space and daylight of existing buildings (given Dia’s long history of adapting and reusing existing structures). Through this, the design of these buildings has reciprocity with the art.’

Morgan concludes, ‘Dia first established an exhibition space in  Chelsea  in 1987. With the opening of the new Dia Chelsea, I am so happy to finally give us a permanent home in this neighbourhood. It is vital that arts and culture are accessible to all and we are committed to offering an open door to everyone in our New York community and beyond.’ 

INFORMATION

Lucy Raven’s exhibition is on view until January 2022. diaart.org

ADDRESS

537 West 22nd Street
New York 10011

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As you may remember, Larry Fink photographed our 2021 Design Awards judges via Zoom from his Pennsylvania farm. Fink has now exclusively shared with Wallpaper* his lockdown diaries photographed in and around his home during the last 12 months.

Here, he reveals the thoughts behind the images; spontaneous musings on the objects, animals and textures that surround him. With his direct and stimulating lens, Fink brings everyday encounters to life as we have never seen before.

INFORMATION

larryfinkphotography.com

At a time where most art galleries and institutions are still oscillating between the real world and a virtual one, the contemporary art and design gallery Salon 94 has doubled down on in-person viewing with the unveiling of a new home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Located in a palatial, six-storey building built between 1913 and 1915 at 3 East 89th Street, the neo-Renaissance structure originally served as an exhibition hall, library and entertaining space for the philanthropist and scholar Archer Milton Huntington, and as an artist’s studio for his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington. Designed by architect Ogden Codman Jr, who counted both the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers as clients, the building was created as an extension to the Huntingtons’ residence on Fifth Avenue next door.

In 1941, both properties were donated to the National Academy of Design, who used it as a museum and exhibition space until 2016. (They also built a third additional building next door.) These were put on the market as a whole, but ultimately sold separately, with Salon 94’s founder Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn buying 3 East 89th Street for a cool $22.3m in June 2019.

‘My husband had seen the buildings on the market. This last one available was the middle building of the National Academy. We walked in and I immediately thought it would make an amazing gallery,’ recalls Greenberg Rohatyn, an Upper East Side local. ‘We walked out and I actually didn’t bring it back up for a month or so, because when we’re looking at spaces together, it’s always with an eye to move, especially when our children leave home. Thinking of a space as a gallery involves an entirely different muscle. That’s what started in my head and I couldn’t let it go.’

With its rusticated limestone base, tan brick façade and elegant piano nobile, the building is hard for any art dealer to resist. ‘In the room on the second floor, which we call the Stone Room, you could really see the potential,’ she says. ‘To have a column-free space with so much ceiling height, and on the Upper East Side, is rare, as is the porte-cochère entrance.’

To bring the 17,500 sq ft mansion up to date, Greenberg Rohatyn turned to her friend, architect Rafael Viñoly, who has collaborated with her on three other projects over the years – her home on 94th Street, and the gallery’s two other locations downtown. (In anticipation of the move uptown, Salon 94 Bowery quietly closed its doors last November, but its Freemans outpost continues to stage exhibitions.)

Working over a period of almost 18 months, Rafael Viñoly Architects oversaw the renovation of the building, bringing a seamless quality to the project that underscores the building’s history. ‘One of the best things we’ve done is not to try to unify the rooms, but rather keep them more or less as they were,’ says Viñoly. ‘The proportional and volumetric condition of the building is like a museum in itself. The rooms are large, which is what moved Jeanne to buy it in the first place, and how you circulate through is pretty unique.’

The firm revitalised the marble and granite porte-cochère, which serves as the gallery’s point of entry, restored the herringbone brick paver floor and coronet light fixtures, and installed a new ceiling. The entryway leads to a 14ft-high gallery space, accented by penny-tile flooring and a wood-formed concrete ceiling. A lift provides access to the galleries and offices on the upper floors, but an ornate oval staircase, with its cast iron banisters and nostalgic grandeur, offers a more scenic route. 

On the second floor, the Stone Room boasts Doric pilasters with fluted shafts, Caen stone walls, round-arch bays and a chequerboard floor, made from Hauteville and Belgian Black marble, and encircled by richly patterned Rosso Merlino marble. A trio of fan-shaped windows with gilded espagnolettes open onto views of the Guggenheim Museum opposite.

‘When you see the space, you understand the guts and the vision, because obviously it is a major investment. It’s not your Chelsea gallery type thing. This has an added layer where some family transformed it into a party place; God knows what they did there,’ jokes Viñoly. ‘I, for one, don’t believe that it’s a major piece of architectural style, but it has its value because it carries a certain image of a way of living on Fifth Avenue and the Upper East Side. Now the signals are maintained but dimmed down so you don’t really focus on them – because it’s all about the walls and how the walls frame the art. The important things were structural modifications. It’s what you would call minor surgery, certainly not plastic surgery.’

The gallery’s programme of rotating exhibitions began in March with a triple header of solo shows by Brooklyn artist Derrick Adams, Japanese sculptor Takuro Kuwata and the late French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle. Greenberg Rohatyn also enlisted some of the designers she represents, under the Salon 94 Design banner, to create permanent, site-specific elements. Each was born simply ‘out of practicality,’ she says. ‘We wanted a beautiful chandelier in the stairwell and I felt that Philippe Malouin was the right designer to make something spectacular. It was just a straightforward call from there.’ Malouin’s statuesque sandblasted chandelier drops down two floors through the building’s stairwell.

Other custom pieces include limestone sconces by Max Lamb in the Stone Room, nylon benches by Kwangho Lee in new colourways on the first floor, and furniture by Tom Sachs in some of the gallery’s meeting spaces. The staff offices feature black nylon desks by Malouin, a new addition to his ‘Nylon Industrial Office’ collection, and in May the gallery will reveal a bathroom designed by Lamb using curved, cobalt blue tiles from Japanese brand Tajimi Custom Tiles.

The building’s third floor houses the Wood Room, a mahogany-panelled office for Greenberg Rohatyn, custom-designed by Viñoly. ‘I challenged him to reimagine what a wood-panelled room would be like today, given that the wood panelling here had been destroyed,’ she recounts. The harlequin-patterned wall panels are inlaid with concealed brass hardware in each corner for hanging art. ‘You can change the hanging positions of the art without disturbing the geometry of the surface,’ explains Viñoly.

With a café, shop and artist residency in the works, Salon 94’s new flagship location brings with it the conviction of a full cultural recovery. ‘Covid allowed us to slow down and take a step back,’ says Greenberg Rohatyn. ‘It’s been a reset for both myself and my team, a chance to rethink what the gallery represents and what we are going to be in the future. Space can change your point of view, and I like that movement forward.’

‘Even in this crazy moment of the pandemic, it’s the kind of place that will come back very strongly,’ sums up Viñoly. ‘It’s really a unique revitalisation and a private contribution to the famous Museum Mile.’

