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    in Exhibitions

    Ai Weiwei Has Recreated Claude Monet’s Iconic ‘Water Lilies’ Using 650,000 Multi-Colored Lego Bricks

    You can construct whole worlds using the building blocks of Lego, but Ai Weiwei has taken things to another level by recreating Monet’s monumental triptych Water Lilies (1914–26). The mammoth undertaking has gone on display at the Design Museum in London ahead of a major new survey opening next month.
    One of the French Impressionist’s most famous paintings, which is currently on display at MoMA, the original work depicts the lily ponds at Monet’s beloved gardens in Giverny near Paris, an idyllic scene hazily rendered by his characteristic bold brushstrokes.
    In the new medium of Lego, however, it took 650,000 bricks in 22 colors to make, reaching nearly 50 feet in length.
    Detail from Ai Weiwei, Water Lilies #1 (2022), made from Lego bricks. Photo: © Ela Bialkowska/OKNO studio; courtesy of the artist and Galleria Continua.
    The result is what the museum calls “a depersonalized language of industrial parts and colors,” with the Lego more suggestive of the pixels through which we often engage with art today, whether the work is natively digital or a photograph shared online.
    The artist has added his own touch to the centuries-old composition, inserting a “dark portal” to the right-hand side that leads to the underground dugout that Ai shared with his father while their family was exiled to Xinjiang during the 1960s.
    “Our world is complex and collapsing towards an unpredictable future. It’s crucial for individuals to find a personalized language to express their experience of these challenging conditions,” said Ai Weiwei in a statement. “Without a personal narrative, artistic narration loses its quality.”
    Detail from Ai Weiwei, Water Lilies #1 (2022), made from Lego bricks. Photo: © Ela Bialkowska/OKNO studio; courtesy of the artist and Galleria Continua.
    “Toy bricks as the material, with their qualities of solidity and potential for deconstruction, reflect the attributes of language in our rapidly developing era where human consciousness is constantly dividing,” he added.
    The show will also include Ai’s Untitled (Lego Incident), another new work taking the form of a “field” on the floor made from Lego bricks given to the artist by fans around the world after he posted on Instagram that Lego had temporarily refused to stop letting him bulk order their products to make political artworks. Ai believed the Danish company was hoping to protect its business interests in China, but his post resulted in an international outcry and the toymaker changed its policy.
    “Ai Weiwei: Making Sense” is the first exhibition dedicated to Ai’s focus on design and architecture specifically. It opens at the Design Museum in London on April 7 with some of the artist’s best known works alongside a series of five new “fields” filled with objects that he has made or collected. It runs until July 30.
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    New Analysis Reveals That the Famed ‘Ugly Duchess’ Renaissance Painting May Not Depict a Woman After All

