Stories

Kevin Beasley, a multifaceted contemporary artist known for his innovative blend of sculpture, sound, and performance, presents his largest and most ambitious installation yet at Storm King Art Center in New York’s Hudson Valley. Titled PROSCENIUM | Rebirth/Growth: The Watch / Harvest / Dormancy: On Reflection, the expansive work spans 100 feet and explores the cycles of the seasons through four triptychs made of vintage clothing and natural elements encased in resin. Drawing inspiration from World War II acoustic mirrors, Beasley’s curved installation engages with sound and landscape, amplifying environmental noises and inviting viewers into a sensory dialogue between history, identity, and the land. Complementing the show, a limited edition series of four intricate prints was created using tactile materials and traditional screen printing techniques, capturing the essence of his evolving practice and communal approach to art-making.

Nicole Wittenberg, known for her evocative reinvention of realism, finds profound inspiration in the rural landscapes of Maine, where her studio—a repurposed former government factory—serves as a sanctuary away from the urban rhythm of New York. Her new silkscreen edition, *Goldenrod and Queen Anne’s Lace, 2025*, captures the vibrant, fleeting beauty of wildflowers through layered strokes and gestural mark-making that evoke the immediacy and sensuality of being immersed in nature. Drawing en plein air, Wittenberg embraces chance and movement, translating the dynamic qualities of light, wind, and growth into a vivid, almost abstracted floral composition that speaks to her desire to stop thinking and truly see. The edition, accompanied by a signed monograph, coincides with three summer exhibitions and underscores her ongoing exploration of emotional expression and the spontaneous sensations found in the natural world, firmly rooting her practice in the tension between observation, memory, and feeling.

William Monk’s art captivates with its striking contrasts and poetic gestures, inviting viewers into a liminal space between vision and feeling, memory and dream. His improvisational process often revisits a single image through multiple iterations, turning painting into a contemplative ritual akin to a mantra. His latest limited edition lithograph, Mount Atom, 2025, exemplifies this approach, presenting a surreal, glowing coral form above a textured mound, crafted through intricate layers that evoke timelessness and otherworldliness. With a career marked by prestigious exhibitions worldwide and recognition for his psychologically charged works, Monk shares insights into his creative trance-like process, the significance of visual scale and placement, and the intimate dialogue between paintings within his studio and exhibitions. Mount Atom, 2025, paired with Phaidon’s first comprehensive monograph on Monk, offers a rare, intimate encounter with his evolving oeuvre.

Jim Hodges captivates with his ability to infuse everyday objects with profound emotion and narrative, blending drawing and sculpture through humble materials transformed to evoke memory and imagination. His new edition, *with you, 2024*, created for the TWO x TWO for AIDS Art Gala, features two elegant vessels—one basalt stone, one cast glass—set on a walnut pedestal, designed to be completed and continually reborn through the ritual of adding fresh flowers. This work reflects themes of impermanence, renewal, and connection, inviting owners to participate actively in its life and meaning. Hodges’s use of contrasting natural and crafted materials speaks to timeless artistic traditions while celebrating collaboration and care. Known for deeply contemplative, beautiful works exhibited worldwide, Hodges sees art as an invitation to slow down, reflect, and experience the transformative power of relationships and generosity.

Patricia Cronin’s art boldly intertwines classical techniques with urgent contemporary issues, exploring themes of feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice through oil painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Renowned for her groundbreaking work like the groundbreaking "Memorial To A Marriage," a marble sculpture advocating marriage equality, Cronin channels her deep research and conceptual rigor into projects such as her recent series inspired by 19th-century sculptor Harriet Hosmer. By creating a unique catalogue raisonné combining hand-painted images and historical scholarship, Cronin not only revives Hosmer’s legacy but also critiques the underrepresentation of women artists. With a fearless commitment to activism, Cronin’s work challenges the status quo, inspiring both audiences and students to envision a world where art carries the power to confront injustice and reshape cultural narratives.

Cig Harvey’s latest limited edition print, *Wisteria, 2025*, captures a dreamlike moment where her friend Emily is enveloped by lush purple wisteria, blurring the lines between human and nature. Rooted in Harvey’s lifelong obsession with color and sensation, the image embodies her belief that photography should speak to the gut before the intellect, using beauty to draw viewers into a visceral experience of living in the body. Created during a serendipitous detour through a Maine town, the photograph celebrates the wild, untamed beauty of everyday life and the fleeting nature of light and time. Paired with Harvey’s new book *Emerald Drifters*, the edition invites audiences to embrace color’s mysterious power and the magic found in the world just beyond routine.

British artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan, renowned for her richly layered semi-abstract paintings that blend millennial pinks, lush vegetation, poetic texts, and shimmering embellishments, has released a new edition titled *Dream a little dream, 2025*. Comprising 50 editions—40 archival pigment prints enhanced with silkscreen varnishes and glass flocking, plus 10 uniquely hand-finished pieces with acrylic paint, oil pastel, ink, and glitter—the work invites viewers into a deeply personal and intimate journey, underscored by the inscription, “You are in every single dream.” Yearwood-Dan’s practice fluidly explores identity and emotional intimacy, weaving language, music, and layered materials to create multifaceted narratives rooted in her British Caribbean heritage. Committed to charitable causes, proceeds from this edition support New Contemporaries, an organization empowering emerging artists. Her work, which recently set auction records, continues to evolve with a confident, intuitive approach that embraces complexity and healing through creative expression.

British-born, US-based artist Cig Harvey begins 2025 by unveiling her deeply personal new book, Emerald Drifters, a captivating collection that blends 97 photographs, 30 vignettes, and nine watercolor illustrations alongside an essay by poet Ocean Vuong. The 224-page volume explores intimate recollections and everyday moments through a vibrant lens, capturing the delicate balance between nature and human presence. Following its March publication, Emerald Drifters embarks on an international gallery tour, starting in Atlanta, then Maine, and finally Zurich, showcasing Harvey’s evocative images and text. With a career spanning decades and work held in prestigious collections, Harvey’s intuitive and heartfelt approach invites viewers to experience the rare beauty found in the mundane, making this a celebrated artistic milestone.

Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander’s new lithograph, Her-Vimana, 2025, draws inspiration from the mythological flying palaces of Hindu and Jain texts to explore themes of transformation, resilience, and feminine strength. Created with vibrant hues and intricate detail, this limited edition print coincides with Sikander’s solo exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, following her major survey at La Biennale di Venezia. Renowned for pioneering the neo-miniature movement, Sikander blends traditional South Asian miniature painting with contemporary media to challenge Eurocentric art histories and highlight gender, colonialism, and migration through a feminist lens. Her multi-layered storytelling weaves together myth, spirituality, and social commentary, reflecting an enduring commitment to amplifying women’s narratives and reimagining cultural heritage in dynamic, boundary-crossing forms.

Michaela Yearwood-Dan, the celebrated 30-year-old Black British artist, is stepping into 2025 with momentum, having joined the prestigious Hauser & Wirth gallery while continuing her partnership with Marianne Boesky in the US. Known for her lush, semi-abstract paintings that blend millennial pinks with textures like gold leaf, acrylic nails, and Swarovski crystals, Yearwood-Dan also explores ceramics and installations. After a creative residency in the English countryside, she has embraced a fresh artistic reset, infusing her work with references to music by artists such as Charli XCX and Tyler, the Creator. Anticipation builds for her upcoming solo show in London, while her vibrant pieces are featured in major collections across the US, and she remains a vital part of important group exhibitions highlighting Black and non-binary artists. With a style that invites personal interpretation and introspection, Yearwood-Dan’s work encourages viewers to engage deeply, making her one of the most exciting talents to watch this year.

Pakistani-born, New York-based artist Shahzia Sikander challenges traditional narratives through her vibrant, multifaceted work that disrupts conventions of race, gender, and power. Her major retrospective, *Collective Behavior*, first showcased at the Venice Biennale, spans sculptures, installations, animations, and contemporary reinterpretations of Indo-Persian miniature painting, and will continue its journey with exhibitions in Ohio in 2025. Known for her bold civic statements, including the notorious bronze sculpture *Witness*, which she chose to leave damaged as a symbol of societal division, Sikander invites viewers into a space of reflection and multifarious meaning. Acclaimed globally and featured in prestigious collections, her deeply considered artistry bridges cultural histories with contemporary issues, while a new monograph delves into the rich complexity of her practice.

In his latest Black Dada series exhibited at Pace New York, Adam Pendleton expands his artistic language through vibrant purples, reds, and metallic hues, emphasizing the interplay between process and form. This exploration continues in his Untitled (Blue Amphora), a hand-painted ceramic piece created for Artspace and Avant Arte to support charity: water. Layered with spray paint, stenciled geometries, and expressive brushstrokes, Pendleton’s work captures the dynamic tension between order and chaos, reflecting our complex sensory experience of the world. Rooted in his long-standing “Black Dada” philosophy, which interrogates Blackness through abstraction and avant-garde concepts, Pendleton moves fluidly from canvas to clay, translating his gestural marks into three-dimensional form. The amphora stands as a poetic extension of his practice, embodying transformation and the ongoing dialogue between intention and happenstance.

Jean-Michel Othoniel is a master of transforming fragile glass into radiant, poetic sculptures that embody emotion, resilience, and beauty. Originally a painter, he shifted to sculpture in the 1990s, pioneering the use of molten glass and sulfur to create luminous, jewel-like forms that blend sensuality with permanence. Inspired by Indian glassmaking traditions and the symbolic power of bricks as "piles of hopes and dreams," Othoniel’s work fuses ancient techniques with contemporary artistry. His latest limited edition, Untitled (2024), crafted from mirrored glass, reflects light and emotion while supporting the New Orleans Museum of Art. With new solo shows unfolding globally and an ambitious exhibition planned for 2025 in Avignon, Othoniel continues to enchant the art world with his alchemical vision.

Artist Harland Miller reflects on his deep connection to water and creativity in his unique amphora, "R U OK?", created in collaboration with Artspace, Avant Arte, and charity: water. Drawing on the ancient Greek tradition of amphorae—storied vessels for storing water and wine—Miller explores the challenge of translating a painting onto a curved, three-dimensional surface, where every angle shifts perception. His work poses a simple yet profound question, echoing modern digital shorthand while inviting contemplation on human connection and the preciousness of water. Part of a series by seven artists, each amphora is available to support charity: water’s mission to provide clean water worldwide. Miller’s piece, priced at €6,000, embodies both artistic innovation and a heartfelt commitment to a vital cause.

Artists Harland Miller, Hilary Pecis, Adam Pendleton, Jordan Casteel, Derek Fordjour, Jenny Holzer, and Josh Smith have collaborated with Artspace and Avant Arte to hand-paint a series of amphorae, blending ancient form with contemporary art. Each of the seven editions, priced at €6,000 each or €35,000 for the complete set, features unique designs that reflect the artists’ distinct styles—from Casteel’s lush garden-inspired vines to Miller’s playful exploration of water and communication, Pecis’s endless lily pond, Pendleton’s transformation from canvas to clay, Smith’s iconic palms, Fordjour’s rhythmic marching band homage, and Holzer’s poignant survival texts. Proceeds support charity: water, bringing clean, safe water to communities worldwide, giving these beautifully reimagined vessels both artistic and humanitarian significance.

Cameron Jamie, a California-born artist now based in Paris, creates captivating work that blurs the lines between the strange and familiar, exploring identity through film, drawing, sculpture, and printmaking. His art delves into folklore, ritual, and the subconscious, influenced by his surreal Southern California upbringing and a deep engagement with subculture. Jamie’s intuitive approach rejects formulas, pushing boundaries across mediums—including ceramics and printmaking. His latest release, Pinky Blues (2024), a meticulously crafted 17-color silkscreen edition, captures vibrant, gestural energy and offers a fresh dimension to his practice. Accompanied by a new Phaidon monograph, this edition showcases Jamie’s commitment to evolving his artistic expression, affirming his status as an aesthetic maverick whose work continues to challenge conventions after three decades.

Summer Wheat’s vibrant and textured paintings delve into themes of labor, community, and the intimate bond between humans and nature, with a special focus on women’s nurturing roles. Her innovative technique—pushing paint through fine mesh screens—creates richly tactile surfaces that blur the lines between painting and sculpture, evoking the labor of weaving and embroidery. Wheat’s latest release, *Watering Weeds, 2024*, a limited edition series of hand-embellished prints, celebrates the nurturing figure as a fountain, symbolizing the interconnectedness of self-care and environmental stewardship. Drawing on historical art traditions and personal experiences, these works balance structure and spontaneity with a bold palette, inviting viewers into a playful, yet contemplative garden—both literal and metaphorical—where creativity, care, and resilience flourish.

Tschabalala Self’s practice explores identity as a rich tapestry woven from inherent traits and lived experiences, particularly through her striking depictions of female bodies crafted with sewn, printed, and painted materials. Her new limited edition print, The Actress Alexis, 2024, celebrates Alexis Cofield, an actor from Self’s experimental play Sounding Board, highlighting themes of intimacy, control, and the intersections of race and gender. This exclusive print combines archival pigment print, screen printing, and hand-applied paint, showcasing Self’s multidisciplinary approach and deep connection to printmaking. Known for her vivid colors, dynamic forms, and layered narratives, Self views her figures as ongoing mysteries that reveal themselves over time, reflecting her commitment to nuanced storytelling and self-discovery. As she continues to gain international recognition and prestigious commissions, Self’s work invites viewers into profound meditations on identity, character, and the symbolic power of the body.

Hank Willis Thomas is an artist whose powerful work critically explores the complexities of America through iconic symbols like the flag, weaving themes of hope, injustice, and identity into his art. With a career dedicated to examining racial and economic inequalities, Thomas uses mixed media—including quilts, prints, and sculptures—to challenge and reinterpret the symbol of the American flag. His latest edition, *Twilight’s Last Gleaming, 2024*, inspired by the U.S. national anthem and his 2021 mixed media piece, reflects the fractured yet interconnected nature of the nation, embodying a patchwork of diverse perspectives and agendas. As co-founder of For Freedoms, Thomas channels art into civic engagement and dialogue, using large-scale campaigns and public installations to provoke critical conversations about democracy and unity. This new edition not only crystallizes a pivotal moment in American political history but also supports For Freedoms’ mission to foster creative discourse, urging viewers to acknowledge both the struggles and shared futures that bind them.

Henry Taylor’s retrospective, "Henry Taylor: B-Side," has garnered rave reviews from major publications like The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker, celebrating his ability to blend personal empathy with profound societal insight. Known for his vibrant, deeply human portraits that transcend traditional boundaries, Taylor captures not just faces but the complex histories and social forces shaping his subjects' lives. His latest limited edition print, "Portrait of Andy Robert, 2024," released in collaboration with Artspace and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, exemplifies his bold use of color and life-infused brushwork. Following a landmark exhibition tour and record-breaking sales at Sotheby’s, Taylor’s work continues to affirm his place as a defining figure in contemporary American art, featured in prestigious collections worldwide.

Jeff Koons presents his new edition, Flag II, 2024, created exclusively for the Democracy Matters Benefit Auction on Artspace, highlighting his ongoing commitment to supporting a just, fair, and inclusive democracy. This vibrant archival pigment print, featuring Koons’ signature mylar balloon imagery, symbolizes the shared values of all Americans beyond political divides. The auction, running from September 24 to October 1, features works by leading contemporary artists like Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer, with proceeds benefiting Democracy Matters and its allied progressive organizations. Art lovers can now browse and bid on exclusive pieces supporting the vital cause of strengthening democracy—without any buyer’s premium.

Leading contemporary artists including Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Cindy Sherman, and many others are coming together to support democracy through the Democracy Matters Benefit Auction, running both online and in person from September 24 to October 1. This vibrant auction features exclusive new works and limited edition prints created to raise funds for progressive organizations like American Bridge and Media Matters, with no buyer’s premium. Co-chaired by collector Agnes Gund and activist Cecile Richards, the event highlights the powerful intersection of art and social justice, showcasing pieces that provoke thought on identity, politics, and society. From Ruscha’s poignant new drawing to Tomaselli’s surreal New York Times collages and Sherman’s timeless self-portraits, the diverse collection invites bidders to engage with art that not only inspires but drives change. Join this unique celebration of creativity and activism, where every bid helps fortify democratic values and supports vital grassroots efforts.

Anna Park, a South Korean-born artist now based in Brooklyn, has captivated the art world with her intricate charcoal and ink drawings that explore identity, femininity, and the fractured nature of attention in our digital age. Drawing inspiration from a mix of Pop art, comics, and graphic design, Park’s work deftly weaves text and image to challenge how we perceive ourselves and others in a social media-saturated culture. Her debut lithograph, *Look, look., 2024*, born from her first major institutional show in Australia, captures the frenetic distraction of modern life—faces crowding the page, urging viewers to pay attention even as they look away. With prominent collectors like KAWS and Billie Eilish, Park’s raw, expressive style resonates deeply, blending dreamlike figuration with frenetic energy while embracing the immediacy and messiness of charcoal. Balancing vulnerability and sharp cultural critique, her art invites us to confront how we navigate presence, identity, and connection in an always-on world.

From November 2022 to January 2024, Henry Taylor’s major American retrospective, *Henry Taylor: B Side*, showcased the artist’s vibrant, improvisational approach to painting, capturing complex narratives beyond portraiture. The exhibition, which traveled from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to the Whitney Museum in New York, drew acclaim for its powerful depictions of Black history and contemporary life, blending social commentary with intimate portrayals of friends, acquaintances, and historical figures. Taylor’s work, rooted in his experiences growing up in California and his early days painting on found materials, shines with raw emotion and insight, highlighting stories often overlooked. His art resonates as both a reflection and critique of social dynamics in America, earning comparisons to greats like Kerry James Marshall and Henri Matisse, while emerging as vital contributions to 21st-century American art.

Arlene Shechet, a septuagenarian sculptor celebrated for her dynamic, gravity-defying forms, describes her creative process as a deeply intuitive experience, eschewing planning to let each work emerge with its own energy and life. Known for sculptures that seem to move and change with the viewer’s perspective, Shechet’s latest exhibition, Girl Group at Storm King Art Center, showcases a stunning fusion of large-scale steel and aluminum outdoor sculptures alongside intimate ceramics. From this show emerges her first limited edition bronze sculpture, New Dawn, a smaller, tactile piece distilled from the larger work "Dawn," embodying the same complex planes and textures with a warm, reactive brass patina. Shechet emphasizes the importance of space and placement, recounting the meticulous two-year process of situating these works within the landscape to create a dialogue between art, nature, and the viewer. With each edition being handmade and uniquely evolving over time, New Dawn invites personal interaction and reflection—a compact yet powerful extension of Shechet’s ongoing exploration of movement, materiality, and the profound connection between art and human experience.

Artspace celebrates the transformative power of public art through its collaboration with renowned artists commissioned to create installations for JFK Airport’s new Terminal 6, set to open in 2026. Highlighting the impact of art in everyday spaces, the project features 18 artists, including Rashid Johnson, Uman, and Felipe Baeza, whose works will be seamlessly integrated into the terminal’s architecture—covering walls, floors, and ceilings. Led by the Public Art Fund, this vibrant collection captures the diverse spirit of New York with sculptures, suspended pieces, mosaics, and more, promising to enrich the travel experience while making art an essential part of the urban landscape.

Arlene Shechet, a celebrated American sculptor with dual studios in upstate New York, seamlessly blends diverse materials—from clay and wood to metal—in her vibrant, boundary-pushing works. Revered for her lively ceramics as well as ambitious outdoor commissions at Storm King Art Center, Shechet’s practice is deeply influenced by her Buddhist philosophy and a commitment to creative aliveness. Having evolved from figurative plaster sculptures to boldly abstract forms, she resists easy categorization, embracing artistic risk and trust in the creative process. With pieces held in prestigious museums worldwide and a career marked by innovation and resilience, Shechet continues to inspire with her fearless exploration of materials and form.

Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys showcases 100 powerful works by nearly 40 multigenerational Black American, African, and African diasporic artists, reflecting the Deans’ philosophy of collecting "by the artist, for the artist, with the people." Curated by the Brooklyn Museum, this major exhibition and accompanying book highlight influential voices such as Nick Cave, Ebony G. Patterson, Derrick Adams, Kehinde Wiley, and Mickalene Thomas, who use their art to challenge societal norms, celebrate Black identity, and inspire change. Through vivid portraits, multimedia installations, and provocative performances, these artists engage viewers with themes of culture, history, joy, and resistance, inviting us to see the world through their unique perspectives and to envision a more inclusive future.

Ana Benaroya’s art boldly reimagines femininity through powerful, muscular female figures that challenge traditional norms and vividly express the intensity of lesbian desire. Drawing inspiration from childhood comics, queer icon Tom of Finland, and a love of music that infuses emotion into her work, Benaroya’s vibrant paintings and prints blend humor, seriousness, and raw desire. Her new Artspace edition, The Nun’s Litany, 2024, channels themes of power, identity, and longing, reflecting both personal and broader queer narratives. Embracing screen printing as a vital part of her practice, she masterfully uses color and form to create striking images that scream with emotional intensity, while supporting causes like Visual AIDS, demonstrating art’s profound ability to connect, heal, and empower.

Phaidon is set to release the sixth volume of the acclaimed Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné this July, a comprehensive 804-page, two-book set documenting 741 paintings and sculptures from the latter half of the 1970s. This lavishly illustrated edition captures a prolific and innovative period in Warhol’s career, featuring the complete Shadows series—273 enigmatic paintings reproduced together for the first time—and offers deep insight into his evolving artistic techniques, including the use of diamond dust and ultraviolet-fluorescent silkscreen inks. The volume also explores Warhol’s retrospective and reversal series revisiting his iconic images, his portraits of notable figures from Studio 54, and unique projects such as the hand-painted BMW Art Car. Supported by extensive archival research, interviews, and photographs, this definitive catalogue continues to illuminate Warhol’s studio practices and creative process, making it an indispensable resource for scholars, collectors, and fans alike.

Somalia-born, Kenya-raised artist Uman brings her vibrant, kaleidoscopic vision to life with an intuitive blend of acrylic, oil, and pastel, reflecting the colorful traditions of her East African heritage and her deep connection to nature and memory. Now based in rural upstate New York, Uman’s latest work, *Valentine, 2024*, is a stunning limited edition silkscreen print celebrating life, emotion, and intuitive creativity. Each of the 35 hand-embellished prints—featuring 26 colors and gold leaf—carries her distinctive touch and personal story, inspired by her fifteenth-year cat, Valentine, and the bursts of color found in the natural world around her studio. This edition, debuting at the Independent Art Fair in New York, exemplifies Uman’s joyful exploration of abstraction and figuration, where hidden figures and intense emotion weave together to tell stories of identity, heritage, and resilience.