INFORMATION

salon94.com

vinoly.com

It’s never an easy subject to broach. When it does come, the event is often shrouded in formality, tradition and more often than not, the colour black. But pioneering ceramic artist John Booth is proposing an alternative to the sombre perceptions of death. The artist has teamed up with UK death specialist Farewill for ‘A Colourful Life’, a new campaign that aims to reflect the vibrancy of life through five limited-edition bespoke ceramic cremation urns. This was uncharted territory for the artist, who has previously deployed his graphic, multi-layered aesthetic in the worlds of high fashion and interiors, including in collaborations with Zandra Rhodes, John Galliano and Fendi. 

We spoke to Booth about the gravity of the project, and how creativity, colour and death can find a way to coexist. 

Wallpaper*: How did your collaboration with Farewill come about, and what drew you to the idea of a limited-edition set of bespoke urns? 

John Booth: Working with Farewill has been a unique opportunity, with lots of potential to make a mark on how people perceive death, something that will affect all of us at some point. I was really inspired to create something in an industry traditionally void of creativity and choice. Many people choose an urn as their final resting place, but we rarely talk about how they can help us express who we are. After the year we’ve had, it’s more important than ever to bring some joy to how we’re remembered, creating urns that reflect the vibrancy of our lives. 

The Farewill team approached me with the concept and I found the proposition of the project to be really intriguing, especially in the context of the pandemic. I usually work on high fashion and interiors and this brief took me into a completely new space, which I loved. This year has completely changed the way I think about and now deal with death, which was a huge factor in my decision to work with the brand. What also stood out to me was Farewill’s modern and accessible approach to the death industry.

W*: Can you talk us through the process of creating the urns?

JB: I approached this campaign with a sense of joy, playfulness and use of bold colour and graphic shapes. When I started drawing, I wanted to keep the shape really clean and graphic because that’s typical of my work. The thought that the urns are going to hold a person’s ashes is a thought that’s stuck with me throughout the project, but I’ve been trying not to let that scare me off, and create a monument to the person that they’ll eventually hold. 

I’ve also created sections to accommodate dried flowers in each urn. That’s something I’ve used before, but it felt right to use this technique for this project given the subject matter. It also gives a nice nod to traditional send-offs, while doing something a little different.

W*: Why do you think it’s important to talk about and plan for death more openly?

JB: Much of the death industry feels archaic and there hasn’t been a huge amount of innovation for a really long time. This doesn’t make sense to me, as our lives are so varied and full of colour, we should pay tribute to our loved ones and ourselves after we die. It’s also something that will happen to us all at one point – while it will never be easy, it’s important that we make death more approachable, and a great way to do that is by talking about it through art and creativity.

Art has often been a way for people to express their emotions or talk about difficult subjects. Hopefully, this project can make other artists think about approaching this object because it is such an important monument to the person it will hold. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been explored more. 

W*: What was the most challenging part of the collaboration, and the most rewarding?

JB: Aesthetically these urns could be quite challenging, which was my main concern at the start of the project. They’re not traditionally in keeping with the type of urns that I’ve seen before. After speaking more with the Farewill team, I realised that was really the point of what they’re doing.

One of the reasons I’m enjoying the project so much is because it’s taken me into a completely new realm, and made me consider something that, to be honest, I hadn’t previously thought a lot about. From my point of view as an artist, it’s really interesting to have a completely new subject matter to work with. It’s important to keep working with fresh ideas to keep creating.

INFORMATION

John Booth has created a set of unique urns for UK death specialists Farewill. The new campaign ‘A Colourful Life’ explores how to honour someone’s life and encourages people to talk about what we want when we die. Urns can be applied for on the Farewill website. 

Tommy Fitzpatrick has long had a fascination with how buildings are made. Growing up in the Dallas suburbs, the downtown urban environment became a magnet. ‘I’ve always liked modernism and Bauhaus, and found that urban areas had a similar quality of newness and futurism,’ he tells Wallpaper*. 

An exhibition of new paintings, titled ‘Site’, at Qualia Contemporary Art in Palo Alto, California, marks a departure in Fitzpatrick’s conventional approach: instead of painting from life or photographs, he turned to computer-aided design (CAD) software to create renderings that he then translated into paint. ‘When it comes to architecture, I often find myself loving the renderings more than buildings themselves; they’re a proposition of the fact,’ he explains. 

In 1998, Fitzpatrick assisted American minimalist artist Frank Stella with a mural installation in Houston. The experience had a deep impact on Fitzpatrick and encouraged him to transition from smooth, seamless compositions to geometric, electric-hued explosions. 

Fitzpatrick is drawn to buildings both for their ephemerality and longevity, particularly modernist architecture that once heralded a better society. The artist has also explored architectural projects that never came to be; his 2017 series Crystal Cities was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s unrealised Washington, DC project of the same name. 

Fitzpatrick’s paintings present both the ruins and utopian potential of his subjects, and a record of past ideals. ‘Things come and go, that is reflected in our architecture’, he says. ‘Buildings that were once a remarkable feat of their time go out of style and are knocked down for the latest innovations. But there seems to be a quality within certain buildings and landmarks that acts as a universal commonality.’ 

His works almost sculptural in depth, Fitzpatrick stretches his architectural subjects to their abstracted extremities. What might have been roofs, windows, glass and steel fracture into shards of impastoed ambiguity.

The artist's fascination with architecture and construction extends to his tools, materials and processes. Fitzpatrick begins by pouring acrylic paint onto the canvas in a similar manner to how cement is poured to make brutalist buildings. He uses tools one might find on a building site, like concrete placers and trowels, to concoct and cut through congealed slabs of paint. The painted surface protrudes like a relief to such an extent that its peaks cast their own shadows. 

Fitzpatrick structures his paintings like an architect plans a building: the foundation, the frame, and the exterior. ‘When you look at the painted surface you can tell how the paint was laid down in my work. It’s a frozen human moment; suspending action in one image.’

INFORMATION

Tommy Fitzpatrick: ‘Site’ 10 April-28 May 2021, Qualia Contemporary Art
qualiacontemporaryart.com
tommyfitzpatrick.com

ADDRESS

328 University Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301

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Following the seismic global impact of events in early 2020, German lighting design experts Tobias Grau sought to further understand the emotional power of light, this time through art.

The light-bulb moment

This ignited Artists for Tobias Grau, for which the brand sent lights to artists across the globe and asked them to offer a carte blanche creative response. The resulting creations from artists including Tanya and Zhenya Posternak, Darryl Daley, Johann Clausen and Sarah Blais were wide-ranging: photographs, videos, illustrations, installation shots, and CGI images, each interpreting the fusion of light and emotion in new ways.

