‘People don't know this side of me. I want them to see that this came from a passionate place, in an attempt to try to get somewhere with it,’ says Jack White, walking me round his first London exhibition, These Thoughts May Disappear, the day before it opens at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery.

Upon first thought, it is perhaps an unexpected move from White, better known as a musician and frontman of bands including The White Stripes and The Raconteurs and founder of Third Man Records. Yet, even a cursory glance into White’s background reveals a creative polymath who has always worked across multiple disciplines, interested in those hazy spaces where music, art and design begin to blur.

Born in Detroit, and now based in Nashville, White discovered the possibilities in an urban landscape early on, taking the raw materials he saw all around him and stripping them down or building them up, painting them or partnering them, driven by a desire to create.

‘If you have a truck and it's big garbage day and you're in Detroit, you start garbage picking. I was taught about the creativity in taking an old piece of furniture that's headed for the dump and rescuing it and bringing it back to life. It was the first thing I was taught to do with my hands. Someone would say, "I’ve got this old chair of my grandfather’s, I don't want to throw it away." So you reglue it, and then you refinish the wood, reupholster it with new fabric and padding, and you bring it back to life.’

It was only a couple of years ago that White realised that he'd been living by this philosophy in every area of his life. Musically, in his revitalisation of blues and folk, and tangibly, in the physical homes of the independent label, Third Man Records, and vinyl record plant, Third Man Pressing, founded in 2001 and located in Detroit’s historical Cass Corridor. ‘It permeates everything,’ he adds.

White’s first job, as an apprentice at 15, was as an upholsterer, which he followed with the opening of his first shop, Third Man Upholstery, at 21. The space doubled as a studio, and everything – from his tools to his business cards – was yellow, white and black, an early recognition of the significance of a design identity, culminating most famously in The White Stripes’ strict red, white and black palette.

Colour is the first thing you notice upon entering These Thoughts May Disappear. Colour, and the sheer amount of works, which amply fill the lower and upper floors of Hirst’s airy and generous space. White estimates there are around 70 pieces, but is corrected – there are over 100. ‘When Damien [Hirst] first mentioned doing a show together, I came and saw this place,’ White says. ‘It’s massive. I thought, well, I'll have enough for the first room. Maybe that's it. Would they be OK if it's just the first room and the rest is empty, and we don't use that part?’

But as the exhibition started to take shape, filling the space was no longer a concern. Hirst and White first met when White was in the city for the opening of the London outpost of Third Man Records, a stone’s throw from Hirst’s studio in Soho. In 2021, White performed an impromptu gig on Hirst’s balcony, after which he showed Hirst pictures of his sculptures on his phone. ‘He said, "Oh, when's your next show?” and I said, "I've never done one.” No one had ever really invited me to or encouraged it, so I've never really sought it out. I just made work in my own time. He said, "Well, why don't you do one at our gallery?”’

Four years in the making, the exhibition unites a vast body of new work created for the show with more historical works, going back to pieces White made as a teenager, with an emphasis on found materials at its heart. He worked with Connor Hirst, Damien’s son, on a curation which encompasses many works never shown publicly before.

Throughout, there is a nod to this early scavenger spirit, the resurrection of dead materials, or discarded objects, rethought entirely or coated generously in a glossy epoxy resin (‘I like making it so you want to eat it, you know – you just want to take a bite out of the box,’ he says). He is drawn to certain motifs which he reworks throughout. Strikingly, when you enter, it is a model he has dubbed Ukulele Joe, a figure he originally found in a junk shop and then reproduced in a rainbow of different iterations crafted from 3D-printed thermoplastic resin, in different colours and sizes.

On our walk-around, he pauses before the life-size version. ‘I just idolise him,’ he says. Why? ‘He's just so suave. He's got everything figured out. He's so secure in his look. His face is so compelling to me. There's a bit of that multiculturalism of America. There's the kitchiness of America, camp ideas of carnival prizes mixed with what people would put in their home as a nice piece of art – but it's really made out of chalk.’

Stretching up to the double-height ceiling in the second room is a remake of the 2015 sculpture The Red Tree, a project which originally saw White paint a dying tree in his garden red. It has been carefully reproduced here. ‘It died, I brought it back to life, and it died again, and now we're bringing it back to life in a fake version of it – a plastic resin version of the tree which is also the height of the room,’ says White. ‘It was very collaborative for me in Nashville, with the team in London and the fabricators in China. To be able to be a director of a concept was really nice.’

Some pieces are slyly playful. White has repurposed a series of oak and pine wood pallets, imagining different, official uses for them. ‘The beginning of this concept was a fake company called the Pallet Cleanse Corporation. I was garbage picking all these pallets, and I was imagining if there was a company that used them for different businesses and different genres and special interests.’ So we have one for ambulances, painted helpfully with red crosses, and one for schools from which chairs are stacked. They hit that teasing spot – satirical, but also possibly quite a good idea.'

Many things aren’t quite what they seem here. While White has created a world outside of music, it lingers. He demonstrates the microphone in the ear of his lifesize Ukulele Joe – sing through it, and your voice will project through his mouth – and feel free to adjust the echo. Beautifully constructed chairs contain hidden amplifiers and speakers. A bag of scented cedar wood is secreted inside one chair. Under another, I glimpse a samurai sword.

The exhibition closes with the work of six artists, from Ai Weiwei to Damien Hirst, who have put their own interpretation on the amplifier White designed for Fender in 2024. ‘There was only one rule: it has to still be able to play,’ White says. ‘I’m just so thrilled they would do this.’

Throughout, White’s joy in a more unconventional standard of beauty is clear. ‘Does this thing still have the potential to be beautiful and come alive again?’ he asks. ‘Can you bring it back to life? These things have spiritual connotations at times. When you look at the concept of any time a human being tries to create, they are in a way, mimicking creation from God. We can't create from nothingness, we have to create from something that already exists, whereas if there is a God, he or she created from nothingness. Can you imagine if you could wave your hand and make a beautiful statue appear? We can only work from the scraps that we were given on this planet. I like that. That's a challenge.’

Why now, I ask. He hadn’t even thought about putting on an exhibition until Hirst asked him, he says. ‘When someone knows you in the mainstream, you go with it, because you've got a window where people are relating to something you're creating. I was in a bunch of other bands when The White Stripes broke, it was – OK, that's what you want me to do. Even in music, I wanted to be a drummer. I didn't want to play guitar, but that's what people wanted me to do. They related to that part of me, so I don't give a shit. I'll do what works with them, I'm going to go up and do a half-hour drum solo. Maybe someone might like it, or I might read my poetry, and maybe a couple of people might like it. But if I put a melody to that poetry, now I have got 100 people in the room wanting to share it. So I'm going to see now, for the first time, how people are going to respond to things that I physically created.’

White approaches his art as he does his music – he doesn’t know what will happen with the found materials he collects, but he steps back and allows them to come to life. ‘You set up a room, and you bring in the materials, and you get out of the way. Get your ego out of the way, get any of your hang-ups out of the way, and let it happen. If you come in like no, no, no, it has to be like this, and be strict about certain things, it might work, but it also might block you from the beautiful things that might happen by accident.’

THESE THOUGHTS MAY DISAPPEAR, from 29 May – 13 September 2026 at Newport Street Gallery, London

What is London art to you? Is it the haunted faces from Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach, ripped from a city at war? Or perhaps a punkish spirit reigns, in Damien Hirst’s medicine cabinets and Slawn’s bold streaks of colour and Yinka Shonibare’s playful motif? Or perhaps it’s all of them, in which case Saatchi Yates’ celebration of London is calling your name.

Beginning in the aftermath of the Second World War, a new exhibition, ‘Once Upon a Time in London’, gathers established and emerging artists in an eclectic consideration of London’s impact on the cultural landscape. For gallery founders Arthur Yates and Phoebe Saatchi Yates, who upon opening the space in 2020 were told that London’s art scene had been overtaken by Paris and Milan, it feels like a defiant return to form.

Works from artists including David Hockney, George Rouy, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Michael Armitage, Jade Fadojutimi, Peter Doig, Chris Ofili and Bridget Riley trace Britain’s artistic movement from post-war, through recessions and pandemics, to Brexit and onwards. There’s a party spirit throughout, and a packed programme of events and collaborations; highlights include a catalogue overseen by Norman Foster, the launch of St John x Saatchi Yates’ wine, and a mischievous Nicky Haslam art-world tea towel.

Art on show is an eclectic mix, with a rethinking of traditional mediums key throughout. Contemporary moments, such as Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s enigmatic reworkings of figurative painting, join a classic rethinking of genre, seen in the subversive female figures in Jenny Saville’s graduation show. Seen together, the works are a triumphant love letter to London’s best bits. ‘As a gallery, we want to build a dialogue between the art world and the public,’ say the founders.

'Once Upon a Time in London' is at Saatchi Yates, 12 June - 17 August 2025, saatchiyates.com

Taking over the windows at Selfridges in London this month, Tiffany & Co pays homage to its nearly 200-year history and the famous window displays at its Fifth Avenue store in New York. Celebrating the luxury jeweller’s longstanding love of art, design and exquisite craftsmanship, this open-to-all gallery features works by four British contemporary artists alongside window displays inspired by the Tiffany Archives.

From the very first store opening in New York in 1837, the striking windows have been a signature draw and a proud tradition, with its enduring allure epitomised by iconic film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in which the lead character, played by Audrey Hepburn, is constantly drawn to the store’s creative displays. When Gene Moore joined the company in 1955, he revolutionised the look of window displays, with his pioneering designs juxtaposing Tiffany jewellery with unexpected, everyday materials like string, popcorn and toys. He also enlisted the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns to collaborate with him. Meanwhile, to celebrate the world premiere of The Great Gatsby film in 2013, director Baz Luhrmann and production designer Catherine Martin created windows glistening with Jazz Age glamour.

Honouring this longstanding connection to the arts, Tiffany & Co commissioned four artists – Damien Hirst, Rana Begum, Jason Bruges and James Righton – to reimagine Selfridges’ windows, with the designs displayed against the backdrop of heritage displays from the jewellery house’s archives. Hirst and Begum both took inspiration from Elsa Peretti’s sculptural bone cuff for Tiffany, with Hirst’s creation intertwining Tiffany’s signature blue with the butterfly, a recurring theme for the artist, and sculptures of medical packaging that reflect his Pharmacy series.

Meanwhile, Begum’s geometric reflective composition explores the interaction of her artwork with the body, movement and light. Bruges uses mathematics and algorithms to explore how generative beams of light interact with the internal volume of a diamond, creating a stunning kaleidoscopic effect. And Righton’s hypnotic, ever-changing piece is an aural expression of life’s ongoing cycles, its illuminated circles undulating to evoke a heartbeat. Within this immersive interplay of light and sound, Tiffany’s HardWear collection seamlessly takes centre stage.

