Fares Micue returns to Aesthetica's pages with positivity and optimism, sharing joy through a meticulous creative process. Every element is intentional, planned out and skilfully put together, from costume to location – whether that be in-studio or nestled amongst autumn leaves. (p. 60)
Welcome
Editor’s Note
Creativity is the heartbeat of our world. It sparks innovation and it is the force that drives change. Yet, it does not exist in isolation and thrives in the spaces between us – those serendipitous encounters and the brave intersections where different perspectives converge. When we open our minds to unexpected collaborations, we allow ourselves to be surprised, challenged and transformed by the ideas of others. This issue celebrates the power of collaboration by embracing ideation – not as a solitary pursuit, but as a shared journey. Cerith Wyn Evans’ new show Borrowed Light Through Metz, brings together light and sound work to create a visual and aural effect. For nearly 40 years, the artist has explored the limits of perception, and, in the process, called into question the conventions of exhibition-making. Next, we speak with Michael Petry about MirrorMirror, which looks at the ways contemporary artists engage with the concept of identity and self-representation. The book features international artists, including Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, Yayoi Kusama, Zanele Muholi amongst others. Through photography, video, performance and other media, these artists survey issues such as race, gender and technology, reflecting on how the self is constructed, manipulated and perceived in today’s society. We see the transformative power of imagined architecture in Gestalten's Living In a Dream, which contemplates the world of artificial design. Next, we speak with curators from Cao Fei’s My City is Yours, which is an invitation into a world of neon, street dance and pop music. Designed by Cao and the Beau Architects of Hong Kong, the exhibition takes the form of an immersive cityscape. It's a space of play, interaction and reinvention. In photography we are given access to new worlds through experiments in narrative and form via the work of Bootsy Holler, Brendan George Ko, Carlos Idun-Tawiah, Lotte Ekkel and Onoko, plus our cover photographer Fares Micue. Finally, the Last Words go to Aisha Olamide Seriki at Brighton Photo Fringe.
Cherie Federico
Cover Image: Fares Micue, Autumn Flames
Image courtesy of the artist.
18 News
Surveying large-scale photography events in Paris, seminal light art exhibitions in London and a celebration of 20th century art in Milan.
44 Society Transforms
Right now, Cao Fei is one of the biggest names in the art world. She is making multimedia work about technology and urban change in China.
74 Spatially Responsive
Site-specific sculpture and installation are used to push back against art's commodification and reproduction in Cerith Wyn Evans' latest exhibit.
102 Boundless Imagination
A new architecture book shows what happens when we combine the human imagination with powerful digital tools to realise escapist ideas.
Reviews
126 Exhibitions
We highlight exhibitions that stand up and speak out, like Peter Kennard's Archive of Dissent and a journalism award foregrounding Afghan women.
Books
135 The Latest Publications
Magnum, the iconic photo agency, establishes a history of photojournalism in the USA, whilst For Freedoms uses billboards to prompt civic action.
Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan | Until 2 February pirellihangarbicocca.org
"I am a movement artist. I started with painting, but I got stuck, I was at a dead end." Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) was an early pioneer of kinetic art. The Swiss sculptor described his practice as being all about motion, undefinable by traditional, "static" terminology. It’s an approach that can be traced back to Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1913), followed by the 1930s mobiles of Alexander Calder all the way up to today, where digital programming has enabled the likes of Studio Drift to use drones and robotics to emulate movements of the natural world.
Tinguely was a trailblazer of 20th century art. He was one of the first to use found objects and weld them together to create cacophonous systems, enlivened by real motors. In the 1950s and 1960s, he built a series of Méta-matics, designed to make abstract drawings. This challenged the role of the artist and the assumption that automated systems had to be useful. Métamatic no 17 was one of his first creations, producing an unending scroll of inky shapes. Later on, he made larger mechanisms, such as Requiem pour une feuille morte (1967). It’s a monumental structure, where countless wheels spin in mesmerising harmony. Now, Pirelli HangarBicocca unveils a centenary show that honours the landmark contributions of such an innovative practitioner. It marks the most comprehensive retrospective of his work in Italy since the artist’s death, consisting of over 30 pieces made between the 1950s and the 1990s. Machines are the beating heart of this exhibition, which invites viewers into a space that spotlights their dynamic functions, sounds and inherent poetry.
Surrealism in Landscape
Arc One Gallery, Melbourne | Until 1 February arcone.com.au
It has been 100 years since French writer André Breton (18961966) published the Surrealist Manifesto, which defined a new art movement devoted to the unconscious, uncanny and uncon ventional. Its impact on visual culture cannot be understated, and its tropes continue to be used in mainstream media: TV, film, music video and games. The word “surreal” is a firm part of eve ryday vernacular, and it's hard to imagine an art world without it. The earliest proponents of surrealist photography were Claude Cahun, Dora Maar, Lee Miller and Man Ray, who played with techniques like photomontage, repetition, disembodiment and anonymisation. Today, we're seeing a new generation of creatives take up the helm: Aïda Muluneh, Erik Johansson, Sandy Skoglund and Viviane Sassen are continuing their legacy. Honey Long (b. 1993) and Prue Stent (b. 1993) are ones-towatch in this space. Since 2010, the Melbourne-based duo has developed a multidisciplinary practice where their bodies are conduits for expressing the complex relationship between femi ninity and the natural world. For example, Nasturtium II presents a lone figure hidden by a sea of leaves. We see only the subject's arms, concealing her face from the viewer. Elsewhere, in Amoeba Phase II (2015), two fabric-clad figures stretch a skyblue material taut, pulling in opposite directions. Ambiguous, dreamlike and sensual, these images defy simple interpretation. Body Heat is Long and Stent’s latest collection, aptly coincid ing with the centenary of Surrealism. The exhibition reframes everyday sights by zooming in on unusual colours and textures.
BODY HEAT
Honey Long & Prue Stent, Nasturtium II, (2014). Archival pigment print, 159 x 106 cm.
Courtesy of Arc One.
Radiant Installation
SOLID LIGHT
Tate Modern, London | Until 27 April tate.org.uk
In the 1970s, British visual artist Anthony McCall (b. 1946) pioneered a new experimental approach to cinema. His seminal work, Line Describing a Cone (1973), radically shifted focus away from the screen and towards the projector or – more specifically – the light. Ethereal beams filled the space, appearing tangible. People wanted to reach out and touch them. McCall offers a summary of this method: “If you want to make a film that’s really a film, and not anything else, you need to discard the image.”
However, towards the end of the 1970s, McCall withdrew from making art and did not return to his career until the dawn of the new millennium. Like many, he was inspired by the artistic potential that emerging technologies promised. Now, his practice has expanded into the “digital realm” and he is making use of haze machines and cutting-edge projectors to further enrich the immersive experience for audiences. In recent years, we’ve grown accustomed to light installations – with spellbinding projects from Olafur Eliasson, teamLab and Marshmallow Laser Feast, which makes this the opportune moment for a comeback. This year, McCall is taking the art world by storm. The Guggenheim Bilbao provides the setting for a show titled Split Second, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the museum’s movingimage programme. In the UK, Tate Modern hosts Solid Light. This long-awaited retrospective traces his output between 1972 and 2018 and invites visitors into an immersive space where interaction is the key to fully appreciating the artwork on display. Now, after a 25-year-long hiatus, McCall makes his triumphant return.
Critical Reportage
LIFE, LOVE AND DEATH IN SICILY
Photographers’ Gallery, London | Until 23 February thephotographersgallery.org.uk
“The Mafia threatens us; the investigation continues.” This is the English translation of the words that splashed the front cover of L’Ora – a Palermo-based left-wing newspaper – on 20 October 1958. It was the headline a day after its offices were bombed following its scrutinising reportage on the infamous criminal organisation. This declaration sums up the bravery of people dedicated to denouncing an establishment at the intersection of Palermo’s business, politics and violent crime. At the helm of L’Ora’s photography team was Letizia Battaglia (1935-2022).
Battaglia took around 600,000 pictures for the publication as Photo Director. Together with her colleagues, she was present at every major crime scene in the city and documented the brutal everyday reality of living under the Sicilian Mafia. The results are heartbreaking, from A Mother with A Portrait of Her Missing Son to A Teenager with No Hope for the Future. Pictured here is an intense black-and-white portrait of writer Rosaria Schifani (b. 1970). She is the widow of bodyguard Vito, who was assassinated along with Judge Giovanni Falcone by the Mafia in 1992. Battaglia’s desire for justice, independence and change fuelled every aspect of her undertakings, from civil rights activism to politics.
Battaglia reflected: "I was with my bare hands, except for my camera, against them with all their weapons. I took photos of everything. Suddenly I had an archive of blood. An archive of pain, despair, terror, drug-addicted youths, young widows, trials and arrests." This show invites visitors to see the photojournalist's powerful work across five decades – in all its heart and humanity.
Rosaria Schifani, widow of escort agent Vito, killed together with Judge Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo and his colleagues Antonio Montinaro and Rocco Di Cillo.
Paris Photo, Grand Palais | 7-10 November parisphoto.com
Robert Frank. Tyler Mitchell. J.D. Okhai Ojeikere. Gohar Dashti. Past luminaries. Contemporary trailblazers. Paris Photo puts photography's biggest names in conversation, from the dawn of the camera to the 21st century. This November, the global art fair returns to the Grand Palais for its 27th edition. It arrives with a large programme filled with 240 exhibitors from 34 countries. References to friendship, intimacy and perceptions of the body are present throughout the works, diving into the power of human bonds. We see this in the Elles x Paris Photo collection – spotlighting women behind the lens, which features the archive of American artist and writer Tee A. Corinne (1943-2006). She used abstract techniques, such as solarisation and multiple exposures, to portray 1970s lesbian communities, at once protecting models’ privacy whilst achieving a striking visual effect. Experimental and sensual, these black-and-white images are excellent examples of historical pieces that still resonate today. Paris Photo also reflects the modern world. Last year, it became the first European art fair to dedicate an entire programme to digital art. The 2024 lineup consists of 15 projects that explore the limits of what we see, from the speculative 3D animations of Sabrina Ratté to the glitchy new media by Lorna Mills. Included is Turkish practitioner Alkan Avcıoğlu (b. 1982), who uses AI tools to create disorienting visual feasts that speak to mediated perceptions of reality. Here, thousands of screens crowd almost every inch of a dingy office space. As a must-attend event, Paris Photo is continuing to make a big impact on the world art stage.
10 to See
RECOMMENDED EXHIBITIONS THIS SEASON
Our selected exhibitions this October and November focus on forgotten and hidden histories. The works foreground those often neglected by the canon, including female creatives, LGBT QIA+ communities and generations affected by colonialism, putting them front and centre.
1
The Brooklyn Artists' Exhibition
Brooklyn Museum, New York | 4 October - 26 January brooklynmuseum.org
Brooklyn Museum marks its 200th anniversary this year. It begins the celebrations with an exhibition of 200 local artists, carrying on its longstanding tradition of amplifying voices from every corner of the community. The show spotlights those who have lived or maintained a studio in the borough in the past five years, including esteemed names such as Fred Tomaselli, Jeffrey Gibson, Mickalene Thomas and Vik Muniz. The pieces span themes that resonate globally, including history, identity, memory, migration, turbulence and uncertainty.