Irons in the fire

2020 was a busy year for Timon and Melchior Grau, the brand’s creative directors and sons of its eponymous founder. As well conceiving Artists for Tobias Grau, the duo took part in the inaugural Wallpaper* Re-Made initiative, presenting their plans for an installation called ‘Fire’ in the August 2020 issue. As artists, light and its influence on our lives is at the heart of their practice. Their project aims to alleviate seasonal disorder by emitting a powerful light to soothe winter blues, as well as channel the age-old connection between humans, emotions and fire.

New light 

In 2021, Tobias Grau plans to incorporate other disciplines into the series beyond photography. In collaboration with creatives, they will continue to explore the solace, joy and transformative potential of light as a creative medium, while supporting artists in continually turbulent times.

INFORMATION

The Tobias Grau collection is available on WallpaperSTORE*

tobiasgrau.com

Julie Mehretu speaks with the joy and conviction of someone who has had the freedom to investigate all their interests. Curiosity has led her to the myriad topics, objects and moments that inform her work, among them cartography, archaeology, the birth of civilisation and mycology. Since the 1990s, her practice has expanded outwardly in all directions like a spider web. A lack of understanding and preconceived notions among reviewers have often led to her work being flattened – simplified so that it is easily digestible – but in reality, her work is far from a simplistic investigation of any one topic. It encompasses multitudes.

The artist’s recent paintings are mostly large scale, but her early works on paper (often created with multiple layers – one sheet of Mylar on top of another) are as small as a six-inch square. The works often comprise innumerable minuscule markings – tremendous force and knowledge communicated through delicate inkings and streaks. Their layers reveal, rather than obfuscate. And though Mehretu’s creative process springs from a desire to understand herself better, the work itself is in no way autobiographical.

Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the tails of a continental rejection of colonialism, and raised there, then in Michigan, Mehretu has a flexible and full-hearted understanding of home. It is not one physical place, but many, all holding equal importance. On 25 March, Mehretu will present her first major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with works spanning 1996 to 2019. The institution is an important one for Mehretu, as it played host to several pivotal shows in her youth.

Her exhibition has served as an impetus for Mehretu to look back at her already prolific career, observing and organising the thoughts, questions and answers she has put forth for over two decades. The six years it took to bring this exhibition together proved an incredibly valuable time of reflection, fatefully dovetailing with a year of quarantine.

Wallpaper*: Where are you as we speak?

Julie Mehretu: I’m in my studio on 26th Street, right on the West Side Highway. I’ve worked here for 11 years.

W*: Are there any artists, writers or thinkers that have had a meaningful impact on you?

JM: I don’t know how to answer that because there are literally so many! It’s constantly changing. Right now, Kara Walker, David Hammons, William Pope.L, and younger artists like Jason Moran (who has made amazing work around abstraction). There are so many artists that have been informative and important to me: Frank Bowling, Jack Whitten, Caravaggio.

I also look at a lot of prehistoric work, from as far back as 60,000 years ago, as well as cave paintings from 6th century China and early prehistoric drawings in the caves of Australia.

W*: What’s the most interesting thing you have read, watched or listened to recently?

JM: For the last few weeks I’ve been immersed in Steve McQueen films. I've been bingeing on lovers rock music. And a TV show that really moved me was [Michaela Cole’s] I May Destroy You. It’s difficult, but it was really well done and powerful. 

Ocean Vuong’s novel On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous is amazing. The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing is a really incredible book too – she studies this mushroom that became a delicacy in Japan in the 7th century. It started growing in deforested areas – it's in these places destroyed by human beings that these mushrooms survive. [I find it interesting] that this mushroom grows on the edge of precarity and destruction. Like with Black folks, there is a constant aspect of insisting on yourself and reinventing yourself in the midst of constant effort of destruction.

W*: What was the first piece of art you remember seeing? How did you feel about it?

JM: One of the first times I remember being moved by a work of art was looking through my mother’s Rembrandt book. We brought so few things back from Ethiopia and that was one of them. [Particularly] Rembrandt’s The Sacrifice of Isaac. That story is so intense. I was so moved by the light and the skin and the way the paint made light and skin. 

W*: Do you travel? If so, what does travel afford you, and what have you missed about it during Covid-19?

JM: I travel a lot, but I haven't travelled this year. There has been this amazing sense of suspension and a pause in that. I miss travelling, but going to look at art, watching films, reading novels and listening to music is the way I travel now. For instance, I’ve been listening to Afro-Peruvian music and now I want to go to Peru.

Before I know it we will be back in this fast-paced, zooming-around environment – there is something I want to savour by staying here, now, in this time and absorbing as much as I can.

W*: You are said to have a vast collection of objects and images. Walk me through your collection – what areas, materials, makers and things have the largest presence and why?

JM: When you enter our home there is this long hallway. Framed along the wall we have around 20 fluorescent Daniel Joseph Martinez block-printed posters he made with words – almost poems. Our kids grew up reading those. One says ‘Sometimes I can’t breathe’ and another one says ‘Don’t work’, while some are really long.

We also have a great Paul Pfeiffer photograph of one from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse series. We have a group of Richard Tuttle etchings right over our dining table. We have an amazing David Hammons body print as well, and my kids’ work is all over the house.

W*: As the daughter of immigrants and an immigrant yourself – how do you conceptualise home and how do you create it?

JM: There were a lot of times I felt very transient – as a student and a young adult, going in and out of school and residency programmes. It always came back to music and food. There are certain flavours, foods, music, smells that you take wherever you go. Also as a mother, I’m building a home for my children. Home becomes something else because of them. They are the core of home now. 

W* How has motherhood affected your practice?

JM: I became much more productive when I had kids for several reasons – one is that I felt a lot of pressure to make [work] in the time I wasn't with them, which of course is unsustainable. A large part of making is not making – thinking and searching. 

When I got to work I could get into it much more quickly. Kids grow and change so fast, you feel time is passing so you need to use it. I wasn't going to stop working, that's for sure. All women who are pushing in their lives make that choice.

W*: What is your favourite myth and why does it hold importance for you?

JM: Right now I'm reading Greek myths to my ten-year-old. We’ve read them before, but he wanted to read them again. I still read to him at night even though he's a voracious reader himself.

The myths I remember the most are myths I’ve come across in visual works. Titian’s Diana and Actaeon – I know that myth so well because of his painting. Bernini’s mesmerising sculpture of Apollo and Daphne I saw in Rome, where her body becomes a tree. The leaves are so delicately carved into the marble, it's a work of incredible beauty. I’ve been considering this deconstructionist approach to mythology. Storytelling becomes this place to interrogate propositions, which is what I think mythology does.

W*: Have you experienced a flattening of your work?

JM: I'm always concerned with flattening and pigeonholing. That is something that happens to artists like us all the time. When I first was working and showing there was a bit of that happening with my work. It was put into the space of cartography or an architectural analysis of it. It was said to be autobiographical work.