After taking in the Tiffany & Co windows, which are on display until 20 October, visitors can explore the jeweller’s new store within Selfridges, inspired by its Fifth Avenue flagship in New York.

selfridges.com, tiffany.com

Alsace-born, New York-based chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten created waves in London in the Nineties at Belgravia’s Berkeley hotel with Vong, a restaurant which defined the concept of fusion cuisine in the capital. Now he’s back next door at Maybourne’s new property The Emory, London’s first all-suite hotel where life is very sweet indeed. ABC is JGV’s trio of NYC restaurants – ABC Kitchen, ABCV and ABC Cocina – here joined under the same roof for the first time.

The mood: Manhattan transfer with a British accent

Few recent London restaurant launches have arrived with the effortlessly confident swagger of ABC. Which, of course, took a lot of effort to achieve. French designer Rémi Tessier has channelled Transatlantic glamour; a series of Damien Hirst artworks called ‘The Secret Gardens Paintings’ anchors the space in London with vibrant pops of colour, but the emphasis on luxe comfort in everything from the tactile furnishings to a wine cave fashioned from amber glass, suffusing the room with a warm glow, feel very Uptown, as too the nothing-is-too-much-trouble service.

The food: Thrilling combinations of global flavours and textures

Fusion cuisine may have been consigned to the garbage shoot of history but Vongerichten’s cuisine still thrills with its borderless approach to mix and matching ingredients. Stiff prices are justified by careful sourcing: exceptional quality British seafood from Portland Shellfish, and foraged ingredients from The Wild Room, among others. Early hits include tacos filled with crispy Dover sole, aioli, cabbage and apple slaw – a crunch in every mouthful – guacamole made with spring pea to scoop up with warm tortilla chips, and an arroz con pollo involving rice stirred through with chicken skin, lemon zest and black pepper.

ABC Kitchens is located at The Emory, Old Barrack Yard, London

theemory.co.uk

See our pick of London's newest restaurant openings

It is clear when pulling into the glorious, 500-acre winery and cultural destination Château La Coste that there is something different afoot. While art aficionados will know Louise Bourgeois’ spider is crouching in the water, ready to spring, as Yoko Ono’s wishes sway on the branches of a tree and Prune Nourry’s pregnant woman reclines into the ground, they may not expect to be greeted by Damien Hirst’s vast anatomical sculpture of a man. Elsewhere, the resigned face of Charity confronts the visitor as they begin their tour around the estate, while a centaur from Treasures points the way.

Damien Hirst’s Château La Coste takeover

These outdoor sculptures dotted around the grounds are only the beginning of Hirst’s immersive, full takeover of Château La Coste. The first artist to completely take over both the grounds and the five exhibition pavilions, Hirst is using the opportunity to showcase more than 90 sculptures and paintings, including work previously unseen, as part of major exhibition, ‘The Light That Shines’, presented by HENI.

A long friendship between Hirst and Château La Coste founder, Paddy McKillen, means this project has been on the cards for years, the obvious culmination of McKillen’s long-standing philosophy to only work with architects and artists he personally admires. 

Seeing Hirst’s work in the context of its Provençal backdrop feels oddly natural. His career-long preoccupations with the tensions between art and science, and life and death, take on a sharp focus when viewed against the natural surrounding beauty, the sculptures at the mercy of the seasons. His work is carefully placed, with great consideration given to the character of each pavilion. Particularly special is viewing the never-before-seen The Empress Paintings in the remarkable Richard Rogers Gallery. Vivid orange, the gallery floats over the trees, a masterpiece of engineering that seemingly requires no support. It’s a magical foil for Hirst’s red and black butterflies, also hovering above us, cast into hypnotic kaleidoscopes in a surreal immersion. 

Underground, the sharks float, swimming through the underwater light of the Renzo Piano Pavilion. It’s a serene, light-filled space for key pieces from the Natural History series, which fluctuate as the light does, peculiarly ethereal. The Bastide Gallery holds the brightly coloured The Secret Gardens Paintings, while new work, Cosmos Paintings, alongside sculptures from the Meteorites and Satellites series, are given the clean white canvas of Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s Old Wine Storehouse, boosted by the intimacy of its proportions. Hirst, who was inspired by the long-exposure images from Hubble Space Telescope for the new Cosmos Paintings series, began by painting the canvases black and fixing them to the floor, to then go over them with paint, which makes for a rough and textured viscerality. 

In the Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium sits a generous amount of pieces from 2017’s ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’, first shown at Punta della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi in Venice. The winding proportions of the pavilion respect the narrative of the work, a thread that runs throughout.

‘Damien Hirst: The Light That Shines’ , presented by HENI, is on from 2 March – 23 June 2024 at Château la Coste

chateau-la-coste.com

Is Damien Hirst the most famous British artist of our time? He might be. You might have seen his Tate retrospective in 2012, or End of a Century at his own Newport Street Gallery in 2021, but given Hirst’s fame and reach, retrospective or survey shows are relatively rare. Given his prolific output, it can be easy to forget to look back at his early work. 

Emerging from the late 80s, a time marked politically by greed and a wide gap between the rich and poor in the UK, was what became the Young British Artist movement, in part born out of the iconic 1988 ‘Freeze’ exhibition. Hirst has always been concerned with both death and fear, and these themes run through his art. They manifest as a focus on pharma, self-destruction, anxiety and decay, with a side of mass artistic production and - most recently - the accessibility of projects like The Currency, which saw Hirst make, sell and destroy a huge number of works which were sold at a much lower price point than the artists’ other works.

The Weight of Things, at The Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art, Munich (MUCA), was curated by Hirst himself and comprises work spanning four decades. Casting back to the early 1990’s, the UK was in recession and coming to the fore was a generation of British artists, gallerists and curators who would alter the art scene in the UK forever and birth a scene which has sent ripples around the world. Hirst, with Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin, shocked with his work through its directness in addressing the unsayable and the fear that surrounds our relationship with death. These days key contemporaries of Hirst, and the artist himself, headline shows at the world’s most prestigious museums and events. 

‘When Logics Die’, 1991, which features a photograph of a suicide alongside a table set with medical grade implements and cleaning products, is still a very shocking work and one rarely discussed when speaking about Hirst’s work. You could say he has gradually mellowed over subsequent decades of his career as his focus moved from the actuality of death to the nihilism of smoking in ‘Forgotten Dead’, 1997 a supersize ashtray filled with real, smoked cigarette butts.

There are many works from the ‘Natural History’ series, including perhaps his most famous, where Hirst placed dead animals into clear tanks of formaldehyde. The shock factor of these works just doesn’t fade as, no matter your feelings on them, they force us to confront our own mortality. These works, as with most of the work Hirst makes, goes to the heart of things. There really is nothing like them.

Alongside a series of impossibly named spin paintings, including ‘School - The Excellence of Every Art Must Consist in the Complete Accomplishment of its Purpose’, 2006, we see lesser-known works, selected and positioned by Hirst. The juxtaposition of the horror-laced dark humour of ‘Jeepster’, 1993 a recreation of a severed cow's head and Fear of Death (Full Skull), 2007, a human skull covered in dead flies, with spot painting ‘Pargyline’, 2005 – a hypertension medication – and the iconic ‘Nothing Matters’, 1997 a cabinet filled with medicine is dizzying. There is an inescapable bleakness Hirst’s early works and, despite ourselves, a humour. 

There is a shift around the time of ‘For the Love of God’ made in 2007, a human skull paved with diamonds, with one huge stone at the pineal eye which we see, alone in a wartime bunker, adjacent to the museum, while we also see work exploring the darker side of humanity such as ‘The Fragility of Love’, 2000, in which a beach ball hovers above a sea of knives. Hirst has selected butterfly works and several pieces from his smash hit Venice show of 2017, ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’, including perhaps his most direct confronting of his own death: a self-portrait in sculpture, ‘Bust of the Collector’, 2016, in which we see a Roman-esque bust of Hirst covered with coral. 

There is something unflinching about Damien Hirst, and this is what we see in this show. He may have mellowed over the years, but his desire to push the boundaries, whether through large numbers of prints distributed through HENI, or burning 1,000 works of art in his project The Currency, show he is hell bent on going against the grain. 

The Weight of Things is on at the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA), Munich, from 26 October 2023 until end of January 2024 

muca.eu

On a wooden gate leading into Buckhorn, the upstate New York property of collectors Sherry and Joel Mallin, a sign cautions trespassers that there is art ahead. Before the Mallins consigned the home and their collection of over a thousand pieces of contemporary art for auction, peppered throughout the 15-acre landscape – anointed Buckhorn Sculpture Park after they began inviting members of the public to tour the grounds – was a series of outdoor works by Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor, Sol Lewitt, among others, amassed over four decades. They were arranged in a scattered fashion so as to encourage a journey of discovery. (Viewers, Sherry recalls, came dressed in sneakers rather than high heels.) 

In one area was a site-specific installation by Richard Serra; elsewhere, a purpose-built art barn completed in 2000 to rival the best contemporary art museums, housing works that could not be displayed on the limited wall space of the main house. At its fullest, the outdoor collection encompassed 70 sculptures, 31 of which will go to auction at Sotheby’s this month, following a landmark sale in London and New York of works by Robert Gober, François-Xavier Lalanne, and Yayoi Kusama.

Francis Outred, an independent art advisor who previously headed up contemporary art at Sotheby’s, first visited Buckhorn in 2007, when the Mallins were selling a Damien Hirst pill cabinet, titled Lullaby Spring. Made of stainless steel with thousands of handmade pills attached to it, the piece sold for the record price of $19.2 million.‘They really looked after everything as if it was their own,’ he recalls.‘They have six children between them, but they also had a huge amount of other babies here.’

The Mallins have known each other since they were 14-year-old students at the Bronx High School of Science, and subsequently became classmates at Cornell University. They rekindled their friendship in the early 1980s, when both were recently separated from their spouses, and eventually married. Joel, a lawyer who at one time represented Lou Reed, was already a prolific collector of surrealist art, accumulating a litany of works that Sherry, an options trader then uninitiated into the world of collecting, found unpleasant at the beginning of their relationship. 

‘The house was filled with surrealist art of the highest order and I thought it was all awful,’ she remembers. ‘It’s terribly grotesque and I hate all of it. And he said, “Well, you’re only saying that because you know nothing about art, but if you hang out with me, you’ll eventually get to understand it and you won’t feel that way.”’ The two joined a contemporary art class at New York University, and spent their first few years together collecting only Picasso prints. Sherry, who had once studied dance with Martha Graham, found herself drawn to a Cy Twombly painting from the Roman Notes series, its brushstrokes bringing to mind pirouetting dancers.

