Lifestyle

Ken Burns has stepped out of his usual Americana-focused content to produce a new documentary covering the life of Leonardo da Vinci. It's the first time the 15-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker has covered a topic outside U.S. discourse, such as his detailed accounts on Jazz (2001), the American Civil War (1990) and Hemingway (2021), which have inextricably become textbook material in their own right — opting to instead add a humanist view on one of the most creative visionaries in history. Streaming now on PBS, the two-part documentary on the Italian polymath was created in collaboration with Burns' daughter Sarah and her husband David McMahon. Painter, cartographer, sculptor, engineer, architect, scientist — da Vinci's boundless curiosity could not be contained within one discipline, w...

Ai Weiwei has never been fond of the authorities, emblematic of his Study of Perspective (1995-2011) series, in which the Chinese dissident artist photographed himself giving the bird to iconic monuments and established power structures. Reuniting with London studio Avant Arte, Weiwei distills his choice symbol into a new print edition featuring a medley of middle fingers. Available in a blue and black option, the circular artworks are each handmade using a carved wooden block loaded with black ink, introducing unique variations in texture to the surface of the artwork. Created in collaboration with fellow British printer Make-Ready, the compositions emit a lustrous finish that hark to Weiwei’s porcelain sculptures, which are also inspired by ancient Chinese ceramics from the Yuan and Ming...

Rizzoli returns with a poignant new monograph highlighting the late and important postwar Japanese artist, Keiichi Tanaami who passed away in August this year. Recognized for his interdisciplinary work across paper, magazine covers and large-scale paintings, Tanaaami’s genre-defying practice spawns characters from a fantastical world intermixed with raw, diaristic scenes and elements that were largely inspired by the artists' experiences of living through the United States’ atomic attack on Japan during World War II. The hardcover book, edited by Kaleidoscope and Capsule’s Alessio Ascari, thematically details his prolific career into five sections: Eros, Underground, Pop, Tradition and Landscape. The comprehensive tome also delves into Tanaami’s more nuanced projects in eroticism, surreali...

Templon Gallery in New York has lifted the veil on Whispered Tales, a new solo exhibition by Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck, now on view through December 21, 2024. Known for his evocative, monochromatic sculptures, Op de Beek transforms the gallery space into a playground of frozen figures. Blending classical sculptural techniques with a cinematographic sensibility, the artist explores the fleeting essence of existence, capturing tender moments before they fade away forever.From a young ballerina posed in her mother’s oversized high heels to an ornamental Victorian carousel full of skeletal riders, the artist flutters between  the eternal and ephemeral in a series of silent scenes. “The way the artist plays with the perception of scale and atmosphere sparks a disconnect, a feeling of stra...

It's not long ago that skateboarding was ostracized by both the media and many of the brands that now cater to its community, having first dismissed it as an outsider sport for those on the periphery. From the 1980s till roughly the turn of the century, however, cultural luminaries from hip hop and skate circles forged a new paradigm within the yet-to-be-coined world of streetwear, setting the stage for where the pulse of culture is today. Having helped shape this rise, American director, designer and photographer Jacob Rosenberg has been instrumental in cultivating the visual expression that has now turned legend for some of skateboarding's most legendary imprints and figures.As a mainstay within the skate community since its founding in 2006, Los Angeles's HVW8 gallery will showcase a se...

Inaccurate sports statues have become something of a trend, with England captain and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane being the latest player to join a long list of stars who've received, let's say, inauthentic bronze doppelgangers. Like the statues of Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Maradona and Dwyane Wade, Kane's sculpture, which was unveiled this past Monday in greater London's Waltham Forest borough, where he was born and raised, has already received a wave of criticism pointing out its visual inaccuracies. “If you think about it historically, a public statue was there to immortalize, show off and loudly boast of the achievements and accomplishments of the person," art critic Estelle Lovatt said in an interview. "If it doesn’t really bear a resemblance to the person, it’s quite difficult to ...