The art world tries to consume. There is this desire to flatten and the desire for Black artists to be a reflection of their experience. I don't think any artist is like that at all. In reality, none of us are flat. We all contain multitudes and are complicated – that has always been the core of the Black radical tradition.

In our ongoing profile series we talk to artists about what they’re making, what’s making them tick, and the moments that made them.

INFORMATION
Julie Mehretu’s retrospective runs from 25 March - 8 August, 2021 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. whitney.org

ADDRESS

99 Gansevoort St
New York, NY 10014

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At Tallinn Art Hall, the largest solo show by Estonian artist Flo Kasearu spotlights one of the most acute and poignant issues of our time: domestic violence against women. 

This is undoubtedly a challenging subject to broach, but one of which the artist has a good understanding. In 2009, her mother Margo Orupõld founded a women’s shelter in Pärnu, Estonia, one among a wave of refuges to open across the country since the early 2000s. Kasearu’s exhibition, ‘Cut Out of Life’, tells the stories of some of the women who sought help. 

Kasearu is perhaps best known for her site-specific art project House Museum (Majamuuseum), which – as the name suggests – is both the artist’s home, and a work of art addressing labour and gentrification. Her socially charged, wide-ranging practice spans performance art, video, photography, painting and installation, interrogating topical subjects with an experimental approach. 

Kasearu has imagined ‘Cut Out of Life’ in chapters that trace the steps survivors often take to reclaim independence from abusive partners, combining individual narratives with collective views and those rooted in Estonian history. Under the Soviet Union – from which Estonia only gained independence after its dissolution in 1991 – the role of women was complex: they were expected to maintain economic independence, while remaining socially reliant on men. Though the exhibition centres on women in Estonia, these are potent themes beyond its borders. Last year, the UN described a global increase in domestic abuse as a ‘shadow pandemic’ running in parallel to Covid-19. 

The themes Kasearu is confronting are immense, significant and timely. In the main hall, a forest of house plants in various stages of decay nods to the fragility of domestic space. Elsewhere, surreal, almost bodily chair sculptures are both inviting and unnerving. This is a show as striking for its aesthetic variety as its piercing subject matter. 

Within her juxtaposed blend of media, where readymade objects are armed with new meaning and films narrate deeply personal experiences with universal potency, there is, remarkably, room for humour. As Cathrin Mayer, curator of the exhibition says, ‘With an abundance of conceptual thought, wit, and humour, this show addresses the very serious and acute problems around domestic violence and follows the journey of women on the course of regaining independence and self-determinacy.’ 

Kasearu’s distinctive blend of political rhetoric and subversive wit frames these women not as victims but as empowered, critical and resilient voices questioning one of the most pressing and devastating issues of contemporary times. 

INFORMATION

‘Cut out of Life’ forms part of Tallinn Art Hall’s 2020-21 focus on feminism in the 21st century, highlighting the issues confronting women today. kunstihoone.ee

Kasearu’s exhibition is closed for physical viewing due to lockdown restrictions, but is accessible on the gallery’s virtual exhibition platform. virtuaal.kunstihoone.ee

flokasearu.eu

At Museum Frieder Burda’s Salon Berlin, visitors can expect to be consumed by a cloud of pink: strings of rhythmic pink pom-poms dangle from the ceiling; soft pink carpet cushions underfoot. Here, Paris-based American artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy is exercising his fascination with immersive spiritual transitions and offering viewers a portal to an alternative reality, even for just a moment. 

When it comes to media, the artist’s allegiance is far from set in stone. But at the heart of a practice that spans sculpture, printmaking, ceramics and painting is performance. In his exhibition, ‘Window to The Clouds’, the wool pom-poms, which frame new paintings and ceramic works, are both filters through which to view, and interactive installations in their own right.

Lutz-Kinoy’s paintings are embedded with all the carnal potency of 18th-century traditions: liberal application paint, vigorous bodily forms, gestural brushstrokes and ethereal translucent layering which explores depth, both in concept and physicality. These works are dense with references to divine and spiritual symbolism: there are cherubs, angels, and nods to Auguste Rodin’s La Porte de l'Enfer (1880-1917), itself inspired by Dante’s monumental narrative poem, Inferno. 

Among his many influences, Lutz-Kinoy draws on the work of performance theorist José Esteban Muñoz, specifically, his book Cruising Utopia (2009), in which he writes, ‘Futurity can be a problem,’ arguing for the existence of many potential futures within the present. In ‘Window to The Clouds’, Lutz-Kinoy fuses the vocabulary of representation and performance to illustrate that time, though quantifiable, is not linear. §

INFORMATION

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, ’Window to The Clouds’, until 5 June 2021, Salon Berlin, Museum Frieder Burda

museum-frieder-burda.de

ADDRESS

Auguststraße 11-13
10117 Berlin

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Anri Sala’s work explores the moment between the tangible and intangible. It exists somewhere between a time and a space, perhaps even ricocheting between the two. Sala’s thought-provoking and evocative time-based work goes to often difficult places, giving voice to thoughts, feelings and events for which language is not enough.

His latest major work is a monumental installation at the Bayou Buffalo Park Cistern, an underground reservoir in Houston, Texas. It combines film, sound and installation, tapping into the sense of equanimity of above and below that the artist associates with the ‘Space City’. Titled Time No Longer, the immersive work is inspired by African American astronaut and saxophonist Ronald McNair, who was launched on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 with the intention of recording music in space. Had the rocket not exploded seconds after take-off, he would have.

Subterranean and vast, the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern is 87,500 sq ft large and 25ft tall, with 221 columns throughout. It evoked space exploration to Sala, who visited the space with one idea in mind, but recalled the story of McNair when standing inside the unique structure and went with that instead. 

‘Every person who travels so far away from Earth is a pioneer by nature, but McNair was also a man who aimed to be the very first person to seriously record music in space,’ Sala says.

Projected intermittently onto translucent Hologauze is a turntable, floating, weightless. The stylus grasps for purchase on the record’s grooves, sometimes managing to communicate music, other times skipping and revolving back into space resonant of the moment McNair never played. As the motion repeats we hear snippets of music.

‘It’s like a train of thought, or of music being continuously interrupted and us somehow wanting to make sense of this interruption,’ Sala explains.
 
The screen is only visible when the film is projecting, leaving the viewer to contemplate the space in darkness. When the film is running, it is reflected in the surrounding water, creating the illusion of infinite turntables tumbling through infinite space.
 
The work’s soundtrack is a mixed clarinet and saxophone rendition of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, perhaps the most famous piece of music composed in captivity. Written by Messiaen while in a German prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War, the music communicates a deep sense of loneliness for Sala. 

In the recording, it’s hard to distinguish one instrument from the other, a deliberate effect. ‘Sometimes it sounds like one and sometimes like the other. It is also playing with this idea that the clarinet might sound like a saxophone before it exists, in a sense asking what would a song sound like before it plays?’