Anthony Cudahy’s evocative drawings and paintings capture intimate moments of human connection infused with a sense of both vulnerability and collective isolation. Drawing inspiration from family photos, LGBTQ+ archives, and art history spanning from the Middle Ages to contemporary culture, Cudahy’s work often revisits persistent images through multiple iterations, each subtly unique. His latest edition, *Sleeper with Signs* (2024), features a tender, dreamlike scene inspired by a film still of activist Douglas Crimp at rest, with each of the 30 editions hand-embellished by Cudahy to create one-of-a-kind variations. With a masterful use of color and texture, his compositions evoke warmth and introspection, exploring themes of protection, longing, and intimacy. Cudahy’s practice balances narrative and ambiguity, weaving together personal stories and historical influences in a continually evolving dialogue that cements his rising prominence in contemporary art.

Brooklyn-based artist Anthony Cudahy creates paintings that capture quiet, intimate moments charged with emotional depth and existential reflection. Drawing from a rich archive of personal photos, historical artworks, and contemporary ephemera, his work blends vivid color narratives with a meditative stillness, evoking memory and the complex inner lives of his subjects. Influenced by medieval and Renaissance imagery as well as queer archives, Cudahy’s figurative paintings resonate with a unique balance of specificity and openness, exploring themes of identity, history, and the omnipresent shadow of mortality. His evolving style, enriched by formal training and a decade as a graphic designer, challenges the boundaries between high and low culture, resulting in art that feels both timeless and urgently of the moment.

Italian designer and architect Gaetano Pesce, a trailblazer of the Radical Design movement known for blurring the lines between art and design, has passed away at 84. Over six decades, Pesce revolutionized art, design, and architecture with his exuberant, colorful, and often playful creations that defied the rigid conventions of modernism. Embracing unconventional materials like polyurethane resin, he championed diversity and creativity over uniformity and sameness, believing true freedom began from within. Pesce’s iconic works, including the avant-garde UP 5 Donna chair and the Sunset in New York sofa, showcase his bold vision and commitment to innovation. His influence resonates with contemporary artists and institutions worldwide, highlighting his enduring legacy as a creative force who infused joy, political commentary, and humanity into design.

Pilar Corrias, founder of a pioneering London gallery, shares how her international upbringing—from Tokyo to Lisbon to Angola—shaped her deep connection to art and freedom of expression. Growing up amid political upheaval and diverse cultures, art became a refuge and a language of identity, fostering her feminist perspective early on. Reflecting on the influential works surrounding her childhood, including a powerful Diego Rivera portrait of her family, she reveals how these pieces continue to resonate. Corrias also opens up about her unique collecting philosophy, emphasizing close relationships with the artists she represents, such as Tala Madani and Christina Quarles, whose provocative and thoughtful works reflect contemporary issues and her own life journey. For her, art is not only a business but a deeply personal, evolving dialogue with creativity, history, and the future.

Magnus Resch, author of *How To Collect Art*, revolutionizes the art-buying experience by blending rigorous data analysis with real-world insights to demystify the often intimidating art market. His book breaks down gallery hierarchies and investment strategies while emphasizing responsible buying—supporting artists and their communities rather than chasing quick profits. Resch’s approach encourages both newcomers and seasoned collectors to trust their passion for art, offering practical advice on everything from auction houses to print editions. Drawing from interviews with top art world figures and backed by six years of academic research, *How To Collect Art* is a must-read guide that inspires confidence, transparency, and genuine connection in art collecting.

Art market expert Magnus Resch shares his passion for inspiring first-time art buyers through editions by prominent contemporary artists, highlighting how collecting art supports not just creators but entire communities. Drawing on his deep connections from Germany’s Kunstakademie Düsseldorf to global art institutions, Resch spotlights five exceptional editions, from Florian Krewer’s evocative prints benefiting social causes to Jameson Green’s powerful biblical reinterpretations and Marilyn Minter’s striking collaborations celebrating feminine beauty. He also honors Cecily Brown’s captivating market success and Mickalene Thomas’s groundbreaking explorations of Black female identity, as well as Rashid Johnson’s iconic portrayals of anxiety that resonate widely today. Each edition embodies a unique blend of artistic innovation, cultural dialogue, and personal meaning, offering readers a chance to engage with art that transforms spaces and sparks ongoing conversation.

Charline von Heyl’s latest editions with Universal Limited Art Editions showcase her fearless fusion of abstract forms, loose gestures, and geometric shapes, pushing beyond traditional painting into a dynamic layering of visual events. Inspired by literary and poetic worlds, such as Gertrude Stein’s Villa Curonia and Russell Edson’s “Metals Metals,” von Heyl’s work invites viewers into a realm where intuition and intentionality merge, creating compositions that surprise and challenge both creator and audience. Embracing experimentation and risk, she blends figuration and abstraction without formulas, crafting images that shift and unravel, encouraging personal interpretation and emotional connection. Through her bold, architectural approach to painting, von Heyl calls for art to be a shared, private experience—one that sparks thought and feeling beyond conventional definitions.

Guadalupe Maravilla’s art profoundly intertwines his experiences as an undocumented Salvadoran migrant and cancer survivor, using his monumental vibrational healing instrument, Mariposa Relámpago, as both a powerful symbol and tool for transformation. His work transcends traditional art forms, blending performance, healing rituals, activism, and sculpture to address trauma and inspire resilience within underserved communities. Recently showcased at MoMA alongside a coat drive for migrants, Maravilla’s new bronze edition, Mini Relámpagos, captures the symbolism of migration and healing through its lightning-bolt serpent and butterfly designs. Committed to creating spaces for communal healing, including visions of temples where art and wellness merge, Maravilla’s practice fosters social impact and cultural empowerment, embodying a unique blend of artistry and activism rooted in his personal journey and broader human struggles.

Somali-born artist Uman, known for her vibrant, emotionally charged paintings, embraces her unique vision unapologetically, creating work that intertwines abstraction, figuration, and meditative patterns to explore both the physical and spiritual. Having endured displacement from Somalia to Kenya and then Denmark, and now based in New York, Uman channels her personal journey—including her experience as a trans woman—into deeply biographical canvases that often serve as self-portraits. Her meticulous layering of acrylics and oils produces a distinct washy effect, while her bold use of color draws inspiration from her heritage and favorite artists. Despite limited formal training and complex familial relationships, Uman remains fiercely dedicated to her craft, transforming her studio into a vibrant laboratory of creativity and emotion, continually pushing boundaries and defying categorization.

German artist Daniel Richter captivates with paintings that transcend language and reason, offering viewers an expansive, often ineffable truth. Rising from Hamburg’s punk scene in the 1980s, Richter’s early work fused underground music culture with bold, abstract elements inspired by Dadaism and iconoclasts like George Grosz. Over time, his canvases evolved to portray fragmented, vivid bodies set against stark monochromes, drawing comparisons to Francis Bacon and Symbolist masters. Influenced by mentors such as Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen, Richter embraces a dynamic tension within his compositions, where figures clash and converge in a restless, layered surface. His artistic process is one of brooding, listening, and transformation, turning mistakes into new opportunities. His acclaimed career includes retrospectives and exhibitions at major institutions worldwide, reflecting his status as a vital voice in contemporary painting.

Anna Perach’s groundbreaking solo show, Holes, at Gasworks brings to life a compelling exploration of female identity through a blend of sculpture, performance, and tactile fabric art. Drawing on rich historical references—from Renaissance witch trials and 17th-century anatomical Venus figures to 19th-century neurology—Perach confronts the boundaries of the body and societal norms by transforming female archetypes into surreal, layered hybrids. Her work delves into liminal spaces, examining how the female form has been simultaneously mystified, controlled, and demonized across cultures and time, all while inviting viewers to experience these themes not just intellectually but viscerally. Combining her background in psychotherapy with influences from Slavic mythology and avant-garde traditions, Perach creates a multifaceted, immersive experience that challenges perceptions of femininity, power, and transformation.

Cerith Wyn Evans is a visionary Welsh artist whose work blurs the boundaries between fine art and life, inviting viewers to step through enigmatic “thresholds” into spaces of ambiguity and imagination. Drawing inspiration from symbolist poetry and avant-garde literature, Evans creates multi-dimensional sculptures, installations, and limited editions that offer unique, personal experiences for each observer. Rooted in the vibrant, queer-inflected London club scene of the 1980s, his practice blends sound, performance, and visual art to evoke unexpected encounters and deeper emotional connections. His latest limited edition, Untitled, 2023, exemplifies this ethos, presenting an image that “turns its back” to the viewer, prompting reflection on what lies beyond perception. Through a career spanning nearly five decades, Evans remains a provocateur who resists easy explanation, championing ambiguity and the freedom of thought in art.

For over forty years, Nick Waplington has masterfully used photography to reveal the raw, unvarnished realities of working-class life and vibrant urban cultures, from the coal-mining broxtowe estate in Nottingham to the pulsating 90s New York club scene. Rising to acclaim with his intimate Living Room series, Waplington immersed himself in the lives he documented, forging genuine connections that lend his work an unparalleled emotional depth. His approach—patient, instinctive, and deeply embedded—allowed moments of everyday life to unfold naturally before his lens. Drawing from a childhood shaped by silence and vigilance, Waplington evolved a unique observational style that has informed his diverse projects, including a landmark Alexander McQueen exhibition at Tate Britain. Now, for the first time, a limited edition print from his seminal 1989 Living Room series is available, accompanied by a comprehensive survey of his prolific career, offering a rare glance into the human stories behind his evocative imagery.

Choosing the perfect artful gift is about sparking meaningful conversations and connecting with the recipient’s unique tastes. Whether it’s a treasured piece by iconic artists like Andy Warhol, vibrant and joyful creations from rising stars such as María Berrío, or captivating, color-rich works by Rodrigo Chapa, each gift carries a story and emotion that resonates. From Woody De Othello’s thought-provoking sculptures that transform everyday objects into metaphors for life, to Yinka Ilori’s bold and playful tableware that brightens any gathering, these curated selections celebrate individuality and creativity. Art becomes a powerful gift that inspires joy, reflection, and connection, making every present not just a thing, but an experience worth sharing.

Dana Schutz creates immersive worlds through her paintings and sculptures, where abstracted, often humanoid figures navigate surreal, tense landscapes that reveal life’s ambiguities. Based in Brooklyn and celebrated internationally, Schutz’s work is marked by its dynamic structure, expressive faces, and vibrant, gestural brushwork that organically evolves as she paints. Her latest edition, *Line Painter* (2023), captures a moment of quiet tension and movement—a two-headed figure marking a line on the street, embodying both contradiction and presence. With major exhibitions at prestigious museums and collections including the Whitney and MoMA, Schutz continues to redefine contemporary oil painting, blending narrative and abstraction to stunning effect.

Rashid Johnson’s iconic Anxious Men series, first unveiled in 2015, continues to resonate deeply as a powerful illustration of collective anxiety and vulnerability. These uniquely hand-crafted drawings and paintings serve as timeless mirrors reflecting evolving societal tensions, capturing "the decisive moment" of emotional expression. Now released as a limited edition Soft Ground Etching—the first and possibly only print of the series—this intimate grouping of four heads offers a fresh, nuanced narrative within Johnson’s broader artistic journey. Known for their ability to foster self-reflection and connection, the Anxious Men invite viewers to see themselves in the tenderness and fragility of these figures, challenging perceptions and emphasizing the personal over the performative. As Johnson reflects, this edition marks a poignant chapter in the enduring legacy of a work that has symbolized both individual and collective emotional landscapes across diverse spaces and moments in time.

Cerith Wyn Evans, one of the UK’s leading contemporary artists, was profoundly influenced as a teenager by Michael Craig-Martin’s conceptual work, An Oak Tree, an experience that sparked his lifelong fascination with art’s transformative power. From early encounters with Mark Rothko’s paintings to studying at Saint Martin’s School of Art, Evans’ trajectory spans experimental filmmaking, collaborations with iconic musicians, and innovative installations. His diverse artistic practice incorporates neon lights, fireworks, sound, and glass, drawing on an eclectic mix of influences—from John Cage and Marcel Duchamp to particle physics and Japanese theater. Notably recognized for works like the backwards-exit sign neon sculpture TIX3 and ritualistic film Pasolini Ostia Remix, Evans crafts art that resists simple interpretation, inviting viewers into spaces of meditation and sensory experience. As he explores energy, perception, and parallel realities, Evans’ pieces unfold as intricate, multilayered “rendezvous of question marks,” encouraging deep reflection and reverie.

Kansas artist Katherine Bello approaches painting as a deeply emotional and intuitive journey, blending spontaneity with careful consideration to evoke moments, places, and feelings through abstract forms and vibrant color. With a rich background spanning chemical engineering and fine art, Bello draws inspiration from memory, poetry, science, history, and personal nostalgia, creating works that serve as visual poetry and invite reflection from viewers. Her latest collection reflects the complexities of recent years, balancing light and darkness while embracing both chaos and calm. Known for her experimental layering and collage elements, Bello's paintings resonate powerfully with audiences, often sparking intimate emotional responses and personal stories, underscoring her belief that art is a shared experience between artist and viewer.

Rebecca Manson’s latest work, *A Fluke* (2023), marks her first foray into bronze sculpture, presenting a captivating edition of three cast bronze leaves that invite collectors to assemble them in a personally meaningful way. Known for her large-scale ceramics inspired by natural forms and the tension between control and chance, Manson distills these themes into this intimate, interactive piece that celebrates the fleeting beauty of nature’s spontaneous moments. The sculpture’s playful yet meticulous design reflects her desire to capture the spirit rather than a literal copy of nature, encouraging each owner to engage with the work uniquely. Accompanied by a hand-illustrated guide and housed in a custom box, *A Fluke* also supports charitable causes through its sale, blending artistry with purpose in a distinctive new expression of Manson’s vision.

Michael Raedecker, an Amsterdam-born, London-based artist, uniquely blends painting with embroidery to challenge traditional fine art techniques, creating works rich in depth and texture. His new limited edition series, *day at night* (2023), showcases ten distinct embroidered prints on canvas, each enhanced with thread, paint, and glitter to create singular, tactile artworks reflecting his innovative process. Fascinated by the motif of swimming pools, Raedecker explores themes of fantasy and reality, drawing inspiration from cultural references and personal memory to evoke the tension between idyllic leisure and underlying unease. Combining ‘high’ art with ‘low’ craft, his pieces invite viewers to rethink the boundaries of painting while embodying the enigmatic ‘presence of absence,’ igniting imagination beyond the visible. Through meticulous layering and a thoughtful fusion of traditional and contemporary techniques, Raedecker continues to redefine the narrative of modern painting.

Michael Raedecker’s art uniquely blends the dreamlike with the everyday, drawing inspiration from mundane moments and transforming them into visually compelling narratives. His iconic paintings of suburban swimming pools evoke a surreal mix of leisure and unease, reflecting a world both idyllic and subtly foreboding, much like the atmosphere in the 1968 film *The Swimmer*. Raedecker’s distinctive technique marries traditional painting with embroidery, using thread as a disruptive and intimate element that challenges art conventions and introduces a tactile, domestic dimension to his work. From a background in fashion design to becoming a celebrated contemporary artist, Raedecker’s inventive approach explores painting’s history while carving a new path through craft, memory, and the construction of visual stories. His work is featured in major international collections and will be showcased in a solo retrospective at the Kunstmuseum in The Hague in Spring 2024.

Rebecca Manson’s work breathes new life into leaves, transforming what she calls ‘nature’s trash’ into dynamic sculptures that pulse with energy and emotion. Inspired by childhood memories and a deep connection to nature, Manson’s pieces blend meticulous craftsmanship with elements of chance, as she pushes materials beyond their limits in the kiln to reveal unexpected forms. Her immersive installations, like the sweeping 2021 work *Gutter*, capture the whirlwind motion of leaves tumbling in a breeze, serving as powerful metaphors for emotional release and resilience. Drawing on diverse artistic influences and a lifelong curiosity about materials, Manson’s evolving practice challenges conventions, inviting viewers into a collaborative dialogue between artist and medium. Most recently, her residency in the Norwegian arctic reignited her focus on observation and connection to the natural world, fueling the intense, layered works she continues to create for major exhibitions worldwide.

Photographer Steven Meisel and supermodel Linda Evangelista share one of fashion’s most iconic and enduring creative partnerships, spanning from 1987 to 2011 during a golden era of high-glamour editorial photography. Their collaboration, marked by deep mutual understanding and artistic synergy, produced images that continue to define fashion history. Now, a rare limited-edition archival print from their celebrated 1990 Paris shoot is available, exclusively released in a luxurious boxed set with signed certificates and a commemorative book. Known for his emotional sensitivity and selectiveness with exhibitions, Meisel’s work captures Evangelista not just as a model, but as a transformative muse who embodied the storytelling and character-driven essence of fashion photography at its most expressive.

Artspace’s acclaimed edition program is currently on display at Christie’s Rockefeller Center in New York, featuring works from leading contemporary artists such as Rashid Johnson, Dana Schutz, Cecily Brown, Loie Hollowell, Harland Miller, and Woody De Othello. This special exhibition, "100 Years of Creativity: A Century of Bookmaking at Phaidon," celebrates the centenary of the prestigious publishing house Phaidon, showcasing over 150 influential art books alongside Artspace’s collaborative editions with both established and emerging artists. The show highlights the creative process behind these editions, with artists sharing personal insights into their work, ranging from nostalgic studio memories to explorations of color and form. Complementing this vibrant presentation, the exhibition honors Phaidon's legacy in transforming art publishing, featuring landmark titles like E.H. Gombrich’s *The Story of Art* and spotlighting Phaidon’s ongoing impact on the contemporary art world.

Florian Krewer’s journey from a disengaged student to a celebrated contemporary artist is marked by his raw, emotive approach to painting. Inspired by personal experiences and the vibrant, diverse life of New York City, Krewer’s work captures moments charged with tension, vulnerability, and sensuality, blending human and animal forms to explore the complexity of connection and isolation. His bold use of color and fluid brushstrokes challenge conventional boundaries, revealing the constant flux of emotion and space in urban life. Praised internationally and featured in prestigious collections, Krewer continues to evolve his practice with a fearless embrace of reinvention, while supporting social causes like the Sylvia Rivera Law Project through his art editions, embodying a deep commitment to both creative expression and social justice.

Jenny Holzer is a pioneering American conceptual artist whose razor-sharp text-based works have resonated powerfully for over four decades. Rising to prominence in the late 1970s with her iconic Truisms—pithy one-liners pasted across New York City—Holzer challenged viewers to confront complex ideas about power, politics, and human experience. Her art transcends traditional forms, appearing on diverse surfaces from LED signs to granite benches designed to outlast apocalypse, reflecting a striking blend of immediacy and permanence. Throughout her career, Holzer has responded to social crises, from the AIDS epidemic to war, with works that combine intellectual rigor and emotional depth. Even as she shifted from authoring her own texts to curating voices of others, her pieces continue to provoke thought, disruption, and dialogue, proving that concise truths, like those in her enduringly relevant aphorisms, remain as potent as ever.

Kenny Scharf, a pioneering figure of the 1980s street art movement alongside legends like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, has built a vibrant career merging high and low culture through his playful, surrealist, and imaginative work. Emerging from New York's underground art scene at Club 57, Scharf’s art celebrates excess and movement, drawing inspiration from popular culture, cartoons, and science fiction. His latest project, "Los Niños Y Las Niñas" (2023), is a limited edition archival pigment print born from a mural created at the New York Academy of Art, embodying his signature exuberant style and continuing his mission to connect fine art with accessible, energetic expression.

Mandy El-Sayegh’s dynamic collages blend newsprint, advertisements, maps, and personal elements like her father’s calligraphy with hand-painted and unconventional materials such as latex, creating layered works that explore how meaning shifts when fragments are recontextualized. Rooted in a philosophy of “suturing” and “skins,” her art evokes corporeality, weaving together societal commentary, art history, and the ephemeral nature of identity. Highlighted in the influential *Vitamin C+ Collage in Contemporary Art*, El-Sayegh’s practice spans painting, installations, and performance, emphasizing the reparative and improvisational essence of collage. Her pieces invite viewers into intricate dialogues between fragments and wholes, challenging traditional perceptions of collage as merely ephemeral. With a prolific exhibition history and recent acquisitions by the Tate, El-Sayegh continues to push collage into new realms, envisioning complex assemblages that transcend the picture plane, as seen in her upcoming shows in London.

Michael Raedecker’s paintings evoke a timeless sense of presence within absence, capturing edge-of-consciousness moments through ambient scenes of domestic spaces like swimming pools, huts, and parked cars—empty of people yet pulsating with humanity. Blending muted, washed-out colors with intricate embroidery, Raedecker’s works create layered, textured worlds where voids become inhabited spaces, inviting viewers to explore unseen narratives. His unique process, informed by a background in fashion and inspired by accidental discoveries and influences such as Winston Churchill’s unpretentious art and contemporary painters like Luc Tuymans, challenges traditional notions of painting by incorporating non-art techniques like thread and digital pigment transfers. Over a 30-year career, Raedecker has developed a distinctive artistic vocabulary that plays with memory, psychology, and the intersection of craft and fine art, culminating in major retrospectives and celebrated museum collections worldwide.

Artists have long found inspiration in their beloved dachshunds, from Andy Warhol’s Archie and Amos to Picasso’s muse Lump, but it is David Hockney who truly captured the intimate bond between artist and dog through his vibrant portrayals of Stanley and Boodgie. Living together in California, these two charming companions became the heart of Hockney’s work in the late Eighties and Nineties, their personalities vividly brought to life in a celebrated series of drawings, paintings, and prints. Hockney’s creation was more than just pet portraiture—it was a profound expression of love and personal connection, especially poignant following the loss of close friends. His “dog wall” exhibitions offered a warm, tender glimpse into his world, celebrating the simple joys and quiet companionship his dogs brought to his life. Today, Stanley and Boodgie’s playful spirits endure through Hockney’s art, a lasting tribute to the profound friendship between artist and muse.

Seattle-born, New York-based artist Ford Crull delves into the unconscious power of symbols in his vibrant, densely painted works, where familiar icons like hearts and crosses collide with abstract forms to evoke deep cultural and personal meanings. Influenced by 19th-century Symbolists and 20th-century modernists such as Paul Klee and Arshile Gorky, Crull sees painting as a journey guided by intuition—believing that “the brush knows more than the mind.” His art explores how symbols subtly shape our identity and perceptions, creating layered, multi-interpretative experiences that resonate differently with each viewer. With a career marked by continual evolution and solo shows worldwide, Crull embraces the mystery and drama of symbols, inviting audiences to uncover the hidden narratives behind the images that permeate our daily lives.