Thus began a passion for work to which the Mallins felt an inexplicable personal connection. They believe their collection is a mirror of who they are as people. They have never relied on the advice of critics or specialists, operating instead on the undefinable feelings that a piece of art evokes. 

The process can seem mysterious to outsiders. Once, during a private showing, a gallerist offered to leave the pair alone so they could discuss the piece. ‘And I said to him, “No, you don’t have to leave us alone to talk about it, we’ve already talked about it,”’ Sherry remembers. Not a single word had been exchanged between the two. 

‘But we came, we looked, we each looked separately, closely, we stepped back, and we looked at each other and we told each other immediately yes. And if you ask me why, I can’t tell you why. I don’t know,’ she says. Outred calls it their gut instinct.

The unspoken alchemy that informs the Mallins’ collecting strategy has nevertheless allowed various threads to organically emerge across the works: memory, the body, life and death, the passage of time. Outred believes the collection is difficult to qualify in terms of universal themes, but that the Mallins have often been attracted to art that you can touch and feel, that engages with the nature of human existence, and what it means to be alive. The outdoor artworks (among them pieces by Berlinde de Bruyckere, Jeppe Hein, and Dan Graham) range from the whimsical and joyous to the morbidly humorous: a neon, Perspex ‘Hell, Yes!’ by Ugo Rondinone; César’s Le Pouce; David Shrigley’s Memorial headstone in granite, inscribed with a list of grocery items: diapers, cheese, Ziploc bags, Nutella, tampons. 

Many of the artists whose works the Mallins collected became personal friends, and what they call their ‘art children’, among them the sculptor Liza Lou, whose Trailer and Closet they donated to the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and Mike and Doug Starn, who recently made portraits of the couple, and often joined holiday dinners at Buckhorn. 

‘There was always room at the table for another person, and we almost always had an extra bed somewhere,’ Sherry recalls. The pair acted as both patrons and parents, collecting works while also forging profound relationships with their creators.

As they part with the collection, there is sadness, and a sense of inevitability. They never believed that they truly owned the works, but were given the privilege of being caretakers for the time they were housed at Buckhorn. 

Lessons can be drawn from the last 40 years. Joel’s advice: ‘You shouldn’t try and make money on the art that you collect. It’s a fool’s errand.’ 

Sherry: ‘We’re not talking about building an art collection for a museum, we’re talking about living with it in your own home, so you better like it.’

Some years ago, after retiring from their positions on various museum boards, the pair continued to be sought out by art friends for their wisdom. ‘We’re not gossipers, if you tell it to us, it stays with us,’ Sherry says. What would later become known among insiders as the infamous ‘Mallin breakfast’ was born, whereby Joel and Sherry would provide counsel to artists, critics, museum directors, and gallerists at their apartment in Manhattan. 

The meetings lasted an hour, from 8.30 to 9.30, during which peace pacts were brokered between various parties, over bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, Joel’s scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, and coffee. Often, people came with their personal problems as well as their art problems – questions about raising a family, and what you do when you have a baby. Canvases were pressed up against the windows and covered the view of Central Park, Lou remembers. ‘For them, the scene outside was like a bad landscape painting. They cared about art and they cared about friendship. That’s the Mallins.’

 ‘A Life in Art: Sculpture from The Mallin Collection’ will go on view in Sotheby’s New York galleries from 18-23 February 2023, before all works will be included in a live auction at 10am on 22 February, and online sale which will close for bidding the following day. sothebys.com

In July 2021, Damien Hirst took a poll to the art community: in The Currency he sold 10,000 NFT artworks, then gave collectors a choice between keeping that or swapping it for a physical version of the piece. The results were close, but teetered on the side of reality – with 5,149 collectors opting for the paper artwork, and the remaining 4,851 sticking to its NFT counterpart. The sale was a test of the perceived value of the NFT, taking in the views of art world collectors and Hirst fans alike. The un-chosen artworks’ fate lay in mass destruction; the NFTs have already been destroyed, and – in a ritualistic exodus started by Hirst on 11 October 2022 – the remaining paper works are in the process of being burnt publicly, ongoing until 30 October. 

In Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery, a line trails around the walls, a slight smoky smell in the air; whether that be for theatre or a genuine drift from the upper floors where the burning is taking place, it definitely adds to the anticipation. It’s clear his fans have gathered together for this termination of works, and the excitement builds from the fact that we’re given only ten minutes to witness the artworks’ celebrity status climb, only to be slashed in one fiery swoop. 

Once we’re in the room, every minute or so another dotted rectangle of paper is thrown into a fire, either by Hirst or one of his team. The six pillars of fire, and the remnants of – at this point likely thousands, if not millions of pounds’ worth of art – are absolutely boiling. Each piece sold as an NFT originally for £2,000, then the ‘rejected’ paper versions ended up in a pile, ready to be burnt. One thousand of the paper works being destroyed actually come from Hirst’s own selection (he’s retained the NFT version of these). Among them, he lists The arboreal cat and With another salute before dropping them in the flames – each artwork has its hand-written name scrawled on the back and is signed along with a holographic mark of its status. 

The ironic twist to Hirst’s performances is part of his act – and part of his art. The intentional disregard he’s shown for the value of his artwork in ’Burn Event’ reminds us that he knows his worth, and he knows how to amp it up, too – with current bids for the surviving paper artworks hitting over £9,000 online.

We don’t do star-rated exhibition reviews at Wallpaper*. But if we did, we might need to break Damien Hirst’s ‘Natural History’ down a bit. 

For ‘shock factor’, it might get a two; this is hardly Hirst’s formaldehyde foray. The show features one recent work, School Daze (2021), a rotating, multipart mobile of individually-pickled fish. It’s a more subtle intervention than the sliced and diced carcasses that surround it, but top marks for the pun. 

More shocking perhaps was Hirst’s recent flurry of Cherry Blossom paintings, mainly due to their distinct lack of shock factor. ‘Natural History’, spanning 30 years of Hirst’s greatest hits in preservation, is a reminder of why the YBA icon pricked our ears up in the first place. This is prime-cut Hirst: unflinching and notorious. 

We pity Cain and Abel (1994), who form the welcome party to this show: two black-and-white calves whose youthful buoyancy has been frozen in blue-tinged fluid since Blur released Parklife. Alive, but definitely not living. 

Further in, This Little Piggy Went to Market, This Little Piggy Stayed at Home (1996) is another sorry, albeit anatomically fascinating sight. You might remember the nursery rhyme, you might not remember the part where the piggy was chopped in half. 

Through saggy-eyed sharks, bowel-like sausages, flayed innards, six-limbed cows, miscellaneous fish, upside-down sheep and Hunterian Museum-esque jarred organs, we find the most startling diorama of all: The Beheading of John the Baptist (2006). It’s not the candy-coloured knives that get you. It’s not even the decapitated cow head perched on the butcher’s block or the clinical, white-tiled floor on which the rest of its body is strewn. It’s a clock that looms above the execution scene in suspended reality. Time of death: 11:53. 

For ‘vegan friendliness’, the show would get a one (unless of course, a no-star option is available). It’s been 31 years since Hirst first dropped jaws with his fourteen-foot, formaldehyde tank-preserved tiger shark. Though veganism was a more fringe affair in 1991, it’s an unavoidable fact of death that for Hirst’s art to live, animals have died, and many people were, and remain, pretty unhappy about it. 

Lest we forget the 2010 interview in which musician and animal-rights fanatic Morrissey told the artist Linder that Hirst’s ‘head should be kept in a bag’ for his treatment of animals. Or in 2017, when Hirst’s Venice exhibition was ambushed with manure by an animal rights group, and the many bouts of explosive disdain for his various butterfly massacres. But the use of dead animals in art was hardly invented by Hirst (one need look no further than hog-hair brushes, mashed-insect pigments or bone char paint). The difference here, one could argue, is the stark honesty. 

For ‘timeliness’, it might get a four (and stay with me here). Admittedly, most people have seen one of these carcass-filled tanks before, or at least an image of one. But never in the history of art has London witnessed simultaneous survey shows by Damien Hirst, Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The city air is pulsating with pungent, visceral animalism, and it’s stifling. Like it or loathe it, flayed, deformed, dissected, crucified bodies (or parts of them) seem to be de rigueur-(mortis), and Hirst’s show plays a leading role.

But why do we keep coming back for another slice? Perhaps Hirst’s formaldehyde sculptures – grotesque as they are poetic – scratch the insatiable human itch for death and mortality. Maybe it’s a comfort to cling onto something as certain as death and tax(idermy). 

A lot has changed since Hirst’s first pickle; life was simpler. Now, in a frenzy of pixel domination, immortal meta-selves, technology-powered monotony, and NFT art dropping (to new lows), maybe what we need is a bit of realism to feel alive, even if it is dead, and marinating in a tank. 

INFORMATION

Damien Hirst, ’Natural History’ is open from 10 March 2022 at Gagosian Britannia Street. gagosian.com

Over the last 60 years, Michael Craig-Martin has documented the evolution of objects that have defined our lives. The Irish-born artist, who has just turned 80, will soon unveil his first solo exhibition The Netherlands at Reflex Amsterdam, turning his attention to the most recent additions to our visual vocabulary. 

The Dublin-born artist spent his formative years in the US. He moved to London in the 1960s and began taking the conceptual art world by storm with his majestic take on the mundane. As a tutor at Goldsmiths in the 1980s, he had a searing influence on the then-fledgling Young British Artists, including Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, and Damien Hirst. 

In the 1990s, the artist pivoted to painting, but his powder-coated steel sculptures – bold-coloured, linear structures that appear like drawings in mid-air – remain an instantly recognisable facet of his work. Fountain Pen (2019), recently installed outside the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, imbues an object synonymous with function with a sense of regal grandeur.

‘All Things Considered’ at Reflex Amsterdam features paintings from the last six years alongside new works. Mostly in 2020, these works emphasise our new over-familiarity with our domestic spaces and the intimacy of household consumer objects. Among his subjects are a bunch of blue bananas, an Apple Watch, and a coffee cup, all reduced to bold, minimal, exacting lines and reimagined in all-consuming planes of colour. 

‘I am always looking for new things to draw and several objects quickly took on a new importance: masks, bottles of sanitising gel, and our laptops’, says Craig-Martin, who created the majority of these new works in 2020. ‘Those objects, but especially the mask, will, in future, immediately recall these times for all who lived through them.’

