Art

SCI-Arc Gallery presents Views of Planet City, a group exhibition inspired by artist, architect and curator Liam Young’s ongoing, environmental art project that began in 2021. Planet City proposes a radical rethinking of a sustainable world where humanity agrees to live amongst one another in a single, massive city, surrendering most of the Earth to a grand project of restoration. Alongside Young, Jennifer Chen, John Cooper, Damjan Jovanovic and Angelica Lorenzi construct alternative visions of this shared future. The works are not limited to images and films of the hyperdense megalopolis, displaying artifacts that emerge from it: pixel-perfect satellite images, costumes and masks born out of a fusion of global cultures, ceremonial relics of nature and a video game simulation that probes i...

Best known for her black cut-paper silhouettes, American artist Kara Walker takes a new technological approach in her latest exhibition at SFMOMA. The show, titled Fortune and the Immortality Garden (Machine), continues her explorations of race, power and history, guiding viewers through a surreal landscape of ritual and respite.The exhibition’s eight Black automatons recall medieval symbols of faith and divinity as they rise and fall in shimmering fields of obsidian. Many of Walker’s robotic Gardeners are trapped in eternal cycles of struggle, though the installation’s central figure, Fortuna, acts as an angel of absolution. The seven-foot-tall prophetess commences a choreographed dance as she delivers freshly-printed fortunes from her mouth.The artist draws from antique dolls, Bunraku pu...

LUPO (Lorenzelli Projects) is a new gallery founded by a team of under-30s in Milan, showcasing a range of artists who hail from the 1990s. The burgeoning gallery is currently presenting Giuseppe Mulas’ thought-provoking project “S'areste” (Sardinian for ‘wild, untamed’), which was made in collaboration with psychiatric patients from the Anteo Social Cooperative in Turin. Each gestural artwork appears like abstracted color fields from a distance, revealing fluid shapes and forms, from Martini bottles to animals — paying homage to the 1973 sculpture, Marco Cavallo, which was created by patients and artists — leading to the Italian movement for psychiatric reform.Previously, Mulas' biggest show to date, Sleep Well Childhood, held at Galleria Alberto Peola in Turin, probed into themes of iden...

South Arts has launched a relief and recovery fund to aid artists impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton that ravaged communities across the American Southeast, taking the lives of 229 people across seven states and causing a combined $97.5b USD in damage.The initiative will directly support media, artists, writers and filmmakers — both in the short-term, as well as mid-to-long-term recovery across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. “This is a pivotal moment for our region’s cultural landscape,” said South Arts president and CEO, Susie Surkamer, in a statement. “While we are providing immediate relief through this program, we recognize there is still much work ahead.”Nonprofits across the region have joined in the efforts, including Alternate Roots,...

This December, SCOPE Art Show returns to Miami Beach with an exploration of interdependence and the power of collaboration, transforming the fair into a vibrant hub for artists, collectors, and enthusiasts. Running from December 3-8, SCOPE promises a week of art, innovation and immersive experiences by a gamut of contemporary artists from across the globe.As first-ever Director, Hayley River Smith has been working closely with Founder, Alexis Hubshman to sharpen SCOPE’s focus on global creative exchange. SCOPE will feature 87 galleries from 15 countries and introduce 43 new exhibitors from cities like Warsaw, Lagos, and Portland. Known for its Ocean Drive pavilion during Miami Art Week, the fair draws over 100,000 visitors with its forward-looking blend of emerging art and boundary-crossin...

Meriem Bennani’s new solo exhibition has just opened at Fondazione Prada’s Milan outpost. Taking cues from YouTube videos, reality TV and high-production aesthetics, the multi-sensory world of For My Best Family marks the artist’s most ambitious work to date.The exhibition unfolds across two levels of the Podium, featuring a massive, kinetic installation and an animated film. The first piece, titled “Sole Crushing,” figures 192 flip-flops and slippers flapping in a “ballet-symphony-riot” of traditional Moroccan rhythms composed by producer Reda Senhaji, better known as Cheb Runner. Elsewhere, “For Aicha,” co-directed with Orian Barki, explores the intimate relationship between a mother and daughter, told through animated jackals. Through complementary languages of realism, autobiography an...

