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    More than 70 Iconic Works by Kerry James Marshall Shape a Major Survey in the U.K.

    “Untitled” (2009), acrylic on PVC panel, 155.3 x 185.1 centimeters. Yale University Art Gallery, Purchased with the Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund and a gift from Jacqueline L. Bradley, B.A. 1979. © Kerry James Marshall. ‘Kerry James Marshall: The Histories’ is organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris. All images courtesy of the Royal Academy of Arts, shared with permission

    More than 70 Iconic Works by Kerry James Marshall Shape a Major Survey in the U.K.

    July 31, 2025

    ArtSocial Issues

    Kate Mothes

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    Drawing upon art historical sources, contemporary culture, and comics, Kerry James Marshall vibrant paintings boldly challenge the past. Through often monumental portraits of Black figures, the Chicago-based artist (previously) delves into themes of race, identity, legacy, and representation to bridge history and the present and imagine a better future.

    In the largest survey of the artist’s work ever presented outside of the U.S., the Royal Academy of Arts hosts Kerry James Marshall: The Histories. Organized in collaboration with Kunsthaus Zurich and the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, the exhibition opens next month and features more than 70 works that span the artist’s career thus far. The show also includes a monumental oil painting commissioned for the Chicago Public Library titled “Knowledge and Wonder,” which is on loan for the first time.

    “School of Beauty, School of Culture” (2012), acrylic and glitter on unstretched canvas, 274.3 x 401.3 centimeters. Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; Museum purchase with funds provided by Elizabeth (Bibby) Smith, the Collectors Circle for Contemporary Art, Jane Comer, the Sankofa Society, and general acquisition funds, 2012.57. Photo by Sean Pathasema. © Kerry James Marshall. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

    The Histories is organized into 11 groups of works made between 1980 and the present, inviting viewers through a thematic and stylistic journey. The exhibition opens with “The Academy,” painted in 2012. A male model in a life drawing class stands in front of a patterned backdrop and looks directly at the viewer, giving the iconic raised fist of the Black Power movement.

    Marshall has long been guided by his early encounters with European art in museums and books, where he recognized a stark lack of Black figures. By the 1980s, he focused on the idea of visibility, creating the seminal piece “A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self,” which emphasizes his interest in confronting stereotypes.

    Typically working in series or cycles, Marshall often touches upon epochal social and political paradigms of the past, like slavery and the Middle Passage, Black Power and the Civil Rights movement, and the historical omission of people of color from Western painting traditions. His works often highlight daily African American experience and elevate everyday activities and interactions, like gathering at the barber shop, making a painting, relaxing at the park, or hanging out on the porch. Marshall posits that the past can be a tool with which to hew the future.

    Kerry James Marshall: The Histories opens on September 20 and continues through January 18 in London. Plan your visit on the RA’s website.

    “The Academy” (2012), acrylic on PVC, 182.9 x 154.9 centimeters. Collection of Dr. Daniel S. Berger, © Kerry James Marshall. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

    “Knowledge and Wonder” (1995), oil on canvas, 294.6 x 698.5 centimeters. City of Chicago Public Art Program and the Chicago Public Library, Legler Regional Library, © Kerry James Marshall. Photo by Patrick L. Pyszka, City of Chicago

    “Vignette #13” (2008), acrylic on PVC panel, 182.9 x 152.4 centimeters. Susan Manilow Collection. © Kerry James Marshall. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

    “Untitled (Policeman)” (2015), acrylic on PVC panel with plexiglass frame, 152.4 x 152.4 centimeters. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Mimi Haas in honor of Marie-Josée Kravis, 2016. © Kerry James Marshall. Photo courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

    “Untitled (Porch Deck)” (2014), acrylic on PVC panel, 180.3 x 149.9 centimeters. Kravis Collection, © Kerry James Marshall. Image courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, London

    “De Style” (1993), acrylic and collage on canvas, 264.2 x 309.9 centimeters. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Ruth and Jacob Bloom. © Kerry James Marshall. Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA

    “Untitled (Blanket Couple)” (2014), acrylic on PVC panel, in artist’s frame, 150.2 x 242.5 centimeters. Fredriksen Family Art Collection, © Kerry James Marshall. Image courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, London

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    In Miniature Models, Thomas Doyle Envisions an Unsettling Future of Technological Takeover

    “Clickthrough rate” (2024), mixed media, 24 x 15 x 15 centimeters. All images courtesy of Thomas Doyle, shared with permission

    In Miniature Models, Thomas Doyle Envisions an Unsettling Future of Technological Takeover

    July 29, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    If we were to travel 500 years into the future, what would the monuments decorating public parks and town squares commemorate? Thomas Doyle takes us on an unnerving journey to imagine the culture we might encounter should our endless fascination with technology continue.