The paintings are not rendered on canvas, as one might readily assume, but aluminium. ‘There are many attractions about canvas, but for my work, aluminium makes obvious sense. My paintings are made using tape and small rollers, both of which require a surface that resists (which canvas does not do)', he explains. ‘Painting on aluminium allows me to see exactly what I am doing and work directly.’

‘The paintings always start with drawings. I make drawings of individual objects directly on the computer with the mouse. I never make one of these drawings with a particular work in mind. I simply add it to my now vast compendium of such images for possible future use,’ he says. ‘Because of the precise nature of my work, changes when painting are difficult and sometimes impossible. The spontaneity in their creation takes place in the planning which again is all done on the computer. It is a wonderfully flexible tool.’

This bold replication of the ‘things’ that accompany our newly-altered world feels profound; yet the exhibition title, ‘All Things Considered’ feels optimistic. Craig-Martin has turned objects of necessity, banality and consumer culture into luscious, candy-coloured objects of desire.

INFORMATION

Michael Craig-Martin, ’All Things Considered’, 2 October - 15 December 2021, Reflex Amsterdam. reflexamsterdam.com

ADDRESS

Weteringschans 79A
1017 RX Amsterdam

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‘The Cherry Blossoms are about beauty and life and death. They’re extreme – there’s something almost tacky about them,’ says Damien Hirst, describing the series of paintings created for his first museum exhibition in France, devoted to, you guessed it, cherry blossoms. 

The show began with an invitation from Hervé Chandès, general director of the Fondation Cartier, during a 2019 meeting with the artist in London. Over the following three years, Hirst lived and breathed Cherry Blossoms. In his Thames-side London studio, the artist describes ‘diving into the paintings and completely blitzing them from one end to the other’. Just in time for cherry blossom season, the show has now moved to The National Art Center, Tokyo marking the artist’s first major solo exhibition in Japan, which runs 23 May 2022.

Hirst dominated the Jean Nouvel-designed Fondation Cartier exhibition space with 30 paintings selected by Chandès and the artist. These vast canvases, divided into single panels, diptychs, triptychs, quadriptychs, and even a hexaptych, are saturated with vivid colours, and dizzying clusters of erupting buds that attract viewers, but also consume them. 

The celebration of the blooming of cherry trees (or ‘sakura’) in Japan is centuries-old – a deeply-rooted cultural and philosophical symbol. Set against a clear blue sky, they are a vision of ultimate beauty, a phenomenon in their physical magnificence, their ephemerality, and also in their almost-parodic ability to tempt anyone with a camera and an Instagram account to stop in their tracks.

‘They’re decorative but taken from nature,’ says Hirst. ‘They’re about desire and how we process the things around us and what we turn them into, but also about the insane visual transience of beauty – a tree in full crazy blossom against a clear sky. It’s been so good to make them, to be completely lost in colour and in paint in my studio.’

Damien Hirst: from formaldehyde sharks to Cherry Blossoms

At first glance, Cherry Blossoms feels like quite a shift for an artist once dubbed British art’s enfant terrible – the Turner Prize-winning Young British Artist (YBA) was just as well known for the sharks he pickled as the jaws he dropped. But this series is different: it’s beautiful, explosive, garish, yet conceptually shocking in its lack of shock factor. 

But these works are consistent with Hirst’s insatiable appetite for experimentation and with his long-term devotion to painting. ‘I’ve had a romance with painting all my life, even if I avoided it. As a young artist, you react to the context, your situation. In the 1980s, painting wasn’t really the way to go,’ he says. Within the thickly applied brushstrokes is a meeting of modes and movements: the traditional constructs of landscape painting; the gestures of Impressionism and Pointillism, and the physicality of Action Painting; the immediacy of representation, and the zest of abstraction. 

In 1986 he began a series known as Spot Paintings, where coloured dots, which appear to have been painted by a machine, are devoid of all traces of human intervention. Similarly, his famed Spin Paintings are created by pouring gloss paint onto a mechanically rotating canvas.

The Cherry Blossoms feel human, as though Hirst is introducing us to a new concept, and himself. ‘They’re garish and messy and fragile and about me moving away from minimalism and the idea of an imaginary mechanical painter and that’s so exciting for me.’ 

INFORMATION

Damien Hirst, ’Cherry Blossoms’, until 23 May 2022, The National Art Center, Tokyo. nact.jp

fondationcartier.com

damienhirst.com

ADDRESS

261 Boulevard Raspail
75014 Paris

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Synonymous with Alpine glamour, St Moritz is best known as the birthplace of winter sports. But away from the slopes, the Swiss resort is fast establishing itself as an important cultural centre. This season it has come alive with contemporary art – hosting a major exhibition of works by British artist Damien Hirst.

Spread across the town’s indoor and outdoor civic spaces, ‘Mental Escapology’ is Hirst’s first public exhibition in Switzerland. It features 40 works from some of the artist’s best-known series, including Spot Paintings, Natural History and Kaleidscope.

For the first time, the frozen surface of Lake St Moritz plays host to a large-scale sculpture – with Hirst’s 12ft-high The Monk (2014) installed at its centre.

On the edge of the lake, art lovers can catch a glimpse of Temple (2008), a giant anatomical sculpture, and Two Figures with a Drum (2013), which was previously displayed alongside The Monk in the artist’s 2017 exhibition, at the Punta della Dogana in Venice.

‘It’s been amazing to be able to set my work in the incredible frozen lake and mountains of St Moritz, alongside beautiful historical buildings that link back to big themes I love, like science and religion, themes that have influenced my work so much over the years,’ says Hirst. ‘I’ve always thought it’s such a privilege to be able to live with art and I’m so happy to see my work outside in this mind-blowing setting for everyone in the city to enjoy.’

Curated by Jason Beard and produced by Oscar Humphries and Marco Voena, the exhibition creates a fascinating dialogue between contemporary art, the natural world and the historical.

‘The valley of St Moritz is a natural wonder. You have the lake and then the mountains surrounding it,' says Humphries. ‘We tried to use that to show the outdoor sculptures to their best advantage. Temple looks out over the lake and it can be seen from a great distance as it's so large and the colours stand out against the white of the snow and the ice.’

‘St Moritz is also a cultural centre – full of art lovers and with interesting museums like the Segantini Museum. So it has nature and culture, which is the perfect backdrop for a show like this.’

Installing a sculpture at the centre of the lake presented many logistical challenges for the team. ‘When we first discussed the idea we thought it would be impossible,' says Humphries, ‘but Marco and I, and the studio, liked the idea of something impossible.’

‘In the end we put it on a pontoon with a helicopter. Then the ice froze around the pontoon and the work. Now you can walk on the lake and the work feels at one with it.’

Alongside the outdoor installations, works are displayed within some of the resort’s most architecturally significant buildings.

The recently restored Forum Paracelsus, which dates back to 1400 BC, has a history as a thermal bath and provides a unique backdrop for Spot Paintings, and the installation piece Stripper (2006) – a cabinet that contains surgical instruments.

Recalling mandalas and stained-glass windows, Hirst’s butterfly-wing Kaleidoscope paintings bring colour to St Moritz’s neo-gothic Protestant Church, where they are displayed alongside The Ascension (2003), a major formaldehyde work featuring a preserved calf.

The exposure of the outdoor sculptures to St Moritz's winter temperatures has had an interesting effect on the works, which are made of bronze and encrusted with coral.

‘Their origin as artworks is the sea and it is fitting that they’re again connected to water, albeit frozen,’ says Humphries. ‘Since they were installed we have seen ice form on the coral – a reaction we didn’t anticipate. It's very interesting as an exhibition producer to see these magical things happen that we didn’t imagine.’

On display until 24 March, the exhibition follows ‘Aeternum’, Sean Scully’s 2020 show, and the 2018 opening of Hauser & Wirth’s local outpost in cementing the resort’s status as a high-altitude haven for art. 

INFORMATION

damienhirst-stmoritz.com

damienhirst.com

Got a soft spot for the skull, spot, butterfly and pill motifs synonymous with Damien Hirst’s artworks? We suggest you get your digital paddle ready for Virgil Abloh’s latest auction on his modern gallery and retail platform Canary Yellow – a selection of biker jackets, shirts and sweaters that have been customised by the artist himself. 

‘Beverly Hirst Recycler', is a collection crafted on both sides of the Atlantic, by Hirst and clothing artist Tetsuzo Okubo, who specialises in customised upcycled garments, ‘Damien made everything in London, then the pieces were sent to LA where I incorporated my signature patches,’ Okubo says of the punky designs, which include paint-splattered and zip-detail items from Hirst’s archive, peppered with smiley-faced spots, skulls and pills with colourful coatings. ‘We kept an open process and of course, I shared my design with him every time before sewing it down.'

Hirst and Okubo see their creations as wearable art pieces to be worn, not to be displayed on a wall. An item from ‘Beverly Hirst Recycler' will be auctioned every day this week on Canary Yellow. A pixelated camouflage shirt has already sold for $4500. We suggest your set your timer for the next sale. That next smiley face-swathed silhouette could be yours.

INFORMATION
gallery.canary---yellow.com

British artist Damien Hirst has joined forces with Snapchat to develop a new spin art lens in aid of Partners in Health. The initiative sees Hirst's renowned – and divisive – spin paintings spun into an augmented reality experience. Users can create and share their own spin paintings by lashing, dashing and splashing vivid virtual paint onto a round, whirling canvas. All that’s required is the Snapchat app, a reasonable Internet connection and a lust for colour. 

The collaboration is in support of Partners in Health, a non-profit social justice organisation bringing quality health care to vulnerable communities across the world. Stationed in four continents, Partners in Health are using more than 30 years of experience in fighting epidemics to provide vital information and care to those most in need during the Covid-19 crisis. 

‘It's amazing to be working with Snapchat on this totally mega spin art lens and making it possible for millions of people to make their own spin paintings right from their phones,’ says Hirst, who drew inspiration for his famed spin paintings from memories of watching BBC's Blue Peter as a child. ‘I'm so happy that this partnership also supports Partners in Health, a brilliant and forward-thinking organisation that helps communities in developing countries around the world cope with the devastating impact of Covid-19.’

INFORMATION

damienhirst.com
snapchat.com
pih.org

It is no coincidence that modern British sculpture was raised on strong tea and Yorkshire pudding. From Henry Moore to Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro to Phyllida Barlow, the 20th-century sculptural force of this region issued from the pounding heart of the art schools, welded by lineages of materiality and mentorship. Now well into the 21st century, the county’s major art institutions are to be rabble-roused by a new festival of sculpture, Yorkshire Sculpture International (YSI), presenting one hundred days of sculptural song and dance.