Pam Glick, a Buffalo-based artist with a storied career that includes exhibiting alongside luminaries like Basquiat and Wool, explores the fluidity of color and abstraction in her latest work. Her vibrant compositions challenge the boundaries of perception, blending rhythmic gestures with a dynamic use of acrylics, oils, and enamel to create a universal language of emotion and time. Drawing inspiration from the grandeur of Niagara Falls, Glick infuses her pieces with themes of change and resilience, while her disciplined studio routine and love for deadlines fuel her creative process. Collaborating with Derriere L’Etoile Studios, she has produced a stunning new series of prints that showcase her intuitive and thoughtful color interactions, inviting viewers to discover the depth behind her playful yet purposeful abstractions.

Noelle Sharp masterfully balances life as a fine artist and entrepreneur, beginning her days in peaceful early mornings filled with studio work or nature hikes. Drawing from her diverse upbringing across the United States and Iceland, and grounded in her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sharp has developed a unique artistic voice centered on weaving, textiles, and natural materials. Her business, Aporta, blends handmade goods from global artists with her own creations, reflecting her passion for intricate textures and rhythmic, nature-inspired designs. Embracing both the joy and challenges of turning art into a livelihood, she explores themes of societal roles, emotions, and the breaking of cultural norms. Recently inspired by an Arctic residency, her work continues to evolve, integrating natural elements with digital weaving techniques, offering a fresh, meditative approach that invites viewers into a world where art, nature, and tradition beautifully intersect.

For over fifty years, Italian architect and designer Gaetano Pesce has embraced radicalism and creative freedom, constantly reinventing himself and defying artistic conventions. His latest work, *Self Portrait (The Complete Incoherence)*, is a striking edition of 50 unique resin sculptures that capture his signature experimental spirit and challenge the notion of coherence as a limitation. Pesce discusses how his creativity is fueled by an evolving mindset that resists repetition and embraces change, viewing design as both functional and deeply expressive—a way to reflect and provoke thought about contemporary realities. Celebrated internationally and honored with prestigious awards, Pesce sees design’s role as much more than utility; it has the power to inspire social reflection and change, urging society to think critically rather than succumb to passivity.

Charlotte Hopkins Hall’s art boldly confronts the complexities of contemporary society, exploring themes of free will, social media’s influence, and political polarization through her meticulously crafted figurative paintings. Known for her striking imagery of repeated motifs—often the backs of figures in black-and-white striped shirts—her work creates hypnotic visual narratives that challenge collective conformity and highlight societal absurdities. With a deep commitment to justice and human rights, Hopkins Hall channels her fascination with psychology and existentialism into pieces that range from tongue-in-cheek to profoundly serious, all grounded in conceptual rigor and precise technique. Drawing inspiration from political and sociological discourse, her latest series, "Barriers and Quagmires," reflects on the world’s growing divisions and mental turmoil, inviting viewers to consider individuality amid the chaos of today’s social landscape.

Since 2014, Charles-Antoine Bodson, CEO of THE SKATEROOM, has transformed skateboards into powerful canvases that fund social projects empowering disadvantaged youth worldwide. From building skateparks in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and South Africa to supporting education and resource programs, Bodson’s passion for art and skateboarding has driven collaborations with over 50 artists, including Ai Weiwei and Paul McCarthy, resulting in 350 unique editions. Emphasizing sustainability and meaningful partnerships, THE SKATEROOM recently launched a limited Andy Warhol self-portrait collection to support the Harold Hunter Foundation, uplifting at-risk youth in New York. Bodson’s journey from a childhood collector to a visionary changemaker reveals how art and skateboarding can create opportunities, dignity, and hope for thousands of children globally.

Nicoletta Fiorucci, the Italian-born arts patron, curates a uniquely personal collection that spans from Renaissance masterpieces to cutting-edge contemporary works, reflecting her journey from traditional tastes to embracing bold innovation. Rejecting the notion of being a museum, she treats her collection as an intimate expression of self, housed across her homes in London, Monaco, and beyond, where art lives in domestic and unconventional spaces fostering creativity and collaboration. With a foundation that supports innovative projects—such as living environments for endangered pollinators and avant-garde scent research—Fiorucci champions artists who push boundaries. Her love for art grew from childhood exposures to Italian ecclesiastical art and evolved through encounters with contemporary creators, highlighting the importance of ‘spending yourself’ in art collecting. Fiorucci’s approach emphasizes meditation, risk-taking, and grounding, intertwining aesthetics, personal narrative, and community in a living collection that celebrates artistic freedom and the ever-changing dialogue between past and present.

Melbourne-based artist Despa Hondros captivates viewers with her exquisitely detailed pencil drawings, where tens of thousands of tiny circles come together to evoke natural forms like the sea, rainfall, or landscapes. Her work invites a meditative experience, drawing people in closer to appreciate the intricate repetition and subtle variations that reveal the quiet beauty beneath the surface. Hondros’s process is one of intense focus and precision, blending control with spontaneity, and reflecting her deep passion for drawing despite an unconventional path to becoming an artist. Through her minimalist yet profoundly complex pieces, she offers a unique visual journey that calms and mesmerizes, encouraging reflection on the infinite complexity found in nature’s simplicity.

Jim Hodges' latest installation, *Craig's Closet*, at the New York City AIDS Memorial, is a powerful and intimate sculpture that invites reflection on memory, loss, and resilience. Crafted from granite and bronze, the piece replicates a domestic bedroom closet, symbolizing both personal and collective histories tied to the AIDS epidemic. Positioned near sites central to the crisis, the work honors those lost while celebrating the activism and care that continue to shape the community’s legacy. Hodges’ delicate balance of durable materials with the fragility of life creates a poignant dialogue on remembrance, encouraging visitors to see the piece as a living tribute to love, loss, and hope.

Woody De Othello’s vibrant new edition, *our glass* (2023), brilliantly captures the warmth and energy of domestic life through his signature anthropomorphized everyday objects and bold use of color. Inspired by the rhythms of community and caregiving, the work features a joyful gathering scene infused with lush plant life as a metaphor for growth and renewal. This edition, created in collaboration with Artspace and the nonprofit RxART, includes fluorescent prints alongside handmade ceramic sculptures, marking Othello’s first fusion of painting and sculpture in this way. Rooted in Afro-futurism and ancestral healing, Othello’s art radiates optimism and humor while inviting viewers to share in moments of connection and light. With a playful nod to the title *our glass* as a pun on “hourglass,” the piece embodies a hopeful spirit of togetherness and renewal, perfectly aligning with RxART’s mission to transform children’s hospitals into healing environments through art.

Salon 94 Design celebrated the New York launch of Monacelli’s new book, *Gaetano Pesce The Complete Incoherence*, honoring the wildly inventive and provocative Italian architect, designer, and artist Gaetano Pesce. Known for defying conventional design norms and blending art and functionality with a fearless, playful spirit, Pesce’s work spans over six decades and bridges key art and design movements without conforming to any. Curated by Glenn Adamson, a renowned design critic and longtime collaborator, the book offers an in-depth look at Pesce’s career, revealing his commitment to creating visual pleasure and evoking joy. The launch event, held in the stylish Salon 94 gallery, also previewed a colorful new edition reflecting Pesce’s signature freeform style, reinforcing his legacy of whimsical, vibrant, and boundary-breaking creations housed in major museums worldwide.

Painter Jameson Green draws deep inspiration from hip hop’s ability to blend and transform influences, applying a similar philosophy to his art by respectfully absorbing styles from great artists to create a unique visual language. His work, fueled by a lifelong passion for drawing and a decade of painting, explores themes of family, history, and music—often referencing song titles and personal narratives that weave together vulnerability, dark humor, and profound human experiences. Green’s intuitive approach to mark-making feels like riding a wave, blending melody and emotion with visual storytelling, while his reflections on lineage and identity reveal a commitment to embracing imperfection and self-acceptance. Through his engaging narratives and bold compositions, Green invites viewers into a dynamic interplay of past and present, ultimately crafting a vibrant expression that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Italian artist and designer Gaetano Pesce revolutionized mid-century design by embracing unconventional materials like polyurethane resin, rejecting the rigid International Style in favor of colorful, playful, and figurative creations. Educated in Venice under Carlo Scarpa and influenced by the avant-garde Gruppo N collective, Pesce explored kinetic art, interior design, and city planning, blending art and function with a bold refusal of sameness. After moving to New York in 1980, he captured the city's vibrant spirit in iconic works like the Sunset In New York sofa, while advocating for diversity and individuality in design. His influence resonates today, inspiring contemporary artists and earning prestigious exhibitions, where his vibrant, socially engaged pieces offer joy and a spirited alternative to modernist monotony.

Chilean artist Félix Lazo’s creative journey is a rich, circular exploration that weaves together music, science, and visual art. Starting as a musician and biological science student, Lazo found his true calling in painting, influenced by cubism and masters like Miró and Matisse. His work vibrates with color and rhythm, reflecting his musical roots and a deep connection to the natural landscape of Patagonia, where he lives. Lazo’s abstract paintings invite viewers into dynamic visual experiences that oscillate between sound and sight, while his experimental ventures into digital art and interactive installations bridge technology and tradition. Constantly evolving, his current focus blends handwoven canvases with oil paint, creating textured compositions that challenge perceptions and invite immersion in vibrant, pulsating worlds.

Simon Evans™—the collaborative duo of Simon Evans and Sarah Lannan—invites us into a richly layered artistic world with their new edition, *This American Dollhouse* (2023), a striking cross-section of their Brooklyn apartment rendered as part theater, part dollhouse. Through intricate text-based collages, drawings, and poetic phrases, the piece peels back the veneer of domestic order to reveal the complexities of city life, materiality, and personal history. Filled with cultural nods—from Velvet Underground references to classic American iconography—this edition melds high and middle brow culture into a deeply personal yet universal portrayal of contemporary living. With enhanced printmaking techniques and thoughtful details scattered throughout, Evans and Lannan create an immersive experience that reflects their playful, conceptual approach to art and life.

Jameson Green, a rising star in contemporary American painting, draws on a rich tapestry of influences—from ancient myths and art history to pop culture and societal issues—to create vibrant, kinetic works that resonate deeply with today’s audiences. His latest project, a three-part lithograph series titled *Cain and Abel I, II, III*, delves into the timeless biblical story through bold colors and layered symbolism, exploring themes of witnessing, history, and the passage of time. Green’s unique approach blends traditional printmaking techniques with his signature visual language, inviting viewers to engage thoughtfully with a narrative that feels both ancient and strikingly present. This compelling edition marks Green’s first printmaking commission and highlights his ongoing exploration of storytelling through art, promising a captivating dialogue that will evolve far beyond the initial viewing.

Lia Bekyan, a Brooklyn-based Armenian art director and photographer, weaves painting, music, and photography into a deeply personal exploration of self, existence, and healing. From a young age, her artistic journey has been driven by a passion for bold colors and visual storytelling, reflecting both personal and collective psychic spaces. Her work, spanning portraiture, landscapes, and still life, captures moments of spiritual awakening, liberation, and the search for belonging, often engaging with themes of identity and transformation. Bekyan remains critical yet curious about emerging technologies like AI in art, valuing the irreplaceable human touch and soul in creative expression. Embracing meditation, nature, and community, her creative process is fluid and intuitive, resulting in evocative series like “Window to Eternity” and “Star Sketches” that invite viewers to find beauty, peace, and inspiration in the mysterious journey of life.

Brooklyn and Oakland-based artist Rashaad Newsome explores collage as a powerful, multifaceted medium deeply connected to the Black American experience, using it to build new cultural frameworks that celebrate Black contributions and resist oppression. Blending performance, sculpture, film, and technology with traditional collage, Newsome’s ‘cyborgian figures’ challenge conventional boundaries and reflect on identity, improvisation, and interconnectedness. Influenced by artists like Romare Bearden and the Dadaists, he views collage not only as art but as a form of resistance and storytelling that mirrors the recombinant nature of Black culture. Featured among 108 artists in the new Phaidon book *Vitamin C+ Collage in Contemporary Art*, Newsome envisions the future of collage extending into feature-length films—“the ultimate collage”—inviting endless conversations and cultural reinvention.

Felipe Baeza’s powerful work, originally presented as the fragmented figure in "A shadow that won't materialize," has been reimagined in a new print edition titled "Desviación," created with layered silkscreen and collage techniques. This evocative piece challenges fixed notions of identity, gender, and societal boundaries, embodying themes that resonate deeply with the mission of Visual AIDS, the nonprofit benefiting from this edition’s proceeds. Drawing on his Mexican heritage and experiences of migration, Baeza’s half-human, half-rooted figures explore resilience and transformation, portraying the body as a mutable landscape. Known for his textured, emerging forms, Baeza’s art invites viewers to engage in a fluid dialogue about identity, survival, and thriving beyond imposed limits, all while supporting vital conversations around HIV and the queer experience.

Californian artist Christina McPhee weaves an intricate ecology of sensations through her abstract paintings, photomontages, and videos, where drawing serves as the vital thread connecting layers of fractured surfaces and vibrant colors. Inspired by a media-free childhood filled with books and nature, her work channels the inner life of abstraction to create landscapes that pulse with emotion, memory, and sensory experience. McPhee’s process blends traditional materials with digital manipulation, embodying a performative dialogue between mark-making, sound, and time. Amidst concerns about AI, she champions the unpredictable, deeply human elements of artistic creation that resist replication. From immersive studio rituals to visionary global themes, her art invites viewers into collapsing and regenerating spaces that resonate with place, community, and the wild forces of nature.

Issy Wood, a bold and multifaceted London-based artist, captivates the contemporary art scene with her near-photorealistic paintings that teeter between realism and surrealism, described by critics as ‘perverted realism.’ Beyond painting, Wood channels her creativity into music and writing, fiercely independent in her career choices, rejecting major labels and galleries to pursue her own path. Her work is marked by a disciplined, almost relentless studio practice, fueled by a complex relationship with inspiration, mental health, and her upbringing by medical professionals. Wood’s art explores themes of the human body, identity, and societal expectations, balancing innovation with a deep respect for her established motifs. Despite navigating the pressures of the art and music industries, she remains steadfast, embracing the marathon of her career with grit and authenticity.

LA-based artist Jennifer Guidi creates mesmerizing abstract paintings by blending sand with paint, drawing inspiration from California’s light, Moroccan textiles, and Tibetan mandalas. Her layered works evoke a meditative, spiritual energy that invites viewers into a calming, introspective experience. Guided by her meditation practice, Guidi explores color, texture, and form to capture vibrations of energy that resonate deeply. Her process is intuitive and immersive, often accompanied by hip-hop beats that fuel her creativity. With works acquired by major institutions like the Hammer Museum and the Guggenheim, Guidi’s art reflects a timeless connection to nature and inner psychological landscapes, offering both joy and tranquility to all who engage with it.

Marianne Hendriks, a Netherlands-based artist with a background in architecture and design, creates botanical paintings that blend geometric abstraction with a deeply emotional connection to nature. Her work captures plants as soulful portraits, reflecting fragility and dreamlike otherworldliness through oil paintings executed in impasto technique. Inspired by masters like Georgia O’Keeffe, Hieronymus Bosh, Frida Kahlo, and Van Gogh, Hendriks’ art explores nature’s beauty, vulnerability, and resilience while engaging with themes of heritage, identity, and environmental responsibility. Her process is meticulous and layered, balancing rigorous research, historical techniques, and spontaneous creative dialogue. Through exhibitions worldwide and a commitment to sustainability, Hendriks offers viewers a reflective journey into the natural world, inviting them to see nature’s intricate rhythms and timeless stories anew.

British photographer Roger Davies shares the story of his serendipitous start in New York and chronicles a remarkable career capturing the stunning interiors and architecture of California’s most iconic homes in his new book, *Beyond the Canyon: Inside Epic California Homes*. From Malibu to Marin County, Davies photographs the residences of artists, architects, musicians, and collectors, offering a rare glimpse into spaces where art, design, and light fuse into something extraordinary. Through his lens, he celebrates not just the grand architecture but the passion and personality seen in how owners curate their art collections, whether bold or subtle. Reflecting on his craft, Davies reveals the meticulous balance of intuition and technical skill required to showcase these environments, and shares admiration for photographers who, like him, continuously find beauty in the everyday. His insights into art, his favorite photographers, and the evocative works he surrounds himself with reveal a profound respect for creative expression in all its forms.

Danish artist Lisa Rosenmeier masterfully challenges the idea of a single truth through her multifaceted photographic works that compress time and expand space. Influenced by French literary culture and driven by a fluid, ever-changing reality, her compositions merge multiple perspectives to invite viewers on a dynamic journey of perception. Drawing inspiration from her own complex family background and artists like Sophie Calle and Olafur Eliasson, Rosenmeier creates evocative images where light, movement, and intuition play central roles. Her work extends beyond photography into immersive installations that explore psychological and existential themes, urging audiences to experience art as a living, shifting dialogue rather than a fixed narrative.

Garrett Chingery is a New York-based painter whose four-decade career blends dream-like figurative imagery with explorations of the natural world and the human psyche. From his early artistic visions—like a detailed childhood drawing of Noah’s Ark—to his current focus on animals as symbols of purity amid global turmoil, Chingery’s work reflects a deeply personal journey marked by identity, spirituality, and emotional nuance. Despite the challenges of financial instability and gallery politics, he continues to create richly layered paintings that balance realism with subtle abstraction, inviting viewers to find their own meaning. With a process fueled by music and spontaneity, his art offers a fresh perspective on the world’s complex emotional and ecological landscapes, making him a compelling and under-the-radar figure in contemporary art.

Interior designer Michael Cox of foley&cox emphasizes how art transcends mere decoration to become a profound expression of personality and passion within a home. With two decades of experience in global luxury residences, Cox shares insights on transforming spaces through art, from turning hallways into gallery-like experiences to creating intimate, surprising moments with carefully curated pieces. Highlighting selections from his new book *Language of Home*, he reveals favorites like April Gornik’s meditative landscapes, Agnes Martin’s optimistic prints, Tracey Emin’s raw neon poetry, and Caio Fonseca’s musical etchings—all chosen to enrich interiors and spark meaningful conversations. Cox’s thoughtful approach illustrates how art not only complements but defines the soul of a home, making it a living, expressive sanctuary.

American artist Sarah Sze, renowned for her intricate sculptural assemblages, reveals a deeply layered dimension of her practice in her new monograph, *Sarah Sze: Paintings*. This collection spotlights her nuanced paintings that blend collage, digital manipulation, and delicate paint layers to explore profound themes of time and space. Marking this release is *Acrobat* (2023), a limited edition print that fuses silkscreen, collage, gold leaf, and embossing to create a tactile, sculptural experience that invites viewers to engage physically and conceptually. Developed in collaboration with Columbia University's LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, the edition emphasizes Sze’s dedication to experimental printmaking as an intimate, gift-like practice that democratizes art. Committed to arts education, proceeds from this edition support Free Arts NYC and Breakthrough Collaborative, organizations that empower youth through accessible, motivation-driven creative programs. In her reflections, Sze shares how her art challenges passive viewing by revealing construction and deconstruction, inviting audiences to form their own narratives within the work’s multidimensional space.

In 1982, Harland Miller was working as an apprentice at a T-shirt printing shop in York, where bootleg band T-shirts sparked his early creative impulses. Now, forty years later, he channels that youthful spirit into his new limited edition print, *Hz So Good*, which playfully riffs on John Cougar Mellencamp’s hit "Hurts so Good" and nods to the scientific term hertz, linking music, language, and frequency in a uniquely Miller way. Combining his love for lyricism, printmaking, and pop art, Miller embraces imperfection and repetition with a touch of subconscious playfulness, creating works that resonate deeply with collectors who often find personal stories and coded meanings within them. As he continues evolving artistically, *Hz So Good* stands as a breakthrough piece that perfectly fuses high and low culture, inviting viewers to explore its layered significance while celebrating the power of music, science, and visual art intertwined.

Artist Harland Miller, known for his distinctive Letter Paintings that explore language through bold, saturated colors and layered typography, has teamed up with London’s ICA to create a limited edition print celebrating the gallery’s 75th anniversary. The edition, inspired by a piece from his 2019 solo show in Hong Kong, features complex graphic layers and paint drips that reveal the creative process behind the work, which reflects Miller's fascination with the economy of language, influenced by haiku poetry. With only 75 signed and numbered prints available, proceeds will support the ICA’s future exhibitions and educational programs. This collaboration continues Miller’s long-standing relationship with the ICA and highlights the artist’s unique approach to deconstructing language and form in his vibrant, emblematic works.

Artist Sarah Sze challenges traditional distinctions between sculpture and painting through her innovative, dynamic works that blend two- and three-dimensional space with natural forces like speed and gravity. Since the late 1990s, Sze has developed a unique visual language encompassing sculpture, painting, drawing, and installation, often blurring the lines between these mediums. Her recent return to painting explores expansive abstract landscapes using paint in sculptural ways, questioning the boundaries of the medium itself. The new limited-edition Phaidon book, *Sarah Sze: Paintings*, delves into over 100 of her works from 2018 onward, accompanied by thoughtful essays and interviews that explore the evolving definitions of painting in contemporary art. Sze views sculpture as public and physical, while painting provides a window into the artist's inner world, asserting the vital role of interiority amid today's digital saturation. Her paintings captivate not only as private reflections but as shared experiences shaped by familiar textures and technologies, marking a compelling fusion of the personal and the communal in contemporary practice.

Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu challenges traditional definitions of art, rejecting colonial narratives that confine creativity to European canons and museums. Her diverse work spans video, sculpture, collage, and performance, addressing themes like race, gender, environment, and geopolitics, while incorporating unique materials from Kenyan soil to synthetic hair. Celebrated internationally, Mutu’s powerful visual language channels folklore and personal memory, as seen in her evocative piece *WaterSpirit washed Pelican*, which blends lithograph, collage, and mica to reimagine East African legends and the elusive dugong. With studios in Nairobi and Brooklyn, she draws on global influences to expand the possibilities of art, emphasizing that it exists not as a place but as a realm of the mind—complex, textured, and endlessly vibrant.

In her 2014 exhibition ‘Nguva na Nyoka’ at London’s Victoria Miro Gallery, Wangechi Mutu delved into the mythical and aquatic figure of Nguva—a siren-like water spirit embodying both human and animal forms, symbolizing rebellion, seduction, and transformation beyond patriarchal boundaries. Through evocative collage paintings, sculpture, and video, Mutu explored African and African Diasporic water deities that blend beauty, danger, and deep histories tied to colonialism and slavery. Works like *Beneath Lies the Power* and *Water Woman* reveal Nguva’s multifaceted nature, portraying her as both a powerful avenger and a symbol of resilience and identity. Mutu’s art challenges norms while conjuring empathy, inviting us to reimagine the intersections of gender, race, and mythology in a global context.