The original music McNair intended to record was due to feature on the album Rendez-vous, in collaboration with French composer Jean-Michel Jarre. It was later performed and recorded by Jarre at a tribute concert following the accident. Sala has used jazz in his work previously and is drawn to the music for its lack of narrative. The work Long Sorrow (2005) saw him suspend the saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc 60ft in the air from a disused housing project in Berlin.

‘He was anchored in space and he used music as a way to make his mind drift away from the situation he was in, while Time No Longer is the other way around, because it's about drifting in space, like the turntable, but being anchored in time.’

Time No Longer, like Long Sorrow and Answer Me (2008) – which was shot in a geodesic dome at Teufelsberg in Berlin – relates to its architecture. ‘I like to find a narrative that conveys the attributes of the space. One which treats the space as if it was an organ, not merely a receptacle.
 
‘In other words, I tend to try to approach space as an instrument, rather than a backdrop to a narrative that’s being played solo within it.’ Sala explains. ‘When the space becomes tangible, allowing it to play a collaborative part in a form of retelling, it elicits curiosities about context and history, quite unlike and beyond those that storytelling conveys.’
 
A performance without a performer, a lonely turntable floating through space, this reflective work speaks to the experience of many of us in recent times. 

INFORMATION

‘Time No Longer’, until 12 December 2021, Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, Houston

buffalobayou.org

ADDRESS

105b Sabine St 

Houston, TX 77007

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For a 2019 solo exhibition at the Met Breuer, titled ‘Vessel Orchestra’, artist Oliver Beer presented 32 hollow objects from the Met’s collection, across many time periods and places, ranging from an ancient Persian jar to a ‘Shiva’ vase by Ettore Sottsass. Suspending a microphone in each of them to capture the specific note at which sound would resonate, he created a two-and-a-half octave instrument that could be played like a piano, revealing the hidden audio dimension of these diverse cultural artefacts and bringing them together in musical harmony. It’s an approach echoed in his favourite nibble, a Korean candy bar (gangjeong) with a ‘super crispy amazing percussion crunch’.

His preferred recipe, by Korean-American YouTube sensation Maangchi, sees freeze-dried strawberries and raspberries added to the more traditional mix of peanuts and sesame seeds, a small nod to the cultural inheritance and transformation highlighted in Beer’s artwork.

This article originally featured in the April 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*264), available for free download 

INFORMATION
Beer is part of British Art Show 9, showing until 4 September. southbankcentre.co.uk

ropac.net

The haunting, mysterious imagery with which the Japanese artist Izumi Kato has made a name for himself is as otherworldly as it is subject to interpretation. Following a successful show at Perrotin gallery in Paris last year, Kato presents a new body of work at the gallery’s New York location this month after a five-year hiatus from the city.

Taking over two floors of the gallery’s historic Lower East Side space, Kato’s latest works range from new mixed-media sculptures and installations to paintings in a variety of scales. The exhibition showcases not only the artist’s significant output in recent years, but also his dexterity across mediums. With works installed in vignettes around the gallery space, either as a cluster of spirits or as stoic, sphinx-like beings, the show culminates in an assemblage of fabric and soft vinyl sculptures that are suspended through the building’s three-storey stairwell.

The self-titled exhibition casts Kato’s ghostly, humanistic figures in an unadulterated fashion. Embryonic in form, and configured with hollow eyes, reduced limbs and bulbous heads, the way each figure is positioned – be it painted on soft textiles or constructed as an arrangement of stones, quietly gazing forward – conveys an omnipotent aura that invites viewers to contemplate another realm. Mirroring the belief in animism as it stems from Shinto tradition, Kato’s paintings and sculptures appear almost as vessels that serve to house spirits from another world. Whether made from solid wood and stone or fashioned from textiles that are then bound in chains and weighted to the floor, these entities hover eerily between two realms.

Kato’s approach to creating is as instinctive as his work indicates. Born in 1969 in Shimane, Japan, the artist generates enigmatic imagery that reflects the confluence of cultural beliefs that he was exposed to growing up. ‘Shintoism, Buddhism, and Animism are all mixed in my hometown. I am influenced by my upbringing, where everything has a life of its own,’ he explains via a translator. ‘I am aware that the human form I paint is not a specific person, but instead, I am using a person's shape to paint. It could be you, and it could be me. I don't know who it is. Using such an anonymous person, I am not focusing on the individual, but on the being itself.’

One particularly intriguing aspect of Kato’s work is the way each figure, regardless of medium, has been segmented – often divided into halves and occasionally, more pieces. ‘I personally like the joints of sculptures, whether for wood sculptures or soft vinyl,’ Kato says. ‘I sometimes leave the joints as they are instead of shaping them flat. Intuitively, I thought it would be more interesting to leave the joints as they are, but then I realised that leaving the joints increases the work's creative information. An idea came to my mind if I could use that in my paintings, so I began to create paintings divided into sections.’

For this exhibition, Kato also reveals some new works made using plastic models for the first time. ‘The plastic model works started when I thought I could use the plastic models I had been building as a hobby, while I was locked down during Covid-19,’ he says. ‘There are two patterns: one is a combination of the plastic model itself into a sculpture, and the other is a drawing using the plastic model's blueprint as a collage. It is always exciting to try something new.’

Teetering between a sci-fi future and an ancient past, Kato’s creations exude a compelling mysticism, regardless of origin. This is compounded by his agility in moving between painting and sculpture while depicting the same recurring characters in each. Despite bestowing a palpable feeling of otherworldliness, Kato’s practice is rooted firmly in reality.

‘The world is moving at a faster speed than I think. In the last ten years alone, there have been many life-and-death situations, such as the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Covid-19 outbreak,’ he says, having long considered modern history as an influence on his outlook. ‘I think it is essential to be aware of the fact that you are creating works while being in such a real world.’ *

INFORMATION
Izumi Kato’s exhibition at Perrotin New York will run until 17 April 2021
perrotin.com

ADDRESS

130 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002

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Inspired by a summer job as a model maker at an architectural firm, Serban Ionescu went on to study architecture at Pratt Institute, where he thrived creatively and discovered a fondness for the work of Lebbeus Woods and John Hejduk. ‘But the negative side of architecture school is that it builds up this amazing kind of naivety that you’re going to change the world,’ he reflects. Graduating in 2007, he was soon disheartened by the difficulty of making a dent in the profession, and set his sights on being an artist instead.

Growing up in his native Romania, Ionescu could draw before he learned to speak (between the ages of three and five, he drew exclusively in aerial view, taking after his engineer parents who taught him about plan, elevation and section). Drawing became his way of unlearning the lessons of architectural school. He drew and painted and sculpted, bringing the three together in his 2016 Pinocchio Chair – pieces of plywood, painted baby blue, bubblegum pink and bright red, and with the likeness of the puppet carved into the seatback.