2
B ristol Photo Festival
Various Locations, Bristol | 16-20 October bristolphotofestival.org
Bristol’s international biennial of contemporary photography returns to consider a world in constant motion. It discusses the cultural, structural and environmental conditions we all exist within and asks questions about how photography can help us to see the world in new ways. The festival includes the first major UK survey of Japanese artist Rinko Kawauchi in 18 years. Her work moves between explorations of the natural world’s fragile beauty and the rhythm of the everyday, capturing the connections and continuity of life on “this planet we call home.”
3
T he 80s: Photographing Britain
Tate Britain, London | 21 November - 5 May tate.org.uk
Tate Britain brings together a landmark survey of 1980s Britain, a decade defined by seismic economic, political and social shifts. The images featured include Martin Parr’s absurdist depictions of Middle England and Anna Fox’s pictures of corporate success. Elsewhere, visitors can see Tish Murtha’s portraits of youth unemployment in Newcastle and Brenda Price’s powerful photographs of the miners’ strikes. Tate's 350 images explore how photographers use the camera to document, reflect and comment upon the tumultuous society around them.
4
E ncontros da Imagem
Various Locations, Braga | Until 3 November encontrosdaimagem.com
In the year that marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship, Encontros da Imagem Festival reflects on the nation’s history. It foregrounds questions about what colonialism looks like today and how the legacy of Portugal’s imperial past continues to shape lives. Some of its exhibitions survey this theme broadly, considering life within an entire nation or community, whilst others share personal family experiences through honesty and vulnerability. Glorianna Ximendaz, for example, highlights the problem of male violence.
5Jeff Wall
White Cube, London | 22 November - 12 January whitecube.com
Since the 1970s, Jeff Wall has consistently pushed the boundaries of image-making. He is regarded as the founder of "staged photography", crafting large-scale pictures, often mounted on lightboxes, that take the mundane corners of the urban environment and transform them into elaborate tableaux. The results have the scale and complexity of 19th century paintings. This major presentation brings together over 30 key works from Wall’s oeuvre, including A Sudden Gust of Wind, which sees three figures chasing after paper that cascades from the sky.
6
I ngrid Pollard
Hasselblad Centre, Gothenburg | 12 October - 19 January hasselbladfoundation.org
The Hasselblad Award is largely considered to be the most prestigious photography prize in the world. It was first launched in 1980 to recognise major achievements in the field. This year, the honour goes to Ingrid Pollard. Her work interrogates aspects of racism and colonialism, often built upon her experiences and research. She intertwines the history of photography throughout various projects, displaying a fascination with its technical aspects. The images investigate how the camera has played a historical role in the assertion of power and control.
7R eimagining Birrarung
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne | Until 2 February ngv.vic.gov.au
Rivers and waterways have long been thought of in terms of how they can best service human needs. They provide resources for extraction, and their waters are harnessed for urban development. In recent years, with increasing concern about climate crisis and a desire to preserve the natural world, perspectives have shifted. National Gallery of Victoria traces this thinking, presenting research, data mapping and speculative design ideas to project the future of the Birrarung (Yarra River). It asks: what might this place look like by the year 2070?
8L eap Year
Hayward Gallery, London | 9 October - 5 January southbankcentre.co.uk
Drying racks. Light bulbs. Nylon pom-poms. Hand-knitted yarn. Haegue Yang transforms everyday domestic items into distinctive sculptures and multimedia installations that engage the senses. Hayward Gallery now presents the first major UK survey of the artist, who is one of the leading voices of her generation. Visitors are invited to walk through a curtain of blue and silver stainless-steel bells, making a sound that signals their arrival. Yang’s work is steeped in layers of references, from art history and East Asian traditions, to folklore and modernism.
9H ain
Fotografiska, Berlin | Until 9 October berlin.fotografiska.com
Lukas Städler’s Hain challenges common perceptions of cruising: anonymous, consensual sexual encounters often involving gay men in public spaces. The series captures romantic moments between nude male subjects in idyllic natural environments. It is an echo of a time where there were very few safe public spaces for LGBTQIA+ people to express their sexuality. It took the artist over a year to take his first picture, as he spent time building trust before being invited into these private experiences. Here, Städler reveals a glimpse of a hidden Berlin.
1
0Am bienti
MAXXI, Rome | Until 20 October maxxi.art
The word "ambiente" comes from the Latin "ambire" which means "to surround." That is exactly what visitors to MAXXI can expect as they enter the gallery. The exhibition, which foregrounds women artists in the field of immersive art, is dependent on human presence and interaction to be activated and completed. The 19 three-dimensional works on display, hosted in a space created by the iconic late architect Zaha Hadid, bring together art, architecture and design. Visitors can expect to see leading artists such as Judy Chicago, Nalini Malani and Pipilotti Rist.
Bootsy Holler (b.1969) is best-known for her work as a portraitist, beginning with intimate depictions of herself and friends at the centre of Seattle’s pivotal music scene during the early 1990s – work she's showing in London during Frieze Week 2024. Without Words, however, sidesteps into conceptualism. It is introspective; a way of making sense of personal thoughts and feelings. “The spark came from an illuminating moment in Savannah, Georgia, when I found myself alone in the humid night air. I walked to the railing and looked out to see my body face down in the pool below. I didn’t know it then, but the feeling of detachment in that moment would follow me through the next few years.” Holler positions nature as a grounding place and a way to get back to her body. There is a surreal sense of being a distant observer, watching a figure lost in forests, marshes, fields, rocks and open water. “What might have started as despair now represents hope,” she says. bootsyholler.com.
Bootsy Holler, Olympic Forest – 0812.1118 (2016-2019). Courtesy the artist.
Bootsy Holler, Andrews Bay – 0823.2018, (2019-2020). Courtesy the artist.
Bootsy Holler, Cattle Point – 0824.2002, (2020-2021). Courtesy the artist.
Bootsy Holler, Willows Rock – 0727.1456, (2017-2022). Courtesy the artist.
Bootsy Holler, Deadman Cove – 0811.1949, (2018-2021). Courtesy the artist.
Bootsy Holler, Kona Island – 0416.1542, (2019-2021). Courtesy the artist.
Society Transforms
Cao Fei
A LEADING CHINESE ARTIST TRACES THE IMPACT OF URBANISATION AND DIGITAL REVOLUTION THROUGH CYBER FUTURIST FILM, PHOTOGRAPHY AND INSTALLATION.
Cao Fei (b. 1978) was recently voted “one of the most influential artists in the world.” Her latest exhibition shows us why. My City is Yours, opening at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, is the largest display of the Guangzhouborn, Beijing-based artist’s work ever seen in Australia. Visitors enter via a replica 1960s Beijing cinema foyer, and exit through an homage to a popular Sydney yum cha restaurant. The show unfolds like a city of screens and pixels, mediated by gaming technologies, the metaverse and VR. It’s a place that is under construction, where neighbourhoods are razed overnight and workers compete for jobs with robots. Cao has documented China’s rapid urbanisation and digital revolutions for over two decades, harnessing a unique blend of surreal humour and cyber futurism to hold up a mirror to the new millennium. Ahead of the opening, we caught up with Yin Cao, who is Curator of Chinese Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and a co-curator of My City is Yours
A: It feels like a significant moment for Cao right now. What's the story behind the new Sydney exhibition?
YC: The Art Gallery of New South Wales is one of Australia’s flagship art museums and the state’s leading visual arts institution. Given our location, we pay particular attention to fostering and strengthening partnerships and connections both nationally and within the Asia-Pacific region. We have a long history of staging exhibitions of Chinese art, past and present, going back to the 1940s. Whilst our earlier shows have predominantly focused on ancient China and historical art forms, recently we have been seeking contemporary artists.
Cao Fei was a perfect match. She is one of the most dynamic contemporary artists on the world stage, creating a rich body of videos, photographs and multimedia installations. Her work explores cultural changes in China since the late1970s, with urbanisation and technological advances having dramatic consequences for ordinary people and their lives. Globalisation has delivered changes around the world, and Cao’s works since 2006 have been particularly interested in what's been happening virtually – occupying a cyberspace that is inhabited by billions of citizens across the planet.
A: What can you tell us about the artist's background?
YC: Cao Fei was born into an artistic family in 1978, a significant year in China. The government enacted its “Reform and Opening Up” policy, and her hometown, Guangzhou (Canton), was at the forefront of a new strategy that permitted an influx of popular culture from nearby Hong Kong, but also Macao, Taiwan and the west. In the artist’s own words: “We were able to see a world completely different from the rest of China – in entertainment, perspectives, pop music and other ways that pictured and revealed life outside ours.” Having grown up in this dynamic environment, Cao is influenced by what she calls the Canton spirit of “being spontaneous and daring to do", and an unflinching determination to retain an open mind and pay attention to emerging trends.
A: From George Orwell, J.G. Ballard and Margaret Atwood, to Octavia E. Butler, Liu Cixin and Yōko Ogawa, speculative fiction, politics and dystopia have long gone
“Cao Fei is one of the most dynamic artists on the world stage. Her artwork looks at life in China since the late-1970s, where urbanisation and technological advances have had dramatic consequences for ordinary people.”
hand-in-hand. Nova (2019), is part of this tradition – set amidst a short-lived rapprochement between Mao and Stalin. What is the key message of this piece of work? YC: People, factories and social change are key to Cao’s work. She tries to “show the relationship between them as they connect to our times, history and human feelings – whether it be memory, hope, disappointment, despair or frustration.” Nova (2019) is a sci-fi film in which a Chinese scientist and his team have a secret mission of building a new computer platform, with the goal of enabling not only extraordinary calculations, but also the ability to travel through time and space. The scientist falls in love with a Soviet counterpart who was amongst a group of experts sent to China to aid the mission. After failing several experiments, he subjects his son to “Hongxia Time Software,” transforming him into digital matter. Lost in the cyberspace, the son struggles to communicate with his father and return to the real world. Cao reflects on this: “Time, for us, is too real, it’s hard to escape. That’s why the scientist sends his son into the machine; maybe I want to escape the timeline? And just swim across it.”
formation brought on by urbanisation and globalisation in the Pearl River Delta in China’s south. Since 2006, when she moved to Beijing, Cao has expanded her spectrum from the real world to the virtual, exploring the relationship between humans and technology. There’s a sincerity and deep empathy that evokes similar feelings in her audiences. Cao says: “My work will not give you a definitive conclusion. It is not a conclusive declaration, but rather open and transparent.”
A: Where does Cao sit within the contemporary art world?
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A: Over the last two decades, Cao's photographs and films have documented shifts in Chinese cultural life. What kinds of landmark events does the exhibition deal with? How did you – and the artist – approach the complex task of communicating them with an audience?