Ugo Rondinone has enjoyed an exceptional year marked by soaring auction prices, international exhibitions, and widespread acclaim. His vibrant sun paintings and evocative Mattituck series captivated audiences at Frieze London, while major institutions like the Petit Palais in Paris and the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt showcased his diverse, evolving oeuvre. From monumental sculptures in Seoul and Busan to powerful installations in Mexico City and Kosovo, Rondinone’s reach is truly global. Known for his seamless reinvention across media, he continues to let his work guide his creative journey, embodying a rare and inspiring artistic energy. Highlights include his stirring public sculptures in London and Qatar, alongside his heartfelt support for Ukraine and the LGBTQ+ community, making 2022 a year of artistic triumph and meaningful engagement—a momentum set to continue with an upcoming major outdoor presentation in Germany.

Russian-born, New York-based painter Sanya Kantarovsky continued to make waves in 2022 with a series of compelling exhibitions that blend historical context and contemporary themes. His solo show Center at Berlin’s Capitain Petzel gallery captivated audiences by exploring physical embodiment through motifs drawn from his Eastern Bloc upbringing and art history. Praised for merging dreamlike and serious tones, Kantarovsky’s ink and watercolor studies from a Japan residency gained new life alongside Tomoo Gokita’s illustrations in Hong Kong, while his monotypes featured in Los Angeles' group show The History of Forgetting. Breaking auction records, his monotype Little Hand II sold for $24,000 at Sotheby’s New York, underscoring his rising market presence. Closing the year, his video exhibition A Solid House at Aspen Art Museum fuses Tibetan Buddhism with consumer culture, and his co-curated show Extensions Out in Manhattan benefits the experimental arts nonprofit Blank Forms, highlighting his dual role as artist and curator in shaping contemporary art dialogues.

British-born artist Samara Scott masterfully captures the complexities and contradictions of our contemporary moment through her evocative sculptures and site-specific installations, which blend foraged trash and everyday debris into mesmerizing, petri dish–like tableaux. Her expansive 2021 installation Gargoyle, featured in the New Museum’s 2022 Triennial, layers liquid latex and silicone with discarded materials to create a haunting, modern stained-glass window that resists simple capitalist critique. Scott embraces her own complicity in a system she critiques but cannot escape, channeling a raw tension of seduction and paralysis that fuels her work. Through these immersive creations, she offers a powerful reflection on our fractured relationship with consumption and sustainability, inviting viewers to confront the uneasy truths of our time.

In 2022, Mickalene Thomas made remarkable strides across the art world, from participating in LACMA’s Black American Portraits exhibition to producing the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of Ntozake Shange’s *For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf*, which earned seven Tony nominations. She also co-curated the dynamic group show *Set It Off* at the Parrish Art Museum, showcasing diverse artistic voices. Thomas’s work received enthusiastic acclaim at Art Basel, while her mentorship program at Pratt Institute launched its first in-person sessions, nurturing emerging talent. Her market presence surged with a notable auction sale in London and an acquisition by the Newark Museum of Art. A highlight was her inaugural museum exhibition in France, *Avec Monet*, blending large-scale collages, paintings, and immersive installations inspired by her residency at Claude Monet’s home. Looking ahead, Thomas is excited to explore Black beauty pageants—spaces of resilience and empowerment—in her upcoming projects, continuing her vibrant celebration of Black joy and identity.

In 1988, Ugo Rondinone faced a profound personal tragedy when his boyfriend, Manfred Weisner, died rapidly from AIDS. This loss, instead of plunging him into despair, became a pivotal moment that transformed Rondinone’s outlook on life and art. Seeking solace and inspiration in nature’s mystical interplay of the sacred and mundane, he channeled his grief into a creative journey spanning over three decades. From the vibrant, monumental stone stacks of Seven Magic Mountains to the poignant Night Rainbows celebrating resilience and identity amid the AIDS crisis, Rondinone’s work resonates with themes of transformation, spirituality, and the human condition. His explorations of gender and presence in the photographic series I Don’t Live Here Anymore further reflect this complex engagement with identity and reality. Through his art, Rondinone invites us into a world where time and space are both familiar and labyrinthine, encouraging a deeper reflection on existence and perception.

Marilyn Minter has long challenged conventional ideas of feminine beauty, exploring female desire, fantasy, and the commodification of women's bodies through her sensuous, often provocative paintings. Known for extreme close-ups of lips, feet, and skin, Minter’s work navigates the complex interplay of fashion, beauty, and eroticism, pushing artistic boundaries with vivid layers crafted over months. Her latest limited-edition print, *Big Red* (2022), captures this approach perfectly, blending glamour with raw, unsettling details like lipstick bleeding and sweat. Drawing from a 2010 collaboration with artist and model Wangechi Mutu, the piece exemplifies Minter’s intuitive creative process, where spontaneity in the studio meets painstaking digital and enamel layering. Celebrated for her unapologetic engagement with subjects few women artists have tackled—and honored with prestigious exhibitions and collections—Minter continues to inspire new generations, emphasizing the importance of trusting one’s inner vision in art and life.

Californian printmaker Cheryl Humphreys creates soothing, meditative abstract prints that explore the healing power of color through her series *Color: Spectral Meditations for Healing*. Featuring all seven colors of the visible spectrum, her work blends natural dyes, handmade papers, and innovative printmaking to evoke calm and introspection. Inspired by motherhood and a desire for sustainability, Humphreys hopes her vibrant, tactile pieces will someday comfort children in hospital settings. Influenced by notable abstract artists and guided by a deep fascination with color as vibration, her creations invite viewers into a serene visual meditation, embodying nurturing warmth both in process and intent.

Seol Kwon’s vibrant abstract paintings emerge from a deeply personal quest to explore identity, especially as a woman of Asian descent navigating multicultural spaces. Her work combines lush, colorful abstractions with intricate patterns inspired by biology, science, and the golden ratio, blending neon elements that evoke the tension between the human and digital worlds. Drawing inspiration from artists like Louise Bourgeois and Marilyn Minter, Kwon’s art confronts themes of gender, race, consumerism, and political shifts, while maintaining a meditative and experimental process that invites viewers to discover layers of meaning over time. Through her evolving series, she captures a dynamic dialogue between inner psyche and external reality, crafting pieces that linger in memory and inspire reflection on contemporary identity and universal connection.

South African artist William Kentridge, renowned for his multidisciplinary practice spanning drawing, filmmaking, sculpture, and theater, has long explored the intimate and symbolic through his large-scale flower drawings created with Chinese brushes and Indian ink. His current exhibitions, including one at The Broad in Los Angeles and the Royal Academy in London, showcase works that interweave personal memories, historical texts, and philosophical reflections, often drawing on themes from his Johannesburg upbringing during apartheid. Notably, his limited edition print "Listen for the Echo," inspired by Chinese Cultural Revolution slogans, Tang Dynasty poetry, and his video installations, embodies Kentridge’s fascination with echoes—traces of lost histories, cultural upheavals, and the complexities of memory—while his hands-on approach to printmaking invites spontaneity and transformation, resulting in uniquely hand-embellished works that resonate deeply with political and poetic narratives.

Christina Burns’ company, Rome Pays Off, transforms museum-quality art into thoughtfully crafted, wearable pieces that go beyond typical souvenirs. Collaborating directly with iconic artists and estates like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ai Weiwei, and Rashid Johnson, they create limited-run collections that blend fine art with everyday fashion, from Basquiat-inspired knit beanies to Ai Weiwei candles and Rashid Johnson tees. Committed to quality and storytelling, the brand works with premier textile mills to produce garments that become cherished wardrobe staples rather than mass-produced items. With roots in the art and publishing worlds and strong partnerships with institutions like The Broad and the Frick, Rome Pays Off carefully selects works that resonate commercially and narratively—always respecting the integrity of the original art while innovating on form. Their upcoming projects include collaborations with William Kentridge and Robert Indiana’s estate, reflecting a sophisticated urban aesthetic that appeals to curious, style-conscious consumers who appreciate subtle artistry woven into their apparel and accessories.

Hilary Pecis, a rising Californian painter, draws inspiration from everyday life and vibrant Los Angeles interiors to create richly colored, representational works that celebrate the beauty in the mundane. Known for her distinctive style that blends domestic scenes, landscapes, and still life—often devoid of human figures but imbued with personality—Pecis captures carefully curated moments brimming with warmth and joy. Influenced by her surroundings, running, and mid-century artists like Gabriele Münter, she approaches painting as an endurance practice, layering flat acrylic hues with a joyful precision akin to paint-by-numbers. Her work, praised as embodying the “dream of L.A.”, commands international acclaim with sold-out shows and inclusion in major collections worldwide. With a new limited edition print benefiting charity, Pecis continues to illuminate the quiet power and warmth found in everyday spaces.

The IFPDA Print Fair at New York’s Javits Center showcases an extraordinary range of fine art prints, including works by world-renowned artists and galleries such as the iconic Gemini G.E.L. Founded in the 1960s in Los Angeles and represented on the East Coast by Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl in Chelsea, this historic print workshop has collaborated with luminaries like Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Richard Serra. Known for its innovative and experimental approach to printmaking, Gemini blends traditional techniques with groundbreaking projects, pushing the boundaries of the medium. The fair highlights recent editions including monumental etchings, lithographs, and mixed-media prints by artists such as Tacita Dean, Annalia Saban, and Frank Gehry, while celebrating the legacy of Pop icon Claes Oldenburg. Emphasizing printmaking as a democratic and versatile art form, Gemini offers collectors access to exceptional works in an accessible price range, fueling a renewed appreciation for prints as original artworks.

The IFPDA Print Fair, held annually in New York City, offers a rich panorama of fine art prints spanning every era and style, from early mechanical reproductions to fresh contemporary works. This year's fair highlights the legacy of printmaking pioneers like Stanley William Hayter, whose mid-20th-century New York studio sparked a post-war American print renaissance. Among the notable participants is BORCH Editions, a Copenhagen-based studio founded in 1979 by Niels Borch Jensen, renowned for its innovative large-scale prints and collaborations with acclaimed artists such as Wardell Milan, Bruce Nauman, and Keith Haring. BORCH Editions embraces experimentation and traditional craftsmanship, championing the tactile, process-driven artistry that has led to a renewed appreciation of printmaking as a unique and vital art form. The fair not only celebrates historical significance but also showcases the medium’s evolving role in contemporary art, inviting collectors and enthusiasts to engage deeply with this dynamic and richly textured discipline.

The IFPDA Print Fair is a vibrant global gathering that brings together an extraordinary range of galleries, dealers, and presses showcasing fine art prints from around the world and across eras. Highlighted at this year’s fair in New York is the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, a not-for-profit printshop at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, known for fostering creative exploration through diverse printmaking techniques. With nearly 600 editions created in collaboration with renowned and emerging artists like Cecily Brown, Lee Quiñones, Sanford Biggers, and Mark Dion, the Center exemplifies how prints continue to evolve as dynamic, integral artworks. The fair celebrates this rich tradition while embracing innovation and the next generation of artists redefining the medium.

The FPDA Print Fair at Manhattan’s Javits Center this October showcases an extraordinary global array of fine art prints spanning diverse styles and eras, with Tandem Press standing out as a pioneering force in contemporary printmaking. Founded in 1987 alongside the International Fine Print Dealers Association, Tandem is renowned for its innovative blend of traditional and cutting-edge techniques, collaborating with acclaimed artists such as Derrick Adams, Lesley Dill, Cameron Martin, and Jeffrey Gibson. Their unique approach fosters experimentation and pushes printmaking boundaries, while also serving as an important educational hub linked to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Highlighted prints explore profound themes from identity and history to cosmic origins, underlining print editions’ resurgence as vital, accessible works of art in today’s market.

Rashid Johnson, a celebrated contemporary artist known for his work across sculpture, film, and installation, is the honored artist at the 2022 TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Gala in Dallas. To mark the occasion, he has created "Little Boat," a limited edition of 40 hand-carved bronze sculptures embedded with oyster shells and designed to function as incense burners. Inspired by his meditative walks during the pandemic, these multisensory pieces explore themes of autonomy, reflection, and the tension between individual thought and collective experience. Johnson sees this edition as a way to activate art in new, participatory forms—inviting owners to engage with the work beyond mere observation. Rooted in traditional materials yet infused with contemporary significance, "Little Boat" reflects Johnson’s deepening exploration of his artistic origins and his commitment to accessibility and community engagement through art institutions like the Dallas Museum of Art and amfAR.

In 1996, a devastating fire destroyed Marcel Dzama’s parents’ house in Winnipeg, along with his early large paintings and cherished belongings. Rather than succumbing to despair, Dzama found liberation in this loss, channeling his creativity into small, surreal drawings on hotel stationery that would spark his distinctive artistic style. Rooted in his working-class upbringing, the harsh Winnipeg winters, and the city’s rich history and cultural influences, Dzama’s work blends early modernist mysticism, punk rock’s DIY ethos, and North American folk traditions into haunting, intricately detailed images. Over the years, he has expanded his practice across multiple media, collaborating with notable musicians, filmmakers, and artists, while his captivating, enigmatic work has earned a place in prestigious institutions worldwide. Even amidst lockdowns and challenges, Dzama continues to create prolifically, driven by an abundance of ideas and an unyielding artistic spirit.

Jeff Wall’s 2008 photograph, Fortified Door, captures a heavy wooden door blending ancient craftsmanship with modern elements, provoking curiosity and contemplation rather than offering easy interpretation. Featuring a mix of medieval-style metalwork and a handwritten note hinting at the owner’s absence, the image resists simple understanding, inviting viewers to piece together its story. The door’s numbers reference a vintage Vancouver home furnishings shop, adding a layer of intrigue that both clarifies and complicates the scene. Wall’s intent is to evoke a “phenomenology of identification and disidentification,” creating an “identity crisis” that challenges viewers to engage deeply and revisit the image over time. This nuanced tension transforms the seemingly ordinary door into a gateway for reflection, making Fortified Door a compelling example of Wall’s thought-provoking artistry.

Rashid Johnson’s art deeply explores the intersection of utility, beauty, and poetry, evolving from his early shelf sculptures to his current show, Sodade, at Hauser & Wirth Menorca, which features oil seascapes and bronze boat fire pits inspired by pandemic beach walks. Grounded in a rich personal and cultural history, Johnson’s work challenges conventional narratives around race, identity, and materiality, drawing from a range of influences from Abstract Expressionism to gestural abstraction. His acclaimed Anxious Men series channels vulnerability through unique mixtures of shea butter and black soap, while his public commissions, like the mosaic at LaGuardia Airport, engage with themes of travel and human complexity. Ever curious, Johnson views artistic growth as a continuous journey, embracing change and expanding the boundaries of his practice.

After spending three years immersed in Andy Warhol’s Factory, photographer Stephen Shore not only captured iconic images of Warhol and his entourage but also embraced a new artistic vision rooted in detachment and conceptualism. Inspired by Warhol’s relentless work ethic and unique perspective on everyday banality, Shore experimented with methodical, time-based photography, notably in his 1969 project where he photographed his friend at 36-minute intervals over 24 hours in Amarillo, Texas. This deadpan, sequential approach anticipated today’s social media culture while maintaining artistic depth, earning Shore recognition as a pioneering fine artist. His landmark piece, *July 22, 1969*, remains a testament to his meticulous craft and innovative spirit, blending the era’s cultural turbulence with a timeless exploration of ordinary life.

Collecting art can be a powerful act of support, especially when the pieces you choose speak to personal and political causes close to your heart. From Awol Erizku’s poignant reimagining of a household logo that nods to the complexities of African American urban life, to Steven Evans’ neon tributes immortalizing friends lost to the AIDS crisis, and Lubaina Himid’s thoughtful challenge to cultural representation, these seven artworks boldly engage with issues like racial justice, gender equality, and post-colonial identity. Fred Wilson’s vision of Caribbean unity, Catherine Opie’s intimate glimpse of everyday activism, Jenny Saville’s homage to women artists’ perseverance, Ebony G Patterson’s vibrant yet haunting exploration of violence and visibility, and Eduardo Sarabia’s fusion of traditional craft with reflections on the drug trade—all invite viewers to not only admire beauty but to stand in solidarity with the stories behind the art.

Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov, known worldwide for his drawings, paintings, and installations featured in major museums and biennales, channels his personal anxieties into compelling art. Despite his fear of flying, Solakov transformed this panic into a creative ritual by molding Italian clay on planes, later exhibiting the fired pieces with boarding passes as a poignant nod to his fears. His book, *99 Fears*, humorously and poignantly illustrates the wide spectrum of modern worries—from the mundane to the absurd—offering a narrative that is both self-deprecating and deeply human. Growing up amid political upheaval, Solakov reflects broader societal anxieties without reducing them to mere biography, suggesting instead that these fears speak to universal modes of existence. His collectors’ edition, featuring unique ink illustrations and the evocative *Fear #999* engraving, captures the ultimate fear—the fear of fear itself—inviting viewers to confront and perhaps even laugh at their own anxieties, revealing a surprising glimmer of hope within.

After graduating from Chouinard Art Institute in 1960, Ed Ruscha playfully printed business cards announcing himself as a “Young Artist,” marking the start of a prolific career that would make him one of America’s most influential contemporary artists. Known for his iconic word paintings and striking imagery of Americana—from gas stations to Hollywood signs—Ruscha blends humor, design, and cultural commentary, capturing the vibrant spirit of the American West. Influenced by Pop Art pioneers like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and inspired by his travels in Europe, Ruscha developed a unique style that fuses text with landscapes and urban scenes. His works have been exhibited worldwide, collected by major museums, and famously explored through innovative projects like photographic artist books and printmaking. Even in his eighties, Ruscha continues to push creative boundaries with experimental materials and provocative messages, embodying the complex intersection of language, image, and American identity.

Marking half a century since the term "male gaze" was coined, this article explores the rise of the female gaze in contemporary visual culture, highlighting powerful works by women artists who challenge traditional objectification and offer fresh perspectives on gender and identity. From Mickalene Thomas’s reclamation of Black female bodies through repurposed Jet magazine images, to Catherine Opie’s poignant documentation of the Women’s March, and Kim Gordon’s introspective works inspired by modern domesticity, these artists give agency back to their subjects. The article also showcases Camille Henrot’s complex portrayal of motherhood, Cecily Brown’s haunting reinterpretation of iconic imagery, Nan Goldin’s intimate portraits, and Jenny Saville’s sensual examinations of the body. Lubaina Himid, Dana Schutz, and Ebony G. Patterson further enrich the narrative by confronting historical inequities, exploring chaotic human experiences, and addressing social injustices with vibrant, evocative artistry. This collection of works invites us to reconsider visual storytelling through a more inclusive and dynamic lens.

Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone’s series *I Don’t Live Here Anymore* ingeniously transforms mid-1990s fashion magazine photos of glamorous women by superimposing his own masculine features onto their faces, creating a compelling fusion of masculinity and femininity. This work challenges perceptions of identity and reality, blurring gender boundaries in a fluid and thought-provoking way long before such themes became widely discussed. Originally exhibited alongside Rondinone’s abstract sun paintings, these images invite viewers to explore the complexities of human experience, where appearances deceive and meaning resists simple interpretation. A limited edition print from this series is now available, offering collectors a tangible piece of Rondinone’s enigmatic and expansive artistic vision.

Belgian painter Luc Tuymans, renowned for his haunting and enigmatic artworks housed in institutions like MoMA and the Tate, masterfully creates images that evoke a subtle sense of unease through their symbolic ambiguity. His 2004 painting and silkscreen print *The Worshipper*, inspired by a costumed mannequin in a Belgian carnival museum, encapsulates this eerie quality by blending themes of religion, folklore, and fundamentalism. Using attenuated Polaroid sources that soften color and clarity, Tuymans invites viewers into a space ripe for interpretation, where seemingly innocuous imagery can resonate with deeper, sometimes unsettling meanings. This piece was part of his 2005 exhibition *Les Cinq Anneaux*, which interwove motifs of ritual and symbolism, echoing his fascination with ambiguous signs and their power to stir unease beneath the surface.

In the autumn of 1995, Nan Goldin’s artistic journey took a new turn in Paris, where she formed a close friendship with former model and filmmaker Valérie Massadian. Moving beyond the raw intensity of her iconic 1985 slideshow, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Goldin’s work evolved in the 1990s to capture more intimate, vibrant moments among a new circle of friends across Europe. This period, documented in her book The Devil’s Playground, showcases nuanced portraits of Massadian, Italian gallerist Guido Costa, and German actor Clemens Schick, revealing lives marked by passion, vulnerability, and the uncertain edge of a changing era. These images, printed using the rare and prized Cibachrome process, offer a poignant reflection on friendship, desire, and the fragile balance between failure and success.

Bharti Kher, a British-born artist of Indian heritage, has transformed the humble bindi—a decorative forehead dot—into a powerful artistic language that bridges tradition and contemporary expression. Her latest monumental bronze sculpture, *Ancestor* (2022), on display at New York City's Doris C. Freedman Plaza, expands on her acclaimed "Intermediaries" series by embodying a matrilineal figure adorned with offspring emerging from her form, symbolizing care, memory, and the continuity of generations. Rooted in Indian cultural motifs and personal exploration of identity, *Ancestor* invites viewers to connect with ancestral wisdom while envisioning the future. Alongside this, Kher’s limited edition print *Grey not Black, not White* reflects the artist’s ongoing dialogue with cross-cultural identity in a globalized world, showcasing her distinctive use of bindis and abstract form.

William Kentridge’s unconventional and restless artistic journey defies traditional advice to specialize, embracing instead a fluid blend of drawing, animation, theater, and film that has garnered international acclaim. Born into a family of prominent anti-apartheid lawyers in Johannesburg, Kentridge studied politics and African studies before pursuing art and theater, initially struggling to find his footing. His unique style—marked by gestural charcoal drawings and stop-motion animation—reflects deep engagement with South Africa’s political history and broader human themes, culminating in innovative work across operas, dance, and visual art. With groundbreaking productions like Mozart’s Magic Flute and Shostakovich’s The Nose, and founding The Centre for the Less Good Idea to foster experimental creativity, Kentridge’s trajectory reveals how embracing failure and hybridity can lead to profound artistic success and global recognition.

Steven Klein, renowned for his provocative and intensely stylized fashion and portrait photography, has spent over three decades crafting a distinctive visual language that blends sexuality, tension, and bold artistry. Collaborating with cultural icons like Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Brad Pitt, Klein’s work has continuously pushed boundaries, creating images that are both captivating and unsettling. Even during the Covid lockdown, when traditional shoots were impossible, Klein adapted by capturing evocative still lifes with his iPhone, demonstrating his relentless creative drive. From his rebellious youth sneaking photos with his father’s camera to iconic campaigns for brands like Alexander McQueen and Tom Ford, Klein’s vision remains unapologetically fierce and fearless, transforming celebrity portraiture into a lasting exploration of identity, power, and the darker edges of beauty.