With presentations from 18 international artists, outdoor commissions, talks and associated programmes, embarking on the festival programme is not unlike a lesson in the art of lost-wax casting, confounding with endless processes of filling and draining, melting and recasting. For starters, the designated ‘Sculpture Triangle’ spans a fiesty foursome of locations: Leeds Art Gallery, Henry Moore Institute, The Hepworth Wakefield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

The pinnacle is found at the Hepworth: in Jamaican-Canadian artist Tau Lewis’ unsettling aquatic textile collages – advocates for ancestors lost to threadbare black histories; Nairy Baghramian’s intellectually laboured Maintainers, yielding polished wax and aluminium in co-dependency; and Rosanne Robertson’s exposition of the fluidity of queer bodies through haiku-like 1-minute looped films, Stone (Butch) and Pissing (YSP Bothy Gallery). And tempering the political with the spiritual, Wolfgang Laib’s pulsating grid of hand-sized rice ‘mountains’, exalting a humble truth to materials.

Ignited by Barlow’s observation that sculpture is ‘the most anthropological of the art forms’, the inaugural edition of YSI reveals the human impulse to connect with objects is more sentient than ever. Rashid Johnson’s Shea Butter Three Ways (Henry Moore Institute) is a luxurious study of the material coaxed into a three-phase installation, as tactile as it is aromatic. Meanwhile, the question of architectural anthropology is raised by Kimsooja’s quixotic installation of light and mirrors in Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s historic chapel, as well as Ayşe Erkmen’s site-specific installation, three of four, a floor-to-ceiling extension of the recently rediscovered vaulted glass roof of Leed Art Gallery’s Central Court.

Fulfilling its calling card ‘to inspire audiences to rethink their understanding of sculpture’, YSI looks beyond the traditional trio of bronze, stone and wood towards a more interdisciplinary genealogy of making (albeit via a thoughtful foray of the latter in ‘Woodwork: A Family Tree of Sculpture’ at Leeds Art Gallery). Cauleen Smith’s hypnotic film Sojourner, is part political history, part golden-hour feminist utopia, languishing in the seductive desertscape of Noah Purifoy. Embracing community collaboration, composer Tarek Atoui has devised performances with instrument makers in a bid to better understand sound through deafness.

What YSI seems to enact is a retracing of artistic heritage through the material present. If Barlow’s contention is to be wholeheartedly embraced, it surely calls for positive cultural contributions towards our ongoing anthropology. And just as Yorkshire pudding is to roast beef, the story of British sculpture would be a meagre without Yorkshire. Yet the question remains, how meaningful a role YSI will play in the future of sculpture internationally. Will this local treasure find its footing in the non-placeness of the art world’s international event calendar? Only time will tell: the proof is in the pudding.

INFORMATION

Yorkshire Sculpture International, 22 June – 29 September, various locations. yorkshire-sculpture.org

A stalwart of the British Pop movement, Joe Tilson’s riotous experiments in colour exploded onto the contemporary art scene in the 1960s. An increasing disenchantment with consumerism and a growing preoccupation with the rudiments of our world – earth, fire, water – coincided with a radical new direction for his art, which moved from slyly witty pieces inspired by American culture to more abstract and symbolic musings. 

It is his consistently innovative artistic experiments that make him a natural partner for Swatch, the ultimate pop watch brand, whose history of collaborating with artists began in 1984 with Swatch Art Specials and Keith Haring. Most recently, Ian Davenport and Damien Hirst have been among the artists for whom a Swatch watch has, at one time, been a blank canvas. Swatch’s history of choosing both emerging artists and granting freedom to those they collaborate with is their hallmark.       

The Swiss brand strengthened its artistic associations in 2011 with a partnership with the Venice Biennale, resulting in Swatch pavilions at both the Arsenale Nord and in the Giardini, showcasing the fruits of their artist collaborations, including large scale works.

Tilson’s work pays tribute to the city he first visited six decades ago. The Joe Tilson Venetian Watch takes inspiration from Venice’s stained glass windows, with a harlequin playfulness in the colourful geometry of the strap. For Carlo Giordanetti, creative director of Swatch, it was a challenge to reproduce Tilson’s  artwork, so faithfully done that the artist’s pencil outlines are still perceptible on the dial design. ‘The texture and the imprecision is vital – that’s where the beauty is.'    

The design is based on The Flags, Tilson’s art piece for Swatch, which comprises three enlarged paintings that nod to Venetian church facades and the city’s geometric-pattern stone floors. ‘We have a love story with this city,' says Giordanetti. The 24 double-sided flags of Tilson’s vast, colourful piece are a joyful homage to Venice, where Tilson settled fifteen years ago. ‘Art is the fruit of your experience,' say the man who views this artwork in the democratic tradition of artists in Italy working together – Swatch being collaborator. ‘I don’t like the idea of the artist as the star.'

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Swatch website

As art collaborations go, Swatch and Damien Hirst has been a long time coming. An artist with a canny knack for finding the right moment, Hirst has tapped into the 90th anniversary of one of the most enduring pop icons of our time. Who better to add to the prestigious line of Mickey Mouse watches than Hirst? Even at first glance, it is, undoubtedly, an instant classic.

When Swatch’s Carlo Giordanetti launched the Swiss watch brand’s collaboration with artist Ian Davenport at last year’s Venice Biennale, the creative director also made a visit to the breathtaking Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable exhibition, by fellow YBA artist Hirst. The extravagant showcase of 190 works of art – presented as found relics and artefacts amassed by the fictitious 1st century AD freed slave Cif Amotan II ­­– featured a host of seemingly lost treasures, like the shield of Achilles, the skull of a cyclops, the Medusa’s head, and a bronze sculpture of Mickey Mouse, appearing as if covered in coral and ancient algae.

‘The story of our latest collaboration was born from that visit,’ Giordanetti says of Swatch’s newly launched Art Specials. Mickey first made an appearance as a Walt Disney Company mascot in Steamboat Willie in November 1928, and has been reimagined by artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg.

Hirst has referenced Mickey across his artworks, from his colourful Beautiful Mickey Mouse Painting (2012-2013), part of Hirst’s colourful machine-made Spin Paintings, to 2012’s Mickey, which sees the mouse’s black, white red and yellow form reduced to a series of minimalist graphic dots.

‘The idea of our Art Specials collaborations is that artists have a blank canvas to make the watch their own,’ Giordanetti says. Swatch’s two designs feature a graphic figuration of Mickey Mouse on their dials. Their accompanying watch straps are designed in his signature colours. ‘We work with artists who have their work in museums and private collections. It’s incredible that you can now wear a piece of Hirst’s art.’

‘In my opinion, Mickey Mouse has a bit of a Swiss side,’ laughs Giordanetti of the watchmaker’s affinity for the Disney character. ‘He’s always on time and always solving a problem. Now, we’ve reinterpreted his personality with a new Swatch twist.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Swatch website

When the American business Steve Wynn was looking to open his eponymous Las Vegas resort in 2005, the casino magnate had intended to name the $2.4bn hotel La Rêve after a Picasso portrait he owned at the time. A prolific art collector, Wynn has long adorned his properties with European masterpieces and contemporary giants from his private collection. A roll of the roulette dice in front of a multimillion-dollar Manet may once have seemed an oddity, but extravagant art displays have since become the dernier cri of gambling joints.

So to Korea, where Paradise City is the latest entertainment resort to unveil a dedicated new art space, boasting a collection befitting of a museum. Take Jeff Koons’ sculpture Gazing Ball (Farnese Hercules) and Damien Hirst’s Aurous Cyanide painting, which both reside at the entrance where works from the permanent collection will be displayed. Upstairs, monumental installations by Korean artists Lee Bae and Kim Hodeuk dominate the first and second floor galleries.

Both installations consider the allure of the colour black, explored through traditional materials of charcoal and ink. Lee Bae’s Issu de feu (2018) comprises hundreds of charcoal pieces on Korean hanji paper bound together like tree trunks. Similarly, Kim Hodeuk’s delves into darkness with All of Sudden, Drawing the Space (2018) where a series of hanji papers suspended above mirror inky liquid seemingly converges on itself. The shadows cast by the installation on the surrounding white walls are a decided part of the work.

The inaugural exhibition ‘Overstated & Understated’ has been curated by fashion designer and director Jung Kuho. Further works by blue-chip names including Ugo Rondinone, Robert Indiana, Subodh Gupta, Anish Kapoor, and Yayoi Kusama are installed throughout Paradise City. The 330,000 sq m resort is a 1.3 trillion won ($1.14 billion) joint venture between Korean casino operator Paradise Group and Japanese entertainment company Sega Sammy. The art space is part of the next phase of the development, which also includes the luxury boutique hotel Art Paradiso and concept spa Cimer.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Paradise City website

ADDRESS

Paradise City
186 Yeongjonghaeannam-ro 321beon-gil
Jung-gu
Incheon

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The front gallery at Venice’s Punta della Dogana used to house a double-sabre wielding warrior ferociously perched on the shoulders of a roaring bear. Cast in bronze and encrusted in coral, the sculpture – standing more than 7m high – was a raucous overture to Damien Hirst’s flamboyant solo exhibition, ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’. Fast forward by one year, a gently shimmering curtain of blood red glass beads by Félix González-Torres stands in its place. On one side, Urs Fischer’s wax statue of a slightly hunchbacked man slowly melts as the candles on his head flicker away. This year’s show, ‘Dancing with Myself’, trades Hirst’s bombast for an altogether more introspective tone, but proves just as alluring as its predecessor.

Named after Billy Idol’s 1980 pop hit, the exhibition explores the ways in which artists have integrated their bodies, images and personas into photography, video and sculpture from the 1970s to the present day – ‘self-representation’, as curators Martin Bethenod (managing director of the Pinault Collection) and Florian Ebner (chief curator of photography at the Centre Pompidou) call it. Self-representation, as Bethenod is careful to point out, is distinct from self-portrait. ‘The artist’s body is not so much the subject of their work as the instrument with which they can approach a number of themes and stances, often political ones dealing with social or racial issues, and questions of identity, gender and sexuality’, he says.

Opening with Fischer and González-Torres (a smaller piece by the latter, tracing the decline of T-cells in the blood of an AIDS’ patient, appears near the curtain), ‘Dancing with Myself’ suggests a sense of intimacy that at a glance, seems at odds with the monumental Tadao Ando-designed venue. But it succeeds in prompting a pensive silence as viewers then ascend the stairs into rooms filled with an impressive roster of modern and contemporary works – the photography of Lee Friedlander, Cindy Sherman and Roni Horn; the videos of Adel Abdessemend and Lili Reynaud-Dewar; and sculptures by Robert Gober, Alina Szapocznikow and Maurizio Cattelan, to name a few.