YC: Cao utilises many different materials, such as video, installation, performance and electronic media. In so doing, she creates connections and discussions between various genres. Her early works reveal an interest in youth and popular culture and an acute sensitivity to the societal trans-
YC: Cao has been referred to as the “leading figure of the new media art of the new generation” and a key representative of the “new humankind.” She has been a frequent guest at many important biennials, like Istanbul, Moscow, Shanghai, Sharjah, Sydney, Taipei and Venice. She’s had solo exhibitions at key galleries and museums, such as MoMA PS1; Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong; K21, Düsseldorf; Centre Pompidou; Serpentine Galleries; MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Pinacoteca Contemporânea, São Paulo; and the Lenbachhaus Munich, earlier this year. Her retrospective exhibition at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing in 2021 marked the artist’s homecoming after many years of international acclaim. Her works have also entered collections in many public galleries, museums and art institutions. Cao once said: “I believe that spiritual transgression, artistic openness, and the exploration and pursuit of multicultural integration are essentially about finding an outlet for ‘free expression’.” Her dedication to “free expression” makes her unique and irreplaceable in the eyes of the young people who continue to be deeply moved by her artworks.
A: The artist's past exhibitions have often included replica buildings, including cinemas and restaurants. Why?
YC: From the very beginning, Cao expressed the desire to create a show “that is boisterous, like the mall or the market. That’s what China’s like”, instead of “a European-style exhibition – low sound, white walls.” Working with architects Charlotte Lafont-Hugo and Gilles Vanderstocken of Beau Architects in Hong Kong, we have developed what we believe is an exceptional design that conceptually merges with the Art Gallery to enhance the visitor’s experience. It is a neon-lit city where visitors will watch wondrous and surprising stories told at a central plaza, in a theatre, a restaurant, a factory, transit node and a haven for spiritual contemplation. These tales, though, will happen in a non-linear timeframe, where real and virtual worlds intertwine. We will also have sections where attendees can experience Cao’s VR work, The eternal wave (2020), and a new game, Super delivery (2024).
A: What does Cao want audiences to take away from this?
YC: My City is Yours is best explained by the artist, who says: “I hope that, through this exhibition, Sydney audiences can ‘land’ in the ‘world’ I present. What awaits them after travelling through the wormhole is a city that is no longer restricted by physical boundaries. It will feel like a platform where we can visit and communicate with one another. I wonder: can we meet in the past and greet each other in the future?”
A: What can you tell us about the two new commissions included in the Art Gallery of New South Wales show?
YC: One is a light-hearted work, titled Hip Hop Sydney. With assistance from the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ team
and resident Chinese communities, especially Soul of Chinatown, Cao filmed more than 60 people – from young cosplayers to a 90-year-old Chinese Australian – performing dance moves. These were choreographed by local dancer Azzam Mohamedq, in Sydney’s Haymarket and Burwood Chinatowns, to a track by Korean-Australian hip hop artists 1300. Golden wattle, meanwhile takes its name from a watercolour by Cao’s late sister Xiaoyun (1971-2022), who had a particular fondness for the golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha), Australia’s national flower. This moving project is an exhibition within an exhibition, presenting Xiaoyun’s paintings from her time in the city, alongside family photos, personal items and a documentary. The wattle, called Xiangximu in Chinese, meaning “wood of lovesickness”, embodies the yearning felt by Cao Xiaoyun’s family and friends.
A: Is Cao optimistic about the role of technology?
YC: Visitors will notice octopus representations throughout the show. It's a metaphor. “The octopus is capricious, almost like the fate of humans, our destinations arbitrary and unknown. This animal makes me feel as if some invisible hands, or something bigger beyond our universe, is looking at us – like in the American film Arrival (2016), which I like a lot. Human civilisation seems to have reached its limit. Is there another dimension? No-one knows.” In an interview I did with Cao, she said: “I think humanity's view of technology is, sometimes, too optimistic. We did not expect that we both fear and love technological advancements …. It's totally different from the early 2000s during the RMB period, when we were very optimistic. I am not pessimistic, but I'm sceptical. I wonder whether the cyberspace still offers an escape for us?”
Words Eleanor Sutherland
Cao Fei: My City is Yours Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney From 30 November
Courtesy the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers.
Distilled Atmosphere
Onoko
“For most of its history, photography seemed on a direct road towards ever more perfect optical realism,” writes Mary Warner Marien in100 Ideas That Changed Photography (Laurence King). Yet, with the advent of early 20th century nonobjective art, and a drive to experiment with different equipment and new techniques, “its path began to be seen less as a straight road, and more as a large roundabout with many choices of direction, including abstraction.” Onoko is Manon Duparc (b. 1991) and François Pain (b. 1988). They are a French creative duo, represented by Bildhalle, whose atmospheric, impressionistic pictures distil moments from travels around the world. Colour dances across the page, forming complex gradients. The images are unedited and textured, bleeding across paper like watercolour. Devoid of context, you’ll find yourself conjuring up scenes – like seascapes or sunsets – using your imagination. A book is planned for spring 2025 with the(M) éditions. onoko.art
Onoko, Percept Op.19 Switzerland, (2020). Image courtesy the artist.
Onoko, Percept 6.20:53 , Somewhere in France in 2022, on longitude 6 at 20:53. Image courtesy the artist.
Onoko, Percept
Op.1 Japan, (2020). Image courtesy the artist.
Onoko, Percept Op.43 France, (2022). Image courtesy the artist.
Onoko, Percept 118.18:03 Somewhere in United States in 2018, on longitude 118 at 18:03. Image courtesy the artist.
126.17:09 Somewhere in South Korea in 2023, on longitude 126 at 17:09. Image courtesy the artist.
Onoko, Percept
Uplifting Narratives
Fares Micue
“Every portrait photograph contains an aspect of role-play,” remarks the author Phillip Prodger in Face Time (Thames & Hudson, 2022). “This can be as simple as combing our hair and saying ‘cheese’ when the camera clicks, or as elaborate as creating a purposebuilt world in which to be seen, complete with set, props and costume.” Artist Fares Micue (b. 1987) started taking pictures in 2009, with the simple hope of producing something to share on her profile. It quickly became a beloved hobby and, today, she’s a prolific artist who produces an array of colourful, narrative-drenched self-portraits. Micue is driven by positivity, optimism and a desire to share her uplifting outlook with other people. Every single element of a Micue composition is intentional and meticulously put together, from costume to location – whether that be in the studio or nestled amongst autumn leaves. Her publication, Journey to the Soul, is by Snap Collective. @faresmicuephotography
Fares Micue, Lucid Dream Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, Autumn Flames Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, Embracing the Night Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, Roads We Create Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, You, Me and Our Love Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, The Chaser Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, Morning Calm Image courtesy of the artist.
Spatially Responsive
Cerith Wyn Evans
SITE-SPECIFIC SCULPTURES AND INSTALLATIONS OFFER US A UNIQUE VIEWING EXPERIENCE EACH TIME, PUSHING AGAINST COMMODIFICATION AND REPLICATION.
Of the many counter movements that emerged out of the late 1960s and 1970s, Institutional Critique is, perhaps, one of the least widely discussed. It stood up against the traditional idea of the “art institution,” with creatives directly responding to the museums and galleries acquiring and exhibiting their work. Other institutional actors were put under the microscope, too, like financial firms, realtors and states. One pioneer was the German-born artist Hans Haacke (b. 1936), particularly for his work Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971, which brought the economic ties between real estate and art collectors under scrutiny. Art in America recently remembered it as “Part journalistic exposé, part conceptual artwork.”
Today, with social media and round-the-clock news cycles, the expectation that the public can hold organisations to account has become somewhat of a norm. A quick Google search will yield articles that offer thoughtful, wellresearched assessments of institutional strategies, from curation to acquisitions to funding sources, political stances and more, stoking industry-wide debate and sometimes even economic shifts. One recent example is the scandal surrounding the National Galleries of Scotland’s ties with controversial investment firm Baillie Gifford, or last year’s backlash towards the British Museum for accepting funding from fossil fuel firm BP. These kinds of conversations date back to the mid-to-late 20th century. Not only was critique becoming method, medium and movement, but there were all sorts of ripples taking place that changed our perception of "art." Conceptualism, for one, was fast becoming the movement
du jour. There was a rise in performance-led practice. It was a time of questioning: artistically, creatively, politically. The parameters of where art could be accessed, and how, shifted. Even the very term “exhibition” gained a brand new meaning. Against this backdrop, a young Welsh man, the son of a well-known photographer and painter, was pursuing his studies. Cerith Wyn Evans, born in 1958 in Llanelli, Wales, had been captivated by art from a very young age, having read British abstract artist Patrick Heron’s book The Changing Forms of Art by 11, and getting his local library to import Studio International and Flash Art for him, as he told The Art Newspaper in 2017. The young Evans completed a foundation year at Dyfed College of Art before attending Saint Martin’s School of Art (1977-1980) and the Royal College of Art (1981-1984) in London. Whilst in the capital, he worked as an invigilator at Tate, gaining knowledge of its collection. Over the years, Evans has cultivated a practice where no typical day in the studio exists, nor any marriage to a particular approach. “I’ve never found it particularly constructive to make a distinction based on medium [anyway],” he shares. One of Evans’ teachers was notable conceptualist John Stezaker, whose work leaned towards the surreal, as well as theoretician and filmmaker Peter Gidal. Under their tutelage, Evans began to hone an artistic identity. Most significantly, he became assistant to the influential director Derek Jarman; with him, he worked on the films The Angelic Conversation (1985), Caravaggio (1986) and The Last of England (1987), as well as music videos for prominent bands like The Smiths. Evans was embedded in London’s 1980s alternative scene;
“I’ve chosen, over the years, to avoid ‘describing’ my work. It seems to undermine the very purpose of making it. For that reason, I’m privileged to afford a changing focus as feels right. I’ve never found it constructive to make a distinction based on medium anyway.”
he was a squatter for a time and was studying, mixing, making and living as an experimental artist and filmmaker in a fertile creative period for the city. He collaborated with key figures such as dancer and choreographer Michael Clark, performer Leigh Bowery and the Neo Naturist group, whilst producing his own “non-narrative” videos. But he really emerged as a one-to-watch from the 1990s onwards, when he pivoted towards sculpture and installation. Despite the change of direction, his new work still incorporated light, sight and sound –fundamentals seemingly carried over from film. “I’ve chosen, over the years, to avoid ‘describing’ my work. It seems to undermine the very purpose of making it. For that reason, I’m privileged to afford a changing focus as feels right," he says.