It established a cartoonish style that has characterised Ionescu’s work since, a combination of design and art that makes him one to watch on the creative scene. 

Today, the now Brooklyn-based Ionescu often works with sheets of powder-coated steel, and his output stretches across scales: the largest, Chapel for an Apple (2020), is a 20ft-tall folly nestled in a field in Hudson in upstate New York. Its outline evokes both a prototypical chapel and the area’s industrial heritage; there’s a viewing platform, an apple-shaped entrance and Lego-like colours for a dash of whimsy. Among the smallest are his ICES (In Case of Emergency Sculptures), with a rough resemblance to Swiss army knives. These are ‘objects of dormant utility’, says Ionescu, pointing to the uncertainties of the pandemic era and the evolving definitions of design and art.

His rising stature is reflected by his inclusion in the group show ‘Objects: USA 2020’, currently on at New York’s R & Company. One of 50 contemporary ‘object makers’ to participate, Ionescu created a new piece, Aza, ‘furniture, architecture and sculpture crashing into one’. The gallery’s principal, Zesty Meyers, has worked with Ionescu for two years. ‘Every time you look at his work, you find new interesting details,’ Meyers enthuses. ‘The mix of colour, architecture and abstract forms create relationships in a way that I have never seen before.’

Meanwhile, Ionescu’s first solo exhibition in Europe is about to open at Antwerp’s Everyday Gallery. Titled ‘In Order of Appearance’, it features smaller-scale pieces that show ‘how a cast of characters becomes things, becomes furniture’. Stuck in Toronto for ten months during the pandemic, Ionescu set out to create at least one drawing a day and has since accumulated more than 500. What began as a personal project is now poised to occupy gallery walls, offering an opportunity for viewers to glimpse into his fertile imagination. ‘It’s going to show a bit more of how things come together,’ he says.

INFORMATION

This article originally featured in the April 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*264), available for free download

‘In Order of Appearance’, 20 March – 27 April 2021, Everyday Gallery, Jos Smolderenstraat 18, Antwerp. everydaygallery.art
‘Objects: USA 2020’, until 31 July, R & Company, 64 White Street, New York. r-and-company.com
serbanionescu.com

If the last year has taught us anything, it’s the power of human connection. And while we’ve been deprived of revelry, community and physical contact, there are signs that the world may soon emerge from hibernation. 

For Paris-based fashion illustrator, painter and cultural writer Jean-Philippe Delhomme, it was a human connection that inspired his new mural for Carlyle & Co, one that spanned half a century. 

Over the years, the artist made frequent pilgrimages to Bemelmans Bar (named after Austrian-born American writer and illustrator Ludwig Bemelmans, whose murals adorn its walls) in New York’s iconic Carlyle Hotel. ‘I’ve always felt a certain affinity with Bemelmans, in the way he was painting and writing, travelling, and a sense of humour and fantasy which appealed to me,’ Delhomme tells Wallpaper*. ‘I was very happy to have the occasion to follow in his tracks more than half a century later, and in another part of the world.’ 

Set to launch early this summer, Carlyle & Co is the much-anticipated private members’ club sited at Hong Kong’s Victoria Dockside art and design district. The club was the brainchild of Sonia Cheng, CEO of Rosewood Hotel Group, and draws on the timeless opulence of the New York location from which it takes its name. Carlyle & Co seeks to build on the hotel’s legacy for a contemporary crowd. 

The club will occupy 25,000 sq ft across three main levels, catering for the needs of every member, mood and occasion. It includes standalone dining and bar concepts, a music room, a library, a reading room, a wine cellar, a living room, a private barber, a tailor, among other trimmings. For the interiors, the club enlisted British interior designer Ilse Crawford. ‘We designed carefully to elevate every activity, whether it’s a drink or a dinner, a meeting with your tailor or an evening debate,’ Crawford says of her vision. ‘It is the sense that magic can happen anywhere, at any time of the day.’ 

The jewel in Carlyle & Co’s crown will be its own incarnation of Café Carlyle, which will host genre-spanning live music performances: think everything from smoky jazz to sumptuous soul and flamboyant cabaret. It’s here that Delhomme will stage two murals, New York Shuffle, and You, the Night, and the Music. ‘I thought of it first as an evocation of a fantasy, a classic New York City, which I always like and always made me dream,’ he says of New York Shuffle, his main mural for the location. ‘I thought it would be amusing for the mural to also be a tribute to Bemelmans, and I painted my own version, inspired by some of his characters: rabbits and dogs and even an elephant, dressed up to our contemporary standards, like a dog jogging with his ear pods.’ 

Delhomme never works with an assistant; he likes to retain the spontaneity and keep the painting ‘alive’ instead of ’simply reproducing the sketches’. The artist began with gouache sketches on paper. Three months later, the murals were complete, comprising two 10m x 1.9m paintings. ‘It’s very important that in a painting, each area is alive and expressive to convey its own energy,’ he says.

‘It’s very important that in a painting, each area is alive and expressive to convey its own energy’ 

New York Shuffle reads like an anthology of stories, with ‘subtle winks’ to Bemelmans. ‘Most of the figures are imagined, like the musicians, the people in the bar, or in the street, in front of The Carlyle, or a woman reading a book by the lake in Central Park,’ Delhomme explains. But some of the characters are discernable; figures of The Carlyle’s past. There’s Tommy Rowles, beloved Bemelmans Bar bartender for 53 years, American cabaret musician Bobby Short manning the piano, and Eartha Kitt singing. In a personal tribute, Delhomme has included a portrait of Ludwig Bemelmans himself, painting en plein air. The image is inspired by Bemelmans’ travels through France in the early 1960s, when he drove a car that also served as his mobile studio. 

At Carlyle & Co, the art won’t end there. It does, after all, flow through the veins of the club’s heritage. Pass through the velvet curtains of the club and you’ll come face to face with a private collection of contemporary paintings, sculptures and commissioned works, including more murals staged in the lobby and sitting room, this time by Australian-born, New York-based illustrator Christina Zimpel. The club will be furnished with midcentury and contemporary design pieces, including chairs by the likes of Angelo Mangiarotti, Mario Bellini and Poul Kjaerholm, a chandelier by Piet Hein Eek and Studioilse’s stools for Artifort and tables and consoles for Zanat.

Delhomme’s murals are mirrors on The Carlyle’s fabled legacy: the stuff of films, with all its gleaming elegance, iconic design, a compendium of claims to fame and anecdotes of merrymaking. The works epitomise a variety of life that has, in recent times, been temporarily shelved. 

How does Delhomme hope future Carlyle & Co members will respond to his work? He hopes it will start conversations, and that all those who encounter it ‘feel the energy and humour that I tried to convey while painting it, and that this will bring them a smile’.