    The New York-based artist (previously) toys with perception as he sculpts miniature works at 1:43 scale and smaller. His new dystopian series, Clear History, invokes classical Greek and Roman sculpture, although the venerated figures appear more as a warning than an ideal. Sharp rays pierce through a woman’s head in “Clickthrough rate,” for example, while the hunched protagonist of “Opt in” demonstrates the neck-cranking posture many of us know all too well.

    “Infinite scroll” (2024), mixed media, 22 x 13.8 x 13.8 centimeters

    Interested in the long tail of culture, Doyle frequently looks to the past to better understand the consequences of our present. “I’m fascinated by the way we are hurtling toward what seems to be a new way of being human, leaping without looking, hoping for the best,” he says.

    In each of the mixed-media scenes, tiny figures peer up at or sit near the weathered statues as they consider a world that’s come and gone. “The trappings of past cultures are all around us, morphed and made nearly unrecognizable over centuries,” the artist adds. “I’ve tried to trace the ways in which today’s technologies will reverberate over time. What will grow from the seeds we plant today? What becomes a venerated symbol? What serves as a cautionary myth?”

    Doyle currently has a few models on view at the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago, and he very generously shares glimpses behind the scenes on Instagram.

    “Acceptance criteria” (2024), mixed media, 21 x 15 x 15 centimeters

    “Opt in” (2024), mixed media, 20 x 20 x 20 centimeters

    “Switch profile” (2024), mixed media, 20 x 12.5 x 12.5 centimeters

    “Show hidden” (2024), mixed media, 28 x 30 x 30 centimeters

    “Session timeout” (2024), mixed media, 25 x 14.5 x 14.5 centimeters

    “Bad gateway” (2024), mixed media, 20 x 17.5 x 17.5 centimeters

    “Use case” (2024), mixed media, 20 x 14 x 14 centimeters

    “Temporary redirect” (2024), mixed media, 21 x 26 x 26 centimeters

    “We value your privacy” (2024), mixed media, 28 x 17.5 x 17.5 centimeters

    “Rollback” (2024), mixed media / 20 x 16 x 16 centimeters

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    Hypnotic Patterns Envelop Sofia Bonati’s Nostalgic and Stylish Imagined Portraits

    All images courtesy of Sofia Bonati, shared with permission

    Hypnotic Patterns Envelop Sofia Bonati’s Nostalgic and Stylish Imagined Portraits

    July 29, 2025

    ArtIllustration

    Kate Mothes

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    In the bold, imagined portraits of Sofia Bonati (previously), women gaze confidently from swaths of fabric and symmetrical organic elements. Whether cloaking her figures in geometric patterns or natural details like insect wings, each individual gazes directly at the viewer amid vibrant backgrounds and elegant garments.

    Bonati often derives her patterns and outfits from historical sources, especially hairstyles and gowns from the early 20th century. Surrounded by optical designs and repetitive motifs, her compositions are as nostalgic and surreal as they are contemporary. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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    An Expansive Survey in Scotland Celebrates Five Decades of Land Art by Andy Goldsworthy

    “Oak Passage” (2025) and “Ferns” (2025), installation view at the National Galleries of Scotland. All images courtesy of the artist and National Galleries of Scotland, shared with permission

    An Expansive Survey in Scotland Celebrates Five Decades of Land Art by Andy Goldsworthy

    July 29, 2025

    ArtNature

    Kate Mothes

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    Andy Goldsworthy grew up on the edge of Leeds, with Yorkshire’s rural fields in one direction and the city’s urban center in the other. As a teenager, he worked on local farms, which instilled an early respect for the land—and a fascination that would blossom into an interdisciplinary art practice throughout the next several decades. Based for the last forty years in Dumfriesshire in southern Scotland, the artist continues to draw inspiration from the forests, hills, and fields of this picturesque part of Britain.