Evans primarily works with light, time, space and language, often taking text from literary and philosophical publications. He has long used a range of materials: neon lights, plants, fireworks, projectors, balls. For his first solo show in 1996, he presented a large concave mirror with distorted views at every angle. Another early example is The Curves of the Needle (2006), a work in which Evans disrupted the synchronicity between soundtrack and visuals. He was inspired by a visit to the house and museum of Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán, in Mexico City, where he learnt that Barragán had kept record players in every single room. A text from White Cube reads: “The title of the installation was derived from an essay by Theodor Adorno, written in 1927 and subsequently amended in 1965, that examines the notion of music as a psycho-cultural portrait of the listener: ‘What the gramophone listener actually wants to hear is himself … most of the time records are virtual photographs of their owners, flattering photographs – ideologies.’” The influence
of a place or site was of paramount importance to Evans. In turn, his work transformed ways of approaching architecture and space. Anyone visiting Casa Barragán now may find the portrait of the man, with Evans’ reading of it imprinted on top. Site-specific interventions, and the blurring of lines between architecture and installation, is something we have become familiar with in recent years. Think American artist Jenny Holzer (b. 1950): known as a “neo-conceptual” practitioner, she too is renowned for working with language, time, light and space, projecting onto major sites and structures including Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Berlin’s Reichstag, the Guggenheim in New York, Ohio University and Singapore’s City Hall, to name a few. Meanwhile, there are also artists who work with institutions to mount a contemporary form of what one could call Institutional Critique-Collaboration. For instance, the unveiling of Punjabi-Liverpudlian artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman’s (b. 1957) Tate Britain Winter commission in 2020-2021: remembering a brave new world, coincided with Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, and comprised iconography from Bollywood, childhood memories in Blackpool, British-Indian colonial history and Hindu mythology. It culminated in a massive, colourful installation glowing on the exterior of one of the UK’s foremost art institutions. Evans’ site-specific output grew more ambitious and wideranging in scale from the turn of the millennium. Prior to this, he had taught at London’s Architectural Association for six years, and was immersed in dialogue with the field. In 2003, he became the representative artist for the very first Wales Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, exhibiting Cleave 03 (Transmission, Vision of the Sleeping Poet), which consisted of a World War II-inspired searchlight sending out a beam
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Cerith Wyn Evans, . ...the Illuminating Gas , Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan. 31 October
seven miles into the night sky, specifically to tap out the 17thcentury Welsh poet Ellis Wynne's titular poem in Morse Code. The work needed clearance from Italian authorities for potential risks to aircraft. It literally turned heads for its audacity. More recently, Evans presented ....the Illuminating Gas (2020) at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, a former car factory. Evans installed 24 works from across his career, using the space to arrange them in such a way as to create dynamic harmonies between the art – their sights, lights and sounds – and its surroundings. It was bespokely curated and highly choreographed, making the show itself a meta, umbrella conceptual piece. Evans described it as a “love letter to the space.” “The context of a particular architecture plays a large part in my decision-making process,” he explains. In Milan, his first neon sculpture TIX3 (1994) was on show, as was his renowned 2017 Tate Britain commission Forms in Space… by Light (in Time), comprising several kilometres of neon tubes hanging from the ceiling in a complex, explosive shape. It is influenced by kata diagrams from Japanese Noh theatre, which also inspired the 2015-2019 sculpture series Neon Forms (after Noh). Other parts of Forms in Space… are modelled after musical notation, and LSD's molecular formula. Evans’ latest exhibition, his first solo in France since 2006, is Borrowed Light Through Metz at the Centre Pompidou Metz. His older works, from the past 10-15 years, meet more recent ones “in concert … the exhibition constantly mutates as if animated by an inner life.” The result calls into question the protocols of exhibition-making, and includes a “winter garden” of pieces in dialogue with the space’s existing Shigeru Ban-designed folding architecture. The Pritzker Prizewinner worked in collaboration with Jean de Gastines to craft
the space back in 2010. Now, Evans fills it with big amethyst geodes and a bevy of plants from which two columns, made of filament light tubes, rise. They pay homage to the life-saving paper tubes Ban is known for, whilst signalling the evolution of time towards an increasing reliance on technology. Conversely, the third floor gallery is a “stroll garden”, with walls covered in mirrors and large windows bringing the city of Metz into the installation. There are more columns, this time LED, plus glass sculptures and crystal flutes emitting sounds – a symphony of flickering, fading, calling, dancing and singing performed by everything but human beings.
Technology and capital have transformed the art world, and, increasingly, exhibitions have become something marketable and reproducible. The rapid rise of "immersive experiences" and "selfie studios" is perhaps the most obvious example, and, for Evans, this is something to keep an eye on. “Exhibition making is a convention and, in order to create something challenging, aspects of that require questioning. The culture industry continues to evolve. Experience has become a commodity, which will have a bearing on the way in which people make and appreciate exhibitions going forward.” Evans subtly resists this commodification in Borrowed Light. He does so by making works that are in custom communion with where they are exhibited – providing an experience that can't be replicated elsewhere. Viewers might well be attracted by the allure of a Instagram-friendly glowing light show. But they'll take away something more profound – memories tied to a particular place and time. Evans wishes for them to “feel as if they can expand their horizons, interrogate their consciousness, experiment and improvise.” It's a powerful message that will resonate far beyond gallery walls.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah (b. 1997) is a photographer and filmmaker based in Accra, Ghana. Inspired by Africa’s rich visual archives, he draws on childhood memories and family albums to construct fictional stories. Obaasima (2021), for example, follows a young woman on her journey to and from a hair appointment. In Sunday Special (2022), the artist recollects growing up in a Christian and Ghanaian household; the photographs play with nostalgia to distil the ambience of Sundays in Accra. Boys Will Always Be Boys (2023) is an ode to boyhood, friendship and leisure. “I seek to share how the mundane things of life mean more than we realise. A nine-inch football brought us together on a dusty pitch for hours, and little things like chasing sunsets with kites felt like therapy. This body of work is a rendition of brotherly love, and a wishful thought for the endless possibilities that can exist in a world of shared passion and belonging.” carlosidun.com
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, from Obaasima (2021). Image courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, Nuerki Image courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, Taya Man No Be Lazy Man, (2023).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, from Obaasima (2021).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, for Aperture Magazine, (2023)
Image courtesy of the artist..
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, Nuerki
Image courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, from Sunday Special (2022).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, from Obaasima (2021).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Idun-Tawiah, for Aperture Magazine, (2023).
Image courtesy of the artist..
Details Up Close
Lotte Lisa Ekkel
Lotte Lisa Ekkel (b. 1988) is a self-taught photographer who lives and works in Amsterdam, making poetic and intuitive images without a predetermined plan. Her main goal: to take away the noise of the city and help us see “the magnificence of everyday life.” She seeks stillness and beauty, zeroing in on seemingly insignificant moments that often go by unnoticed. Ekkel’s subjects include singular leaves, moonlit raindrops and eerie, solitary tree branches. In one shot, bright marigold yellows contrast with hot black tarmac. In another, deep blue reflections ripple against lily pads, reminiscent of a Monet painting. Ekkel has a keen eye for colour, light and how to frame a good shot. These pictures encourage a renewed appreciation for the little things, and offer a taste of what we might discover outside of our front doors if we take the time to look. These are fragments of a world that exists within our own – a place waiting to be discovered. lottelisaekkel.com
Lotte Ekkel, Swimming Pool, Napoli , (2022). Image courtesy the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Solitary Light, Mexico City, (2022).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Kintsugi, (2022).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Sundown, (2021).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Apple Tree in Gold, (2022).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Reflections III, (2022).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Crossroad Montreal , (2022).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Moonlit Drops, (2021).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Sundown II, (2021).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Guatemala Yellow, (2021).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Lotte Ekkel, Sundown III, (2021).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Boundless Imagination
Living in a Dream
AN ARCHITECTURE PUBLICATION SHOWS WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN WE COMBINE HUMAN IDEATION WITH DIGITAL TOOLS, REALISING OUR WILDEST DESIGN CONCEPTS.
In 2023, a series of “photographs” of Pope Francis in a white puffer jacket went viral. It was a watershed moment for digital culture, and a wake-up call regarding how easily we can be fooled by AI and deepfakes. Just one year on, and we’re more aware than ever before of the serious pitfalls and ramifications of AI-generated images. In recent months, we’ve seen them leveraged as a tool for misinformation, to steer elections and shape opinion. Pictures of Donald Trump being arrested went viral in 2023; they were later debunked. As the 2024 election campaign unfolds, the former president has shared AI content, including a fake Taylor Swift endorsement.
Additionally, over the last year or so, social media feeds have been flooded with increasingly bizarre and off-kilter spam, from fake product adverts to likenesses of Jesus made from foodstuffs. Then there's the elderly woman, sitting behind her homemade 122nd birthday cake, with more than 4,000 shares, 20,000 comments and 100,000 reactions. According to a new pre-print paper by Stanford Internet Observatory, a post including an AI-generated image was one of the 20 most-seen pieces of content on Facebook in the third quarter of 2023, with 40 million views. Increasingly, we’re second guessing and factchecking everything we see online. There are a lot of ethical and moral questions around generative image-making, from its environmental impact to online safety. In the creative industries, issues of copyright, disclosure and ownership are at the heart of the conversation. The debates become heated, and it can feel like artificial intelligence is developing too fast for regulators to keep up. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. On the other side of
the coin, there are creatives who are open and transparent about using tools like DALL-E and Midjourney as part of their working processes – either in addition to their “real” craft, or as an art form all its own. Digital rendering has been integral to the field of architecture for decades. Now, it is colliding with other disciplines, creating a space where anything is possible, and through which we can visualise not only functional ideas, but our wildest and most escapist designs, too. Living in a Dream: Dreamscapes, Imagined Architecture and Interiors, a new publication from Gestalten, provides a space to enjoy these fantastical buildings without having to perform the double take of social media scrolling. As readers flip through these images, they won’t need to ask: “is this real?” The answer is clear: no, it is not – at least not in the traditional sense of the word. The book has been curated to show us what can happen when we combine the human imagination with powerful digital tools. We are introduced to the likes of Alexis Christodoulou, Andrés Reisinger and Six N. Five, pioneers in this space. The results: utopian skyscrapers, cotton-candy dwellings, idyllic treehouses and impossible interiors, as well as plans for projects that are yet to be realised. We sat down with Gestalten's Founder, Robert Klanten.
A: What is the story behind the book? Why now?
RK: The human imagination is a powerful tool, and we’re seeing a more diverse range of artists, professionals and amateurs utilising AI to fully leverage human creativity. In the case of Living in a Dream, we are very much interested in artificial architecture and interiors. It has been the case
“There has long been a precedence in art for escapism, from the late 18th century Romantic period, to science fiction novels. They render wants and needs that the world is unable or unwilling to express.”
for artists throughout history that dreams are the first step to building something tangible. After all, we can only create the things we can imagine. The difference today is that digital designs can often look indistinguishable from reality. In a way, there is an ambivalence towards reality.
A: How did you go about curating the selection? And how would you describe the creatives featured in this title?
RK: The book curates projects by talented people from many varied disciplines. These include artists, graphic designers, interior designers, architects and product designers. Artificial architecture, in a way, is a unique space in which a new school of creatives from different backgrounds has equal position in producing something interesting. Each of them brings a fresh and different perspective, depending on specialism.
A: Stéphane Bauche proposes the idea of “ruinovation”, offering “plausible” reuse schemes for abandoned or crumbling structures. Are there any instances where these kinds of concepts have come to life in reality?
RK: One of the people featured in the book, David Alf, is an architect at Olson Kundig. He uses Midjourney, a generative artificial intelligence programme and text-to-image tool, as a sketchbook. It serves as a means of exploring ideas that may eventually become real developments. Alf has contributed three architecture projects to this book, Creek Crossing, Rolling Green and Concrete Accommodations, which integrate with existing landscapes to create living spaces that are harmonious with their natural surroundings. The former is reminiscent of 20th century Brazilian architecture, whilst the second embeds several homes in Ireland’s white Atlantic
cliffs. The latter is comparable to Philip Johnson’s rectangular designs and blends International Style with Brutalism.
A: Alf’s are three of many projects that hark back to mid-20th century aesthetics. Why do you think this look has become popular in the digital design space?
