Art

Korean-American actor and visual artist Joseph Lee unveiled a new solo exhibition of paintings at DIESEL ART GALLERY in Tokyo. As his first showing in Japan, PLEASURE IN THE PATHLESS WOODS reveals in thick brushstrokes the thoughts and emotions Lee experienced while in solitude during the COVID pandemic. Lee's own appearance has become well-known through his acting roles in Searching (2018) and Beef, but the facial depictions in his figurative paintings are purposefully left shrouded to comment on the hidden emotions that lie under the surface. As the title of the show implies, Lee takes viewers on an abstracted journey through the woods, where fear, uncertainty, and excitement are all around the corner."PLEASURE IN THE PATHLESS WOODS opens up moments where the subject’s intention may be i...

The threshold between truth and fiction has always served as the starting point for artist Thao Nguyen Phan. First trained as a painter, the Vietnamese artist is best known for creating dreamlike films and installations where folklore, literature, and philosophy are interwoven with real issues pertaining her homeland.For her latest exhibition, Phan took over Milan's Pirelli HangarBicocca to shed light on the colonization of Vietnam and the social transformations that have transpired since. Entitled Reincarnations of Shadows, the solo exhibition reexamines history through a series of new watercolors, sculptures, films, and installations, where Phan probes into the 'absolute truths' taught in school, which the artist argues omits the oral traditions found in Vietnamese history. As a response...

The end times may dominate the news cycle, but the premonition of the apocalypse is nothing new. Images of great floods, rampant fires, and incessant suffering is riddled within the pages of religious texts and the canons of art history, from Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy (1321), J.M.W. Turner's The Deluge (1805) to Nicolas Party's latest solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth.Housed at the gallery's New York location, Swamp creates a bridge between past and present, as the Swiss artist recontexualizes history in his characteristically subversive style. Upon entering, visitors will be immersed by a massive pastel mural depicting a forest fire, a prevalent scene today, where awe and angst sets up the stage for Party's latest oil-on-copper paintings dedicated to 19th-century French real...

The legal challenges surrounding artificial intelligence have become just as much a topic of discourse as the creative potential offered to would-be users. Amidst the frenzy, Getty Images assures potential customers and creatives alike, that it's new AI image generator doesn't source material without consent. Powered by NVIDIA Picasso's Edify model architecture, Generative AI by Getty Images is trained solely on the media giant's vast library, "allowing customers to elevate their entire end‑to‑end creative process to find the right visual content for any need," according to a release. The tool won't use any images of real people or locations, making it — as the corporation has marketed it — a "Commercially safe. Impactful. Worry‑free," solution for indulging in the power of AI. “We’ve list...

Paris' Galerie Kreo is letting us into the edgeless, immersive world of Virgil Abloh. The Paris gallery opened the doors to "Virgil Abloh: Echosystems" earlier this week: an expansive collection of Abloh's most recent pieces, alongside an array of work from the visual polymath's key creative inspirations including Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.Abloh's diverse range of work bridged gaps between communities and blurred the boundaries of genre, and in the Hugo Vitrani-curated exhibit, the fluidity of Abloh's creations exists at the forefront. Vitrani tapped into Abloh's origin story to compile a cohesive yet provocative array of art from the artist himself which includes: the "WORLD LEADERS" ladder, "TOWER HILLS" chair in embossed bronze and "MIDWAY VILLAGE" bench.In the exhibition's ...

After tapping J.30000 for the "It’s a Dog’s World" exhibition, standout Hong Kong eclectic select shop and vintage purveyor ASTERISK has now returned with its latest art exploration. Reimagining its BELOWGROUND shop space, ASTERISK has invited Japanese artist CFS to share his interactions between art and skate culture.Known for his work inspired by surf and skate culture, CFS’s signature artworks feature hand-carved graphics on wood by with varnish finishing the chisel designs.Titled "SUPER STARS BY CFS," the new exhibition at ASTERISK celebrates icons from different decades. Highlighting their varied impacts and influences in the store and around the world. The skateboard-focused collection of work features the figures with a process that will darken and change color over time, bringing e...

Photographer and Philadelphia native Quil Lemons has cut the ribbon on his first solo exhibition, titled Quiladelphia. The showcase, which is currently on view at the Hannah Traore Gallery in New York City's Lower East Side neighborhood, offers a "deeper retrospective of representations of the Black male form" through intimate imagery that looks to dissect the queer psyche.“I wanted to welcome folks into what it is to live life as a Black gay man," said Lemons. "I let my camera navigate everything I see. When it came to shooting, I was letting people into my brain. It was not to make Black nudity and sex into art. Everything I embody is what these images are and mean to me. This is ME. Welcome to my brain."The photographs, which were captured on film with a variety of cameras, are meant to...

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that the city will recycle materials used in Christo and Jeanne-Claude's L’Arc de Triomphe Wrapped (1961-2021) for the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games next summer. The initiative is in collaboration with Parley for the Oceans, who will repurpose the roughly 269,098 square feet of aluminum-coated blue polypropylene fabric and 9,843 feet of red rope needed to create the colossal piece for “shade structures, tents or barnums," according to Hidalgo. “This is a very fine example of the art world’s ability to adapt to climate challenges,” she added.Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artwork was often created with the intention for reuse. The Floating Piers (2014-2016) structure they created over Lake Iseo in Italy, was eventually recycled by German company Al-tex, who rep...

A stolen Vincent Van Gogh painting has finally been returned to its rightful home, thanks to world-renowned art detective, Arthur Brand. Known in some circles as the "Indiana Jones of the art world," the Dutch historian and sleuth has recovered over 200 notable works over his career and had been in negotiations with several unnamed parties connected to the looted painting, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884), which is estimated to be worth up to $6.4m USD.How was it returned? In a humble IKEA bag at Brand's Amsterdam apartment. The painting was first stolen overnight on March 30, 2020, coincidentally Van Gogh's birthday, from the Singer Laren museum in The Netherlands. Originally on loan from the Groninger Museum, the work had swapped multiple hands in the criminal underworld o...

French artist Inès Longevial is set to unveil a new solo exhibition, along with her first internationally published monograph via Rizzoli. Housed at Ketabi Bourdet, Perchée is notably inspired by Italian writer Italo Calvino's 1959 novel, The Perched Baron. In the fictional tale, a young boy rebels against eating snail soup and climbs up a tree to live with an arboreal society for the rest of his life. "From the primitive human who was at one with nature, what are we to make of the artificial man and woman who are now at one with situations and products?" asks Longevial. While she admittedly doesn't necessarily have the answers to this philosophic question, the rising French painter used her latest exhibition to tinker with the light and shadow cast by branches and leaves, "in a range of c...

Bob Ross fans will now have a chance to own the artist's first-ever on-air TV painting for just under $10 million USD. The painting, which he completed in the first episode of his landmark television show, The Joy of Painting, has officially come to the market. Titled, A Walk in the Woods (1983), Art News has reported that Minneapolis, Minnesota-based gallery Modern Artifact is selling the canvas for a price of $9.85 million USD. With the pure belief that some memories are just priceless, the gallery is hoping that fans will share the same notion when they understand the price of the painting. Knowing that the price is outlandish, the gallery says it will still be entertaining offers, though "they would prefer to share it with a museum or traveling exhibit to allow as many people as possib...