INFORMATION

Membership applications for Carlyle & Co, due to open in early summer 2021, are now open. carlyleandco.com

jphdelhomme.com

‘Female voices of Latin América’ is more of a festival than an exhibition. Involving more than 60 international galleries and institutions, 150 living artists and 19 represented countries, the momentous digital show marks the biggest ever presentation of work from Latin American female artists.

Presented by extended reality (XR) platform Vortic and coinciding with International Women’s Day, the cross-generational initiative offers the floor to artists at various stages of their careers, with work that spans from 1968 to the present day. Exhibiting artists include Liliana Porter, Beatriz Milhazes, Adriana Varejão, Ad Minoliti, Sol Calero and Valeska Soares. 

The show seeks to remedy the lack of historical representation of women from the region in the global art sphere. It also draws timely attention to the tendency for Latin American female artists to be overlooked until the latter parts of their careers. Notably, Cuban-American minimalist pioneer Carmen Herrera sold her first painting aged 89 and received her first retrospective museum show at 101.

‘We have grown tired of not seeing female artists from Latin America receive the recognition they deserve in their own lifetime, says Elena Saraceni, Curatorial Director, Voices of Latin América and Special Projects Consultant at Vortic. ‘As a platform, “Voices of Latin America” plays a well-deserved tribute to those with a remarkable artistic trajectory as well as promoting the current and next generation of artists.’ 

‘Female Voices of Latin América’ marks the first iteration in a series of thematic shows which aim to amplify art from the region.

INFORMATION

’Female Voices of Latin América’ will be live on Vortic from 8 March – 2 May 2021. vortic.art

Staircases lead nowhere; walls bring passages to an abrupt halt; ceilings appear without warning. In the surreal world of David Umemoto’s brutalist concrete sculptures, reality has little authority and imagination roams free. 

Like many creatives during the pandemic, the Canadian artist was deprived of studio access for many months, forced to find new modes of creation. This prompted a period of exploration, ‘mental gymnastics’ and though the artist was well versed in planning his concrete sculptures on paper, he set himself a new challenge. 

Inspired by Japanese kirigami, the former architect conceived three-dimensional objects using only a square sheet of paper, without loss, without additions and without glue. This resulted in a new exhibition ‘Folded Stone’, now on view at Modern Shapes Gallery in Antwerp. ‘My concrete work is done in the mass. I usually start with a theoretical prism from which I remove matter. The process with paper is totally different since it is surface work’, the artist explains. ‘I start with a generally square sheet that I cut and fold. In this new Folded Stone series, I try to position myself halfway through this mass-surface duality.’ 

Umemoto’s hand-created work sits at the intersection of architecture, sculpture and pure fantasy. His low-tech approach stems from a commitment to plainness, simplicity and imperfection, far removed from the fast-paced demands of modern production. Each component is cast using modular moulds which can be arranged – and subsequently rearranged – like concrete puzzles. 

Umemoto’s influences are somewhat eclectic, from pre-Columbian rock dwellings to fragments of Babylonian cities. Artistically, it’s Rachel Whiteread meets MC Escher; or the surreal twists of Giorgio de Chirico combined with the postmodernist mazes of Ricardo Bofill or the haunting webs of Giovanni Battista’s Prisons of Piranesi. There’s an eerie quality to these matrix-like sculptures – architectural dioramas which, if one were to enter, might never leave. 

Like much of Umemoto’s work, Folded Stone is an exercise in imagination, restraint and the poetics of architecture

INFORMATION

David Umemoto: ‘Folded stone’, 4 March - 28 March 2021, Modern Shapes Gallery. modernshapes.com

davidumemoto.com

ADDRESS

Museumstraat 29
2000 Antwerpen

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An artist’s life is mostly solitude. Unaccompanied hours, days, or even weeks in the studio conceiving, designing, constructing and finessing; alone with one’s thoughts and creative impulses, triumphs and doubts. So, how does the enforced isolation of a global pandemic affect the working artist? How does an international lockdown impact on the lifestyles and working practices of a profession that is voluntarily locked down for most of the year anyway? 

With a body of mixed media work, indoor and outdoor installations defined by the natural world, an interest in the memory of materials and carefully measured observation of how the hand relates to different technologies, artist Claudia Comte has spent her time in isolation wisely. She moved into a new home and workspace with her curator partner, travelled less, worked more, and looked outwards from her position of confinement.

Born in Switzerland’s Jura Mountains, with a countryside atelier outside Basel, Comte took part in the recent (virtual) Verbier Art Summit where she discussed her recent pre-pandemic foray into multi-coloured oceanic marine life and ecological conservation, now a recurring subject in her work. 

Billed as ‘an international platform for discourse in a non-transactional context’ the Verbier Art Summit’s mission is to connect thought leaders to key figures in the art world to generate innovative ideas and drive social change.

Wallpaper*: How has the pandemic been for you? Where have you spent most of your time for the past year, and has lockdown’s isolation inspired a flurry of intense creativity or did you use your time to relax and contemplate? 

Claudia Comte: It has been a productive time creatively, perhaps due to having fewer travel obligations and living close to my studio. Or perhaps it's due to my new home being surrounded by nature. Whatever the reason, my head has been circulating with new ideas. At the end of 2019, I bought a house in the countryside outside of Basel with my partner (curator) Samuel Leuenberger. The property is self-sustainable, it is run on solar energy, has its own water source, biotope and natural insulation, made of sheep’s wool and green roofs. It also has an extraordinary garden. Over the past year, we have been lucky to spend our lockdowns there. Thankfully, my studio is also located on the property in an old converted barn. My partner has an exhibition space on-site called Country Salts. It has been miraculous to observe the garden flourishing through the seasons from spring through winter, now our garden is covered in snow. I do not take for granted how nourishing it has been to be surrounded by so much wildlife this past year.

W*: Has the coronavirus pandemic inspired any new work? Have you been concentrating on any particular facet or discipline?

CC: I have focused more on in-house and local production, which led me to work more in painting. I have also, as many have, become quite accustomed to working virtually with collaborators - I have this sense when on a video call, with my gallerist for example, that I could have been physically there, I feel transported on a Zoom call. This has been useful when I have needed to check on the production of works where I couldn’t physically be present.

W*: Much of your most noted work is large-scale, referencing nature, sometimes interactive, kinetic and often presented outdoors. During lockdown, with galleries closed, has this been a benefit for you and your work? Have people still been able to see and enjoy it?

CC: On 3 October 2020, we opened up our property to the community, showing to a larger public my studio as well as the exhibition space that my partner runs. We curated the first show together and showed a group of artists including, Ugo Rondinone, Peter Zumthor, Solange Pessoa, Violeta Burckhardt and Elise Corpataux. I also installed a wall painting which was a collaboration with Adeline Mollard. At the time of the opening, we were lucky to be between the first and second wave of the pandemic, numbers were low then and people rejoiced in venturing into the countryside for a well-deserved distraction and to see how art and nature can start living and working together. We had around 350 guests who arrived through a slotted registration system. It was a wonderful first project and a great success.