    A new exhibition at the National Gallery in London is taking another look at Flemish artist Quinten Massys’s mystifying 1513 painting An Old Woman, popularly known as The Ugly Duchess.
    According to a statement in the exhibition catalogue, the figure in the 16th century work “challenges every traditional canon of beauty.” It describes “an elderly woman with lively eyes set deep in their sockets, a snub nose, wide nostrils, pimply skin, a hairy mole, bulging forehead, and a prominent square chin.”
    But not everyone agrees. In “The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance” (on view from March 16 through June 11), curator Emma Capron advocates for a different read of the enigmatic work. The leading expert in Renaissance art is making the case that the old woman is not a woman at all.
    “She is most likely a he, a cross-dresser as a play on gender,” Capron told The Guardian. “We know that Massys was very interested in carnivals, where men would impersonate women.” Indeed, notes the statement in the catalogue, a festival dance known as the moresca—in which a sought-after young woman would “often be played by a cross-dressed man”—was popular in Northern Europe at the time.
    Francesco Melzi, after Leonardo, The Bust of a Grotesque Old Woman (1510-20). The Royal Collection / HM King Charles III Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023. Courtesy of the National Gallery, London.
    The work has hung in the National Gallery for more than 80 years, where it is one of the museum’s “best-known faces.” Informally, it is referred to as The Ugly Duchess as it served as the inspiration for Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations of the mercurial duchess in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the 1865 children’s classic.
    Over the years, medical experts have contended that the subject suffered from Paget’s disease, in which bones weaken and eventually become disfigured. But Capron takes a different view. “It’s not Paget’s,” she said, “nor any of the other suggestions like dwarfism or elephantiasis.” Rather, “[Massys’s] images, sometimes grotesque, sometimes simply fanciful and satirical, are partly metaphors for the social disorder of the time,” explained Capron. He is also “just having fun.”
    Furthermore, the exhibition claims that a drawing attributed to Leonardo da Vinci’s lead assistant Francesco Melzi, called The Bust of a Grotesque Old Woman, was the basis of Massys’s An Old Woman. Melzi’s image, on loan from the Royal Collection, is thought to be a copy of a lost original by Da Vinci’s own hand. Familiar with the exaggerated physiognomic types popularized by Da Vinci, Massys adapted the woman’s visage from one of the Italian master’s own caricatures.
    Leonardo da Vinci, A Satire on Aged Lovers (ca. 1490). The Royal Collection / HM King Charles III Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023. Courtesy of the National Gallery, London.
    There is another piece to the puzzle. An Old Woman is one of a pair of paintings by Massys; the companion piece is An Old Man. They are reunited in the exhibition. However, the woman is on the left, whereas in most Renaissance paintings their positions would have been reversed. The woman is also holding a rosebud—a flower with sexual connotations—as a token of her love. Here again the roles are reversed. The gesture went unrequited as the man has his hand raised, seemingly rejecting the romance she is offering.
    It “may be another clue that An Old Woman is a man in woman’s clothing,” noted Capron.

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    In Pictures: See Inside a Gargantuan Graffiti and Street Art Exhibition in Hong Kong, Stacked With Works by Basquiat, Kaws, Futura, Lady Pink, and More

    When “City as Studio” opens today in Hong Kong, it will mark the arrival of the biggest exhibition of graffiti art the city has ever seen. Arrayed across the shopping complex of K11 Musea are more than 100 works that track graffiti’s stunning trajectory, springing off the subways cars of New York and highways of Los Angeles to emerge as a global art and market force. 
    The show has as its curator Jeffrey Deitch, the artist, writer, and gallerist who isn’t just the latest guy to bring graffiti art to Hong Kong, but is quite likely the first.
    Deitch, who grew tight with the genre’s leading artists in the mid 1970s when he moved to New York, had accompanied Dondi, Futura, and Zephyr to Hong Kong in 1982. The artists painted a parking garage, which eventually became the I Club, marking the Wild Style pioneers’s first-ever visit to Asia.
    Fab 5 Freddy, Return Of God To Africa (1984). Photo courtesy of the artist.
    In curating “City as Studio,” Deitch told Artnet News, “I wanted to focus on artistic innovators and include artists whose influence continues to be felt.”
    Hence the inclusion of downtown New York practitioners such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rammellzee, and Kenny Scharf, Wild Style innovators including Futura and Lady Pink, and Los Angeles leading lights such as Chaz Bojórquez and Mister Cartoon. Today’s street art scene is also represented by works from Kaws, Aiko, JR, and Osgemeos. 
    Deitch himself is excited to present a number of paintings by Martin Wong, the Chinese-American artist who documented New York street life with poetic realism, and an avid collector of graffiti sketchbooks.
    Martin Wong, Untitled (Bicycle Boy) (1997-98). Photo: © Estate of Martin Wong, courtesy of William Lim c/o Living Limited, the Estate of Martin Wong and P•P•O•W, New York.
    While the exhibition launches in time to coincide with Art Basel Hong Kong, it also marks the 50th anniversary of hip hop, of which graffiti forms a key element. Alongside the artworks, “City as Studio” has gathered historic photographs by the likes of Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper to situate the art form within the then-burgeoning movement. Its curator, too, has had the opportunity to reflect on graffiti’s, and in turn hip hop’s, continued influence.
    “I start my catalog essay with the observation that the Wild Style graffiti that was invented by teenagers in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Lower Manhattan might be the most influential art movement since Pop art,” Deitch said. “You see street art around the world influenced by these innovations. The three linked creative forms: hip hop, Wild Style graffiti, and breakdancing defined a remarkable cultural moment and they continue to resonate.”
    See more artworks from the exhibition below.
    “City as Studio” is on view at K11 Musea, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, through May 14, 2023.
    Jean-Michel Basquiat, Valentine (1984). Photo: © Lisa Kato, courtesy of Paige Powell.
    Kenny Scharf, BLOBZIC (2018). Photo courtesy of the artist.
    Chaz Bojórquez, Mr. Lucky (2019). Photo courtesy of the artist.
    Haroshi, Mosh Pit (2019). Photo: © Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist, Jeffrey Deitch, and NANZUKA.
    Lady Pink, TC5 in the Ghost Yard (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist.
    KAWS, UNTITLED (NICOLE MILLER) (1996). Photo: Farzad Owrang, © KAWS, courtesy of the artist.
    Rammellzee, SIGMA-BATTL’S A GO (ca. 1985). Photo courtesy of the Estate of Rammellzee.
    Gusmano Cesaretti, Chaz Running (1973). Photo: © Gusmano Cesaretti, courtesy of Gusmano Cesaretti.
    Henry Chalfant, Mad PJ (1980). Photo courtesy of the artist and Eric Firestone Gallery.
    Keith Haring / LA II, Untitled (1983). Photo: © Adam Reich. LA II Artwork © LA II / Keith Haring Artwork © Keith Haring Foundation, courtesy of K11 Collection.
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    How Can You Make an English Manor Filled With Old Masters Feel Contemporary? At Chatsworth House, the Answer Is Cutting-Edge Design