Discover a curated collection of unique domestic objects that transform minimalist spaces into warm, engaging homes, blending contemporary art with everyday living. From Ryan McGinley’s vibrant beach towels and Karen Kilimnik’s marine-inspired designs to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s iconic neo-expressionist puzzles, each piece offers a storytelling element that sparks curiosity and conversation. Embrace cultural depth with Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac Ox apparel, dive into Keith Haring’s subway art through insightful books, or lighten your kitchen chores with David Shrigley’s witty tea towel set. These art-inspired selections invite you to enliven your space and lifestyle with creativity, humor, and a touch of cultural commentary.

American painter Tessa Perutz, who divides her time between New York and Brussels, channels her creative spirit through Massif Central, a New York-based brand producing exquisite silk scarves featuring contemporary artists. Named after the historic silk-producing region in southern France, Massif Central marries artistic heritage with modern expression, showcasing limited edition scarves crafted from high-quality materials. Perutz’s latest collaboration highlights Californian artist Henry Gunderson’s vivid painting "Up So Long It Looks Like Down," a bold piece blending hyperrealism and pop culture elements, now transformed into a striking silk scarf. Through thoughtful artist partnerships and meticulous fabric selection, Perutz brings an innovative fusion of art and textile, celebrating transformation, color, and design in wearable form.

Sarah Sze, acclaimed sculptor and painter known for representing the U.S. at the 2013 Venice Biennale, explores the complexities of time, space, and perception through her innovative installations and paintings. Her work, often crafted from everyday materials like packaged food, fans, and pharmaceuticals, transforms familiar objects into immersive environments that challenge how we locate ourselves in reality. From her dynamic sculptures on New York’s High Line to intricate assemblies for the American Pavilion, Sze engages viewers in a continual search for meaning, blending scientific inquiry with philosophical reflection. Since 2018, her paintings have evolved into layered, collage-like landscapes that capture the fluidity of memory and experience, inviting us to rethink the value and role of art in contemporary culture.

Marilyn Minter, a pioneering American artist since the late 1960s, melds pornography, glamor, and feminism into her provocative paintings and photographs, challenging viewers with her explicit, close-up depictions of the female body. Growing up in a tumultuous environment in Louisiana and Florida, Minter’s journey led her to New York City, where she developed a bold artistic voice that defies conventional norms and embraces the erotic impulse as a form of empowerment. Despite criticism, her work—ranging from her “Porn Grid” series to the sensuous “100 Food Porn”—has garnered critical acclaim, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and exhibitions at major museums. Today, Minter continues to inspire both audiences and students alike, urging young artists to follow their inner vision rather than conform to trends, proving that authentic creativity truly transcends time.

English artist Harland Miller, known for his witty reinterpretations of classic book covers, has lately embraced minimalism in his work, focusing on single, evocative words like UP, GOOD, or YES layered on canvas. Inspired by a serendipitous discovery of Penguin paperbacks in Paris and driven by a desire to communicate deeply and directly, Miller’s art blends textual play with vivid imagery to evoke personal narratives and emotional connections. His diverse series explore contrasts—ranging from abstract color fields and bleak northern landscapes to pop-psychological illusions—challenging viewers to navigate the interplay between word and image. Through his “International Lonely Guy” alter ego, Miller captures a spectrum of human experience, from cynicism to romance, crafting paintings that invite reflection without the need for explanation, proving that sometimes less truly is more.

Swiss-born artist Ugo Rondinone’s work is deeply rooted in the themes of time, space, and the human condition, inspired by personal loss and his connection to nature. After purchasing an olive orchard near his parents’ hometown of Matera, Italy, Rondinone began casting ancient olive trees as sculptures that embody the passage of time. His early landscape sketches reflect a spiritual turn following the death of his partner during the AIDS crisis, while his signature sun paintings explore futuristic notions of time through vibrant, machine-like perfection. Rondinone’s art often plays with contrasts—masculine and feminine, personal and impersonal—expressed through diverse media including photography, sculpture, and land art. His iconic Seven Magic Mountains in the Nevada desert fuses natural forms with vivid pop colors, inviting viewers to experience a contemplative space where nature and art converge. Throughout his career, Rondinone channels both melancholy and hope, offering a poetic meditation on existence and the ephemeral beauty of life.

This curated collection of contemporary prints and editions offers a diverse range of striking works that bring modernism, nature, and cultural reflection into your home without the hefty price tag often associated with fine art. From Simone Leigh’s symbolic ceramic cowrie shell inspired by African heritage, to Maxi Cohen’s mesmerizing photographs of natural waters, and Clifford Ross’s breathtaking hurricane waves supporting clean water initiatives, each piece tells a unique story. David Salle’s bold floral imagery contrasts with Nick Cave’s dynamic, danceable Soundsuits that confront identity and resilience. Bill Claps explores communication through coded symbolism, while Lewis Miller captures ephemeral public floral displays filled with hope. Sarah Morris blends geometric abstraction with natural and architectural influences, David Ondaatje’s serene swimmer photograph supports environmental causes, and Awol Erizku challenges cultural perceptions with his powerful reinterpretation of a classic logo. This collection invites collectors to enrich their spaces with meaningful, visually compelling art that resonates far beyond the frame.

Wangechi Mutu challenges conventional definitions of art by highlighting the colonial roots that confine it to European aesthetics and museum walls. Born in Nairobi and educated internationally, Mutu’s multidisciplinary work blends sculpture, collage, and installation to explore themes of race, gender, ecology, and the body, creating figures that are both ancient and futuristic. Her striking pieces, such as the bronze sculptures displayed on the Metropolitan Museum’s facade, confront and invite viewers to reconsider cultural narratives and power structures. Through her art, Mutu bridges past and future, sacred and profane, urging a broader, more inclusive understanding of what art can be and embody.

This vibrant collection spotlights women artists who transform simple geometric shapes into profound explorations of identity, culture, and life itself. From Agnes Denes’s pioneering land art and adaptive computer-generated Butterfly Experiments to Bharti Kher’s meditations on cultural flux through tantric motifs, each work challenges and expands our visual language. Janaina Tschäpe evokes primordial life, while Dana Schutz confronts human conflict with dark humor. Loie Hollowell’s deeply personal abstractions offer solace through color, and Sarah Sze captures the fragility of time by distorting the sun’s path. Delita Martin’s cosmic portraits celebrate Black womanhood, Pia Camil’s utilitarian garments weave craft into commodification, and Lubaina Himid reimagines history through theatre. Ebony G Patterson uses ornamentation to address social injustice, Camille Henrot reflects on motherhood’s complexity, and Mickalene Thomas reclaims Black female eroticism from archival imagery. Andrea Blanch’s photography combines intimacy and striking color, proving that form, whether in paint, print, or fabric, remains a powerful vessel for storytelling and bold artistic expression.

When Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari joined forces to create their neo-surrealist magazine Toiletpaper in 2010, they set out to explore a realm beyond traditional art and fashion. Now partnered with Seletti, they’ve expanded their signature bold, mind-bending imagery into a vibrant range of lifestyle products perfect for summer adventures. From stylish waist bags and chic wash bags to thermal bottles, enamel teapots, mugs, bowls, plates, and wooden folding deck chairs, each item bursts with Toiletpaper’s iconic surreal designs, turning everyday outdoor moments into playful, eye-catching experiences. Whether relaxing at the park, beach, or campground, this collection combines high-quality craftsmanship with avant-garde flair to elevate your sunny day essentials.

Catherine Mead, a seasoned travel photographer and photojournalist, has spent over two decades capturing the unexpected beauty of the world through her medium-format film cameras. From the bustling streets of Cuba to the serene landscapes of Iceland and Morocco, her images reframe the ordinary, inspiring wanderlust and inviting viewers to explore beyond typical tourist paths. Mead’s journey began with a childhood fascination for photography, nurtured by dedicated mentors, and blossomed into a career marked by adventurous assignments in challenging conditions—from stormy Maldives openings to typhoon-hit Kyoto. Passionate about authentic local experiences, she seeks out hidden gems and vibrant moments that bring her frames to life, such as children playing or a diving pigeon. Her deep connection to Morocco, a place she calls home, and her reverence for influential photographers like Dorothea Lange, shine through her evocative work. Amidst raising a new family, Mead embraces a fresh chapter of travel and storytelling, sharing her art directly with collectors and inspiring conversations and dreams of adventure worldwide.

French luxury swimwear brand Vilebrequin, led by CEO Roland Herlory, has partnered with JRP Editions and MAMCO Geneva to create an innovative collection that brings contemporary art to life on swimwear and accessories. Collaborating with renowned artists like Kenny Scharf, John M Armleder, Mickalene Thomas, and Racquel Chevremont, the project emphasizes respect for each artist’s unique vision while pushing creative and technical boundaries. The process involves close, evolving dialogue to ensure artworks translate impeccably onto fabric, highlighting Vilebrequin’s exceptional printing expertise. From Scharf’s vibrant, joyous streetwear-inspired designs to Armleder’s conceptual abstractions, the collection celebrates a dynamic fusion of art and fashion, promising a fresh, visually striking summer lineup that continues to evolve with future releases.

Sanya Kantarovsky’s enigmatic paintings, marked by dramatic shifts in scale and style, explore the tensions of impermanence and the human condition with a mix of humor, cultural allusions, and raw emotion. His latest limited edition silkscreen print, *Little Vera* (2022), not only showcases his signature blend of high and low cultural references—from Viennese Secession influences to Soviet-era cartoons—but also supports the healing mission of RxART, a nonprofit transforming children's hospitals through art. Kantarovsky’s work is deeply relatable and humane, balancing sharp wit and melancholy to reflect on the complexities of life, death, and memory, inviting viewers into narrative fragments that are as thought-provoking as they are visually compelling.

Interiors may often be overshadowed by portraits and landscapes in art collections, but they offer a rich and diverse world full of historical depth, surreal imagery, and intimate social narratives. From Romare Bearden’s evocative collage of a North Carolina home to Ken Price’s vibrant LA sunset print, and Shellburne Thurber’s mysterious nocturnal bedroom photograph, each piece invites viewers to explore stories behind familiar domestic spaces. Justin Samson blends abstraction with vintage interiors, while René Magritte’s surreal Time Transfixed famously disrupts everyday expectations. Maria Kalman captures the elegance of Parisian salons, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer presents a modern, tense New York apartment, and Jonas Wood’s collaborative still life with Shio Kusaka celebrates shared creativity and personal life. This selection reveals just how compelling and multifaceted interiors can be as subjects in art.

Nicole Gelinas, a Bremerton-based artist, captivates with her series-based mixed media works that explore emotions, nature, and the passage of time through abstraction and experimentation. Working with diverse materials—from oil and charcoal to alternative photographic processes—she creates evocative pieces that embody concepts like seasonal depression or the emergence of spring from winter. Embracing unconventional tools and layering techniques unique to each series, Gelinas treats her art as a personal journal, releasing emotions and reflections onto the canvas with minimal overthinking. Her work invites viewers to pause amid today’s visual chaos, offering a contemplative space that resonates with moods, memories, and the subtle beauty of change.

In the ever-evolving world of contemporary art, personal taste remains a vital and powerful guide, reflecting who you are as much as the people you surround yourself with or the choices you make daily. Esteemed art advisor Thea Westreich Wagner champions taste not as a superficial preference but as an authentic expression of individuality, encouraging collectors to embrace what truly resonates with them. Building a meaningful collection isn’t just about market trends or expert opinions—it starts with trusting your instincts and developing a deep connection to the pieces that move you. Whether drawn to the striking vibrancy of Loie Hollowell, the serene works on paper by Despa Hondros, or the challenging perspectives of Edward Burtynsky, engaging with art is about fostering conversations with your soul and surroundings. As tastes evolve like fashion or music, so too can your collection, creating a dynamic, personal journey shaped by ongoing curiosity and reflection. Ultimately, it’s this passionate pursuit that makes art collecting not only rewarding but uniquely yours.

Discover how iconic artists like Sol Lewitt, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, and Damien Hirst bring their creative visions from gallery walls to your dining table with a stunning collection of unique tabletop items. From Lewitt’s geometric ceramic bowls inspired by ancient Italian pottery to Bourgeois’s evocative embroidered coasters that reflect her complex inner world, each piece transforms everyday moments into artful experiences. Dive into the surreal charm of Toiletpaper’s coffee set, the cosmic allure of Diesel Living’s Lunar Salad Bowl, and the playful architecture of Michael Graves's Little Dripper coffee set. These objects don’t just serve function—they invite you to engage with art intimately while elevating your home gatherings into unforgettable celebrations of design, history, and imagination.

Italian artist Naomi Vona transforms found vintage photographs into vibrant, imaginative collages that serve as portals connecting past and present. Using pens, paper, colored tape, and stickers, she overlays abstract forms and contemporary patterns onto old portraits, creating “visual proof” of her creative time travel. Fascinated by archives and memories, Naomi’s work blends photography, illustration, and design, inviting viewers to explore alternative stories behind anonymous subjects. Her evolving practice, influenced by analog photography and a love for experimentation, includes expanding vintage images onto larger canvases to craft surreal worlds. With exhibitions worldwide and features in major art magazines, Naomi continues to push boundaries, making each piece a colorful celebration of history, imagination, and subconscious inspiration.

The skateboarding revival has transformed what was once an underground, rebellious pastime into a vibrant mainstream culture, fueled by the rise of skate-focused video games, fashion, and its inclusion in the Olympics. This cultural resurgence also celebrates the skateboard as a unique canvas for art, showcased in collaborations with iconic artists like Keith Haring, whose playful and dynamic style harmonizes with skate and street culture; French street artist JR, known for powerful public installations; and Mark Flood, whose punk-infused works bring a provocative edge. The innovative fusion continues with fine art legends such as Andy Warhol’s legendary Campbell’s Soup cans reimagined on skate decks, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s striking portraiture, and KAWS’s contemporary streetwear collaborations with Supreme, proving that skateboarding is not only a sport but a compelling medium for artistic expression and cultural storytelling.

David Ondaatje, a Canadian-born photographer and filmmaker with a lifelong passion for water and fly fishing, captures the beauty and dynamism of rivers and coastlines through his striking aerial photography. His work, including the limited edition print "Gaviota Swimmer," showcases the mesmerizing interplay of light, water, and landscape from unique perspectives gained through evolving drone technology. Ondaatje’s fascination with waves and the ever-changing nature of water drives his creative journey, taking him to remote locations around the world where he balances the thrill of discovery with the challenges of shooting in the wild. Deeply connected to his subjects and motivated by moments of natural beauty and personal resonance, his photography invites viewers to see familiar scenes in profoundly new ways, while also supporting causes close to his heart, such as Human Rights Watch.

Rosa-Johan Uddoh is an interdisciplinary artist whose work challenges the constructed narratives around nation-building and Black British identity through performance, humor, and parody. Drawing on Black feminist thought and popular culture, she embodies exaggerated versions of iconic figures like Meghan Markle and Hercule Poirot to explore how identity is shaped and constrained. Her series *Performing Whitness* cleverly critiques British institutional neutrality by mimicking the poised television newsreader delivering absurd headlines, highlighting how performance shapes truth and self-esteem in everyday spaces. Uddoh also collaborates with teenagers to investigate contemporary popular culture’s influence and draws inspiration from pioneering figures like Una Marson, the first Black BBC program maker. Her upcoming book *Practice Makes Perfect* invites readers to engage with scripts that question Black British representation, blending experimental writing with playful and radical explorations of identity and self-love.

Brooklyn-born Alex Katz is a towering figure in postwar American art, celebrated for his bold figurative paintings that blend the sensitivity of his Queens upbringing with a confident rejection of Abstract Expressionism's dominance. From his early days at Cooper Union, where he distinguished himself academically and artistically, to his innovative approach marked by large brush strokes and vibrant, premixed colors, Katz has crafted a unique visual language that bridges modernism and Pop art. Even in his 90s, his youthful energy pulses through works that command attention and resist conformity, reflecting a lifelong commitment to capturing powerful, image-driven moments. Through candid reflections on his process, influences, and the evolution of his self-confidence, Katz reveals an artist who has continually challenged norms while remaining deeply connected to the world around him.

Contemporary art plunges us into vibrant explorations of pools and water, from David Hockney’s iconic *A Bigger Splash*, capturing the fleeting moment of a splash against stark architecture, to Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld’s disturbing yet captivating detergent-distorted digital prints. Fabrizio Alzati’s documentary photography reveals the bustling, tourist-packed Riviera Romagnola, while JR’s haunting portrayal of Liberia’s abandoned Intercontinental Hotel pool evokes beauty in decay. Poby’s monochromatic fine art photograph channels modernist influences, and Kim Hyang’s Olympic-inspired *Swimmer* evokes the spirit of athleticism epitomized by Michael Phelps. Cuban artist Rachel Valdes’s three-point perspective watercolors seamlessly blend reality and abstraction, and Kanghee Kim’s surreal poolside reflections invite viewers into dreamlike, digitally manipulated scenes. Together, these works celebrate pools as spaces of contrast—stillness and motion, reality and imagination, glamour and ruin—refreshing our senses as we long for cool, blue water.

Spencer Lazar, a dynamic Harvard graduate with a rich background in tech and venture capital, has turned his creative energy toward the power of printed media by co-founding Apply, an innovative New York-based sticker company. Apply champions the idea that stickers are more than just small decals—they’re a form of creative empowerment that lets anyone express themselves artistically, regardless of skill level. Working with celebrated artists and photographers, Apply produces vibrant, collectible sticker sheets that pay homage to iconic figures like Keith Haring and Andy Warhol, blending art and accessibility in a way that honors their legacies. Beyond their bold designs, these stickers are engineered with precision, able to withstand diverse surfaces and environments without damage. Through Apply, Lazar and his team invite everyone to personalize their world and boldly showcase their values, proving that a simple sticker can be a powerful medium for creativity and connection.

Houston-based multimedia artist Steven Evans intertwines music, memory, and identity in his poignant sculptural installation, *Songs for a Memorial*, currently featured at the New York City AIDS Memorial. Through evocative neon works like *Don’t Leave Me This Way/Never Can Say Goodbye, 2022*, Evans pays homage to disco anthems forever linked to the AIDS crisis, creating a vibrant space for reflection and remembrance. Drawing on decades of personal and collective histories, he explores how song titles evoke intimate and shared memories, blending art, activism, and emotional resonance. His neon sculptures glow with a club-like energy, inviting viewers to connect with the joy, loss, and resilience that define a pivotal era in LGBTQ+ history, while continuing to inspire conversations on identity and community today.

Samara Scott is a visionary artist known for her inventive sculptures and installations that transform everyday materials—like nail polish, avocado skins, shampoo, and cigarette ash—into vibrant, unsettling landscapes that blur the lines between the biological, manufactured, and virtual worlds. Her work, described as a “bulimic regurgitation” of consumer excess, explores the physicality and aftermath of consumption with visceral, fluid compositions that challenge perceptions of decay, beauty, and environmental impact. Scott’s art is a poignant reflection on human appetites, complicity, and the paradox of freedom within the destructive systems we inhabit, creating haunting, almost alchemical scenes that stir both awe and unease. Featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Scott embraces chaos and transformation, inviting viewers to confront the messy, interconnected realities of our postindustrial existence.

As wedding season blooms, this curated collection of artworks captures the multifaceted emotions and rituals of marriage—from the idyllic charm of Villa Balbianello in Victoria Zhivotneva’s impressionistic print to the surreal biblical passion in Salvador Dalí’s etching. Artists like Naomi Vona blend vintage nostalgia with contemporary collage, while Tina Barney’s photography reveals the nuanced performance behind the ceremonies. From Amy Hill’s enigmatic Renaissance-inspired couple to the playful cosplay bride in Robin Moyer’s photograph and the poignant still life of Ross Craig’s plastic cake toppers, these pieces explore love’s joy, complexity, and symbolism. Whether through poetic modernism, vivid photorealism, or thought-provoking technology dialogues by Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos, each work offers a unique reflection on the celebration, ceremony, and cultural expression of weddings across time and place.

Arts and sports, often seen as opposing forces, have long been intertwined, inspiring artists to capture the dynamic energy, movement, and societal reflections found in athletic pursuits. From Edgar Degas’ classical depictions of athletes to modern takes like Brandon J Donahue’s basketball-inspired sculptures and David Hockney’s vibrant Olympic posters, sports provide rich material for artistic exploration. Photographers like David Levinthal blur reality with fantasy, while icons such as Andy Warhol immortalize legendary figures like Muhammad Ali. The unconventional feats of Britain’s Dangerous Sports Club, Julian Opie’s focus on everyday runners, and Raymond Pettibon’s nuanced baseball imagery further showcase the diverse ways art channels the drama, triumph, and cultural significance of sports. This compelling fusion highlights how the athletic world continues to fuel creative expression and social commentary across mediums and eras.

Loie Hollowell’s luminous paintings explore the intimate and transformative experiences of the female body through a unique blend of three-dimensional sculptural forms and richly layered color gradients. Drawing inspiration from her personal journey—including abortion, pregnancy, and motherhood—her work merges geometric abstraction with deeply personal symbolism, creating pieces that pulse with life and invite close, meditative engagement. Her new limited edition print, *Yellow Brain* (2022), channels this practice with embossed textures and a vibrant violet gradient, serving as a homage to her father’s recovery from traumatic brain injury. Beyond aesthetic innovation, Hollowell’s edition supports the Malaria Consortium, highlighting her commitment to impactful global causes. Her art, deeply rooted in bodily experience and spiritual resonance, offers a vivid, emotional landscape where light, color, and form converge to communicate narratives of healing, identity, and resilience.

Photography’s deep connection to the countryside is vividly celebrated through a curated selection of stunning images that capture nature’s diverse beauty and unexpected intersections with urban life. From Mihály B. Demeczky’s crystalline Alpine-inspired landscapes to Catherine Mead’s serene lavender fields in southern France, each photograph invites viewers on a scenic journey. South African photographer Rudi Gremels’ desert patterns, Maria Lax’s vibrant tropical hues echoing far from her Finnish roots, and Gray Malin’s thrilling aerial shots of Michigan’s Torch Lake sandbar add layers of wonder and exploration. Meanwhile, Paul Raphaelson finds wild beauty in New York’s abandoned lots, and Lia Bekyan reflects on belonging and presence between city and nature, exploring themes of time and selfhood. These evocative works collectively showcase photography’s power to reveal both the grandeur and subtlety of the natural and liminal worlds we inhabit.

Photography, often associated with urban life, finds profound expression in the countryside, capturing the raw beauty and fleeting moments of nature and rural landscapes. From Mihály B. Demeczky’s evocative Alpine-inspired scenes in Slovakia to Catherine Mead’s minimalist lavender fields of southern France, and Rudi Gremels’ fleeting desert patterns in Morocco, these works celebrate the sublime and transient qualities of the natural world. Maria Lax brings a vibrant tropical color palette from her Northern roots, while Gray Malin’s aerial shots reveal hidden paradises like Michigan’s Torch Lake. Paul Raphaelson uncovers unexpected beauty in urban wilderness spaces of Brooklyn, and Lia Bekyan’s contemplative images explore the intersection of city life and nature, inviting reflection on presence and belonging. This curated collection showcases the diversity and emotional depth of landscape photography, illustrating how artists continually find new ways to connect us to the environment around us.