    Employing a wide range of materials and settings from stones and leaves to streams and trees, the artist creates encounters that explore human interactions with the land. “The intention is…not to mimic nature but to understand it,” he told NPR in 2015. Temporary installations, typically documented after completion and then left to elements, mirror the way nature is always changing, whether going through cycles, evolving over time, or being actively transformed by human forces.

    “Edges made by finding leaves the same size. Tearing one in two. Spitting underneath and pressing flat on to another. Brough, Cumbria. Cherry patch. 4 November 1984” (1984), Cibachrome photograph

    The National Galleries of Scotland presents a new retrospective, Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years, in the Royal Scottish Academy building. Celebrating the trailblazing artist’s career, the survey features more than 200 photographs, sketchbooks, sculptures, installations, and archival items dating from some of his earliest experiments in the mid-1970s to pieces conceived for the show this year.

    Goldsworthy draws our attention to nature and the way it behaves—or doesn’t—by conjuring uncanny occurrences. A crack in fallen leaves resembles a fissure in the earth, or he highlights a hole in an elm tree by literally outlining the jagged opening in bright yellow. The artist also interacts with nature through physical participation, like climbing through a wintry hedgerow as if challenging its function as a boundary and demonstrating its possibilities as a conduit instead.

    Goldsworthy learned many of the techniques he employs in his practice through his early experiences working on farms in Yorkshire. He baled hay, prepared fields for planting through a method called harrowing, fed livestock, and piled stones. In art school, he began experimenting with photography and film to document ephemeral works he created in the landscape.

    Throughout the past five decades, Goldsworthy has established himself as a leading contemporary land artist, influenced by the work of seminal figures like Robert Smithson and Joseph Beuys and in turn influencing the work of younger artists like Jon Foreman or Laura Ellen Bacon. Goldsworthy emphasizes the beauty and nobility of working the land, not by trying to control it but by working in tandem with his surroundings and to illuminate details and patterns we might not otherwise see.

    “Elm leaves held with water to fractured bough of fallen elm. Dumfriesshire, Scotland. 29 October 2010” (2010), from ‘Fallen Elm’ (2009–ongoing), a suite of ninety archival inkjet prints

    The human relationship with the natural environment continues to be a central focus of Goldsworthy’s interventions, from a piece for which he carved up chunks of snow and hauled them across the countryside to the way he interprets the interior space of the Royal Scottish Academy building for the current exhibition. A large-scale installation called “Oak Passage,” for example, transforms a gallery into a tidy thicket with a lane through the center, presenting both a barrier and a channel, depending on how it’s approached.

    While he doesn’t generally view himself as a performer, he often portrays himself in the midst of interventions, capturing the activities in photos and film. A public context for his pieces, whether installed inside or outdoors, invites people to move around and activate the work. For this exhibition, his interactions with the historic Royal Scottish Academy building are conceived as a single work, considering the continuum of history, people, art, and the elements that have had an impact on the site over time.

    Find more on the artist’s website. Plan your visit to Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years, which continues through November 25 in Edinburgh, on the museum’s website. Head down the road to the National Museum of Scotland and keep an eye out for a small sculpture by Goldsworthy permanently marking the entrance to the atmospheric Early People display. And if you’re headed to Yorkshire, discover four permanent installations by the artist along the Andy Goldsworthy Trail.