RK: Mid-century architecture seems to resonate with a lot of people for its timelessness, classic clarity and transparency. There are imagined interiors and structures featured in our book that take inspiration from the likes of Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. But there are also references to other styles than span different time periods and locations: Ulises Studio’s Rooftop Refuges series recalls the onion-shaped domes of Slavic architecture; notooSTUDIO revives the Memphis Group’s bright colours and patterns; and Hassan Ragab taps into Egyptian and Mediterranean styles. There’s even a callback to the dizzying work of M C Escher from New York-based Exit Ceren, whilst AI for Architects transforms The Great Wall of China into a bouncy castle.
A: Let’s talk about Lemeal Studio’s Barbie dreamhouse-esque structures. What makes them successful?
RK: It started about five years ago when the 3D architecture bureau, founded by siblings Davit and Mary Jilavyan, worked on a project for a house in Mexico for friends. The idea was to avoid using glass walls; the clients wanted something different, and the result was a yellow-pink concrete structure. It was simple, childlike, but eye-catching – at completion it received a lot of recognition throughout design communities all over the world. After the Covid pandemic, Lemeal Studio found themselves at home with nothing to
Previous page: Lemeal Studio, from Living in a Dream Gestalten, (2024).
Left: Lemeal Studio, from Living in a Dream Gestalten, (2024).
Lemeal Studio, from Living in a Dream Gestalten, (2024).
do in the evenings. They decided it would be exciting to create an entire village of such colourful houses, and they’ve described that process as “feeling like children again playing with legos.” Maybe it’s that nostalgia that resonates with people. After the Sonora Art Village was completed, they went on to render many more colourful ideas, always adding new elements and experimenting. Raspberry Villa is one such project. Surrounded by palm trees and immaculate mowed lawns, the two-storey residence is retro-futurist and pink – inside and out. The key to Lemeal Studio’s work is that it is surreal yet plausible, and their 2021 project, Summertime, exemplifies this ethos. Set beneath cloudless blue skies and against backdrops of tropical foliage, its buildings range from holiday villas to castles in the sky.
A: What does the allure of these fantastical spaces say about the human psyche, and our desire to daydream?
RK: There has always been a precedence in art for escapism, from the late 18th century Romantic period, which saw sublime, uncontrolled scenes from nature – like storms and waterfalls – take centre stage, to contemporary science fiction novels and video games. Think about movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Blade Runner (1982), or the avant-garde films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. The people who conjured up and constructed these spaces and sets are artists, visionaries, world builders. Those featured in Living in a Dream follow in their footsteps. They are rendering the wants and needs that the world around us is either unable or unwilling to express.
A: What does it take to make one of these designs?
RK: Ulises Studio says that producing images with artificial
intelligence is “a combination of fine prompting and curation, which can take a long time to achieve the desired results.”
A: Is there a particular project that stands out to you?
RK: I am a big admirer of Hassan Ragab’s work. His interior designs combine a non-western visual language with modernist interior aesthetics, and it works elegantly. He mixes both contemporary and ancient references, offering a refined blueprint for adapting existing architecture. They look historical, but also have a lived-in feel.
A: This publication takes an optimistic view of AI as democratic, but there are increasing concerns surrounding its usage. What are your thoughts on this?
RK: People in art and design have always pushed back against new technologies. The introduction of the desktop publishing software Quark, in the 1980s, was a good example of this. With the increasing application of computergenerated imagery in art, the genie is already out of the bottle. So, it’s really a case of trying to work with these tools, rather than against them. Lemeal Studio is an interesting case-in-point. When AI first started gaining traction, the duo saw it as "a strong tool that could provide so many possibilities and ideas." But, the more popular it became, fewer people who still worked with their own ideas – and with their hands – were getting attention. “It’s sad that something created from words, and using others' references, can receive more recognition than projects built from scratch,” the studio said. Nowadays, Lemeal Studio implements AI tools into its processes whilst appreciating human labour. It plans to create both “AI-free and AI-friendly” projects in the future.
Living in a Dream Gestalten
Published October 2024
gestalten.com
Right: Lemeal Studio, from Living in a Dream Gestalten, (2024). Words Eleanor Sutherland
Echoes Preserved
Brendan George Ko
There is a famous quote by American writer Susan Sontag: “To collect photographs is to collect the world.” It’s almost as if she was talking about Brendan George Ko’s (b. 1986) Scrapbook series. The visual storyteller, who was born in Toronto and raised across Hawai’i, New Mexico and Texas, sees images as supplementary to the stories they represent. “I lived half my life moving throughout America, with endless road trips, and faces of so many dear human beings … I see every photograph that I take, as a document: of a memory, person, time, place or feeling.” For Ko, taking pictures is a way to bottle up life’s moments, and to savour the instances that are worth remembering. Portraits of friends, often bathed in light and shadow, meet high-quality close-ups of foliage that set the scene. Ko’s photographs are often rendered in enthralling saturated colour palettes, offering a crispness that invites viewers along for the ride. brendangeorgeko.com
Brendan George Ko, Hala Pepe
From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, Ko , From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, Bubbly Kali'i
From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, Margo I
From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, A Tree to Climb,
From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, Sambucus , From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, Daiva II , From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, Mel
From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko, Ficus Carica , From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko , Walnut , From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Brendan George Ko , Mel IV, From the Scrapbook series.
Image courtesy of the artist.
The Self Reflected
Mirror Mirror
FROM RENAISSANCE PAINTINGS TO IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES AND ONLINE SELFIE CULTURE, THE HISTORY OF ART IS BRIMMING WITH REFRACTIONS AND REFLECTIONS.
Reflective surfaces have entranced us for millennia. Today, a mirror is a common everyday object, found in bags, pockets and the front of our phones. But that's not always been the case. Mirrors have held a number of symbolic meanings across the ages: 5,000 years ago, in ancient Egypt, they were extremely valuable, placed in tombs and believed to capture the soul of the deceased – illuminating a path to the afterlife. Dark obsidian, a reflective volcanic glass, was used by Aztecs (1300-1521) to divine the future. During the Renaissance, they were powerful technical tools in the quest towards realism; Leonardo da Vinci said: “The mirror is our teacher.” By the 1600s, the The Hall of Mirrors was under construction in Versailles, exalting Louis XIV's authority. Later, as the Gilded Age ushered in the rise of consumerism, Americans began to see their reflections in department store windows more and more often, rubbing shoulders with mannequins attired in the latest wares. Thousands of years apart, these case studies demonstrate the importance of mirrors in human identity construction: asking who are we, and who do we want to be?
"Holding a mirror up to yourself, be it an actual or a metaphorical one, is quite a difficult task to undertake," writes Michael Petry (b. 1960) in MirrorMirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art, a new book that looks at this phenomenon across painting, installation, sculpture and multimedia. It's a who's who of contemporary artists working in the space: Anish Kapoor, Cindy Sherman, Doug Aitken, Lee Bul, Tracey Emin, Olafur Eliasson, Trevor Paglen, Sarah Sze, Yayoi Kusama and more. But it also looks back to history to establish the legacy upon which these artists build. MirrorMirror features architec-
tural installations, reflective metal sculptures, shining light displays as well as self-portraits. Some artists centre the mirror as their physical and conceptual subject, whilst others use it as a conduit to different ideas, like digital selfie culture. Petry's own artwork, The Pool of Narcissus (2019), is featured in the book. The installation, exhibited at the Joshua Treenial, is an example of how mirrors, when positioned in the right place, can disrupt the status quo. “The one thing that happens in the desert is you have mirages, where it looks like there’s water, but it’s this weird reflection in the sky on the land. I thought: I want to make a pool of water that you can look into, but is not actually water. And it’s so strange ... you see this pool, and what happens is you look into it and see yourself. We’re all able to look, but not everyone can see that, sometimes, things are actually a trap." It featured a sheet of blue glass placed amidst the arid Californian desert, the pulsating heat of the sun projecting hazy images on its surface.
Here, Petry draws on the Greek myth of Narcissus, a famous tale about the perils of pride and self-absorption. The story continues to inspire creatives to this day; Petry references other 21st century interpretations from David Trullo, Susan Silas and Sarah Purcill in MirrorMirror. Just like in the fairytale Snow White, when the queen asks: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The looking glass remains a metaphor for deception and seduction, which can trick the eye just as easily as it can promise truth and clarity of sight.
So, how does one approach the task of making a book about such a wide-reaching subject matter? “In terms of the way the book is laid out, I thought, let’s look at what actually
“The book features installation, reflective metal sculptures, shining light displays and self-portraiture. Some centre mirrors as their main physical subject, whilst others use it as a conduit to different ideas, like digital selfie culture.”
constitutes a mirrored artwork.” Petry is a multi-media artist who co-wrote the authoritative book on installations, The Empire of the Senses, and is author of The Art of Not Making: The New Artist / Artisan Relationship. He is also Director of MOCA in London. “I wanted to show how artists have always used mirrors to either look at themselves or have the audience look at themselves. The book has a chapter on history, because I think that it’s important to show how contemporary work comes from a dialogue with the past.”
Petry introduces Jan van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait (1434), one of the most famous Renaissance examples, which depicts a couple – a man clad in a fur-trimmed cloak and black hat, and a woman, visibly pregnant, who is dressed in green. The pair hold hands, framing a chandelier above them and, importantly, a circular mirror hanging on the wall in the background. It repeats their likeness and expands the picture space, a revolutionary technique for the time. There are also examples of artists "breaking the fourth wall", like in Diego Velazquez’ Venus at her Mirror, painted around 1651, which shows a naked woman propped up by a cherub, her back turned to the viewer, soft features hazy in the sheen of a looking glass. Later, John Waterhouse’s 1891 Pre-Raphaelite painting Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses showed the sorceress sitting on a makeshift throne mounted by an imperial mirror, a potion in her outstretched hand. Shifty Odysseus smooth-talks his way out of her wrath – but, crucially, he's only seen as a reflection. The 20th century saw Surrealism enter the conversation, and with it came discussions of introspection and the subconscious. Masterworks like René Magritte's Not to Be Reproduced (1937) offered unsettling depictions of the
self. Petry reads Claude Cahun's Reflected Image in Mirror, Checked Jacket (1928) as a precursor to today's self portraits. Indeed, there are echoes of Cahun in contemporary lens-based artworks, including the fragmented, multilayered portraits of photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya. He uses mirrors as a way of discussing queer identity and Blackness. “All of my books come directly out of my practice as a visual artist,” Petry says, referring to his installation The Pool of Narcissus. “This piece is from 2019, at the height of Trump’s presence in America. His notion of self was unaltered by reality or other factors. That’s the whole idea of narcissism. At that time, we were also starting to see the everyday person engaging in a kind of narcissism that just didn’t happen before: the selfie. It became such a huge phenomenon ... people were taking selfies in front of artworks. Maybe they had a following of 200 or 300, or they may even have thousands, or millions if they’re influencers. But the impulse to do that is the same.” In many ways, the selfie is a form of identity construction, of saying: "I was there."