    Glenn Adamson has established himself as an authority on contemporary craft, with former positions as Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London and Director of New York’s Museum of Art and Design (MAD). Increasingly, the domain lends itself as much to fine art as it does collectible design, with Adamson positioned as a thought leader in both. Adamson also writes books and essays, hosts panels, teaches and lectures, and consults widely. In the comprehensive compendium The Craft Reader (2010), the polymath synthesized the full breadth of craft theory. Fewer Better Things (2018) is Adamson’s ode to the objects in our homes that we imbue with personal narrative and value. He is currently at work on A Century of Tomorrows, a new book about the history of the future. Hosted since 2020, his video series Design in Dialogue has covered topics ranging from 3D-printing to social housing and has featured designers such as Sheila Hicks, Stefan Sagmeister, and Jacques Herzog of architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron. At the core of his practice, however, is curation. While at the V&A, he helped mount “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion,” an extensive historical survey of the movement. At New York gallery Friedman Benda, Adamson guest-curated the “Static” exhibition of 2017, which analyzed the impetus behind Italian Radical Design in the 1970s and ‘80s.
    Chatsworth House
    Now, Adamson has guest-curated “Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth,” working with Chatsworth’s senior curator of program, Alex Hodby, to strategically place contemporary design pieces in various rooms of the storied estate in central England, a museum in its own right. Joining forces again with the Friedman Benda, Adamson highlights a diverse group of 16 talents, ranging from Memphis Group founder Ettore Sottsass and contemporary master Michael Anastassiades to rising stars Najla El Zein and Fernando Laposse. 
    Glass works by Ettore Sottsass that appear in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Ettore Sottsass.
    We spoke with the independent curator about the dynamic showcase (on view March 18 to October 1, 2023), delving into his perspectives on contemporary design, craft, collectible culture, and his own collecting practice.   What’s the concept behind the “Mirror Mirror” exhibition? What’s significant about the estate in both a historic and contemporary context?  The name of the exhibition obviously references the fairytale. Our concept was to create dialogues between contemporary work and the examples of historical art, architecture, and design already in place at Chatsworth and to uncover how one reflects the other. I did a Design in Dialogue talk with the current owner, Duke of Devonshire Peregrine Cavendish (“Stoker”) about his ceramics collection back in 2020, which sparked a longer, ongoing conversation. His family has a legacy of commissioning new art and design for the primarily Baroque-style property specific to their time, fostering what’s cutting-edge from an aesthetic and technical standpoint. One has only to think of the estate’s 1730 William Kent armchairs that represent the latest artisanal innovations of the time. Joseph Paxton’s 1832 Chatsworth Greenhouse was groundbreaking at the time and set the standard for the typology. The Cavendishes have kept up this practice of patronage to the present day. 
    Fernando Laposse in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
    Take us through some of the pairings.  We looked closely at Chatsworth’s different interiors—the furnishings and architectural details—and carefully chose existing pieces by designers that we felt would best lock into the scenarios on a primarily material level. Following certain thematics, we set out to illuminate both the pieces and the context by highlighting their similarities and differences. The house is impressive in that it’s not an inert historic situation being disrupted through a series of contemporary interventions, but rather the result of continuous creative re-imagining. It’s the first property of its kind to have become a visitable site, a model similar locales have adopted to remain viable.
    Andile Dyalvane in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
    We placed South African ceramicist Andile Dyalvane’s abstract vessels—Cornish Waterfall (2019) and Ngxondorha (Volatile Rocky Terrain) (2021), among other works—in direct dialogue with British ceramics artist Edmund de Waal’s A Sounding Line installation. Their approaches differ but both have responded to the surroundings in different ways in their respective collections. Both also attest to historic American ceramicist Michael Leach as a source of inspiration. Exhibitor Ndidi Ekubia uses the same silversmithing handwriting and chasing techniques you would see in an 18th-century object at Chatsworth but in a manner that’s more contemporary and abstract. Max Lamb uses a bandsaw to cut up wooden fragments and reassemble them in the 6-by-8 chair, bench, and table series. He’s not implementing traditional wood carving techniques as you might find articulated throughout the house. 
    Max Lamb in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
    What can the estate’s history as both a platform for art and design teach us about holistic collecting and patronage?  Very few people are in a position to do what the Cavendishes have done, partly because their house is so extraordinary. However, if you think about it on a smaller scale, it becomes much more about building a story in a continuous way. Even if it’s about shaping a space with fewer resources that might exist for a shorter period of time, you can still think of collecting as this kind of cumulative or additive practice, a stratigraphy if you will. Collecting isn’t always thought of in that way. For many, it’s about growing a collection in size rather than over time.  Regardless, there’s been a shift in the past 20 years or more in how collectors view what I call avant garde design. I prefer this term to ‘collectible’ as it englobes a wider scope of work and research currently being conducted in Europe, Asia, and increasingly in the United States, if not also elsewhere.