I also opened a show at the Kunstraum Dornbirn in Austria which consists of 40 marble sculptures in the form of drinking cans and a large patterned sail that is suspended from the ceiling. Whilst the show is not yet opened, visitors are able to peer through a large window of the building, which is a cathedral-like relic of the industrial revolution. 

My show at Castello di Rivoli has been extended many times due to the pandemic, it has been installed since 2019. Now the museum will open its doors to the public so that large scale vaccinations can take place on-site. 

Many more art in architecture projects are in the works too. I have two public art projects to open in the coming years; one in Berlin, and another in Basel will be installed soon.

W*: For the Verbier Art Summit you discussed the creative role of forests and Switzerland’s natural environments in your work. More recently, you have developed an interest in ocean and marine life, something not present in land-locked Switzerland. How did this happen?

CC: That is true. In more recent years, my interest in ocean and marine life has become a recurring subject in my personal reflections and artistic practice. In March 2018, I was invited to participate in an oceanic expedition to New Zealand organised by TBA21 Academy, led by the curator Chus Martinez, together with a crew of fellow artists. The academy brings together scientists, writers, thinkers and artists and instigates intersectional and collaborative research, artistic production, and new forms of knowledge, investigating environmental injustice against the ocean through the lens of art. Since this experience, I have developed several works and artistic interventions that incorporate my oceanic findings.

W*: Your Underwater Cacti installation at Alligator Head Foundation in Jamaica is a series of permanent, cast-concrete underwater sculptures intended to help with the revitalisation of coral reefs (a virtual experience of the project is now on view at König Galerie). It sounds like a major undertaking. How did this happen, and how will it work? 

CC: TBA21 Academy partnered with Alligator Head Foundation, where I was invited to an artist residency in 2019. I was producing work on-site at the lab, making wooden sculptures in the shape of the corals I would see from my dives in the region. I was very interested in the ways I might be able to engage with the community during my time in Jamaica. I felt that as I would be taking this tropical wood out of the country I needed to leave something in return.

After witnessing the extraordinary work being done at the marine lab, and the delicate ways in which they help to cultivate new coral growth, I wanted to somehow be involved in the conservation work. So arriving at the idea to create an underwater sculpture park grew out of multiple conversations with Markus Reymann, the director of TBA21 Academy and the marine biologists at Alligator Head Foundation. The sculptures were installed on the seabed in the foundation's protected waters and over the coming years, marine biologists will begin to plant coral on the cement forms, which will ultimately help to strengthen the overall biodiversity in the area. Together we saw how it is possible to produce an artwork that does something else in the world, something practical with a direct positive environmental effect.

W*: It is fascinating to note how you apply rigorous rules, rigid methods, measurements and specific reference points when working. Does this apply to all your work - from the digitally meticulous op-art pieces to the wood sculptures created using chainsaws?

CC: I am a precise and methodical worker. Over the years I have developed certain systems within which I work, they may appear rigid, but for me, these methods create infinite loops and possibilities in my mind within which I feel a great amount of creative freedom.

W*: You grew up in the forests of the Jura Mountains surrounded and inspired by ancient trees, non-anthropocentric data and biomorphic forms. How does the Alpine region of Verbier differ from the Juras, and do the Alps offer a different type of inspiration?

CC: The landscape in Verbier is very different; it is dry, rocky, angular and steep. While, in the Jura there is a feeling of the Jurassic; it is more hilly, incredibly green, like a chroma green, which is, of course, impossible in nature, but somehow it’s an apt description in this context. You see this wonderfully lush moss growing on stones that look as though they haven’t been touched for centuries. It is breathtaking, especially when you are at the top of the rolling hills where you see the lake of Geneva and the Alps at the same time. This natural diversity is what makes Switzerland so wonderful.

W*: You are due to have a new solo show at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid in May 2021. Will this still be possible? And if so, what new work will you be exhibiting?

CC: The show has been postponed twice now but it looks likely it will open on the 10 May, health restrictions permitting. I will be exhibiting the entire body of coral sculptures I produced in Jamaica within an immersive ‘underwater’ landscape that incorporates a wall painting and video installation. The museum curator Chus Martínez and I are looking forward to this show very much.

INFORMATION

verbierartsummit.org

claudiacomte.ch

Claudia Comte, ‘Dreaming of Alligator Head’, is available to explore via the König Galerie app until 12 January 2022. A 3D tour of the artist’s solo show, ‘Jungle and Corals’ is accessible online. koeniggalerie.com

Often using collage as her tool of choice, the work of American artist Deborah Roberts weaves together the complexities of Black identity and gender politics. Empowered yet fractured, celebratory yet critical, her portraits confront systematic racism, stereotyping and societal beauty standards, particularly in the lives of Black children. 

Roberts’ mixed media works are compositionally and conceptually multifaceted. Her process involves compiling internet- and magazine-sourced portrait fragments, which she layers and combines with hand-painted details to create striking figurative amalgams on paper and canvas. These allude to the politically charged approaches of Cubist collage and Dada Photomontage movements that drew on the motifs of African masks and sculptures. 

The title of Roberts’ forthcoming solo exhibition at The Contemporary Austin’s Jones Center, ‘I’m’, nods to the reclaiming of collective identity and asserts a sense of empowerment. Here, new collages and paintings are staged alongside an interactive sound, text, and video sculpture. Elsewhere, the artist turns her focus to racial biases in programmed software. In her ongoing series of silkscreen text pieces, the names of Black women are underlined in red, as if deemed erroneous or unrecognisable in a Microsoft Word document. 

In another striking extension to the show, Roberts has installed a vast figurative mural, Little Man, Little Man, on the museum's facade. The title is taken from author and Civil Rights activist James Baldwin’s 1976 novel of the same name, which explores the challenges and delights of Black childhood. Roberts’ mural depicts a jubilant-looking young boy in six stages of gestural motion. As the artist describes of the work: ‘I wanted these collage works to demonstrate the emotional, celebratory energy of this young child as he tries to make his way into adulthood without being targeted or criminalised.’ 

The exhibition also highlights Roberts’ recent shift to depict Black boys – in addition to girls – which seeks to address the burdens they face. ‘There’s more sadness in these works,’ says Roberts. ‘The same tropes that I use when depicting Black girls to show power, dominance, and agency comes across as showing fear; not their fear, but fear because of the violence and criminality that people have projected on them.’

INFORMATION

‘Deborah Roberts: I’m’, 23 January - 15 August 2021, The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center. thecontemporaryaustin.org

deborahrobertsart.com

ADDRESS

700 Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701

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