Sanya Kantarovsky’s paintings transcend mere visual pleasure, inviting viewers into a complex, sometimes unsettling experience that challenges perception and evokes a sense of delay and discord. Drawing inspiration from a diverse range of artists—from Luc Tuymans to Marc Chagall—and influenced by his culturally rich, intellectually vibrant upbringing in Moscow and later Rhode Island, Kantarovsky blends dark humor and poetic narrative in his figurative work. A graduate of RISD and UCLA, his acclaimed art transcends painting, encompassing video and sculpture, as he embraces the Russian avant-garde concept of "ostranenie" to make the familiar strange and compelling. Living in Brooklyn with his artist wife and daughter, Kantarovsky continues to push artistic boundaries, crafting works that invite viewers to see the world anew.

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s meteoric rise and enduring legacy are powerfully captured in the new exhibition King Pleasure, organized by his family and currently on view in New York. Bursting onto the neo-expressionist scene in the 1980s with a bold, frenetic energy, Basquiat transcended his graffiti origins to gain global acclaim, collaborating with icons like Andy Warhol and exhibiting worldwide before his untimely death at 27. This comprehensive show delves beyond his vibrant artworks to reveal the artist’s personal world, featuring rare paintings, a faithful recreation of his childhood home, his Palladium nightclub murals, and intimate memorabilia. Highlighted by his final contemplative piece Dry Cell, King Pleasure invites viewers to experience the full scope of Basquiat’s genius, echoing the magnitude of his influence that continues to captivate new generations nearly four decades later.

At this year’s Frieze New York, held for the first time inside Manhattan’s sprawling Shed, the art fair embraced a broader temporal perspective, blending contemporary pieces with significant works from previous decades. Highlights included Carol Bove’s immersive installation at David Zwirner, where coral-red steel sculptures play with spatial perception, and Albert Oehlen’s Gagosian booth, which showcased his provocative, computer-aided prints alongside a playful fusion beverage. New York’s Franklin Parrasch presented expressive pieces by Joan Snyder, whose layered, gestural works from the 1980s retain vibrant energy, while Sadie Coles Gallery spotlighted mid-career artist Wilhelm Sasnal’s striking linocuts and Alex Da Corte’s playful neon and fabric works. Simon Fujiwara’s Esther Schipper installation offered witty social commentary with garments turned into revolutionary symbols, and Victoria Miro’s booth featured Yayoi Kusama’s iconic dot-covered canvases and personal lithographs, evoking her profound legacy bridging abstraction and pop art. Together, these presentations crafted a dynamic narrative celebrating both the fresh and the time-honored in contemporary art.

Artspace, Phaidon, and MATCHESFASHION came together to celebrate the release of the new Phaidon book, *Prime – Art’s Next Generation*, with a vibrant cocktail party at MATCHESFASHION’s New York Frieze week Residency. The event, held in a stylish Upper East Side townhouse, featured a curated high summer edit, delicious gourmet tacos, cocktails by Agua Mágica Mezcal, and warm churros, creating the perfect atmosphere to honor the innovative artists showcased in the book. Attended by influential figures including Phaidon and Artspace executives, alongside many of the featured artists from 41 countries, the gathering highlighted a dynamic group who are redefining art through diverse mediums ranging from traditional materials to experimental digital and sensory practices. A special charitable limited edition silkscreen print by artist Loie Hollowell was announced in partnership with Artspace, adding an exclusive highlight to the week-long residency, which also displayed works by other remarkable Prime artists like Christina Quarles and Samara Scott.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's electrifying and prolific career, marked by his rapid rise from the graffiti scene to international acclaim, continues to captivate nearly 35 years after his untimely death at 27. The current exhibition, King Pleasure, curated by his family and held in New York, offers an immersive glimpse into his world, showcasing over 200 rarely seen works alongside personal artifacts that reveal the cultural heartbeat behind his art. From collaborations with Andy Warhol to his role in the vibrant 1980s New York art scene and his poignant final painting, Dry Cell, the exhibit paints a vivid portrait of a restless genius whose influence endures, inviting audiences to finally grasp the profound legacy he left behind.

Frieze New York continues to embrace both contemporary innovation and art historical reverence, showcasing a striking mix of new and older works across its booths. Carol Bove’s immersive installation at David Zwirner plays cleverly with material and perception, while Gagosian spotlights Albert Oehlen’s provocative, digitally influenced prints. The fair also highlights distinguished figures like Joan Snyder with her expressive stroke paintings, mid-career standout Wilhelm Sasnal’s crisp linocuts, and Alex Da Corte’s vibrant, pop-infused neon and fabric pieces. Simon Fujiwara’s politically charged sculptural scarves at Esther Schipper and Yayoi Kusama’s iconic, dot-filled canvases at Victoria Miro round out a dynamic exhibition that bridges eras, styles, and narratives, offering art lovers a rich and varied encounter with both legacy and innovation.

Artspace, Phaidon, and MATCHESFASHION recently celebrated the launch of the new Phaidon book *Prime – Art’s Next Generation* with a vibrant cocktail party during MATCHESFASHION’s New York Frieze week Residency. Held in a stylish Upper East Side townhouse, the event featured a curated summer collection, live art, and a delicious menu of gourmet tacos and mezcal cocktails. Attendees included prominent figures from the art world and many of the featured Prime artists, whose innovative work spans traditional and experimental mediums across 41 countries. Highlights included personalized calligraphed bookmarks for book purchasers and an exclusive preview of a limited edition silkscreen print by Loie Hollowell, with artworks by Christina Quarles and Samara Scott also on display. This gathering celebrated the cutting edge of contemporary art, showcasing a dynamic new generation pushing the boundaries of creative expression.

Marianna Simnett’s provocative multidisciplinary art practice delves into the visceral and often unsettling boundaries of human and animal bodies, blending film, installation, and sculpture to evoke physical and psychological discomfort. Her works, such as the immersive five-channel film installation *Blood in My Milk*, intertwine scientific processes, clinical scenarios, and fairy tale-inspired narratives to explore themes of transformation, bodily autonomy, and contamination. By incorporating untrained actors and real-life professionals, Simnett creates haunting experiences that challenge perceptions of the body through surreal, sometimes grotesque imagery, and performance-based endurance art—including voice manipulation and self-induced fainting. Throughout, she confronts complex issues around identity, biotechnology, and capitalism with tenderness and intensity, marking her as a compelling voice in contemporary art’s next generation.

French artist Jean Jullien’s creative journey began with a simple daily drawing exercise encouraged during his school years in Brittany, fostering his keen eye for everyday life and a distinctive, playful style. Known for his wit and relatable scenes, Jullien’s work spans exhibitions, public installations, fashion, and editorial projects, culminating in his limited edition print *Public (2022)*—a vibrant celebration of human togetherness featuring his signature whimsical crowd. Influenced by family, comics, and early art experiences, Jullien embraces collaboration and finds joy in capturing the simple, meaningful moments of life, now deepened by fatherhood. His art invites us to appreciate happiness in the small details, making us smile and reflect through his universal visual language.

Marianna Simnett’s art delves into the visceral and unsettling, exploring the body’s limits through film, sculpture, and installation that blur fables with clinical reality. Her work confronts themes of transformation, contamination, and the effects of biotechnology, often featuring untrained actors and real professionals in haunting narratives that combine medical procedures with raw human and animal corporeality. From her complex five-channel film Blood in My Milk to provocative performances like the Botox-altered voice in The Needle and the Larynx, Simnett challenges perceptions of control, vulnerability, and identity, creating experiences designed to provoke a physical, almost tactile reaction in the viewer. Her fearless engagement with discomfort and bodily transformation marks her as a vital voice in contemporary art’s next generation.

French artist Jean Jullien’s journey began with a simple daily drawing exercise encouraged during his school days in Brittany, fostering a vivid visual language rooted in everyday life. His work, characterized by playful wit and keen observation, captures the joy found in ordinary moments, people, and places. Now a father, Jullien reflects this sense of happiness and connection through his art, celebrating human togetherness with a warm, approachable style. From early influences like comics and classic painters to his breakthrough peace symbol after the 2015 Paris attacks, his creations blend humor, love, and life’s small beauties, inviting viewers into a universal dialogue of positivity and shared experience.

Munem Wasif’s poignant works, featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, explore the intersection of human and machine, history and future, through haunting black-and-white visuals and evocative soundscapes. His piece *Machine Matter* reflects on the fading jute industry of Bangladesh, capturing the lives of exploited laborers and the fragile boundary between life and death. Meanwhile, *Seeds Shall Set Us Free* revives traditional cyanotype photography to comment on genetic engineering and cultural heritage. Wasif’s art navigates social inequities and the scars of colonial history, inviting viewers to contemplate invisibility, vulnerability, and the evolving role of art in a digital age, all while embracing moments of creative energy and intuitive flow.

Munem Wasif’s evocative work, featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, delves into the symbiotic relationship between humans and machines, capturing the fading industrial heritage of jute production in Bangladesh through haunting black-and-white imagery. His piece *Machine Matter* melds the mechanical with the mortal, exploring themes of exploitation, history, and transformation with profound sensitivity. In *Seeds Shall Set Us Free*, Wasif resurrects the cyanotype process to create striking constellations of ceremonial seeds, reflecting on genetic engineering and cultural memory. Throughout his art, Wasif confronts social inequities and invisible histories, inviting viewers to contemplate vulnerability, endurance, and the power of visual storytelling in a rapidly changing world.

Tony Albert’s art powerfully intersects graphics, language, and popular culture to explore themes of identity, stereotyping, and history, particularly reflecting on Aboriginal experiences. Through collaborative projects like Warakurna Superheroes and thought-provoking installations such as Exotic Other and Sorry, Albert uses familiar imagery and loaded language to challenge narratives around Indigenous representation and the ongoing impact of colonialism. His work reclaims kitsch “Aboriginalia” while confronting commodification and cultural stereotypes, inviting viewers to reconsider history’s influence on the present and envision more equitable futures. Confident and conceptually driven, Albert continuously evolves his practice, deeply engaging with sustainability and the role of creativity in social change, embodying the dynamic spirit of new artistic generations featured in Phaidon's Prime: Art’s Next Generation.

Tony Albert is a multimedia artist whose work spans photography, video, painting, sculpture, and collage, driven by a conceptual approach deeply rooted in research and cultural commentary. With a contemporary Pop sensibility, Albert explores themes of identity, popular culture, and the historical and ongoing impacts of stereotyping and oppression on Aboriginal Australians. His collaborative projects, such as the Warakurna Superheroes series, and provocative installations like Exotic Other and Sorry, challenge viewers to reconsider the commodification and misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples. Through vivid imagery and loaded language, Albert reclaims cultural icons to both critique and empower, aiming to pave the way for more equitable futures. Confident and committed to sustainability in art, he continuously pushes boundaries, believing the best work is always ahead.

Miriam Laura Leonardi’s art explores the subtle complexities beneath seemingly simple forms, transforming single words or images into thought-provoking sculptures that navigate history, language, and contemporary culture. Her works, such as the minimalist yet playful *Tonsure Nuova 3* and the Kafkaesque double beetle sculpture *Yeah*, invite viewers to reconsider how the past is altered over time and how we engage with consumerism and historical narratives today. Starting with the final image and tracing back its significance, Leonardi’s creative process unravels the paradoxes hidden in simplicity, challenging us to look deeper. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, she balances her innovative practice with teaching, reflecting on the evolving role of art books amid instant digital culture.

Andrés Pereira Paz’s work powerfully highlights moments in Latin American art history where Indigenous thought resists colonial narratives, reimagining history through a cyclical lens that challenges Western linear time. Drawing inspiration from a 1615 manuscript by Indigenous chronicler Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, Pereira Paz transforms gestures linked to violence into evocative wire sculptures, while his 2019 Berlin exhibition, Radio Carabuco, engaged with the colonial use of religious imagery to control Indigenous populations by incorporating podcasts, brass sculptures, and vibrant LGBTQIA+ community archives. His 2020 installation, EGO FVLCIO COLLVMNAS EIVS, evokes Indigenous celestial deities alongside sounds of a bird displaced by the Amazon fires, symbolizing the destructive impact of global capitalism on ecosystems. Blending ritual, humor, and experimental artistry, Pereira Paz creates a compelling narrative of resistance and resilience that defies Western modernity, inviting audiences to engage with history, identity, and transformation in profound new ways.

Magnhild Øen Nordahl’s innovative sculptures explore the intersection of art, science, and technology by transforming abstract concepts like mathematical knot theory and 3D modeling into striking physical forms. From delicate colored ropes representing elemental knots to monumental anodized aluminum structures inspired by 3D printing scaffolds, her work reveals the hidden frameworks shaping both natural and digital worlds. Through projects like "Secret Support" and "How to Make a Utah Teapot," Nordahl blurs the boundaries between human craftsmanship and technological fabrication, inviting viewers to consider how abstraction and materiality coexist. Featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art's Next Generation*, her practice deepens our understanding of geometry, knowledge, and the evolving relationship between art and emerging technologies.

Sofía Gallisá Muriente, a Puerto Rican artist featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, explores the power of images to address historical gaps and challenge colonial narratives. Through her multidisciplinary practice—combining text, archives, and film—she highlights overlooked stories and personal memory, especially in the context of Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria. Her work, such as the evocative film *Celaje (Cloudscape)*, uses innovative techniques like biodeterioration to connect ecology, memory, and time, revealing the complex interplay between nature’s resilience and cultural erasure. Gallisá Muriente’s collaborative and research-driven approach seeks to reimagine history, foster collective memory, and question established visual cultures, emphasizing the role of art in healing and remembering beyond institutional frameworks.

Marilyn Boror Bor’s powerful artistic practice centers on reclaiming and preserving her Mayan Kaqchikel heritage in the face of cultural erasure and colonial legacy. Through projects like her “Edicto cambio de nombre,” where she legally changed her name to expose the painful assimilation migrants endure, and her linguistic interventions that restore Indigenous languages to public spaces, Boror Bor challenges Western dominance and the loss of identity. Her evocative works, including the fading Dictionary of Forgotten Objects and the critical postcard series ¡Ni parece Guatemala!, invite viewers to reconsider stereotypes and honor the depth of Mayan culture. Rooted in ancestral wisdom and contemporary struggle, Boror Bor’s art is a living dialogue of resistance, memory, and community, bridging past and present with a vibrant, heartfelt urgency.

Miriam Laura Leonardi’s art captivates through its deceptively simple yet profoundly layered transformations of language, communication, and historical symbols. Her sculptures, like the minimalist, retail-inspired *Tonsure Nuova 3* and the Kafkaesque bronze beetles in *Yeah*, explore the fluidity of meaning over time and challenge viewers to reconsider how history and contemporary culture intertwine. Leonardi’s process starts with a final image that she then unpacks, inviting us to delve into the paradoxes hidden within simplicity. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, she balances artistic creation with teaching, reflecting on how art books endure as vital touchstones amidst the fleeting nature of digital platforms.

Andrés Pereira Paz powerfully reimagines Latin America’s art history by foregrounding Indigenous resistance and cyclical worldviews through innovative multimedia works. Drawing inspiration from the 1615 chronicle by Indigenous chronicler Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, Pereira Paz transforms historical imagery into compelling installations that question colonial narratives and Western linear time. His 2019 exhibition *Radio Carabuco* in Berlin combined brass sculptures, audio, and archival materials to explore the impacts of religious and cultural colonization, while his 2020 piece *EGO FVLCIO COLLVMNAS EIVS* evokes Indigenous celestial deities alongside environmental commentary inspired by the Amazon fires. Blending humor, ritual, and experimental methods, his art invites audiences into alternative stories of resilience and challenges modernity’s monocultural assumptions, resonating deeply across diverse audiences and reflecting on how personal and collective stories continually unfold.

Magnhild Øen Nordahl's art bridges the worlds of science, technology, and sculpture, transforming complex concepts like mathematical knot theory and 3D printing into tangible, striking forms. Her works, from delicate colored ropes representing elemental knots to towering anodized aluminum structures inspired by 3D print scaffolds, reveal the unseen frameworks that shape our reality. Through projects like *Secret Support* and *Occupational Knots*, Nordahl explores how abstraction and geometry from natural sciences blend with artistic expression, transforming technology into art and vice versa. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, her practice delves deep into how we construct and perceive the world, balancing the mechanical and the human with an insightful, sculptural lens.

Puerto Rican artist Sofía Gallisá Muriente explores the power of images to recover erased histories and challenge colonial narratives through deeply personal and collaborative projects. Her work, blending archival research, film, and ecological themes, delves into Puerto Rico’s complex past and present, particularly the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. In her film *Celaje (Cloudscape)*, she uses decaying film materials to poetically illustrate the interplay of memory, nature, and time, proposing a vision of historical agency rooted in collective experience and resilience. Through conversations with scientists and artists, Gallisá Muriente broadens her inquiry into gaps—not only in memory but also in ecological understanding—crafting a nuanced dialogue about loss, recovery, and hope. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, her work invites reflection on the ongoing process of remembering and reimagining history beyond institutional confines.

Marilyn Boror Bor’s powerful artistic practice explores the painful loss of Indigenous identity amid migration and colonial legacies, using performance, installations, and linguistic interventions to reclaim and preserve Mayan heritage. Through works like her “Edicto cambio de nombre,” where she legally changed her name to highlight the erasure of ancestral histories, and her Dictionary of Forgotten Objects, Boror Bor challenges Western dominance and cultural whitewashing. Her evocative series, ¡Ni parece Guatemala!, contests stereotypical portrayals of Guatemala, revealing deeper truths beneath surface appearances. Rooted in a spiritual connection to her Mayan ancestors, her art is both a form of resistance and a call to honor memory, community, and resilience, inviting viewers to rethink identity, language, and heritage in a globalized world.

Rayyane Tabet’s work delves into memory, history, and geography through deeply personal and symbolically charged objects. His 2015 piece Cyprus features a battered wooden boat linked to his family’s attempted escape from Lebanon, while other works resurrect artifacts like a perpetually packed suitcase and the ruins of his childhood bedroom in Beirut, exploring how objects carry the weight of personal and collective narratives. In projects like Steel Rings, which reconstructs segments of the abandoned Trans-Arabian Pipeline, and The Dead Sea in Three Parts, Tabet unearths the physical and political fractures of the Middle East, conveying history’s tangible impact through sculpture. With a practice rooted in storytelling and repetition, Tabet transforms artifacts into powerful metaphors of displacement, borders, and memory, inviting viewers to reconsider the intimate and political forces shaping our world.

Jesse Mockrin’s evocative figurative oil paintings breathe new life into historical European art, blending Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical influences with a contemporary edge. Against her signature deep black backgrounds, her fragmented, androgynous figures often grapple with themes of vulnerability, identity, and hidden narratives, inviting viewers into a surreal and mysterious world. Inspired by classical mythology, Renaissance depictions of women, and tales of power and resistance, her work challenges traditional gender roles and explores enduring stories of violence and resilience. Featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Mockrin shares insights into her disciplined painting process, her creative freedom, and the complex beauty of mastering oil paint, all while preparing for her latest solo exhibition.

Rayyane Tabet’s evocative artworks explore personal and collective histories through deeply symbolic objects and installations. His piece *Cyprus* features an 850-kilogram wooden boat suspended from the ceiling, tied to his family’s desperate attempt to flee Lebanon in 1987, embodying memory and interrupted journeys. In other works, such as *Steel Rings* and *The Dead Sea in Three Parts*, Tabet materializes geopolitical histories, reconstructing a damaged pipeline spanning multiple nations and a fractured Dead Sea divided by contested borders, respectively. His art unflattens cartography and history, giving physical presence to stories of displacement, conflict, and memory. Featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Tabet reflects on how personal artifacts transcend their materiality, becoming powerful carriers of history, while embracing the challenges and contradictions of living and working across time zones in a globally connected world.

Jesse Mockrin’s figurative oil paintings vividly reimagine symbols and imagery from Renaissance to Neoclassical art, casting familiar allegories into a contemporary, surreal, and often unsettling light. Her compositions, frequently focused on isolated body parts or scenes set against stark black backgrounds, evoke vulnerability and ambiguity, with figures that are cropped, faceless, or androgynous, inviting open interpretation. Drawing inspiration from classical myths, historical depictions of women under duress, and themes of threat and ritual, Mockrin’s work explores issues of gender, identity, and feminism through haunting narratives that connect past violence with present-day conversations. As featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, she balances meticulous technique and personal storytelling, channeling art history into a profound, modern dialogue.

While paintings often dominate our vision of fine art, sculpture offers a rich, diverse world beyond the flat surface of the wall. From Yoshitomo Nara’s whimsical Dog Piggy Bank to Julian Opie’s sleek silkscreen busts, this selection showcases dynamic pieces that add depth and dimension to any collection. Experience Rirkrit Tiravanija’s poetic etched glasses, Terence Koh’s confrontational lead cast, and Roy Lichtenstein’s playful ceramics that blur lines between art and everyday objects. Maurizio Cattelan’s provocative mutilated hand challenges political symbols, while Eduardo Paolozzi’s ears capture pop-art’s embrace of form and biology. Finally, Claes Oldenburg’s cheeky homage to a floating soap bar brings humor and history together, inviting us to look beyond two dimensions and appreciate the many faces of sculpture.

Sculpture offers a vibrant and diverse extension beyond traditional two-dimensional art, with iconic pieces from artists like Michelangelo, Warhol, and Louise Bourgeois showcasing its enduring significance. From Yoshitomo Nara’s charming Dog Piggy Bank capturing playful canine spirit, to Julian Opie’s sleek, colorful busts, and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s poetic etched sunglasses inviting reflection, these works bridge form and meaning uniquely. Terence Koh’s confrontational minimalist cast challenges viewers, while Roy Lichtenstein’s Rosenthal plate reimagines pop art in fragile ceramics. Maurizio Cattelan’s provocative mutilated hand critiques history and finance, Eduardo Paolozzi’s ears merge biology and pop culture, and Claes Oldenburg’s whimsical Soap recalls industrial heritage in inventive scale. Each piece invites engaging, multidimensional appreciation beyond the gallery wall.