    Joseph Walsh in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
    There’s been a significant growth in this market that runs parallel to the acquisition of fine art. A lot of the people that were initially and maybe still collecting this kind of material have begun acknowledging that the rest of their domestic interior can attain the same rigor as their paintings and sculptures. They might have Gerhard Richter on the wall but pair it with a West Elm sofa. There’s nothing wrong with that brand but why not think about functional seating as being every bit as intellectually or visually challenging as the Richter? In its ability to transcend time, Chatsworth demonstrates this all-encompassing approach and to great effect. If you look at Chatsworth, the value of the handmade cannot be understated. It’s an amazing repository of craft works and craft history and so it serves as the perfect context to explore this focus. 
    Samuel Ross in “Mirror Mirror”. Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
    How has craft continue to play a role in this evolution?  Craft is inextricably linked to the avant garde lineage that runs between the decorative arts, Radical Italian Design, Dutch design, work being done by Japanese talents like Shiro Kuramata, and more recent movements. The entire ecosystem centers on artisan knowledge, and material intelligence. Dyalvane, Ekubia, and Lamb are strong proponents of this impetus. Exhibitor Samuel Ross is also interesting because he’s able to work between what we might consider industrial and craft production. Presented in the home’s sculpture gallery, works like his Anxiety Birthed Corrosion table or Amnesia or Platelet Apparition lounger blend both more readily available industrial components and noble materials like marble. If there’s one place in the show where you feel like the conversation between the present and the past is its highest pitch, his work stands out. The pieces are also imbued with a significant amount of self reflection and expression. It’s important to mention that 20 years ago we might not have seen as much diversity represented in this market. 
    Jay Sae Jung Oh in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
    If we look at where the scene is now and where it’s headed, there are two lines of inquiry that seem the most prevalent to me. On the one hand, there’s an increased interest in almost alchemical material research. Half of the designers in the “Mirror Mirror” center the practices on this preoccupation. For them it’s not necessarily about inventing new materials but inventing new ways of working with available matter and developing objects accordingly. Korean designer Jay Sae Jung Oh implements an analog cord wrapping technique but does so in such a manner that the seemingly mundane component becomes transformative in its application. It’s equally parts resourcefulness and imagination. Chris Schank does a great job of this as well by combining waste materials in singular, crystalline, almost geological forms using layers colored resin foil. On the other hand, there’s a growing desire to explore the spiritual resonance of objects. Both American designer Ini Archibong and British designer Faye Toogood are on this wavelength. 
    Faye Toogood in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
    Shifting gears slightly, could you talk about your own collecting practice?  I live in a Hudson Valley house purpose-built by Postmodern ceramic artist duo Phillip Maberry and Scott Walker. Defined by larger boulders with poured concrete connecting them, the home is almost like a walk-in sculpture with colorful tiles throughout. It might not come as a surprise that what I mostly collect is also studio ceramics. The medium was my entry into the avant garde design scene and something I still cherish. I eat my breakfast out of Warren Mackenzie bowls. I also have a Jolie Ngo vessel that I received after helping her complete a thesis project at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work is interesting because she’s one of the only digital native designers that I know of who is still implementing handbuilding techniques all while looking to combine different approaches and materials.    More Trending Stories: Banksy Created His Latest Artwork on a Rundown Farmhouse by the British Seaside—Only to Have It Immediately Destroyed A German Man Just Learning How to Use a Metal Detector Uncovered a Hoard of Buried Byzantine Jewelry and Silver Coins The New York Art World Had High Hopes for Black Wall Street Gallery. Allegations Against Its Founder Have Soured Those Dreams New York’s ‘Hot Dog King’ Has Held Court Outside the Met Museum for Years. Now Fans Are Rallying to Stop the City From Ejecting Him Sotheby’s Surrealism Sale Fails to Meet Expectations, Pulling in an Under-Estimate $18 Million With Several Blue-Chip Works Going Unsold In His Upstate New York Studio, Stefan Bondell Paints Day and Night, Fueled by Hudson River Light and Copious Amounts of Sugar We Spoke to the ‘Anguished’ Barcelona Residents Fighting to Prevent the Completion of Gaudí’s Famed Sagrada Familia ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ Is a Truly Great Artist Documentary. Here’s What Makes It Work So Well Who Was Leonardo da Vinci’s Mom, Actually? A Provocative New Book Suggests She Was a Slave From the Caucasus of Central Asia Kenny Schachter Pays a Mind-Bending Visit to Beeple’s New High-Tech Art Compound (Getting in Plenty of Trouble Along the Way)
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    in Exhibitions