    “Wool Runner” (2025) at the Royal Scottish Academy, National Galleries of Scotland

    “Frozen patch of snow. Each section carved with a stick. Carried about 150 paces, several broken along the way. Began to thaw as day warmed up. Helbeck, Cumbria. March 1984 (1984), Cibachrome photograph

    “Cracked Line through Leaves” (1986)

    “Hedge crawl. Dawn. Frost. Cold hands. Sinderby, England. 4 March 2014” (2014), video still

    “Wool. Hung from fallen elm. Dumfriesshire, Scotland. 6 August 2015” (2015), from ‘Fallen Elm’ (2009-ongoing) , a suite of ninety archival inkjet prints

    “Gravestones” (2025) at the Royal Scottish Academy, National Galleries of Scotland

    “Hazel stick throws. Banks, Cumbria. 10 July 1980” (1980), suite of nine black-and-white photographs

    “Rain shadow. Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland. 10 June 2024” (2024)

    “Stretched canvas on field, with mineral block removed, after a few days of sheep eating it” (1997)

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    ‘Outcasts’ Highlights the Scientific Contributions of Trailblazing Artist and Naturalist Mary Banning

    Polyporus beattiei, Banning (late 1800s), watercolor on paper. All images courtesy of New York State Museum, Albany, shared with permission

    ‘Outcasts’ Highlights the Scientific Contributions of Trailblazing Artist and Naturalist Mary Banning

    July 28, 2025

    ArtHistoryIllustrationNatureScience

    Kate Mothes

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    In the 1800s, mycology—the study of fungi—was a relatively new field, emerging around the same time as Enlightenment-era studies in botany and herbal medicine. Science and art converged in works like Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal, along with German naturalist Lorenz Oken’s seven-volume Allgemaine Naturgeschichte, consisting of more than 5,000 pages dedicated to classifying everything from beetles and fish to mushrooms and ferns.

    In the late 19th century in Maryland, Mary Elizabeth Banning (1822–1903) emerged as one of America’s first mycologists—and the first woman to describe a new fungus species to science. The self-taught artist and scientist is now the focus of a nature-centered exhibition at New York State Museum, Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms. The show features 28 original watercolors and detailed records of various mushroom species from the unpublished manuscript of her book, The Fungi of Maryland. In fact, of the 175 species she documented, 23 of them were unknown to science at the time.

    Fistulina hepatica, Fr. (late 1800s), watercolor on paper

    Banning’s manuscript is dedicated to Charles H. Peck, whose role as New York State Botanist—and an enthusiastic mycologist—at the NYSM formed the foundation of a 30-year correspondence with Banning. As a woman in an almost entirely male field, who also lacked formal biology degrees, Banning was largely ostracized from professional proceedings at the time, but her work did not go unrecognized. Peck published some of her findings in the Annual Report in 1871, and he kept her manuscript in a drawer at NYSM, where it remained for more than nine decades.

    A handful of Banning and Peck’s letters are included in Outcasts, along with some of Peck’s lab equipment, mushroom specimens that Banning collected, and a dozen early 20th-century wax models of fungi from the NYSM Natural History Collection.

    Along with Banning’s vibrant illustrations, the exhibition introduces visitors to the mycological universe, including prehistoric specimens like Prototaxites. A fossilized example of the ancient life form was found in Orange County, New York. Around 420 to 370 million years ago, these unique organisms would have towered over the landscape at up to 26 feet high.

    Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms continues through January 4 in Albany. Learn more and plan your visit on the museum’s website.

    Lactarius indigo, Schw. (1878), watercolor on paper

    Agaricus Americanus, Peck. (1879), watercolor on paper

    “Interpendencies” feature wall of ‘Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms’

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    Zim&Zou’s ’80s-Inspired Paper Cassettes and Boombox Radiate with Color

    All images courtesy of Zim&Zou, shared with permission

    Zim&Zou’s ’80s-Inspired Paper Cassettes and Boombox Radiate with Color

    July 28, 2025

    ArtCraftDesign

    Kate Mothes

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    From layered pieces of paper, Zim&Zou recently created a series of patterned cassette tapes and a vibrant portable stereo. Known for their elaborate, large-scale installations, the artists scaled down in size—but not color—for this playful throwback.

    Zim&Zou have recently collaborated with the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris to design an interactive family play area, and a workshop invites visitors to compose a water lily out of paper in reference to Claude Monet’s expansive Water Lilies paintings, which feature in the museum’s collection. See more on Zim&Zou’s website, Behance, and Instagram.