British musician and artist Brian Eno has just announced the release of an exciting new book. Created in collaboration with Dutch artist Bette A., What Art Does draws on unconventional approaches and insights from Eno’s five-decade-long career. In a new theory on art the artists address why we create it and how it holds us together.As contemporary art grapples with shifting tides and an ecosystem of digital images, the book emerges out of a crisis of creativity. Eno, however, remains true to coloring outside the lines. In song with this year’s release of his generative documentary Eno and HARD ART’s portrait publication, What Art Does ventures across unexpected mediums to examine “the function of fictional worlds” in “pop songs, detective novels, soap operas, shoe tassels and the hidden la...

Sotheby's will bring to auction the esteemed collection of No More Rulers founder Larry Warsh. Included as part of the Contemporary Art Day Auction in New York will be a series of Subway Drawings created by legendary Pop artist Keith Haring. As the title implies, Art in Transit: 31 Keith Haring Subway Drawings from the Collection of Larry Warsh comprises of a group of works created by the American artist between 1980-85, appearing at auction for the first time and coming in with a combined estimate of $6.3 to 9m USD.Accessibility was a hallmark to Haring's practice, favoring the surfaces found in the city streets, as opposed to the confines of a canvas. In the 1980s, the American artist quickly transformed New York's subways, adding his vibrant lexicon over advertisements as a way to enliv...

It's not everyday that one stumbles on the ruins of an ancient civilization, especially those that have yet to be discovered. For Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student from Tulane University, his curiosity to use laser mapping known as Lidar, led to him being able to trace an entire network of buildings that had for centuries been covered by jungle in Mexico's southeastern state of Campeche.Three sites in total were unearthed, together, equalling the size of Scotland's capital Edinburgh, and believed to have once been populated with over 50,000 people in 750 to 850 AD. Researchers have named the new ancient city Valeriana, after a local lagoon. The discovery refutes previous assumptions within scholarly circles that the Tropics were where “civilizations went to die”, according to Professor Marce...

As depopulation deepens around the world, a small village in Japan turns to puppets to stitch their community back together. Ichinono is only one of several “doll villages” in Japan where life-sized mannequins are used to combat feelings of loneliness, though the town's majority elderly population drives a need for a lacking youthful comfort.While these puppets bring stories of ghost towns and haunted dolls to mind, it opens a conversation about ways to tackle the country's declining birth rate after hitting a record low just last year. According to a report published by the World Economic Forum, 29.3% of Japan’s residents are over the age of 65, making it home to the world's oldest population. In the face of a national crisis of age, perhaps a group of mannequins seems less slightly scary...

For their latest installation, FriendsWithYou summons a cast of hairy creatures at the Cleveland Public Library. Dubbed “The BAND,” the piece features five autonomous robots that light up Brett Hall in a dance of yellow, green, blue, pink and purple.Visitors are invited to touch and play with “The BAND,” short for Biodigital Autonomous Neuro Dancers, as they perform a "ballet of joy." Together, the fuzzy figures sing a symphony of ethereal sounds composed by long-time collaborator Norman Bambi. While the robots’ programming prevents them from running into visitors or each other, their bodies emit gentle healing frequencies in hopes of facilitating a positive experience AI.Founded by Samuel Albert Borkson and Arturo Sandovall III, FriendsWithYou is known for their multi-scalar presentations...

The middle of the 20th century posed seismic shifts in the global order. The bloodiest war in human history had left Europe and much of Asia in ruins, and in the ashes arose a range of material and ideological tenants that have since shaped the world. In post-war Italy, a group of artists began to clash against the urbanization, industrialization and Western consumerism seeping its way into daily life, opting for Arte Povera, or "poor art" in Italian, which challenged traditional mediums and a world that was becoming increasingly controlled by commercial art and means. Paris' Bourse de Commerce is showcasing a new group exhibition that revisits Arte Povera through 13 of the main figures who pioneered the movement. The eponymously titled show will present a range of sculptures, paintings a...