    The Republic of Benin Is Getting Its First-Ever National Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale

    At the 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale, the Republic of Benin will present a national pavilion for the very first time.
    Azu Nwagbogu, a curator and founder of the Nigeria-based non-profit African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), will organize the country’s inaugural pavilion. He was tapped by a joint selection committee that included Benin’s president Patrice Talon, the nation’s tourism minister Jean Michel Abimbola, and museum administrators from the National Gallery of Benin.
    In a statement, Talon said that Nwagbogu’s “unique background, vision, and expertise in the field of art curation makes him the perfect candidate to showcase Bénin’s cultural heritage and contemporary art to the world.”
    The West African country’s announcement situated its upcoming turn at Venice within Talon’s broader cultural policy agenda, which centers around efforts to restitute the many relics stolen from Kingdom of Benin by British soldiers in an infamous 1897 raid.
    Last year, the president’s office organized “Art of Benin, yesterday and today, from restitution to revelation,” a traveling show that showed of recently-returned historical artifacts with work from contemporary Beninise artists. The exhibition first opened at the presidential palace in Cotonou, and has since moved to the Mohamed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, Morocco, where it will remain on view through May of this year. 
    Nwagbogu, too, has been a vocal restitution proponent, speaking about the topic at international panels and forums in recent years. In 2020, he guest-edited an issue of Art Africa that cited AAF’s own efforts to turn “its gaze to the burning political, civic and aesthetic ramifications of restitution,” the Art Newspaper pointed out. 
    The curator also helped found the LagosPhoto photography festival in 2010 and served as the interim director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa from April 2018 to August 2019.
    What Nwagbogu has planned for the Biennale has yet to be announced, but Benin’s news release said his “vision for the project is to contribute to the construction of the intellectual architecture that will allow Benin to sustain and deploy the great artistic potential that springs from its land and has traversed its various diasporas.”
    The curator, for his part, said he felt “exceedingly honored” to be the committee’s choice. “I look forward to working on this exciting project,” he added.
    With this week’s news, Benin joins the growing list of African countries to participate in the prestigious event. Cameroon and Namibia made their respective debuts at the 59th Venice Biennale last year, while Ghana and Madagascar first participated in 2019.
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    in Street Art