Jill Mulleady crafts hauntingly surreal paintings that blur the lines between reality, memory, and fantasy, exploring themes of vulnerability, psychological tension, and the alienation of a hyperconnected world. Her works often feature enigmatic characters—outsiders like wandering teens and ethereal spirits—set within domestic and urban scenes charged with a moody, foreboding atmosphere. Through layered narratives and kaleidoscopic colors, Mulleady exposes the complexities of identity, desire, and repression, inviting viewers into liminal spaces where time and reality dissolve. Featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, her art challenges contemporary cultural politics while evoking a deep sense of existential isolation and introspection amid the chaos of modern life.

Jill Mulleady crafts hauntingly surreal paintings that blur the boundaries between reality and fantasy, weaving together unsettling narratives steeped in psychological depth and cultural reflection. Her work, characterized by uncanny mise-en-scènes and kaleidoscopic colors, explores themes of vulnerability, alienation, and latent desire through a lens that merges figurative fantasy with everyday scenes. From multi-panel triptychs to intimate portraits, Mulleady's art captures fleeting subjectivities and suspended moments, inviting viewers into liminal spaces where memory and identity constantly shift. Featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, her paintings evoke a poignant melancholy of contemporary existence, revealing the complexities of human emotion amid a hyperconnected yet isolated world.

Evan Ifekoya’s 2018 exhibition *Ritual Without Belief* invites us to imagine starting from a place of abundance rooted in history, community, and ancestral wisdom, particularly highlighting Black queer experiences. Through immersive sculpture, soundscapes blending voice and cultural audio, and references to artists like Ajamu X, Ifekoya explores themes of identity, memory, and temporal connection. Their work acts as a spiritual practice and space-holding ritual, embracing healing, transformation, and the power of sacred sites. Balancing intense physical discipline with creative flow, Ifekoya emphasizes the importance of art books and archives in sustaining deeper artistic research and preserving vibrant histories across generations.

Artist Evan Ifekoya’s 2018 exhibition *Ritual Without Belief* invites viewers to imagine a world rooted in abundance, drawing strength from the rich histories and communities of Black queer people. Through immersive soundscapes, immersive installations, and evocative imagery—like the light-filled vinyl representing their alter ego, Oceanic Sage—Ifekoya explores the layered intersections of gender, race, and identity, weaving together past and present. Their work gently bridges time with gestures of tenderness, honoring connections to artists like Ajamu X, while embracing the ephemeral spirit of club culture through symbols like balloons. A spiritual practitioner as well as an artist, Ifekoya approaches creativity as a sacred, intentional act, channeling voice, ritual, and movement to clear space for transformation and healing. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, their practice is a profound meditation on resilience, memory, and the ongoing power of community.

Christina Quarles’s paintings challenge conventional perceptions by depicting fragmented, fluid bodies that defy easy categorization, reflecting her experience as a queer, cisgender woman navigating identity and perception. Her work blends abstraction and figuration to evoke feelings of excess, ambiguity, and transformation, capturing the complex, shifting nature of selfhood in a world that often misrecognizes or confines it. Through improvisational techniques, Quarles creates vibrant, dynamic compositions where figures seem to stretch beyond the canvas, embodying the tensions between visibility and invisibility, coherence and fragmentation. Her art invites viewers into intimate conversations about identity, context, and the limits of language, making space for multiplicity and dialogue within contemporary representation.

Christina Quarles’s paintings challenge traditional notions of figuration through tangled, quasi-human forms that stretch beyond the canvas, reflecting her experience of identity as fluid, fragmented, and often misunderstood. Drawing from her life as a cisgender queer woman frequently misread as white, Quarles uses ambiguity and abstraction to evoke the complexity of inhabiting a body and selfhood in constant flux. Her improvisational process blends physical gesture with digital manipulation, creating vibrant, layered compositions that invite viewers to grapple with perception and the contradictions within identity. As part of Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Quarles exemplifies a new wave of artists pushing conversations about representation, community, and the evolving nature of self in contemporary art.

Caroline Walker’s oil paintings capture the everyday lives of contemporary women, often portraying them at work or engaged in routine labor with empathy and nuance. Drawing from documentary-style photographs, Walker creates detailed, intimate portraits of women in retail, service industries, and domestic settings—roles typically undervalued and overlooked by society. Her work challenges traditional portraiture by highlighting the intersections of gender, class, and structural inequality, focusing on women whose essential contributions often go unseen. Through scenes ranging from her mother preparing meals to anonymous shop assistants, Walker conveys a tender, honest glimpse into daily life, blending observation with personal connection. As featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art's Next Generation*, Walker reflects on her evolving career and the creative freedom she now enjoys, alongside the anticipation of working in a new, larger studio space to further expand her artistic practice.

Sara Morawetz is an interdisciplinary artist who merges scientific methods with creative practice to explore the poetic and absurd aspects of scientific inquiry. Her work often involves durational performances and collaborations with institutions like MIT and NASA, investigating concepts of time, distance, and measurement through embodied experiments. Notably, in her project étalon, she walked 2,100 kilometers retracing the historic meridian arc measurement, creating a new, personal metric of the world imbued with her physical and emotional experience. In another performance, How the Stars Stand, she lived and worked on Mars time for 37 days, challenging our fixed notions of temporality. Morawetz’s art interrogates the systems science uses to shape perception, revealing their fluidity and inviting us to reconsider the frameworks through which we understand our world.

Sebastián Mejía’s photography captures the resilient spirit of palm trees embedded within the urban landscape of Santiago de Chile, revealing a fascinating dialogue between nature and the city’s relentless concrete presence. His striking images, featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, showcase palms that persist despite being encased in metal roofs or fenced in by iron bars, symbolizing survival and defiance in the face of urban encroachment. Through powerful juxtapositions—such as a towering palm appearing alongside glass skyscrapers—Mejía emphasizes the tension and coexistence between ancient natural life and modern architecture. Embracing traditional film photography, he slows down the creative process to highlight materiality and intention, resisting the fleeting pace of digital imagery. His work is a thoughtful exploration of perseverance, memory, and the scars time leaves on both nature and city.

Caroline Walker’s evocative oil paintings capture the everyday lives of contemporary women, often portraying them at work or engaged in routine tasks, shedding light on the unseen labor that sustains society. Drawing from photographs taken in real-life settings, her work offers intimate, documentary-style portraits of women in retail, service, and domestic roles, including familiar figures like her mother. Walker’s art highlights the intersections of gender, class, and structural inequality, challenging traditional notions of who deserves to be depicted in portraiture. Through tender and empathetic scenes, she brings dignity and visibility to overlooked subjects, blending personal memory with observational detail. As featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Walker reflects on her evolving career, studio space, and the challenge of authentically representing lived experience, underscoring the enduring importance of art books in a digital age.

Sara Morawetz is an interdisciplinary artist who blends scientific methods with creative practice to explore the poetic and absurd dimensions of scientific labor. Her work, often performed in collaboration with institutions like MIT and NASA, includes ambitious projects such as étalon, a 2,100-kilometer walk retracing the French astronomers’ journey to redefine the meter, and How the Stars Stand, a 37-day durational performance living by Martian time. Morawetz treats her art as experimental investigations into concepts like time, distance, and measurement—fundamentals that are usually seen as fixed but which she reveals to be mutable and deeply human constructs. Her work challenges perceptions by merging rigorous scientific inquiry with endurance, collaboration, and performative documentation, ultimately inviting us to rethink how we measure and experience the world.

Sebastián Mejía’s photography captures the resilient spirit of palm trees in Santiago de Chile, revealing how these ancient plants persist amid the encroachment of urban life. Through striking images like *Quasi Oasis 017* and *Quasi Oasis 05*, Mejía juxtaposes the natural strength and timelessness of palms against concrete structures and modern architecture, highlighting their quiet rebellion and survival. His work offers a poignant reflection on how cities evolve, often at the expense of nature, while celebrating the beauty in unexpected, overlooked details. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Mejía blends traditional film photography with contemporary art to create powerful visual narratives that resist the fleeting nature of digital imagery.

Harold Ancart’s vibrant paintings captivate with their bold, unnatural colors and recurring natural motifs like fires, icebergs, and sunsets, inviting viewers into a world where color reigns supreme over narrative or symbolism. Rooted in modernist traditions and inspired by a transformative U.S. road trip, his works balance psychedelic hues and minimalist repetition, challenging conventional perception with flat fields of color and shifting horizons. Known for his large-scale oil stick canvases as well as watercolors and sculptures, Ancart creates luminous, meditative scenes that resist psychoanalytic interpretation, embodying a sense of freedom characteristic of his generation. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, his art pulses with an engaging vitality that beckons continual reassessment and reflection.

Buhlebezwe Siwani creates powerful art as a sacred space for healing, deeply rooted in her identity as a sangoma and her experiences as a black South African woman. Her work confronts the legacies of colonialism, racism, and sexism, often using everyday objects to critique how black female bodies are both fetishized and stigmatized. Through performative installations and evocative titles in isiXhosa and isiZulu, Siwani challenges colonial power dynamics and the Anglophone-centric art world, while addressing the ongoing violence against black women. Her art becomes a collective voice that channels ancestral traumas, spiritual rituals, and personal narratives, inviting viewers to engage with the resilience and complexity of black womanhood.

Harold Ancart’s vibrant paintings transform natural subjects like fires, icebergs, and sunsets into bold explorations of color, using oil sticks on canvas to create striking, non-representational images that oscillate between psychedelic hues and minimalist repetition. Rooted in European and American modernism and inspired by a transformative road trip across the United States, Ancart’s work embraces the objecthood of paint while inviting viewers into a meditative space where color and form reign supreme, free from narrative or symbolic constraints. Featured in Phaidon’s *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Ancart continues to push boundaries with his large-scale works, sculptures, and murals, embodying a generation defined by artistic freedom and an intuitive, natural creative process.

Buhlebezwe Siwani channels her identity as a sangoma, a traditional healer and spiritual diviner, into powerful artworks that explore the lived experiences of Black women under the lingering shadows of colonialism and patriarchy in South Africa. Through evocative installations and performances, she uses everyday objects, such as Sunlight soap, to confront themes of racism, sexism, and the violent gaze imposed on Black female bodies, drawing deeply from her personal memories and cultural heritage. Siwani’s art challenges colonial legacies by incorporating her native isiXhosa and isiZulu languages, creating intimate spaces that question dominant, Anglophone narratives. Her work also critically reflects on Christianity’s impact on gender dynamics, while giving voice to the silenced stories of Black women affected by systemic violence. Featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, Siwani’s practice is a fearless journey of healing, resistance, and the reclamation of identity through ritual, storytelling, and unflinching honesty.

Benjamín Ossa’s art explores the intricate relationship between the human body, time, and space through installations that manipulate light as a dynamic, ephemeral medium. His works, such as the shimmering outdoor sculpture "Un invisible faro" in Havana and the sunlight-transforming paper-cut window drawings in "En la luz," invite viewers to engage with perception and the natural elements surrounding them. Ossa’s art blurs the boundaries between materiality and the imperceptible, encouraging a heightened awareness of our environment and sensory experience. Describing his creative process as deeply intertwined with drawing, thermodynamics, and temporal principles, Ossa embraces the fluidity of daily life and the challenge of maintaining focus amid rapid information flow. Featured in Phaidon’s "Prime: Art’s Next Generation," Ossa’s unique approach highlights the power of light and perception to reshape how we experience space and time.

Benjamín Ossa’s art explores the dynamic relationship between the human body, time, and space through immersive installations that use light as a central medium. His works, such as the shimmering outdoor sculpture "Un invisible faro," play with perception by blending natural elements and architectural forms into ephemeral experiences that shift with their surroundings. Ossa’s approach emphasizes the fluid interplay between stability and transience, inviting viewers to engage deeply with their environment and sense of perception. Drawing remains a foundational tool in his creative process, used to investigate and inform his larger, experiential projects. Navigating a fast-paced world, Ossa maintains focus on the evolving connections within his work, while embracing a flexible daily routine that fuels his artistic innovation. He champions the lasting importance of art books as reservoirs of knowledge and inspiration in the digital age, underscoring their enduring magic and resonance.

Daniel Crews-Chubb’s expressionist paintings fuse a rich tapestry of cultural references—from Greek mythology to West African masks—into heavily layered collages that challenge traditional depictions of human and mythical forms. His works, such as the wispy, unconventional Zeus(!) and the fragmented Flowers (after Van Gogh), blur boundaries between figuration and abstraction, inviting viewers to reconsider identity and perception as fluid, multifaceted constructs. Embracing a raw and imperfect beauty, Crews-Chubb builds textured surfaces using an eclectic mix of materials, working simultaneously on multiple paintings to create cohesion within his series. As he looks ahead to major museum shows and evolves his focus toward mythical creatures and landscapes, his art continues to push expressive limits, redefining how we engage with both the human figure and the natural world.

Marguerite Humeau’s art masterfully blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, using multidisciplinary collaborations to challenge conventional understandings of history, science, and existence. Through evocative installations like *The Opera of Prehistoric Creatures* and *Echo, A Matriarch Engineered to Die*, she revives lost voices and explores themes of extinction, memory, and transformation, inviting viewers into a hauntingly beautiful space where past and present collide. Her work blends organic and synthetic materials to create hybrid worlds that confront climate change, spirituality, and the fragility of life, all while reimagining the museum as a living site of knowledge and speculation. Firmly rooted in the challenges of our time, Humeau’s practice is a profound, experimental journey into the unknown rhythms of life, death, and rebirth.

Daniel Crews-Chubb’s expressionist paintings fuse a rich tapestry of cultural references, from Greek mythology to West African masks, creating layered collages that blur the lines between human figures and still-life objects. His work rejects idealized forms, instead depicting subjects like Zeus with raw, gestural strokes and textured surfaces made from diverse materials such as charcoal, fabric, sand, and pastel. Drawing comparisons to de Kooning and Basquiat, Crews-Chubb explores the fluidity of identity and perception, challenging viewers to reconsider how reality is constructed through fragmented, kaleidoscopic images. As featured in Phaidon's *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, the artist embraces a dynamic, experimental process that balances figuration and abstraction, beauty and imperfection, while looking forward to new subjects like mythical creatures and landscapes in his evolving practice.

Marguerite Humeau’s art blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, weaving together scientific research and speculative storytelling to revive lost histories and challenge conventional worldviews. Her immersive installations, crafted from a mix of organic and synthetic materials, evoke hauntingly beautiful specters of extinct creatures and forgotten narratives, such as grieving elephants endowed with human-like speech or marine mammals undergoing spiritual transcendence in the face of climate change. Through multidisciplinary collaboration, Humeau creates hybrid spaces that confront viewers with the fragility and instability of history, urging us to rethink our relationship with extinction, memory, and the environment. With projects that span from prehistoric vocal tracts to water-retaining landscapes, she embodies a generation of artists confronting ecological crises with bold imagination and scientific curiosity.

Reginald Sylvester II’s work powerfully navigates between sharp figurative portrayals and turbulent abstractions, creating immersive compositions rich with personal, spiritual, and historical themes, including the legacy of slavery. His pieces, from evocative portraits to symbolic sculptures like Last Laugh, explore confinement, liberation, and resilience through a raw, dynamic visual language marked by thick brushstrokes, swirling colors, and the recurring motif of twine. Balancing intuition with a rigorous studio practice, Sylvester embraces the unpredictable creative process, reflecting both pain and hope. Featured in Phaidon’s new survey *Prime: Art’s Next Generation*, his art invites viewers to engage deeply with complex emotions and spirituality, offering a glimpse into the evolving voice of today’s contemporary art scene.

Reginald Sylvester II's work powerfully navigates between sharp figurative portraits and swirling abstract compositions, exploring themes of identity, spirituality, and the legacy of slavery. His piece Duality of a Woman captures a complex emotional landscape, juxtaposing a poised figure with a stormy whirlwind of colors and marks. Through both painting and sculpture, Sylvester intertwines raw personal expression with historical reflection, often using materials like twine to symbolize bondage and resilience. Driven by a rigorous, intuitive studio practice, he embraces the tension between control and chance, revealing in his art a quest for faith and liberation amid contemporary struggles. Featured in Phaidon's Prime: Art’s Next Generation, Sylvester represents a vibrant voice in the new wave of artists shaping the cultural moment with deeply immersive and thought-provoking work.

Minimalism, once a radical rejection of ornamentation and artistic heroism, continues to profoundly influence contemporary design and art. Pioneers like Frank Stella, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Josef Albers, and Richard Serra redefined form and space through their groundbreaking works, from Stella’s iconic needlepoint adaptations to Andre’s contemplative brick arrangements and Judd’s innovative sculptures that challenged traditional canvas constraints. This enduring movement, rooted in simplicity and precision, invites us to see beauty in reduction and offers accessible pathways to engage with minimalist art, whether through prestigious originals or creative DIY multiples.

Minimalism, once a radical rejection of ornamentation and artistic heroism, continues to shape contemporary aesthetics across design and art. Pioneers like Frank Stella, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Josef Albers, and Richard Serra have left enduring legacies, from Andre’s innovative brick arrangements to Albers’ meticulous “Homage to the Square” series. These minimalist icons challenge traditional forms, with Judd critiquing the limitations of rectangular canvases and Serra exploring monochrome movement in collaboration with Philip Glass. Today, minimalism remains accessible and relevant, from high-profile gallery works to DIY needlepoint kits inspired by Stella’s designs, inviting everyone to engage with the timeless beauty of simplicity.

Visual art has long been intertwined with the environmental movement, inspired from the inception of Earth Day in 1970 following the iconic Earthrise photo. Over the decades, artists from Banksy’s provocative Greenpeace commission to Rob Pruitt’s playful yet poignant pandas have used their work to spotlight ecological concerns. Deidre Murphy’s scientific collaborations reveal hidden pollutants like light pollution, while Yoko Ono’s reflective piece challenges us to consider our personal relationship with Earth. Shepard Fairey’s urgent call to action and Olafur Eliasson’s innovative solar-powered Little Sun lamps demonstrate how art can both inspire awareness and drive tangible change, proving that creativity remains a vital force in fostering environmental stewardship beyond just a single day on the calendar.

Visual arts have been a vital force in the environmental movement since its inception, sparked by the iconic Earthrise photograph that inspired Earth Day’s creation in 1970. Across decades, artists from Banksy to Yoko Ono have harnessed their creative power to highlight ecological issues, from endangered species and light pollution to climate change and renewable energy. Whether it’s Banksy’s provocative jungle-themed Greenpeace campaign, Rob Pruitt’s playful yet poignant panda works, Deidre Murphy’s striking visualizations of pollution, or Olafur Eliasson’s innovative solar-powered lamps bringing light to off-grid communities, these artworks do more than adorn walls—they challenge us to reflect on our relationship with the planet and inspire action beyond Earth Day’s single moment in time.

Queer love, with all its light, warmth, and intimacy, finds a powerful and tender voice in the work of Israel-born painter Doron Langberg. Now based in New York, Langberg’s art captures intimate moments between loved ones with a sensuality and emotional depth that reflects both personal connection and broader queer experience. Grounded in art history yet vibrantly contemporary, his paintings emerge from close relationships, bringing his subjects to life through a process of observation and layering that balances spontaneity with meticulousness. Celebrated for his unique portrayal of queer intimacy, Langberg’s recent edition, “Oren and Bennet,” exemplifies his signature blend of love and artistry, while his career continues to flourish with major exhibitions, awards, and record-breaking sales. Committed to freedom in expression and supporting community causes like Visual AIDS, Langberg crafts art that invites us all to witness and celebrate the rich, diverse expressions of queer love.

Doron Langberg, an Israel-born painter now based in New York, has emerged as a powerful voice in depicting queer love with warmth, tenderness, and intimacy. Drawing on a deep art historical background and close relationships with his subjects — often friends and loved ones — Langberg’s work captures the nuanced emotions and everyday moments of queer life. His process blends traditional observational painting with vibrant colors and loose brushwork, allowing each piece to radiate sensuality and connection. Langberg’s latest project, the hand-painted Artspace edition "Oren and Bennet," reflects this intimate scale, with each print uniquely finished by the artist. Celebrated for his ability to blend personal connection and universal human experience, Langberg’s paintings have garnered major exhibitions, critical acclaim, and auction success, all while he remains committed to artistic freedom and supporting causes like Visual AIDS, which use art to combat the ongoing impact of HIV/AIDS.

Collage, once a humble craft of cutting and pasting, has evolved into a vibrant fine art form embraced by artists worldwide. From its early roots in Japanese calligraphy and European bookbinding to the transformative scrapbooks of the 19th century, collage has inspired modern masters like Picasso, Matisse, and contemporary names such as David Hockney and Yayoi Kusama. Today, artists continue to push the boundaries of this medium, crafting works that reflect the complexity of our world. Whether it's Charles Wilkin’s layered textures revealing hidden human truths, Marisu Solís’s delicate fusion of paint and paper, or Naomi Vona’s playful reinvention of vintage imagery, each piece invites viewers to rethink reality. From Matthew López-Jensen’s nostalgic landscapes to John Andrew’s thought-provoking text collages and Anna Grun’s gritty, punk-inspired visuals, collage remains a compelling and ever-evolving form of artistic expression.

Collage, though a relatively young fine art medium, draws on centuries-old traditions from diverse cultures, evolving from early manuscript embellishments and textile pairings to a celebrated modern art form embraced by icons like Picasso and Matisse. Today, artists continue to reinvent collage with fresh perspectives—New York’s Charles Wilkin layers color and texture to mirror our complex, sometimes harsh reality, while Spain’s Marisu Solís blends paint and silk paper in vibrant abstraction. London-based Naomi Vona transforms vintage vinyl covers with playful interventions, and environmental artist Matthew López-Jensen repurposes antique postcards into evocative landscape collages. Brooklyn’s John Andrew poses thought-provoking questions on culture through text-rich works, and Anna Grun channels punk’s rebellious spirit with gritty, politically charged compositions. This eclectic array highlights collage’s enduring power to captivate and challenge, revealing hidden depths beneath the surface of our world.

From Leonardo da Vinci’s early insight that the sun remains still while the Earth moves around it, to contemporary artists like Trevor Paglen and Sarah Sze, humanity’s fascination with the cosmos has inspired a rich tapestry of artistic exploration. This curated group show celebrates the celestial muse through diverse media, from Ugo Rondinone’s evocative starry prints to John Stezaker’s cinematic sky collages, and Sam Moyer’s abstract evocations blending painting and sculpture. Both historic and modern perspectives intertwine, as Caroline Corbasson’s delicate renderings of aged astronomical plates meet Adrienne Elise Tarver’s vibrant, tarot-inspired celestial imagery. The exhibition also honors the legacies of artists like Roger Chapelain-Midy and James Rosenquist, whose work reflects the cultural and political gravity of the night sky, while William Binnie’s astronaut figure challenges the myths of space exploration. Together, these works invite us to contemplate the stars not just as distant lights, but as enduring symbols of wonder, mystery, and human aspiration.