Yayoi Kusama’s blockbuster Infinity Mirror Rooms, which also feature in the book, are a popular choice for those who wish to snap such pictures. Her unfurling mirrors, which stretch into a kaleidoscopic forever, immerse anyone standing in the room into a starlit experience that transmutes reality into an endless dream. But they are much more than a photo opportunity. In Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, exhibited in New York City in 2013, Kusama managed to tap into the innate human desire for wonder and awe. The experience is much like looking up at an unpolluted night sky, where multicoloured lights beam across an otherwise dark space. Mirrors
dark room, as two others rotate and spangle the gray walls with fluorescent figures of light. Kuball’s deep interest in producing light experiences inspired by early scientific discovery, such as the 2018 installation five suns: after galilei, recalls the use of telescopes and other mirrored objects by Renaissance-era astronomers like Galileo Galilei and John Dee, who were intent on understanding the movement of the planets in outer space and their relationship to humans.
This same continuity with history is present in Olafur Eliasson’s 2016 installation Solar Compression, which was shown in the Palace of Versailles. A mirrored disc haloed with artificial light hung in a pared-back room, the natural sunlight pouring from the windows altering visitors’ colour perception as they glimpsed themselves in the barelyrevolving mirror. Doug Aitken’s Mirage, part of Desert X 2017, featured a silver house shimmering in the wilderness outside Palm Springs. Its exterior and interior were covered entirely by mirrors, causing the building to blend with the rocks, trees, sky and sand. As such, the effect of the installation is of dreamlike doubt: did the house ever even exist in the first place, or is the desert playing tricks on the mind? The same can be said of Sarah Sze's Fallen Sky (2021), a
Room Installation interrogates the selfie in a different way, featuring several different portraits Emin snapped when she could not sleep over the course of four years. In the pictures, Emin looks tired, doesn’t wear any makeup, and the natural effects of aging are visible on her face. The artist’s unapologetic decision to frame selfies showing stress and vulnerability in an exhibition denigrates established beauty standards, questioning a culture obsessed with defining women by their capacity to perform for the male gaze. For The Screenface Ones (2023), meanwhile, Tim Willcocks contacted sitters on social media, then met them in real life to make a portrait that puts their digital devices in the frame. Ultimately, the appeal of mirrors lies in their relatability: everyone wants to know what they look like. “You have an idea of what you look like or how you want to look, and you check in the mirror to see if the idea of you and what you actually look like is a relatively good match," Petry notes. "But it’s never a match. Everyone in the book is addressing the fact that people look into mirrors all the time. You often see people walking on the street and catch their eye in a pane of glass, and if their hair is out of place, they will fix it. It’s so ingrained that people will do it without even thinking."
Words Iman Sultan
MirrorMirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art
Published November 2024
thamesandhudson.com
Exhibition Reviews
1Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme
THE SONG IS THE CALL AND THE LAND IS CALLING
More than a decade ago, Palestinian artists Basel Abbas (b. 1983) and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (b.1983) began collecting online videos of people dancing and singing. Those in the frame were often in countries marred by conflict like Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Yemen. They began to understand that what connected each person was a need to resist their own erasure. In the context of Israel’s current occupation of Palestinian territory and the ongoing war on the capital city of Gaza, the defiance in the videos has a powerful resonance. These recordings, and their shared resistance, now form the bedrock of The song is the call and the land is calling. Abbad and Abou-Rahme’s collection of online clips is accompanied by choreographed pieces. The performances were captured in areas that are under threat of being taken by Israeli settlers who seek to remove Palestinians from their homelands.
The gallery is bathed in purple light, surrounding visitors as they enter the space and drawing them into the installation. The hues of slowly shifting pinks and mauves are taken from the colour of thistles. The plant grows in areas of Palestine where the soil has been disturbed and, when they decompose, they provide the earth with nutrients, allowing vegetation that existed, but was eradicated by conflict, to return.
A connection with the land, and a pervading sense of Palestinian identity, runs throughout this intensely personal exhibition. Each piece is a reminder of a community demanding the right to exist. In light of ongoing conflict, The song is the call and the land is calling is an important exhibition. It offers a reflective space within which to consider, on a deeper level, the testimonies of people whose voices are being silenced. It is a strong example of art's power to reach beyond borders.
Words
Emma Jacob
Copenhagen Contemporary Until 29 December
copenhagencontemporary.org
2Peter Kennard
ARCHIVE OF DISSENT
To date, Peter Kennard is Britain’s first and only Professor of Political Art. Once described by John Berger as the “master of the medium of photomontage,” Kennard has spent over half a century creating some of the world’s most cogent protest imagery. Since the 1970s, his work has been used for placards and posters at rallies as well as at protests for causes spanning the Stop the War coalition, Anti-Apartheid Movement, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Amnesty International and, most recently, calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. Archive of Dissent, an expansive retrospective of Kennard’s work, is now on show at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. It features a reimagined workspace filled with newspapers, agitprop posters and political texts – the lingua franca of his DIY approach. One of the standout pieces is The People’s University of the East End (2024), a series of placards chronicling
social concerns from the 1960s to the present-day. There’s also a Palestinian flag, the recognisable red triangle seen dripping in blood, painted last year. No doubt the highlight of Archives of Dissent is his iconic older work Solidarność (Solidarity) (1982), which he created in support of Poland's independent and anti-authoritarian trade union: it is a haphazard collage that has been adorned by ageing, yellow Sellotape. Kennard understands the limits imposed on his medium: “Art in itself doesn’t change anything,” he once said, “but when it’s aligned to a political movement, it becomes its visual arm.” In today’s overly saturated world, where dissenting voices are pushed to the margins, his work remains vital. Archives of Dissent reminds us of just that: creative expression is truly a crucial tool in the struggle to affect justice and change. In Berger’s words, Kennard’s “art cannot be ignored.”
3Mark Armijo McKnight DECREATION
Mark Armijo McKnight’s (b.1984) artistic language is rooted in existential themes. In his evocative photographs, bodies and landscapes are juxtaposed to express ideas of beauty, despair, freedom and repression. The exhibition Decreation harnesses the power of contrast through black-and-white images. In this ongoing project, the artist calls upon French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil’s idea of intentionally undoing the self to reveal fundamental elements of creation. Throughout the series, McKnight depicts an unveiling and unravelling of intimate bodies and rugged land forms in intermediate states. Often, his work references the mountains and western terrain of his youth in southern California and his family lineage in New Mexico’s badlands, as well as the broader queer experience. He uses a large format film camera to incorporate the precision of Modernism, alongside
a host of worldly references from art history to mythology. Abstract and emotive, the photographs tell quiet stories that resonate even more as a collection. Figurative tensions become formal in photographs such as The Black Place (ii) and Somnia, where the divergent subjects spiritually echo each other. The former is named for artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s favorite painting site near Nageezi, New Mexico, and the latter means “dream shapes,” where sleep is shown as intertwined figures. In these vignettes, bodies fold into themselves much like the eroded landscapes. Layered in metaphor, they are bound by continuums of light and dark, and time and space. Alongside McKnight’s photography, a 16mm film plays metronomes in scenes of New Mexico’s wilderness. Two sculptures carved in limestone offer seating in the image of ancient sundials to complete the timeless feel of the space.
Words Katie Tobin
Whitechapel, London Until 19 January whitechapelgallery.org
Words Jennifer Sauer
Whitney, New York Until 5 January whitney.org
Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Where the soil has been disturbed (2023), Low cloud hum (2023), The song is the call, and the land is calling (2024).
Peter Kennard, Values 1973, Photographs, gelatin silver print on paper with ink on board 1973. Courtesy of the artist
The 14th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award focuses on the conditions of women and girls in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. It is both a sobering and essential exhibition. Led by Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Kiana Hayeri and French researcher Mélissa Cornet, this powerful project documents the devastating impact of the Taliban's policies, particularly on women’s rights in the country. They share these moving experiences through a visually arresting blend of photography, sketches, videos and collaborative art.
Hayeri and Cornet's six-month journey through seven provinces provides a personal look at the lives of more than 100 women and girls, barred from going to school and instead forced to stay at home; women journalists and activists continuing the fight for their rights; mothers watching on with horror as history seems to repeat itself for their daughters; as well as members of LGBTQIA+ communities in the region.
5After Nature
This Award is not just about documenting human suffering – it's also a call to action, highlighting the consequences of the Taliban's systematic erasure of women's basic rights. Through intimate portraits and poignant narratives, the exhibition sheds light on the women and girls who are now deprived of education, employment and public life, illustrating their silent struggles, suppressed voices and shattered hopes. In the face of this repression, Hayeri and Cornet's collaboration with Afghan girls to produce art offers a profound message of resilience. It shows how even in the darkest times, creativity and expression endure. This show is crucial, not only for raising awareness, but also for reinforcing the urgent need for global solidarity. It reminds us of the vital role art and journalism play in preserving the stories of the people who have been silenced. We stand in full support of this exhibition and its mission to bring these critical issues to the fore.
U LRIKE CRESPO PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE 2024
In Sarker Protick’s video work, Three Hundred Million Years, a steady plume of heavy grey smoke rises from the earth, drifting over a black, granular slag hill in Jharia, India. For over a century, these underground coal bed fires have burned uncontrollably, relentlessly spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Protick’s film, devoid of human presence, captures the tireless movement of yellow, angular excavators and drills – machines shovelling debris in an endless cycle of large-scale mining. Historically, coal fuelled India’s vast railway network, yet its extraction and the construction of these railways is deep rooted in British imperial exploitation. This entanglement of colonial power and environmental degradation is the starting point for Protick’s latest exhibition Awngar, which won him – alongside Colombian artist Laura Huertas Millán – the After Nature Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize at C/O Berlin, an annual award given to artists or groups exploring new concepts of nature through visual
media. Protick’s predominantly photographic exhibition is part of a long-term research project and features vitrines displaying carefully curated colonial-era documents, including a portrait of western geologists and a map reducing the Indian subcontinent down to a matrix of mineral resources. In his Hardinge Bridge, Padma River photographic series –named after the British Viceroy who oversaw its construction – the Bangladeshi artist presents fractured steel girders of the enormous railway bridge. These jagged, black-and-white fragments stand as ominous symbols of global infrastructure rooted in the capitalist ambitions of British rule, subtly alluding to the brutal forced partition of Bengal. Layered and evocative, the exhibition juxtaposes haunting images of abandoned coalfields with the hulks of disused machinery, manufactured in Manchester, England, serving as a stark reminder that the forces driving today’s climate crisis were set in motion by the dehumanising, ecological abuses of empire.
Words Shirley Stevenson
Réfectoire des Cordeliers, Paris
Until 18 November
fondationcarmignac.com
Words Duncan Ballantyne-Way
C/O Berlin
Until 22 January co-berlin.org
6Barbara Crane
E XPLODING THE LIMITS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
American photographer Barbara Crane (1928-2019) did it all. From glimmering windowpanes in Chicago, to off-thecuff, anonymous shots of attendees at Alabama’s Maricopa County Fair, her oeuvre stands out for its plurality of styles, techniques and genres. Crane received a twin-lens Kodak Reflex as a birthday gift from her parents in 1947, although Centre Pompidou’s show picks up in 1964. The first thing attendees encounter is a series of close-up portraits of people exiting a department store. But all is not what it seems: the images are overlaid with abstract motifs, and the result is confronting, with double exposures creating ghost images of the city’s neon signs on top of zoomed-in faces. It’s a good choice for an opening act, setting the stage for an interplay between documentarianism and experimentation. Later, Crane’s comparably conventional 1970s street photography is followed by the mosaic-like Whole Roll (19741978), an experimental darkroom project, and Baxter Labs
(1974-1976), which plays with abstract graphic forms and optical effects. Then there’s the Loop series. Between 1976 –1978, with her heavy 5x7 inch view camera installed on a golf bag with big wheels, Crane scrutinised an historic Chicago neighbourhood. She paid attention to the ways in which the light interacted with the façades at various periods of the day.