    New Work by Saype in Ibri, Oman

    Switzerland and Oman is celebrating its 50th anniversary of bilateral relations, Switzerland is committed to closer bilateral cooperation in the field of sustainability. As part of the celebration, the Swiss Embassy in Oman invited the Swiss-French graffiti artist Saype to create a giant fresco in Oman. The work of over 10,000 m2 of eco-friendly paint was created in the country’s largest solar power plant in Ibri and symbolises cooperation on a sustainable world for future generations.The artwork in Oman was made on March 11th at the Ibri solar farm, Oman. Energy management is certainly one of the major challenges of our ever-accelerating world. Our contemporary civilization was built on fossil fuels, but today we must look to the future and seek sustainable solutions to keep the earth habitable. It is with the major environmental issues of our time in mind that I chose to paint in one of the largest solar farms in the Middle East (11,3 km²). Being aware that the solution centres around a complex energy mix and in a form of sobriety, I chose to paint this child playing with the magic of solar energy. Looking towards the horizon, he symbolizes the renewal of a civilization that must now reinvent itself to continue to grow without destroying the planet.This year, the Sultanate of Oman and the Swiss Confederation are celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations. The two countries share many commonalities. Not only are both countries committed to promoting peaceful coexistence and tolerance or act as facilitators in conflicts. Switzerland and Oman also share a common commitment to sustainability. Both countries have taken steps to reduce their carbon footprint and set themselves the goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. To reach this goal, it is important to develop innovative solutions that will transform our economy and society. Oman has a huge potential in developing solar and wind power – and Switzerland is leading in developing new technological approaches in the energy and sustainability sector. Hence, marrying the potentials of the two countries will certainly help both to reach their ambitious goals within the Agenda 2050. It, therefore, seemed natural for the Swiss Embassy in Oman to invite the world-renowned artist SAYPE, whose work focuses on these very topics, to come to the Sultanate as part of Switzerland’s contribution to the Oman Sustainability Week and express this special relationship between the two countries through one of SAYPE’s ephemeral artwork.Self-taught artist, Saype is known today for his paintings on grass, made with eco-responsible paint. Certainly one of the most publicized artists in 2019, he was notably named by the famous magazine Forbes as one of the thirty most influential personalities under the age of thirty in the world, in the field of art and Culture. In 2012, just a nurse, challenged by the revolt of the Arab Spring, Saype questions the meaning of our existence and our place in society. He begins to paint scenes in the subway in black and white, where people crowd daily, in an underground greyness well known to our megalopolises. While Saype explores a rather introspective workshop work, he has been developing a new artistic approach since 2012. Based on the premise that graffiti is diluted in the pollution of our current societies, and that, by extension, no one has any regard for them, Saype seeks to find a new way to appeal to people.Influenced by his readings, his questions as well as the democratization of drones in Europe which gives him easy access to aerial views, he began to paint on the grass. He then invented a 100% biodegradable paint and perfected a process which enabled him to create gigantic frescoes on the ground. He is now considered a pioneer of a new land art movement. Since then, these frescoes travel around the world, with a concern to appeal to people and society, minimizing their impact on nature. Its main objective is to put its art at the service of the human being, always with a concern for optimism and in a poetic way. In 2018, his self-funded project, in support of the SOS Mediterranean association, carried out in the heart of Geneva, had a considerable media impact since it was seen all over the world and by 120 million people. Following this popular impulse, the Swiss confederation proposed a pavilion for the association’s boat, then blocked on the ground and caught in the European political turmoil around migration.With this experience and this ability to mobilize thanks to his art, in 2019, Saype embarked on a project of global scope. His Ambition: To symbolically create the largest human chain in the world. This pharaonic project called “Beyond Walls”, over several years aims to pass in more than 30 cities of the world, to invite people to mutual aid, and kindness and to live together. Begun in June 2019 at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, on the Champ de Mars closed to the public for the first time in its history, for two weeks for the event, this fresco has once again left its mark. Supported by the famous British daily newspaper The Guardian which devoted 3 magazine covers to it throughout June, relayed by several hundred media and inaugurated by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, this work has been seen by 500 million people around the world.Take a look at more images below and check back with us for more updates. More