From Leonardo da Vinci’s early recognition that the earth orbits the sun to contemporary artists exploring the cosmos through diverse media, celestial bodies have long inspired creative expression. This collection celebrates that enduring fascination, showcasing works that range from Ugo Rondinone’s evocative starry prints capturing the awe of night skies, to John Stezaker’s inventive collages blending Hollywood glamour with cosmic imagery. Artists like Sam Moyer merge abstraction with ancient symbolism, while Caroline Corbasson and Andrea Montano transform archival astronomical plates into textured reflections on the evolution of stargazing. Adrienne Elise Tarver brings an astrological perspective that challenges cultural narratives, and Roger Chapelain-Midy’s timeless starry night paintings bridge classical and modern influences. Meanwhile, James Rosenquist’s Cold War-era Moon Box and William Binnie’s contemplative astronaut piece probe the complex intersections between space exploration and political myth. Together, these works illuminate humanity’s ceaseless wonder with the heavens, inviting us to ponder the mysteries and meanings written in the stars.

Dance has long been a vital yet often overlooked influence in modern and contemporary art, shaping the work of icons from Warhol to Abramović. Celebrating this dynamic intersection, a captivating group show highlights how choreography informs artists’ exploration of space, movement, and emotion. From Eric Fischl’s tense depiction of coiled readiness to Larry Rivers’ nostalgic homage to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Marco Bulgarelli’s vibrant street photography, dance permeates diverse artistic expressions. Visionaries like Bruce Nauman blend unexpected elements such as lab rats with ballet, while Salvador Dalí’s lifelong engagement with ballet reveals dance as a timeless creative force. Olafur Eliasson’s roots as a breakdancer fuel his immersive installations, and Alex Katz captures the gestural essence of movement in his paintings, underscoring a shared language between figure and dance. This celebration affirms dance not merely as performance but as a fundamental medium enriching fine art’s vocabulary.

Danda Jaroljmek, a UK-born, Gambian-raised art enthusiast now based in Kenya, co-founded Circle Art Gallery and Agency in Nairobi to champion East African artists and broaden their global reach. With over 25 years in Kenya’s intimate art community, she blends her background as a sculptor with a deep commitment to showcasing meaningful, sometimes risky contemporary art beyond commercial trends. Jaroljmek’s passion for photography, her love of birds, and her rich cultural upbringing infuse her unique curatorial vision. She views her collection as a thoughtful, minimalist reflection of loyalty and process, favoring small, precious works and abstract art amidst Kenya’s colorful environment. Through Circle, she has fostered vital networks and education, helping redefine African art’s place on the world stage while sharing poignant stories behind cherished pieces—from local icons like Gor Soudan to the emotionally resonant works of Shabu Mwangi and the late Sidney Mang’ong’o. Her life and art collection illuminate a powerful dialogue between personal history, community, and the evolving narratives of contemporary African creativity.

Barbara Kruger’s art deftly merges bold text and striking imagery to challenge consumer culture and societal norms, transforming familiar advertising language into powerful statements that provoke thought and dialogue. Emerging from her background in design, Kruger became a defining American artist of the 1980s, known for her large-scale, red-white-and-black works that blur the boundaries between art, advertising, and activism. Her iconic piece, Untitled (I Shop Therefore I Am), cleverly critiques consumerism by riffing on Descartes’ famous philosophical assertion, illustrating how identity is often shaped by materialism. Nearly four decades later, Kruger’s work continues to evolve and resonate, as seen in her recent LACMA exhibition where her signature phrases are reimagined in animated form, highlighting the fluidity and enduring relevance of her vision in a fragmented, media-saturated world.

Artspace’s Artist Direct program offers a unique window into the creative worlds of artists by connecting collectors directly with their studios, bypassing traditional galleries. Highlighted works include Richard Leo Johnson’s haunting 1979 photograph of a Southern police waiting room, rescued from near loss after a devastating fire forced his temporary shift to music; Drew Doggett’s stunning drone-captured images of feral horses on Nova Scotia’s Sable Island; and Marisu Solís’s vibrant, semi-abstract acrylics inspired by post-Franco Spain’s cultural renaissance. Also featured are Carlos Bruscianelli’s hyperrealist still lifes echoing mid-century photorealism, and Misato Suzuki’s neo-pointillist paintings blending organic forms with playful figures. Each piece tells its own story, inviting collectors to discover art that’s as rich in history and inspiration as it is visually striking.

Yayoi Kusama has transformed the humble dot into a powerful and versatile visual language, crafting mesmerizing works that range from two-dimensional patterns to immersive, infinite mirrored rooms. Known for her mastery of color and repetition, Kusama’s art creates dazzling optical effects that draw viewers into endlessly unfolding spaces, blending the simplicity of the dot with profound concepts of infinity and self-reflection. Her iconic infinity rooms, beginning in the 1960s and evolving through installations like The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, envelop audiences in shimmering, multisensory environments where light, color, and reflection converge to evoke a sense of boundless space and introspection. Despite her reclusive life, Kusama’s unique vision continues to captivate global audiences, offering an experience of eternal love, humanity, and peace through the most elemental of artistic forms.

The Magnum Gallery’s new Paris location launched with a compelling exhibition titled "Bruce Davidson and Khalik Allah: NEW YORK," juxtaposing Davidson’s 1960s Harlem photographs with Allah’s contemporary images of the same neighborhood, illustrating Magnum’s vision of bridging past and present. Under the direction of Samantha McCoy, scion of an artistic dynasty, Magnum continues to spotlight iconic photographers like Robert Capa, Susan Meiselas, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, while elevating emerging talents such as Alec Soth and Sim Chi Yin. McCoy shares her personal favorites from the Magnum archive, highlighting the timelessness and emotional depth captured by legends such as Bruce Davidson, Eve Arnold, Herbert List, Khalik Allah, and Matt Black. Their works resonate with vibrant humanity, history, and the complex social fabric of America, capturing intimate moments and powerful narratives through striking, evocative imagery.

Doron Langberg’s artistic journey, sparked by a childhood encounter with a Lucian Freud exhibition, has blossomed into a dynamic force in contemporary figurative painting. Born in Israel and now based in New York, Langberg blends influences from masters like Van Gogh, Bonnard, and Vuillard with a bold commitment to humanizing queer experience. His work challenges traditional gallery norms by depicting queer life with intimate, everyday honesty, seeking to make queerness feel casual rather than sensational. Celebrated by top art institutions and critics and recently achieving a record auction price, Langberg stands at the forefront of a new wave of artists redefining both representation and emotional connection in art.

Ross Craig, a Californian artist and artisan with a rich family heritage in photography, creates meticulously composed still life photographs that blend influences from the Spanish Baroque, Northern Renaissance, Bay Area figurative art, and contemporary culture. Inspired by an article on Leica cameras and fueled by his background as a furniture and cabinet maker, Ross builds elaborate sets from found objects, thrift store finds, and recycled materials to craft images that echo the Old Masters while engaging with modern themes. His work references artists like Juan Sánchez Cotán and Paul Wonner, incorporating elements such as books, skulls, and symbolic objects to evoke deeper meanings with a touch of humor. Selling his art directly through platforms like Artspace, Ross values the connection formed when collectors embrace his pieces, appreciating that shared sensibility and detailed craftsmanship bring his still lifes vividly to life.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) presents "Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor," the first major West Coast survey of the celebrated Swiss artist’s career, spanning from her early video works to immersive installations and digital sculptures. Central to the exhibition is the breathtaking 2016 installation *Pixel Forest Transformer*, featuring 3,000 LED lights that transform the gallery into a vibrant, shimmering ecosystem of color and movement, inviting visitors to physically step inside a living, breathing image. Rist’s work challenges traditional notions of video art by blending technology, sensory immersion, and human connection, offering a warm, communal experience that contrasts with the isolating nature of virtual reality. This carbon-neutral show reimagines the museum as a shared, open space, where art becomes a joyful, multisensory journey that bridges technology and emotional resonance, celebrating the enduring power of collective artistic experience.

Ukraine has long been a vibrant cradle of Eastern-Slavic culture, with its artists making significant marks across modern and contemporary art. From Louise Nevelson’s monumental, fragmented sculptures and delicate aquatints to Sonia Delaunay’s rhythmic, colorful abstractions blending geometry with movement, Ukrainian-born artists have shaped diverse art movements. Photographer Boris Mikhailov captured the duality of the Soviet and post-Soviet experience with haunting, dreamlike images, while contemporary talents like Yuliya Golovina bring fresh, expressive energy to the scene with bold acrylic works. Alexander Chekmenev’s poignant documentary photos chronicle the struggles and resilience of rural Ukraine during a critical national transition, offering a glimpse into the country’s enduring spirit through artistry that resonates far beyond its borders.

Christopher LaGuardia, founder of LaGuardia Design Group, has spent over thirty years transforming the delicate landscapes of New York’s Hamptons into stunning natural havens, blending art, architecture, and environmental sensitivity. His new monograph, *Contemporary Gardens of the Hamptons: LaGuardia Design Group 1990-2020*, showcases his thoughtful designs that harmonize with the region's woods, meadows, and storm-battered shorelines. Beyond landscape architecture, LaGuardia expresses a deep connection to contemporary art, highlighting works by artists like April Gornik, Joel Shapiro, Sophie Bocher, and Ezra Stoller that inspire him with their vivid portrayals of nature, abstraction, and architectural elegance. These pieces reflect his passion for craftsmanship, light, and space, mirroring the poetic qualities he brings to his outdoor creations and imagined interiors alike.

Camille Henrot’s art deeply explores the intersections of family, politics, and community, revealing how early childhood experiences shape our responses to power and authority throughout life. Recently showcased at Hauser & Wirth’s impressive booth at Frieze LA, Henrot presented new works from her series System of Attachment, Wet Job, and Dos and Don’ts, marking her first project with the gallery since joining last fall. Drawing inspiration from literature, social media, self-help culture, and everyday life, her practice spans film, painting, sculpture, and installation, challenging what it means to be both a private individual and a global citizen in a hyperconnected world. Celebrated by Frieze as one of today’s most influential and provocative artists, Henrot’s edition Mother Tongue supports MOCA’s programming, inviting audiences to engage with her thoughtful exploration of identity and connection.

Henri Matisse’s 1911 masterpiece, *L’Atelier Rouge* (The Red Studio), is a vivid, bold exploration of color and space that transforms an ordinary studio into a mesmerizing, almost surreal environment. Painted in an aggressive, flat red, the work defies conventional perspective, featuring objects outlined not by lines but by negative space, with an enigmatic, handless clock anchoring the scene. Originally overlooked, this iconic piece—now celebrated as a turning point in modern art—presents Matisse’s own works within the studio walls, inviting viewers into a visionary world where reality blends with imagination. This landmark painting, hailed for its innovative approach, will be at MoMA from May 1 to September 10, alongside the smaller artworks it depicts, offering a rare chance to experience the artist’s radical vision in full.

Phaidon’s latest release, *Prime: Art's Next Generation*, spotlights 107 of the most exciting contemporary artists under 40, chosen by a distinguished panel of curators and critics from around the world. Building on the legacy of the 1998 *Cream* series, this collection features acclaimed talents like Rachel Rose, Tschabalala Self, and Christina Quarles alongside emerging voices such as Cambodian sculptor Tith Kanitha and UK sensation Samara Scott. Through vivid imagery and insightful commentary, the book reveals artists who are shaping today’s cultural landscape with groundbreaking work that spans painting, sculpture, virtual reality, and more. *Prime* is an essential guide for anyone passionate about contemporary art and eager to discover the visionary creators defining our moment.

Nicolas Party, a Swiss-born contemporary artist known for his vibrant pastels and hyper-real yet illusionary landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, bridges classical art traditions with the digital age. His work, deeply influenced by his graffiti roots and digital design background, features bold colors and graphic compositions that reflect the modern world we inhabit. Celebrated for his intimate portraits inspired by classical Greek sculpture and admired figures like Paul Cézanne and David Hockney, Party pushes boundaries by integrating architectural elements into his exhibitions. Recently, he explored the intensity of woodcut printing with a striking black-and-white edition, revealing a meditative appreciation for traditional techniques. Through his evolving practice, Party invites us to reconsider how we see, blending historical art forms with contemporary visual culture in a uniquely captivating way.

Francis Bacon's art occupies a unique space between figurative expression and Surrealism, marked by disjointed yet deeply visceral depictions of the human form. The Royal Academy’s exhibition, Francis Bacon: Man and Beast, delves into his fascination with animal forms, revealing how his studies of wildlife and movement influenced his portrayal of humanity’s raw, primal nature. Spanning his entire career, the show features rarely seen works including his iconic Head VI, a haunting reinterpretation of a Velázquez portrait infused with the chilling scream inspired by the silent film Battleship Potemkin. Bacon’s mastery is evident in the tension between vibrant textures and stark negative space, trapping his anguished subjects within suffocating geometric frames. This exhibition not only traces the evolution of Bacon’s brutal, unforgettable vision but also reaffirms his status as a master who confronts the extremes of existence with uncompromising power.

Cuban-born artist Carmen Herrera, who passed away at 106, embodies the unwavering self-belief and resilience of a truly great undiscovered talent. Despite creating minimalist masterpieces alongside peers like Leon Polk Smith and Wilfredo Lam, Herrera’s work was overlooked for decades, partly due to her identity as a Hispanic woman. It wasn’t until her late 90s that the art world finally recognized her groundbreaking geometric abstractions, leading to significant acclaim and high-profile collectors like Agnes Gund championing her work. Herrera’s dedication to her craft was driven by pure compulsion and pleasure rather than fame or fortune, which only arrived late in life. Through decades of quiet persistence in her Manhattan studio, her art now stands as a testament to perseverance, vision, and the power of artistic conviction.

Phaidon's latest art book releases celebrate a dynamic new generation of contemporary artists and provide deep dives into the careers of standout creators shaping today's cultural landscape. From the vibrant, color-saturated paintings of Swiss-born Nicolas Party to the poetic installations of Ugo Rondinone, these beautifully illustrated volumes offer rare insights into diverse practices across painting, sculpture, performance, and beyond. Highlights include Faith Ringgold’s powerful survey of civil rights-era America, David Byrne’s quirky pandemic-inspired drawings, and Jean Jullien’s witty reflections on everyday life. Also featured are Francis Alÿs’s socially charged projects and Paola Pivi’s surreal interventions that disrupt expectations. For art lovers eager to explore fresh perspectives and established voices alike, Phaidon’s new season of books is an essential, engaging journey through contemporary creativity.

Faith Ringgold’s powerful 1967 painting, *American People Series #20: Die*, stands as a striking response to the racial turmoil of the 1960s, channeling the influence of Picasso’s *Guernica* to protest and memorialize violence with careful composition and symbolic clarity. Created amid a backdrop of civil rights struggles, bombings, and uprisings, Ringgold’s work uses “Super Realism” to depict a spontaneous urban riot that transcends individual identity, speaking broadly to the fractured state of America while hinting at hope through the unifying image of children clutching one another. Celebrated for its impactful social commentary and artistic innovation, *Die* now holds a revered place at the Museum of Modern Art, continuing to captivate and move visitors with its urgent call for recognition, representation, and reform.

David Byrne's new exhibition, "How I Learned About Non-Rational Logic," explores a unique mode of thinking that blends logic with irrationality, reflecting his multifaceted career as a musician, artist, and writer. Featuring his intriguing tree drawings like "Human Content," which map connections in a surreal, dreamlike logic, the show also includes his "dingbat" series created during the COVID-19 pandemic—works that channel boredom, anxiety, and hope with whimsical, fantastical imagery. Byrne invites viewers to discover hidden connections in these pieces, offering an imaginative lens on reality that is both familiar and mysteriously new.

From Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s 1909 Manifesto of Futurism, where he glorified the automobile as the shining emblem of modernity, to contemporary reflections on the complex role cars play in our lives, this article explores how the automobile has fueled artistic imagination across the 20th and 21st centuries. It highlights six striking artworks that portray cars as symbols of freedom, conformity, ideological clash, and environmental reckoning. From Robert Bechtle’s sterile photorealistic scenes of suburban America, to Liz Cohen’s provocative, hybrid “cut ‘n’ shut” car merging Cold War tensions, and John Divola’s haunting desert chase, these works reveal automobiles as both protective shells and isolating cages. The article closes with Hiroji Kubota’s photo of Carhenge, a scrapyard monument that questions our legacy of speed and consumption, urging us to reconsider the price we pay for our love of the road.

Greek and Roman myths have long shaped Western art and culture, their ancient tales continuing to resonate in surprising contemporary ways. This article explores five contemporary artworks that draw upon classical mythology to engage with urgent modern themes like religious fundamentalism, masculinity, colonial legacies, and the tension between romantic ideals and harsh realities. From Andres Serrano’s provocative reimagining of pagan gods in a challenging medium, to Vik Muniz’s playful yet unsettling Medusa pasta dish, Sean Landers’ Americanized Minotaur reflecting on indigenous history, Raymond Pettibon’s homoerotic take on Achilles as a 1950s pin-up, and Lydia Blakely’s satirical portrayal of everyday confrontations as mock-heroic Hercules battles, these pieces reveal that myth remains a vibrant, living force—both deeply human and strikingly relevant to our times.

The groundbreaking KAWS exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery, titled *New Fiction*, is poised to become the most visited art show in history by merging physical and digital realms. Created in collaboration with Fortnite and the Acute Art app, the exhibit offers an immersive multilayered experience: a traditional gallery display, local and global augmented reality, and an interactive game environment. Curated by Daniel Birnbaum, the show redefines pop art for a globalized, digital age by allowing audiences worldwide to explore the Serpentine’s recreated spaces virtually, whether from their homes or through gaming. KAWS, known for his transformative street art origins, embraces this innovative approach not as a gimmick but as a genuine extension of his work, inviting diverse audiences—from gamers to art lovers—to experience and interact with art in unprecedented ways. This fusion of classic and cutting-edge highlights how contemporary art is evolving alongside technology, creating a truly inclusive and expansive cultural moment.

David Byrne, renowned for his multidisciplinary artistic practice since the 1970s and as the founder of Talking Heads, revisits the art of drawing amid the pandemic, channeling lockdown reflections into a unique series of “dingbats”—small, expressive doodles originally intended as simple page ornaments. These drawings transcended their initial purpose, evolving into evocative explorations of human connection, communication, and the complexities of life during COVID-19. His new book, *A History of the World (in Dingbats)*, gathers these works, accompanied by a limited edition print titled *Reading Each Other* that delves into the nuanced, often imperfect ways we interpret each other beyond words, especially in a digitally fragmented era. This collection, signed and numbered, celebrates Byrne’s continuous artistic innovation and invites us to reconsider how we read and relate to one another in uncertain times.

Samara Scott’s work, featured in the New Museum's 2021 Triennial *Soft Water Hard Stone*, is a mesmerizing exploration of consumer waste and organic materials transformed into vibrant, viscous abstractions. Blending everyday substances like fabric softener, nail polish, and cigarette butts, Scott creates dynamic assemblages that pulse with life and tension, challenging notions of beauty and consumption. Her process is as fluid and unpredictable as the materials she employs, working across multiple surfaces and scales to produce images that feel both painterly and photographic—stained memories suspended in space. Drawing inspiration from the chaos of global production, her work captures a haunting yet seductive alchemy, evoking a world of both decay and possibility. The limited edition print *Gargoyle, 2021* offers a tangible piece of this immersive practice, embodying the artist’s spirited approach to transformation, loss, and renewal.

Water is more than just a life-giving resource; it embodies both purity and peril, inspiring artists across history to explore its complex duality. From Ruth Proctor’s playful performance of a bowler hat dancing on a jet of water to Ed Ruscha’s enigmatic trio of objects symbolizing air, fire, and water, contemporary art captures water’s fluidity, mystery, and power. Ron Weis’s miniature waterfall painting evokes the sublime tension between nature’s grandeur and human consumption, while Eric Fischl’s haunting depiction of a boy immersed in blue water probes subconscious realms of identity and transformation. Sasha Bezzubov’s stark Arctic photograph confronts us with the climate crisis, revealing a world where ice has melted into dark seas, and Zhou Hongbin’s whimsical underwater rabbits remind us of humanity’s deep, evolutionary connection to water. Together, these works reflect water’s role as a force of wonder, threat, and profound ambiguity, inviting us to contemplate our intimate and evolving relationship with this essential element.

Art collections are dynamic reflections of personal taste and the times, as revealed through intimate conversations with artists, designers, and collectors. From architect John Pawson’s early acquisitions shaped by family influence, to interior designer Shawn Henderson’s thoughtful integration of art into living spaces, each collector shares unique insights. Photographer Cig Harvey encourages mixing styles freely, while patron Valeria Napoleone highlights art’s playful provocations. Musician Adam Clayton emphasizes the importance of respecting precious works, and critic Barry Schwabsky celebrates the value of children’s art alongside masters. Gallerist Pilar Corrias points to contemporary art’s role in grappling with identity and the uncertain future. Collectively, these voices inspire a richer, more personal approach to building and living with art.

This year has been marked by profound generosity and resilience in the art world, where artists and leaders alike have embraced giving as a powerful force for change. Christina Quarles found liberation in her creative breakthrough, while MOCA’s Klaus Biesenbach reflects on art’s role in political and social activism. Liz Hopfan underscores the transformative power of creativity in youth education, especially during challenging times. Glennda Testone highlights newfound initiatives supporting LGBTQ communities, and Jim Hodges honors personal legacies through charitable collaboration. Lisa Yuskavage poignantly remembers acts of love and compassion during the AIDS crisis, illustrating how art and humanity intertwine in moments both intimate and impactful. Together, these stories remind us that art’s greatest gift is its ability to inspire connection, hope, and healing.

2021 brought a cautious return to galleries, museums, and art events, offering a glimpse of normalcy amid ongoing uncertainty. Reflecting on a year marked by artistic revelations and poignant stories, this engaging quiz revisits standout moments—from Jim Hodges’ unique limited edition piece and Valeria Napoleone’s surprising art anecdotes to powerful reflections by artists like Cecily Brown and Celeste Dupuy-Spencer. Discover insights from celebrated architects, collectors, and filmmakers, explore the inspiration behind iconic works, and celebrate the creative spirit that persisted through challenging times. Ready to test your memory and dive into the art world’s defining moments of 2021?

Lubaina Himid’s theatrical exhibition at Tate Modern invites viewers into richly layered worlds where history, memory, and identity intertwine. Through paintings, installations, and life-sized figures, Himid explores complex narratives rooted in migration, loss, and the enduring impact of colonial violence. Central to the show is her haunting series inspired by the French slave ship Le Rodeur, where ordinary domestic scenes are shadowed by the weight of past atrocities and the ever-present sea—a symbol of trauma and survival. With striking use of color, pattern, and spatial tension, Himid’s work probes how historical trauma continues to resonate in the present, challenging us to confront the unseen legacies woven into modern life and spaces.