The 1980s saw Crane produce quick-fire images of unknown individuals, culminating in Private Views. One such picture shows a woman emerging from a telephone box, its metal frame – and her face – seemingly caught in the flash.
“I wanted to get rid of everything but the one thing I want to show, that one gesture that says a lot. I found myself inching closer, physically to my subjects. When I first started shooting, I used to be about ten feet from a person. In the end I was more like ten inches.” This show is testament to the power of innovation and continuous creative development, and a chance to step into the world of a major 20th century name.
Words Frances Johnson
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Until 6 January
centrepompidou.fr
1The Taste of Mango
C HLOE ABRAHAMS
Intergenerational trauma is at the heart of Chloe Abrahams’ moving 75-minute documentary. At first, with montages of photo albums and home movie footage, the atmosphere feels cosy, but this is a film layered with revelations. Abrahams’ grandmother, Jean, is coming to London to visit from Sri Lanka. It’s her third trip, but each encounter is triggering for Abrahams’ mother, Rozana. Her step-father, Jean’s husband, is suspected of being a paedophile and of raping Rozana when she was young, a horrifying secret that has caused fissures in the family. For Rozena, who didn’t tell her daughter about this until she was 18, it’s been a source of anxiety and frequent nightmares. In the past, she visualised men climbing down ropes to attack her. The real question is why Jean never left her husband, given she’s aware that he abused not only her daughter but others as well. The pain it’s
2The Outrun NORA FINGSCHEIDT
Waves crash and winds howl in The Outrun, an admirably rugged adaptation of Amy Liptrott’s poetic memoir about addiction and recovery set on the Orkney Islands. Saoirse Ronan is typically magnetic as Rhona, a fictionalised avatar for Liptrott, a young woman struggling with alcoholism who moves back to the islands after her life in London falls apart. On the farm where she grew up, Rhona navigates a difficult relationship with her separated parents – a deeply religious mother and a father who suffers from bipolar disorder – and slowly finds rehabilitation from the islands’ distinct landscape.
The odd ceilidh aside, German filmmaker Nora Fingscheidt largely sidesteps Celtic clichés, offering a sympathetic but unsentimental portrait of rural Scottish life. The non-linear narrative ebbs like the tide, washing up glimpses of backstory and past trauma as Rhona pieces
caused is long-standing and deep-seated. “It only occurred to me recently that we’ve never said, ‘I love you’ to each other,” remarks Abrahams, in her candid voiceover. She films her relatives with a camcorder, deliberately capturing banal, everyday footage, such as her mother dyeing her hair. It's a counterpoint to the shocking revelations at hand, and the incoming reckoning, although it is clear this is not a story about confrontation but healing. In scoring the film with sentimental tracks like Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling In Love, Abrahams sometimes misjudges. But for the most part, this is a work worthy of the Best Debut Director Prize it took at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards. Images like the family’s dishevelled garden with a solitary balloon bobbing in the air somehow speak volumes. By the end, the feeling shifts to one more tranquil – and more hopeful.
Words James Mottram
Conic conic.film
herself back together. Fingscheidt doesn’t shy away from the sticky, humiliating chaos wrought by mental illness. An early episode in which an intoxicated Rhona is violently ejected from a pub sets the fearless tone, but Fingscheidt also honestly captures the pumping vibrancy of the nightclubs which, in their own way, offer possibilities of escape for lost young people. A recurring sequence in which mythical selkies swimming merge into clubbers dancing underwater draws out a streak of magical realism, connecting Rhona’s contemporary struggles with ancient folklore. Images of Ronan howling into the wind or splashing in the North Sea easily bring to mind another legendary Orcadian figure – the artist Margaret Tait. Her classic 1992 film Blue Black Permanent also transformed the Orkney Islands’ wild, untamed beauty into a feminist emblem of liberation and unrestrained release.
Words Rachel Pronger
StudioCanal studiocanal.co.uk
3Anora SEAN BAKER
Writer-director Sean Baker has carved out a career as a chronicler of those on the margins. These include the transgender sex workers of Tangerine (2015), the feral kids of The Florida Project (2017) and the failed porn star of Red Rocket (2021). He continues this theme with Anora, the worthy winner of this year’s Palme d’Or in Cannes. It is a rambunctious comedy-drama that tells the story of wealth and class divides through the eyes of Anora (Mikey Madison) or "Ani" for short, a Brooklyn lap dancer. A street smart hustler, Ani meets Ivan (Mark Eidelstein), a young Russian, at the club where she works. The son of an oligarch, he is in America flaunting his untold wealth. Crucially, it’s set around 2019, before the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Taking Ani back to his parents’ luxury home, he negotiates to spend a week with her, netting her $15,000. After enjoying each other’s
company, he drops the bombshell, proposing marriage. Plunged into a whirlwind, Ani is whisked to Vegas, where she and Ivan get hitched. But when his furious parents learn of their impetuous son’s actions, they send in fixer Toros (Karren Karagulian) and two goons, Igor (Yura Borisov) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) to annul the marriage. As the fairytale sours, and her Prince Charming turns out to be a coward, Ani is left to fight her corner. Anora bursts with energy, propelling audiences with perpetual motion as it swings into its final third. Exploring the idea of the haves and have nots, Baker has created a winning heroine in Ani, a scrapper who you can’t help but root for. In framing a nocturnal Brooklyn and Coney Island with a refreshing eye, Baker’s DoP Drew Daniels adds to the feeling of an undulating journey that, once again, sees this director championing the underdog.
Words James Mottram
Universal Pictures universalpictures.co.uk
After critical acclaim for debut LP Digital Mountain and 2021 EPs Create Simulate and Passing Over, Nice Biscuit delivers its eagerly awaited second album, SOS It is characterised by the fuzzy psych sound that Nice Biscuit is renowned for, though this new music has been increasingly influenced by disco, jazz fusion and other styles. Co-fronted by Billie Star and Grace Cuell, each song was written as a response to an increasingly turbulent world. At times this resulted in an air of serenity, at others times, the result was anger. Taken collectively, this musical outcry makes for a powerful, engaging listen. Striking vocal harmonies are omnipresent in Fade Away, which culminate with a vocal chant of “fade away” floating effortlessly over a throbbing bassline and delightfully subtle guitar flourishes. Psych-tinged lead single The Star is reflective of the more danceable aspects of
the album, a joyous mix of heavenly vocals and a tight rhythm section where bass and drums are prominent and captivating from start to finish. A song inspired by the Tarot card of the same name, the lyrics urge the listener to embrace the subconscious and are about the period of healing following significant personal hardship. The uptempo Rain is possessed by a powerful, driving energy that refuses to let up for the duration of the track, propelled by a persistent bassline and indefatigable guitars. As a whole, SOS builds on previous achievements and a solid reputation for a band still in the early stages of its career. It is also a goodbye for original guitarist and producer Jess Ferronato, as SOS is his final album with the band. At a pleasingly brief nine tracks, it maintains the core of its sound whilst moving forward sufficiently to keep listeners engaged and excited for their material. Words
Matt Swain
Bad Vibrations badvibrations.co.uk
2Vejula MEROPE
Somewhere between pagan worship and an acid trip lies the music of avant-folk group Merope, made up of the duo of singer and kanklės player Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė and multi-instrumentalist Bert Cools. Vėjula is the band’s fifth album and it weaves traditional Lithuanian music and ambient soundscapes into a sublime example of folkloric reinterpretation. Opener Koumu Lil sets the tone for an otherwordly record that feels newborn and timely. The duo’s hunger for experimentation has prompted them to team up with several like minded artists across the collection. On Namopi, Shahzad Ismaily and Laraaji arrive like migratory birds through thick clouds of incense to cultivate a heady air of mysticism. Elsewhere, American Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell makes an appearance on Lopšine; his intricate fingerpicked patterns sounding like a steady breeze on a hot summer day. These bucolic
3See You At The Maypole
HALF WAIF
To release six albums studio albums in a long and fruitful career is no easy feat. Half Waif, the alias of singer Nandi Rose, has fully nailed the sound the of deep, wintery upstate New York, the location where the artist conceived of the album. There is a deep sense of grief, loss and making peace with the past woven through the 17 songs. The hopeful, folky twangs of Figurine focus on how things will get better, eventually. It's a beautiful motivational singalong that we all need to hear. Inspired by the unimaginable loss of experiencing a miscarriage, the echoes of lyrics “I love you when it’s snowing, I love you when it’s warm” are almost excruciatingly poignant. On occasion, the overly polished production, James Blake-esque vocal processing and powerful lyrics seem at odds. All involved are clearly experts at their skillset, but the juxtaposition can sometimes work extremely well
scenes continue on the centrepiece, Vija, in which the graceful notes of Jurgelevičiūtė’s kanklės sketches a scene of pastoral bliss. Meanwhile, her haunting vocals on Spindulė, transports us to a remote and serene place. You could argue that Vėjula is an album that occupies a perpetual twilight, in which new myths and songs are hewn from tradition. Photographers call this time of day, when the light is soft, scattered and diffused "the magic hour." It’s a time of transition, sometimes even transcendence, and is best captured within the closing track Rana
Based on the sound of a traditional Lithuanian winter song, Jurgelevičiūtė’s voice drifts into a glistening pool of synth arpeggios. The track combines the earthly comfort of folk with a sense of ritual abandon, coming tantalisingly close to ecstatic release, before petering out like the soft glow of the sun, as it retreats beneath the horizon.
Words Patrick Gamble STROOM Stroom.tv
(The Museum) or feel a little forced (Big Dipper). Less is more when it comes to allowing such moving sadness to take centre stage. There is something to be said for the album’s dirtier songs, like on Dust, where Rose’s muddy vocals take a garage feel whilst jittering over grumbling bass. Overall, the slower the better. Half Waif hits hard on Slow Music, leaning fully in to the painful knot untieing. It's something the artist is clearly is bursting with desire to express. Her voice would easily lend itself to singing over a whole downbeat, in a Portishead-style project that leans in to the lo-fi tendencies of the fantastic Violetlight – a drumless, minimal and emotional lullaby of a track. The album’s closer, March Grass, is a vivid picture of the uplifting feeling of joy experienced at the other side of loss, when you finally bring your head above water and for the first time breathe a somehow new and different air.