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    in Exhibitions

    Desert X Arrives in Coachella Valley, Bringing Art That Reflects on Ecology. See Images of the Show Here

    The newest iteration of Desert X is all about water—which might come as a surprise, seeing as how there’s not much liquid of any kind to be found along the dusty stretch of land in south-central California where the biennial exhibition is installed through May 7.
    But, for Neville Wakefield and Diana Campbell, the show’s two curators, “a desert is not defined by the absence of water.” To them, “the desert landscape is formed by the memory of water.”
    As suggested by that quote, this year’s Desert X—the fourth mounted in the Coachella Valley since the program was founded in 2017—zooms out for a holistic, ecological perspective on the land and art’s place in it. This edition spreads out across the land and features the work of 10 artists and collectives, including Tschabalala Self, Torkwase Dyson, and Tyre Nichols, among others. 
    “How do we connect the specificities of the Coachella Valley to the wider biosphere, where resources and energy… flow across borders and impact parts of the world we may never see?” Campbell asked in a recent interview. 
    That’s a lofty prompt, as much of the curators’ ideas are. But navigate from one individual site-specific commission to the next, and it becomes clearer what the duo means.
    Rana Begum, No.1225 Chainlink (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    A sculpture by the Bangladesh-born, London-based artist Rana Begum, for instance, is made almost entirely from chainlink fencing—a ubiquitous industrial material used to demarcate natural land as human property. The maze-like quality of Begum’s piece also suggests that it’s not just acreage these fences tend to divide.
    In a funny way, Matt Johnson’s contribution to the show—a tenuous arrangement of stacked shipping containers—shares similar themes. On one hand, the L.A. artist’s gigantic installation situates the region in a globalist context and suggests connection across cultures, countries, and oceans; on the other, it points out that that sense of connection is mediated through commerce and comes with a devastating environmental toll.
    Elsewhere in the valley is a larger-than-life game board, conceived by Gerald Clarke; an assemblage of reflective squares mounted atop the same electric motors used for mechanical bulls, made by Mario García Torres; and a readymade car sculpture from which a pair of giant animal arms emerges from its trunk, courtesy of Paloma Contreras Lomas. 
    Together, these makers’ contributions “make visible, as instruments of self-awareness and devices of wonder, the forces that we exert on the world,” according to a catalog text from Wakefield. 
    See more images from Desert X 2023 below. 
    Lauren Bon, The Smallest Sea with the Largest Heart (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    Torkwase Dyson, Liquid A Place (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    Gerald Clarke, Immersion (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    Mario García Torres, Searching for the Sky (While Maintaining Equilibrium) (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    Tyre Nichols, Originals (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    Hylozoic/Desires, Namak Nazar (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    Paloma Contreras Lomas, Amar a Dios en Tierra de Indios, Es Oficio Maternal (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
    Tschabalala Self, Pioneer (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
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    in Exhibitions