Being a collaboration between the Pinault Collection and Essen’s Museum Folkwang (where Ebner was chief curator of photography until 2017), ‘Dancing with Myself’ deftly combines works from both institutions. This allows panoramic perspectives on some artist’s careers – Sherman, for example, is represented by film stills from the Folkwang alongside four decades’ worth of photos from the Pinault Collection. But it’s the new dialogues among artists of different generations that leave the strongest impression.

The Folkwang lent a haunting Nan Goldin image, which shows the artist emerging from a toxic relationship with a bloodied eye and bruised face, yet a brave expression. Within the show, this shares a room with photographs from LaToya Ruby Frazier’s The Notion of Family series, from the Pinault Collection. Three decades younger than Goldin, Frazier approaches the camera with the same bracing honesty, but also brings together three generations of immediate and extended family in her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, telling a story of defiance, grace and even optimism amid industrial decline and encroaching poverty.

Elsewhere, a trio of Lee Friedlander’s self portraits, documenting a journey through the East Coast in the 1960s joins contemporary photographs by the peripatetic Brazilian Paulo Nazareth. Titled Noticas de America, the series was shot as he made his way through South, and then North America on foot, visiting indigenous peoples and occasionally bearing handwritten signs that speak to their experiences of marginalisation and alienation. ‘Vendo mi imagen de hombre exótico’ (I sell the image of an exotic man), reads one. ‘I am an American also,’ says another, hoisted in front of a line of armoured police in what is ostensibly the United States.

Another room juxtaposes disembodied body parts from a range of authors. Among others, There’s a single leg by Robert Gober, jutting out of a wall with a square patch removed from its black trouser to accommodate an unlit candle; an upside-down video by Bruce Nauman, zoomed in to the artist’s lips as he repeats the title, Lip Sync; close-ups of John Coplans’ palm, buttocks and heel, taken as he approached his eighth decade to challenge the convention of hiding aging bodies; a lamp sculpture by Szapocznikow, with a curious resemblance to puckered lips and an outstretched tongue. Of the latter, Bethenod says, ‘it has a feminine presence that looks sweet and delicate and erotic. But in fact it might be the most violent work, because her body was suffering as she battled with cancer.’

The show is not without its confrontational moments – the works of Gilbert & George occupy a central hall, including a large-scale picture, Blood Tears Spunk Piss, which alternates between microscopic imagery of bodily fluids and the two artists in the nude. In the final gallery is Steve McQueen’s video work, Cold Breath, a cinematic projection of the artist fondling his own nipple for ten minutes straight; an expression of racial and political themes for sure, but fundamentally an erotic statement. And while the exhibition excels in its more cerebral aspects, its raw physicality is also not to be overlooked. 

INFORMATION
‘Dancing with Myself’ is on view until 16 December. For more information, visit the Pinault Collection website

ADDRESS

Punta della Dogana
Campo San Samuele 3231
30124 Venice

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The brief, unusually, was to think not outside but in, on or around the box. And, in the summer of 2016, some 53 internationally renowned artists took up the challenge. The result is Cure3, a selling exhibition of bespoke Perspex cubes containing (or in a few cases supporting) unique new artworks to be sold by Bonhams for The Cure Parkinson’s Trust this week.

The project, devised by curatorial collective Artwise, in partnership with Bonhams and the David Ross Foundation, intends to raise awareness and funds for the charity, whose innovative approach funds work which has the capacity to slow, stop or reverse Parkinson’s, and in doing so offers renewed hope for some of the 10m people currently living with the degenerative disease.

Artwise has pulled out all the stops, with a phenomenally generous turnout on the part of the artists. Peter Doig, Damien Hirst, Alison Jackson, Ron Arad, Peter Blake, Conrad Shawcross and Sarah Lucas are just a few of the sought after talents who have contributed their work. The aim has been not only to show leading names, however, but to introduce younger artists who Artwise believe are making headway in the art world, and whose works already reside in important collections and museum exhibitions.

For those interested in picking up a box, it’s first come first served: Cube3 is not an auction. Each work is priced accordingly by the artist (or their gallery),and range from under £1,000 to £40,000 for a cube. they are all available to buy directly via the Cure3 website from 8am on 13 March.

Artwise came up with this concept for Cure3 as it was important to have a project that would work on many levels, says director Susie Allen. ‘We wanted it to be inspiring for the invited artists; collectable enough for people to buy in order to raise the vital funds for CPT and, hopefully, a concept that can be built on year upon year.’

Allen adds, ‘By giving the artists a “blank space” to work with in the form of a Perspex box, we are allowing a freedom in the commissioning process: the artist is invited to do what they want with the space - it can be wall hung, plinth based, contain a 2D or 3D work either inside, on top of, or on the box. Yet at the same time, by virtue of implementing this consistent format, it creates a unified and unique exhibition.’

According to contributing artist Jonathan Yeo, it was the brief as well as the cause that incited his involvement. ‘I get asked to contribute to a vast number of group exhibitions and charity sales, and it’s never possible to make work for all of them. This one appealed because it was conceptually interesting and it presented an opportunity to experiment with juxtaposing 2D media and 3D materials, something I don’t normally do. Above all though, it’s great to be part of this initiative and very worthwhile cause.’

INFORMATION

The Cube3 selling exhibition is on view at Bohams until 15 March. For more information, visit the Cure3 website, the Artwise website, Bonhams website, and The Cure Parkinson’s Trust website

ADDRESS

Bonhams
101 New Bond Street
London W1S 1SR

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Vauxhall may not be the most obvious place for an ambitious art complex, yet this is indeed where the new gallery for Damien Hirst's collection can be found, quietly nestled behind the train track and arches in South London, occupying almost half of the small street. 

Designed by London-based Caruso St John - of New Art Gallery Walsall and Tate Britain Milbank Project fame - Newport Street Gallery is an intriguing collage of five buildings. Each holds its distinct façade, yet the composition forms a coherent whole - the architects treated it as a unified complex, working with material, such as brick colours, that fitted well together. 'They've approached the project with great sensitivity and vision,' says the gallery's curator, Hugh Allan. 

At 37,000 sq ft, the gallery is expansive, its display rooms specifically spanning two levels and four of the five buildings. Three of them were existing structures, listed old scenery painting studios that were purpose built in 1913, which the architects refurbished for the new gallery's needs. They used to be dramatic, single-height spaces and after Caruso St John's intervention, while the space is now divided into two levels, a subtle drama remains, with tall ceilings and light flooding in from large openings on the sides. 

'The [original] spaces were too big to be used as galleries,' explains Peter St John. 'Now, there is a lot of flexibility in the scale and arrangement of the galleries.' These historical buildings are book-ended by two new builds - a striking saw-tooth, corner one, which marks the complex's main entrance and way to the café, and a slim structure at the end of the row, housing the gallery's office space and dedicated shop. 

Three sculptural, white engineering brick staircases connect the different floors and buildings inside, featuring a smooth timber handrail on one side - made at the same German manufacturer Caruso St John used in their Tate Britain project - and a cast concrete one on the other, cleverly appearing to be carved into the wall. 'It is about making stairs more than just being perfunctory and providing a means of escape; they also make the building more expansive and public,' explains St John.

This is certainly a busy week for the East London practice. Their Gagosian Gosvernor Hill project throws open its doors in a couple of days, as does their Liverpool Philharmonic; a sensitive refurbishment and expansion of the 1939 grade II* listed concert hall. 

Newport Street Gallery is the first to launch in this series, opening to the public today - although its fittingly pharmacy-themed café and restaurant will not be serving till 2016. Newport Street Gallery's inaugural exhibition will be 'Power Stations', a solo show of work by John Hoyland (1934-2011); the first one since the artist's death. 

INFORMATION

Newport Street Gallery
Newport St
London SE11 6AJ

Photography: Prudence Cuming Associates, copyright Kioyar Ltd

Visitors to Art Basel in Miami this week didn’t have to walk much beyond the entrance to get the message that the fair was taking its art seriously. On the left, at Helly Nahmad’s booth, an enormous black Alexander Calder mobile, 'Rouge Triomphant' (1959 -1962), was elegantly housed in its own white space – a spectacular piece with an equally spectacular $35million price tag.

Straight ahead, at Galerie Gmurzynska, a $1million Picasso fresco was attracting attention. The Swiss gallery, celebrating 50 years in the business, had brought in Baz Luhrmann (much in evidence, and looking joyfully younger as the years go by) to curate its birthday exhibition. The Australian director had made some classy choices, including a delicate Yves Klein 1961 fire painting where the trace left on the paper had an almost Brâncuși-like form.

After these grand gestures, the fair returned swiftly to the present day. At Sadie Coles, a ceiling installation comprising 1080 plaster 'raindrops' by Urs Fischer filled the booth with drops of colour graduating from green to yellow. At Gavin Brown Enterprises, eight garish paintings by the ever-eager-to-shock Bjarne Melgaard – all punkish voodoo faces and big dicks – had sold in the show’s opening hours at $45,000 a pop. (Melgaard had gone and spent a share of the profits at the Mr Nobody and Mr Somebody pop-up store in the Design District where fashion designer Bernhard Wilhelm’s back catalogue was on sale.)

Meanwhile, Swiss gallery Hauser & Wirth made a tactical nod to North America, where it will open a dazzling new space in Los Angeles sometime next year. 'We’re showing America at its finest,' said Iwan Wirth, of Los Angeles artists Diana Thater and Mark Bradford, while Paul McCarthy’s 'White Snow, Bambi' eclipsed the lot – a three-metre high tangle of pigs heads, hooves and human faces telling a hallucinatory X-rated fairy tale.

Over at Kavi Gupta Gallery, one of Mickalene Thomas’ fanatically detailed 1970s room sets was functioning as an artwork/resting place for tired visitors. 'Bringing this to Miami was a labour of love,' said Gupta surveying the scene. Thomas’ mission is to tell the story of Black America, and to freeze frame the minutiae of daily life. These included a pair of Crocs in highly polished cast bronze – quite possibly the first time that this footwear has looked even vaguely desirable.

ADDRESS

Miami Beach Convention Center
1901 Convention Center Drive
Miami Beach

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Frieze London ought to be renamed 'Frieze Fortnight', judging by the number of events taking place beyond Regent’s Park this year. Anyone visiting the tents alone is missing out, which is why Frieze VIPs will be breakfasting at Tate Modern where Sigmar Polke has opened, going on curator's tours of the Richard Tuttle show at the Whitechapel, and, in case they missed the opening, catching up with Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy. As one would expect, this being London, the YBAs too are out in force. Check out Gillian Wearing at Maureen Paley, Damien Hirst at Paul Stolper and Steve McQueen at Thomas Dane Gallery.