Words Kyle Bryony
ANTI-records anti.com
NICE BISCUIT
1South Bank
ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
“London’s South Bank has a unique character all of its own.” This statement is author Dominic Bradbury’s opening phrase for an extensive monograph on one of the city’s most emblematic riversides. The South Bank includes a cinema, gallery, performance hall and theatre. It is at the very heart of art and entertainment in the city. This book is the first comprehensive study of the formation and make up of the area. As Bradbury remarks: “the setting, on the edge of the capital’s waterways, encapsulates a powerful sense of national optimism, yet also serves as a focal point – in many respects – for creative experimentation, embracing the arts, architecture and the wider cultural life of the country.” Photographer Rachael Smith depicts the distinctive and often controversial appearance of the neighbourhood, where artistic expressions were poured into concrete. Here, Smith zooms in
2For Freedoms
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
For Freedoms is an artist-led organisation using billboards as a catalyst for civic engagement, discourse and direct action. Eric Gottesman, Hank Willis Thomas, Michelle Woo and Wyatt Gallery started the initiative in the run up to the 2016 US election. Since inception, they have collaborated with over 1,000 artists, from Carrie Mae Weems and Theaster Gates to Ai Weiwei and Jenny Holzer. This is their first comprehensive monograph, with over 550 signboards created between 2016 and 2023. If there’s one piece that directly sums up the spirit of this volume, it’s Christine Sun Kim’s Words Shape Reality (2018). Her work took on profound significance in the wake of heightened AAPI discrimination amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Verbal and written expression have real, concrete and potentially destructive consequences. However, there is a glimmer of hope: the way we com-
3Magnum America
THE UNITED STATES
In 1947, a group of photojournalists met in New York City to form an agency. Each member had survived some of the most ferocious aspects of WWII and wanted to present their experiences to society. The result was the Magnum Agency. The group now works across the world, but continues to have strong roots in the USA. The organisation has amassed more than 100,000 images of America's varied, and often controversial, modern history.
Now, a new publication examines how the development of photography is inextricably linked to the history of the United States. Images have been seminal in shaping the nation’s identity, from Mathew Brady’s very first pictures of the American Civil War, right through to recent photos of Donald Trump after an assassination attempt.
The book unpacks criticisms Magnum has faced, namely that it foregrounds experiences of the Euro-
on surfaces, which retain the imprints of wooden shuttering, accentuating the persevering charm of “beton-brut.” These pages draw back the curtain on Robert Matthew and Leslie Martin’s mid-century British-style Royal Festival Hall. In separate chapters, readers gain an overview of the semi-hidden National Film Theatre/BFI, tucked under Waterloo Bridge, and uncover the recognisable façade and nostalgic interiors of Queen Elizabeth Hall and The Purcell Room. The penultimate section spotlights the imposing Brutalist silhouettes of the Hayward Gallery, before the book is rounded off with a section on Denys Lasdun’s much cherished, and at the same time repeatedly despised, National Theatre. South Bank: Architecture & Design explores the sublime, community-focused infrastructure of this iconic cultural hub, providing an unrivalled insight into the famed buildings that populate it.
Words Fruzsina Vida
Batsford batsfordbooks.com
municate also has the power to build a better tomorrow. One striking example of this is Derrick Adams, Michele Pred and Willis Thomas’ Ode to Bayard Rustin (2018) Cars zipping up the Miami highway would’ve seen the stylised profile of the African American civil rights leader looking at the imperatives: "Ride, Walk, Drive, March, Vote." It prompts drivers to think about the activists that have come before and their own ability to enact change by thoughtfully selecting leaders. In a skyline filled with varied messages – the poster in the background advertises a Florida Gun Show – this is one crucial call to action. This book offers revealing new insights with every page, from powerful protest slogans to the rejected boards that point to the USA’s “collective pain points.” It’s a place to see the important campaigns that have dotted the American landscape and sparked endless critical conversations.
Words Diana Bestwish Tetteh Phaidon phaidon.com
pean white, heterosexual male. In response, it traces the group's path throughout the 20th century, observing as it diversified its subject matters and list of contributors.
The story begins in the 1940s, as members bring the harrowing realities of WWII to life. Wayne Miller captures a wounded pilot being helped to safety, whilst Robert Capa follows his controversial Spanish Civil War picture with an image of soldier shot dead by a German sniper. Each chapter takes the reader to a new decade. There’s Burt Glinn’s reporting of Little Rock in 1957, where Black children were escorted into the first desegregated school by paratroopers and Thomas Hoepker’s image of friends relaxing as smoke billows from the World Trade Centre. This whirlwind exploration of a complex and ever evolving nation is a tour de force, guiding us through the key photographs that have come to define the United States.
Words Emma Jacob
Thames & Hudson thamesandhudson.com
Diamante Lavendar
Diamante Lavendar is an award-winning artist and author. She enjoys creating mixed-media digital art pieces that include elements of photography, drawing, painting and fractals. In her work, Diamante explores themes of spirituality and its effect on humanity and environmental issues. diamantelavendar.com
Lilian Nejatpour
DiamanteLavendar
British-Iranian artist and scholar-mystic Lilian Nejatpour’s multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, tantric philosophy, performance and musical composition. Lilian touches on themes of existentialism, rapture and ecstatic poetry, and is writing a doctoral thesis on Kundalini.
Dale M Reid
Contemporary fine art photographer Dale M Reid’s journey is a testament to the power of self-belief and commitment. Transitioning into a full-time professional artist, Dale honed her technical skills, challenged norms and trusted her instincts to craft a unique voice. dalemreidphotography.com
Rich DiSilvio
dalemreidphotography
lillynejat_
lilian-nejatpour.com
The primary goal for award-winning fine artist Rich DiSilvio is “to focus on the imagination, something no other Earthly being shares.” Oils and acrylics, and digital art, are used to achieve his bold vision. His art appears in numerous collections as well as galleries and museums. richdisilvio.com
digitalvista.net
Winner - 2023 Creative Communication Award (Best of Best)
Julijana Ravbar
Julijana Ravbar is an abstract artist based in Slovenia. The foundation of her work is in the balancing of shape and line with colour and texture. Her work is an intuitive, visual diary of her interior language. Ravbar’s paintings can be found throughout the world.
IVAN KLEM
abstract-art.si
Rojo Albero is the latest work of Ivan Klem. It was made in the Rio Tinto area in southern Spain. The work is related to mining, which dates back to the ancient Tartessos and the mythological origins of Atlantis. It is full of colour and visual poetry. Ivan Klem’s work has been exhibited worldwide. ivanclemente.es
ivan.klem
Aomi Kikuchi
Aomi Kikuchi is a multidisciplinary artist. She creates 2D and3D art, which includes sculptures, garments and objects. A source of inspiration is Buddhist philosophy and Japanese aesthetics. Her work is characterised by delicacy and ephemerality using textile and found objects. aomikikuchi.com
Sachi Satomi
Sachi Satomi is a Japanese artist based in Venice. Her multidisciplinary practice includes painting, sculpture and installation, in which she seeks inspiration from the creative process. “Often the important things are not visible to the naked eye and these are what I would like to shed light on.” sachisatomi.com
GILLES
Derived from a 3D canon of proportions, the subject’s face, after Vitruvius, is divided evenly in three. After da Vinci, the bottom of her lower lip is midway from nose to chin. Detailed in art book Positionism, the canon is useful as a reference for humanoid robotics or digital design. positionism.com
positionism
Lincoln Howard
Vancouver-based abstract artist Lincoln Howard blends abstract expression, vibrant colours and textural elements, forming a distinctive artistic voice and vision. Through his work, the artist conveys a sense of energy, emotion and introspection which draws the viewer in. lincolnhoward.com
lincolnhowardart
James GOODCHILD
Hiraeth is a series of photographic works centred around a Welsh word used to describe a deep longing for your homeland, especially in the context of Wales. The work achieves this by direct collaboration with the land, offering a representation of this ineffable word. jamesgoodchild.co.uk
Chan Suk On
jgphotoartist
Chan Suk On is a Hong Kong-based photographer. A question present in all work is: what is the secret inside the camera? Loose Pieces ponders the role an object has when it does not function. Does it still have value? Chan’s philosophy is “let the objects display and breathe naturally.” httpschansukon.com
sukon.chan
Joao Santos
Joao Santos’ work comes from an obsessive relationship with colour and pattern. The designs can be used for fabrics, upholstery, walls, corridors, public displays or exhibitions. Santos has exhibited internationally, and was artist in residence at Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
Li Ning
Li Ning graduated from Royal College of Art with a major in painting. He is winner of The Still Life Award of Jackson’s Painting Prize 2023. Li combines imagination with ordinary subjects. He seeks to present allegorical and spiritual meanings beyond the physical form. liningart.com
li_ning_painter
Clare Marie Bailey
Using self-portraiture, Clare Marie Bailey stages a series of images to create cinematic and dreamlike narratives, which explore the idea of doppelgängers and parallel lives. It looks at the possibility that you can co-exist in multiple universes, realities and dreams.
KIYORA
claremariebailey
claremariebailey.com
Kiyora’s detailed paper-cutting works aim to depict the changing pockets of energy that make up our universe. Through bold, patterned contradiction, the compositions express light and dark, movement and stillness – using paper as a plane of representation and an outlet. kiyora888.mods.jp
kiyora888
Vlad Hrynko
Vlad Hrynko is a visual artist with a mathematical and computer science background. His areas of interest include photography, Op-Art, architecture and parametric design. New, yet unnamed, this series is about research surrounding shapes and their perception.
Suha Badri
vlad.hrynko
vladhrynko.pics
After experiencing heat exhaustion from rising temperatures each summer, and realising its life-threatening repercussions, Suha Badri became intrigued by ways of adapting to this environmental change. The artist visualises the new world in her painting Solar Panel
Denise Blackburn
Denise Blackburn aims to trap colour and light between the layers of paint, in what are either fully or partly abstract paintings. Usually her paintings are loosely based on experiences of being in nature and focus on the microcosm, macrocosm and the light therein. soul-art.co.uk
Stéphanie Poppe
suhabgallery suhaawadhi@gmail.com
Stéphanie’s work reflects the synergistic relationship between art and architecture, nature and culture, history and the present-day. The harmonious state of coexistence between a more permanent condition and the ephemeral. Balance is the foundation of Stéphanie’s artistic research. stephaniepoppe.com
stephanie.poppe
JANE GOTTLIEB
Jane Gottlieb takes photographs that she then paints, enhances and combines with Photoshop to express her imagination. These colourful, abstracted images are inspired by the photos she took of the Frank Gehry Disney Hall, an architectural masterpiece.
Anastasia Yanchuk
janegottlieb.com
CLARE THATCHER
Clare Thatcher is an artist living and working in Bristol, UK. Painting and drawing is at the heart of her practice. She paints using pure colour made from pigment, particular landscape features inspired by locations that have had a profound effect on her, with a focus on tidal and coastal areas.
Clare_artist
Clarethatcher.com
anastasia_nati
Anastasia Yanchuk, also known as Nati, is a contemporary artist living in Italy. She is known for her vibrant paintings. Drawing inspiration from nature and human emotions, her work explores themes of women’s liberation and inner journeys. Nati’s art is characterised by bold colours, dynamic forms and expressive textures, offering an immersive visual experience. anastasiayanchuk.com
Aisha Olamide Seriki
lates to the head and refers to one's spiritual destiny. Using the calabash as a metaphor, the work depicts my attempts to mend the break between mind and spirit and realign my destiny. There are no markers of the natural world, to represent my inner consciousness. Orí Inú aims to show that reconnecting with one's inner spirit is a continuous endeavour and a condition of the human experience. The work will be presented by Flowers of Lilith, as part of the Photo Fringe 2024 Collectives Hub. Our exhibition explores the complex, evolving nature of identity, how our sense of self is shaped by love and recognition, and illuminates the importance of interpersonal connections.” Part of Photo Fringe 2024. Phoenix Art Space, Brighton, 5 October -17 November.