    ‘My Practice Is Play’: Trenton Doyle Hancock Has Gamed Out a Fully Functioning Basketball Court in a Houston Museum

    The basketball court as canvas? It’s not such a stretch—the likes of Robert Indiana, Yinka Illori, and KAWS have all put their artistic spins on hardtops and hardwoods over the years. Houston-based Trenton Doyle Hancock is the latest artist to leave his mark on one such court, though, notably, his entry isn’t bound for the gymnasium, but the museum.
    On March 18, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston will unveil Hancock’s latest commission, titled CAMH Court, within its Brown Foundation Gallery. The first artist-designed basketball court installed at a museum, the work won’t just be on view, but entirely playable too.
    Visitors are invited to play on the court on a first-come-first-served basis, with a youth court available for those aged 12 and younger (basketballs will be provided). On either court, players will get to dribble across surfaces and dunk off a backboard painted with Hancock’s signature Bringback characters, cartoon figures the artist invented and has scattered throughout his poppy body of work.
    CAMH Court, Hancock told Artnet News, sees “basketball and my art come together to make space for pure play.”
    An overview of CAMH Court by Trenton Doyle Hancock. Photo courtesy of the artist and CAMH.
    According to museum’s executive director Hesse McGraw, CAMH had envisioned installing a basketball court within its building as early as the 1990s. But, institutional rigidity aside, the gallery didn’t lend itself naturally to a site where basketball could be played. 
    In Hancock’s view, the space represented “a unique architectural environment,” particularly for its dimensions that take the form of “a famous parallelogram that has vexed artists for generations.”
    To fit the work into the space meant canting a regulation-sized court into that famed parallelogram, with help from project partners Adidas Basketball and Creative Court Concepts—in turn putting an oblique angle on the game.
    “This space creates a distorted and torqued basketball court that’s highly dynamic and generates a new kind of game,” Hancock added. “I’m interested in new types of basketball play emerging here.”
    Trenton Doyle Hancock. Photo courtesy of the artist and CAMH.
    In fact, “play” has long been an operative word for the artist, who, across paintings, sculptures, and murals, has unfurled a lore of his own making, threaded throughout with elements of pop culture, comic books, and art history. His self-made universe is home to a regular cast of characters with names like Vegans, Mounds, and Torpedo Boy, who engage in ongoing good versus evil battles—a flight of fancy that Hancock has sustained for nearly two decades.
    “My artistic practice is play. My paintings are like large toys, and my studio is a playground. I’m trying to create new worlds where things might be skewed, but your imagination is on fire,” Hancock said.
    For his first basketball court, Hancock deployed his Bringbacks as a way for players to engage and above all, play with his fictional characters. “I wanted to create a place where people could lose themselves in my artwork,” he explained. “I love the idea that people will try to play basketball despite the best efforts of the Bringbacks.”
    This latest project with CAMH also builds on Hancock’s long-standing relationship with the institution that staged his first solo museum exhibition in 2001 and his most recent retrospective, “Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing,” in 2014.
    McGraw, for his part, sees CAMH Court as offering an unexpected encounter with contemporary art as much as a “unique expression of basketball as art.” More so, echoing Hancock, he views the exhibition as a way for the artist “to meet audiences where they are.”
    “What comes next,” he added, “will be up to all the players.”
    CAMH Court is on view at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 5216 Montrose Boulevard, Houston, Texas, March 18–April 27, 2023.
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