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    Among Andalusian Vineyards, a Vivid Carpet Creates a Space for Gathering

    All images courtesy of Javier de Riba, shared with permission

    Among Andalusian Vineyards, a Vivid Carpet Creates a Space for Gathering

    July 25, 2025

    ArtDesign

    Grace Ebert

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    Nestled among the vineyards of Andalusia, a bold intervention creates a space for gathering in the small village of Montemayor. “Pasera” is the latest addition to Javier de Riba’s ongoing Floors series, a project focused on reclaiming small plots of land as communal sites.

    “Pasera” refers to the fields where grapes shrivel up into raisins, producing the exceptionally sweet Pedro Ximénez-style dessert sherry typical throughout the region. Mimicking a patterned carpet, de Riba’s mural is a vibrant motif of burgundy and soft yellow, a nod to the fruits that surround it.

    The local community held a breakfast to inaugurate the new work, which the artist notes is an important part of instilling pride and ownership over the space. “As the feeling of home is a feeling that is created, and it fades if not taken care of, now it depends on its use and care to ensure that this meeting place remains alive,” he adds.

    De Riba offers prints and picnic blankets featuring his unique motifs in his shop. Find much more on his website and Instagram.

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    Cosemtics and Cosmos Blend in Circe Irasema’s Wooden Sculptures

    ‘Hecha a mano’ (2024). All photos by Ramiro Chávez, courtesy of Proyectos Monclova, shared with permission

    Cosemtics and Cosmos Blend in Circe Irasema’s Wooden Sculptures

    July 25, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    “For me, painting is a question about time,” says Circe Irasema. The artist, who lives and works in Mexico City, thinks deeply about the dominance of the male gaze in Western art history and how that authority influences the technical and material qualities of the works themselves. Preserving a piece made in this tradition, her work acknowledges, necessarily means preserving all that it represents.

    As a contrast, the artist has turned to an unconventional feminized medium. Using colorful eyeshadow cakes, powder blushes, and long acrylic nails, Irasema creates “an alternative version of the history of painting. A history that tells intimate or hidden stories about the body, the feminine, the performative, metamorphosis, the fragility and transience of life, the domestic, the gaze, and beauty.”

    “Los brazos de Morfeo (from ‘Cosmic Garden’ series)” (2025), gouache, acrylic, and polished artificial nails on an anatomical wooden mannequin, two pieces of 80 x 20 x 8 centimeters each

    Combining comestics and adornments with more common materials like gouache and acrylic paint, Irasema creates vibrant anatomical models and more abstract wooden works embedded with eyeshadows. Appearing as paintings from a distance, these mixed-media works meld a traditional art form with a longstanding mode of self-expression and beautification.

    Given the delicate nature of powder compacts—a reality for anyone who’s dropped an eyeshadow palette and watched it shatter—the fragile material requires a level of care that becomes symbolic for the artist. “It stems from a popular understanding that relates to the everyday, distances itself from academia, and maintains a connection with sentimental education,” she adds. Where expression through high art has long been privileged, makeup and fashion have historically been read as shallow and even frivolous, a conception Irasema handily rejects.

    Many of the works shown here are part of a series titled Cosmic Painting, a nod to the shared etymological root of the terms cosmetics and cosmos. Translating to “order,” “the word is understood as something harmonious and beautiful,” the artist adds. “This Greek meaning represents and is the basis of the canon of beauty that emerges from geometry, the cornerstone of painting since the Renaissance. This work attempts to use these same premises to reconfigure this pictorial notion with the compact powder of makeup.”

    Irasema is currently preparing for a solo exhibition at Carrillo Gil Art Museum and creating works for Art Basel Miami. Follow her practice on Instagram.

    “Pintar II” (2024), gouache, acrylic, and polished artificial nails on an anatomical wooden mannequin, 27 x 8 x 8 centimeters

    ‘Hecha a mano’ (2024)

    “Cartografía de formas simples” (2024), eyeshadow palettes on 17 plywood assemblages, 122 x 244 x 4 centimeters

    “Flor estrella (from ‘Cosmic Garden’ series) (open)” (2024), gouache and eyeshadows inlays on veneered wood, 6 x 40 x 40 centimeters

    Installation view at Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (2024)

    Detail of “Arcoiris (from ‘Cosmic Garden’ series)” (2024), eyeshadow palettes on tropical wood assemblage

    Installation view at Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (2024)

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