Paul Stolper Gallery: ‘Schizophrenogenesis’ is an exhibition of new prints and sculptural editions by Damien Hirst that explore the minimalist aesthetic of the medicinal pill. Pictured: ‘Schizophrenogenes' by Damien Hirst, 2014. Courtesy of Paul Stolper Gallery © Damien Hirst and Other Criteria, All rights reserved, DACS 2014. 

The Vinyl Factory: The Vinyl Factory Space at the Brewer Street Car Park in Soho has become a go-to venue for artists putting on performance pieces. This Friday, Conrad Shawcross presents his ADA Salon project in conjunction with the record label. Four female musicians will perform to the movements of an industrial robot that has been hacked and programmed by Shawcross to create four different choreographies. These have been recorded onto vinyl and are accompanied by an exhibition. Pictured: Aluminium, steel, light, computer controlled mechanical system. Installation view at Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro, London. 

The Hospital Club: Those seeking artworks for tablets, TVs and screens should head to The Hospital Club where the works of ten female artists are on show. All are pioneering innovations in art and technology according to the online art platform Sedition, which has curated the show. Video and animation, 3D modeling and digital illustration highlight the range of technologies used. Pictured: 'Agon (Mytheme, Étude Op. 4)' by Sougwen Chung, 2014

'Rooms' by Sara Ludy, 2012

'Déjà Vu 2' by Marion Tampon-Lajarriette 

'Forays: Scan I-IV' by Field

The Old Selfridges Hotel: The ICA takes up residence again this year at The Old Selfridges Hotel to host a weeklong programme of music, art, dance and discussion. Expect esoteric content from the likes of Brooklyn-based dance artist and curator Isabel Lewis who creates ‘occasions’ and artist Korakrit Arunanondchai, (who will also be participating in the ICA exhibition Beware Wet Paint on The Mall and will be showing in Frieze's Focus section). An accompanying talks programme focuses on the impact digital technology is having on contemporary art. Pictured: Korakrit Arunanondchai and performers.

Herald St: In addition to its East London gallery, Herald St has taken up a temporary space just off Golden Square. New works by Norwegian artist Ida Ekblad are showing in both spaces, which, as Herald Street co-director Nicky Verber, points out 'requires a dynamic personality'. Being within spitting distance of Marion Goodman, Sadie Coles and The Vinyl Factory, Verber hopes to attract a different crowd and states ‘Golden Square could be a new art hub.’ Pictured: 'Tbc', by Ida Ekblad, 2014

Campoli Presti: New York collective Reena Spaulings has used a floor-mopping robot to create series of paintings that go on show at East End gallery Campoli Presti from 15 October. The collective based its colour palette on JMW Turner's stormy skies. Two of the gallery’s other artists, Nick Mauss and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth are participating in Frieze Projects. Pictured: 'Michael 10', by Reena Spaulings, 2011.

Rolls-Royce: A sculpture of flashing ‘pixel boxes’ lights up the Mayfair showroom of Rolls-Royce for the duration of Frieze. Berlin-based artist Angela Bulloch's one-off piece has the same dimensions, and a similar level of craftsmanship, as a Rolls-Royce Phantom. Bulloch went to the Rolls-Royce workshop in Goodwood to seek inspiration, and was ‘impressed by the technology and quality of leatherwork and veneers that go into the making of all their cars’. Using LEDS for the first time, she adds: ‘The light programme that runs through my 'Cipher of L' piece uses a range of secret colours usually found on the exterior of Rolls-Royce's cars and the work will have a puzzling pattern that nearly never repeats.’

Pictured: 'Cipher of L' by Angela Bulloch at Rolls-Royce's Berkeley Square Showroom.

Sotheby's S2 Gallery: When Sotheby’s opened S2, its new gallery space designed by architect David Kohn earlier this year, its mission was to hold blockbusting contemporary shows. So far it hasn’t disappointed, and this week, five sculptures by the late Duane Hanson went on show (and on sale) in the gallery. All are taken from the late American artist’s private estate and feature the obese, the poor and the downtrodden in eerily lifelike poses.

Pictured: 'Bus Stop Lady' by Duane Hanson, 1983

'Body Builder' by Duane Hanson, 1989-1995

1:54: After its debut success at Somerset House last year, 1:54, a show dedicated to African art, is back. And it’s twice the size. Twenty-seven galleries will showcase works of more than 100 artists from Africa and the Diaspora. Headliners include Beninese artists Meschac Gaba and Romuald Hazoumè and Congolese artist Chéri Samba. A lively seminar programme includes a talk from artist Zina Saro-Wiwa who recently launched the pop-up gallery Boys’ Quarters Project Space in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. To coincide with the opening, online art resource Artsy will sell works from the show. In Fitzrovia, more African art is on show, courtesy of young Nigerian patron Theo Danjuma. A show entitled 'One Man’s Trash (Is Another Mans Treasure)' features pieces from his private collection of 400 works by emerging and established young artists, many of whom are African. Pictured: 'Impis XII' by Robin Rhode, 2008 from the Danjuma Collection

'Corner Chair' by Oscar Tuazon, 2012, from the Danjuma Collection

'Jerry Cans (Oslo 3)' by Matias Faldbakken, 2013, from the Danjuma Collection

'Exit' by Dineo Seshee Bopape, 2013, from the Danjuma Collection

'Fire Truck' by Meschac Gaba, 2008

'Chantou' by Romald Hazoumè, 2013.

The Saatchi Gallery: The Saatchi Gallery has dedicated an entire floor to a show of contemporary art from Ukraine. It features more than 70 works by 38 artists who range from recent graduates to established names (within their country). Most of the work pre-dates this year’s crisis in the Ukraine, so universal themes of identity and stability are more potent than ever. Pictured: From the series 'Invisible Forms' by Zhanna Kadyrova, 2012-2014. © Zhanna Kadyrova, 2014.

'The Blessing Hand' by Stepan Ryabchenko, 2012-2013. © Stepan Ryabchenko, 2013. 

'Beach' by Maxim Mamsikov, 2012. © Maxim Mamsikov, 2012.

White Rainbow: Japan is in the air at this year’s Frieze, what with Yoshitomo Nara’s show at The Dairy, Hajime Sorayama at Evelyn Yard, Shinro Ohtake at Parasol Unit and new gallery White Rainbow. Specialising in contemporary Japanese art, the latter is the brainchild of Japanese collector Yukiko Ito who thinks that artists from her country are under represented in the UK. The debut show features works by young artist Aiko Miyanaga, whose ceramics and sculptures straddle the line between craft and fine art.

Pictured: 'Strata' by Aiko Miyanaga.

'Strata' by Aiko Miyanaga.

'Strata' by Aiko Miyanaga.

Spurred on by David Shrigley's restaurant design for London's Sketch, we've dug into our archive to round up a gang of artists who have stepped away from the gallery to re-imagine hospitality spaces as all-encompassing works of art. Shrigley's Sketch creation follows on from Martin Creed's design for the same space (pictured), for which he paved the room with zigzagged, multi-coloured marble flooring, and fitted it out with an eclectic assortment of multi-hued furniture and tableware - with each piece being unique.

Last year's Frieze Art Fair in New York saw German artist Tobias Rehberger transplant a dazzling version of his favourite Frankfurt drinking den into Chelsea's Hôtel Americano. Rehberger's smart replica, Bar Oppenheimer, featured the identical proportions of the Frankfurt bar, but came emblazoned with striped graphics, dubbed 'dazzle camouflage'.

Designed by artist Ry Rocklen, Absolut's trophy 'Art Bar' installation at the 2013 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach was one of the triumphs of the vodka brand's ongoing pop-up bar series. For 'Night Court' - the most extensive manifestation of Rocklen's 'Trophy Modern' collection to date - a basketball court on Miami's oceanfront was transformed into a bouncing bar scene, featuring bleachers, a ping pong and chess table, all made from trophy parts

Artist Piero Golia launched Chalet Hollywood in 2013 as a gesamtkunstwerk that repurposed an abandoned storage area in Los Angeles into a low-lit, intimate members' club. Golia enlisted architect Edwin Chan to blend the aesthetics of cabaret with an alpine mountain getaway, carving out a late night LA escape. 

To celebrate the arrival of Damien Hirst’s ‘Relics’ retrospective at Doha’s Al Riwaq Exhibition Space last year, the British artist teamed up with Miuccia Prada to create a desert mirage in the form of a pop-up juice bar in Qatar. Located within a nearby Bedouin tent, the ‘Prada Oasis and Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy Juice Bar’ came decked out as a drug store, acting as a reinterpretation of the artist’s late 1990s Pharmacy restaurant

Private Parisian members' club Silencio was conceived by film director, and visual artist David Lynch to act as a temple of the arts, housing a bar, library, cinema screen and stage for private performances. Located in the Paris neighbourhood of Montmartre, Silencio opened in 2011, with interiors resembling Lynch's film sets from Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive

To celebrate the arrival of Damien Hirst’s ‘Relics’ retrospective to Doha’s Al Riwaq Exhibition Space, the British artist teamed up with Miuccia Prada to create an unexpected desert mirage in the form of a pop-up juice bar in Qatar last week.

Located within a nearby Bedouin tent, the ‘Prada Oasis and Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy Juice Bar’ came decked out as a drug store, acting as a reinterpretation of the artist’s late 1990s ‘Pharmacy Restaurant’, and accompanied a nearby Prada boutique, similarly housed within a traditional tent made from sheep hair.

Hirst and Prada first met in 1996 at the ‘Art/Fashion’ exhibition, curated by Germano Celant and Ingrid Sischy in Forte Belvedere, Florence. And although former Prada art extensions such as Elmgreen & Dragset’s ‘Prada Marfa’ store installation in Marfa, Texas were not in fact shoppable, for this project Mrs Prada crafted 20 limited edition ‘Entomology’ Plexiglas bags, encasing bejewelled beetles.

As the Qatar Museum Authority’s director of public art, Jean Paul Engelen explained, the project ‘sought to create an out-of-the-ordinary place which, for just two days, provided a totally unique experience in the Arab landscape’.

The collaboration between Mrs Prada, Damien Hirst, and Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani, chair of the QMA, saw the proceeds from the sale of the bespoke bags dedicated to the Sheikha’s Reach Out To Asia non-profit organisation that aims to improve youth access to education in Asia and the Middle East. 

ADDRESS

The exhibition is located at Al Riwaq Doha Exhibition Space, on Al Corniche, next to the Museum of Islamic Art

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Jay Jopling opened his White Cube gallery on Hoxton Square in 2000 and it quickly became the new epicentre of a resurgent London art scene. But it wasn't Jopling who first suggested that the square - one of the oldest in the capital - and the unloved acreage of East London around it could become the city's prime artistic quarter.

Joshua Compston opened his gallery Factual Nonsense (a Wittgenstein reference) on Charlotte Road in Shoreditch in 1992 when the area was largely deserted (though, of course, a number of artists were already quietly going about their business in its empty industrial spaces). Compston had studied fine art at Camberwell but switched to reading art history at the Courtauld Institute. There he instigated the Courtauld Loan Collection, his first curatorial adventure, borrowing art from established artists such as Howard Hodgkin and Gilbert & George and up-and-coming artists such as Gary Hume and a certain Damien Hirst to be hung in seminar rooms. But it was at Factual Nonsense that he really began to get noticed.

Compston was determined to become a Warholian art impresario. And Shoreditch would be his Manhattan. (The letterpress catalogues and posters for the gallery's shows now look years ahead of their time. He was early to crafty-retro). With a babyish cloud of blonde hair, a sit-com posh accent and a statement white suit, he was at once a galvanising force and an unpredictable irritant to those who would become YBAs, both circus master and clown (The Guardian's Adrian Searle sums up the general take on Compston, calling him 'profoundly bright and profoundly irritating'.)

He is best remembered for a series of art-centric takes on traditional folk festivals, all held in Shoreditch. The first, 'The Fete Worse than Death', took place in 1993 with then relatively unknown artists such as Gavin Turk, Gillian Wearing, Mat Collishaw, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Gary Hume manning stalls selling art. Damien Hirst dressed as a clown and produced his first spin painting at the fête (yours for £1).

Compston was last seen alive at the opening of a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition at the Serpentine gallery in 1996. He was 25. Hundreds came to the funeral including the artists Peter Blake and Gilbert & George. One of his pallbearers was James Goff, an unusually cultured and adventurous estate agent and CEO of local firm Stirling Ackroyd, who had befriended Compston and shared his vision for the area. Compston had said he wanted to 'explode the gap between art, advertising, entertainment, high-street retailing and real estate development.' In that, he was also ahead of his time.

A new show at London's Paul Stolper gallery, 'Factual Nonsense - The Art and Death of Joshua Compston', celebrates the short life of this catalytic engine of the early 1990s London art scene. Curated by artist Darren Coffield, the exhibition brings together posters, photographs, letters, diaries, videos and press cuttings as well as art works by Compston and early pieces by Hirst, Hume, Emin and others. Proceeds from sales from the exhibition will be donated to a fund for a memorial to Compston in Hoxton Square.

We caught up with curator Darren Coffield to find out more...

Like a lot of people, I first became aware of Joshua because his funeral got so much press. There was an extraordinary reaction to his death. And the attitudes towards him seemed very complex...
Yeah, in some ways the funeral was his greatest production. Hundreds of people turned up. I think most of them were there just to make sure he was dead and properly buried. He was 50% brilliant and 50% stupid. I think now we would realise that he was high functioning autistic but people didn't understand that then. So he just annoyed them.

He had this very posh accent and and he dressed in these posh clothes. He came across like this Terry Thomas character and people didn't know what to make of him. They thought he was taking the piss. And he really kept questioning people. Asking them why they were doing certain things and people didn't like that. But he was obsessed with William Morris and his ideas, and he just wanted to make the world a better place. He had this idea to lend a collection of American abstract art to local state schools. He had all these ideas. And he took people at face value. He was very trusting, sometimes to his cost.

He seemed to be ahead of his time in lots of ways. The way he promoted the Factual Nonsense shows. Understanding how art could change an area like Shoreditch.
There was no one in that area at the time. But 4,000 came for the first Fete Worse than Death. And then people started moving over from Westbourne Grove. And that was that. He had an idea to put on an art fair in a tent. Which is eventually what Frieze did.

And what do you think he would make of Frieze now?
He would have hated it. He would have thought it was just a trade fair.

Everyone wants to be a curator now. Do you think that is part of his legacy, taking something that had until that point been seen as very dry and academic, and adding this showman, impresario element?
Yeah. You know, there are courses in curating now, which seems ridiculous, but there wasn't anything like that at the time. But he got things done. He got Damien Hirst into the Courtauld Institute.

You use an amazing quote of Compston's in the exhibition: 'I am like an aircraft carrier, people land on me then take off.' It's a bit sad and bit angry but there is also an arrogance or at least a certainty that he had had a real influence?
By the end he was quite bitter that he wasn't getting any credit for what he had done and the art world was really excluding him. The YBAs, as they became, just seemed to be interested in making money and being cool. It was very cliquey. And that wasn't what he was into at all. He had these very utopian ideas of taking art out to people.

People still talk about Joshua. His presence still seems very felt. I just read a Q&A with Gavin Turk and he talked about what an inspiration he had been. And there was a big turn out for the private view of the exhibition.
Yes. All kinds of people turned up. Damien Hirst turned up but Damien hated Joshua when he was alive because he was always telling him to do things in a certain way. But then I guess once people are gone you miss them and think about what they were trying to do. I do think he was the conscience of that generation.

ADDRESS

Paul Stolper Gallery
31 Museum Street
London WC1A 1LH

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To create the vast new maison, Peter Marino entirely reworked the original store - also designed by him - and fused it with what was Donna Karan, next door. ’I had to destroy my own baby,’ he says. The two spaces are united by white Portland stone, double height windows and Louis Vuitton’s signature golden mesh cladding. Says Marino: ’I could barely touch the historic facade, so I knocked everything inside down instead...’

Louis Vuitton's epic new London 'maison' has just opened its doors on New Bond Street. Entered via a bridge over a 'moat', its four outrageously luxurious floors include a VIP apartment, a 'librairie' of limited edition art and art books, revolving handbag installations and artworks by all the big guns, from Damien Hirst to Gilbert & George. You name it, this store's got it. Here, the architect behind this temple to luxury - Peter Marino - takes us on a tour.

'I spent five years pouring my heart into making the Champs-Élysées store have all the bells and whistles, only to be told that the London maison had to be even better,' says Marino.

This new, 1,500 sq m palace certainly gives the flagship maison a run for its money, pioneering a number of firsts for Louis Vuitton, including the VIP apartment. It's also London's largest single-brand store.

Here, the brand is even commissioning and selling limited-edition artworks by the likes of Anish Kapoor and Gary Hume. But more of that in Wallpaper's July issue...

To enter the store, visitors step across a bridge, which separates the inner building from the facade. Below it is a glass staircase, illuminated by LEDs that will show constantly changing film and artistic animations. 'I've created a kind of "moat"', says the American designer. 'But it's a virtual one, not the kind that apparently costs vast sums to clean, like your MPs''. Asked if he sees a 'moat' as something quintessentially English, Marino replies, 'Didn't you all live in castles when you were kids?'

Cross over the bridge and you come to an installation of vintage trunks suspended in the air. This is backed by a bronze mesh, whose pattern is based on the flowers of the monogram handbag, which wraps the entire store. 'It involved very difficult workmanship,' explains Marino. 'The Nottingham-based company that made it had to make thousands of samples to get it right, because it's about 30ft high and heavy as hell. The first one was like chainmail but in the end it came out light and scintillating. It filters the light and moves like a curtain'.

One of the many firsts that this store pioneers for the Louis Vuitton network is the placing of the most expensive pieces bang opposite the entrance. This store isn't scared of scaring customers away with its price tags. 'It's a bit experimental and risk-taking. But this is New Bond Street,' Marino exclaims. 'The theory is that the customer here is somewhat immune to the vagaries of the market.'

The fine jewellery, watches and best bags are displayed in an intimate area, with lacquered wall panelling and partitions clad in dark woven copper, linen and wool. 'This was my way of responding architecturally to the gorgeous materials of the bags.'

'I call this the "girls just want to have fun" part of the store, because everything is moving. It's really hilarious,' says Marino. The costume jewellery zone, to the far left of the store, marks the entrance to a room filled with moving bags and scarves. Two LV-branded planets orbit around ceiling inspired by Saturn's rings. On a plinth stands Kiki - a sculpture by long-time Vuitton collaborator, Takashi Murakami.

Here, customers can sit on stools and pick their bags like they would a cocktail, from a back-lit, rotating display. 'When I was parading round all the other shops that are heavy on handbags I felt this lethal lack of energy,' explains the architect. 'I couldn't give the bags any artificial stimulation so I thought, let's get them moving.'

Even the sun-like light that shines through the central oculus of the sunglasses area moves up and down. 'Dichroic glass constantly changes the light that hits your eyes, ergo, creating the need to put sunglasses on,' says Marino. 'Pedro likes to get paid, you know...'

The first floor is home to the latest womenswear collections. The three ready-to-wear zones have different moods to draw out different aspects of the collections, decorated in varying tones of French embossed leather and light French lacquer. This floor is also home to the librairie, sculptures by the likes of Damien Hirst and an area for temporary exhibitions.

If you're lucky enough to get the nod, a security-controlled lift will whisk you up to the invitation-only inner sanctum of the store - the VIP 'apartment'. The open plan space can be sectioned off into suites, and features artworks, including this piece titled 'The Bible cowboys' by Richard Prince, and others by the likes of Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hans Hartung, and Bertrand Lavier. 'I designed it like a Peter Marino apartment,' says the architect, putting his feet up on the table. When we venture that we could happily live here, he replies: 'I'd like to have sex here.'

There are fireplaces, rare antiques, lacquered doors and all the carpets are one off mixtures of silk and wool, designed by Marino himself. Says the architect: 'I call it VIP on steroids. But I also wanted it to feel like a space where you can hang.'

The plan for a VIP space was hatched only 14 months ago - a response to a growing trend in luxury stores in China. "The feedback from the brands who created them in China was a revelation. They make as much profit from these areas as they do out of all the selling floors,' Marino explains. So he put the idea to Louis Vuitton. 'They said, "Okay Peter, go ballistic. We're going to try this." Quite frankly speaking, it's an experiment. I've never done this for a brand in the West before.'

Here, custom-made furniture by Marino sits alongside a chair by French sculptor Philippe Hiquily.

Descend the LED-lit staircase to the lower-ground floor and you'll find the men's universe, comprising various areas, such as the leather goods zone, the shoes area and the men's club. Darker finishes give it an aptly masculine feel and walls are clad in wood veneer.

Dominated by a giant 2005 artwork by Gilbert & George, the space is filled with relaxing sofas and low tables, once again like a private apartment. 'Because I began my career creating high end luxury residences - for the likes of Yves St Laurent, the Rothschilds - before I became a retail architect, I'm able to bring to the stores a high end sense of how the customer lives,' he explains. Throughout the new maison you'll find unusual furniture from auctions and dealers, including tables by Roland Mellan and John Ashpool.

ADDRESS

17 - 20 New Bond Street
London W1

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