Eliana Willis

London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts has opened a groundbreaking group exhibition inspired by the sex worker rights movement.
Titled “Decriminalized Futures,” the show includes works by 13 international artists who create moving images, embroidered works, books, sculptures, and works in other media to address the multiplicity of contemporary sex-worker experiences.
The show, on view through May 22, advances through interpersonal narratives, histories, and artistic expressions, making a compelling case for sex workers to assert their human and labor rights.
While selling sex is legal under U.K. law, related activities such as soliciting, renting premises for the purpose of sex work, and working with other sex workers, remain criminalized. 
“Full decriminalization of sex work is the rallying cry that unites the sex worker rights movement across the world,” co-curators Yves Sanglante and Elio Sea said in a statement. “Under this banner, sex workers and their allies have fought tirelessly for strong workers’ rights, an end to exploitation, an end to criminalization, and real measures to address poverty.”
Chi Chi Castillo and May May Peltier, still from Stone Dove.
The works on view present various feminist and intersectional perspectives on sex work and interwoven issues faced by sex workers, people of color, trans people, migrants, and disabled people. In also explores sex work thought racial and social justice movements, migrant rights, labor rights, mental health issues, gender, joy, and pain.
Works include a series of life-size linocut self-portraits by artist Khaleb Brooks exploring the relationship between body, gender presentation, and sexuality; four vignette-style films by artist Chi Chi Castillo and May May Peltier focusing on sex work and queerness through the experiences of four sex workers of color; and an altar of plants, zines, medications, and a bedazzled dildo created by queer Pakistani-Egyptian artist and stripper Aisha Mirza. 
“What do I feel about being objectified from an art perspective, as opposed to from a sex worker’s perspective? I think it’s great,” London-based Spanish queer sex worker and poet Letizia Miro told Artnet News.
“I was just talking to a colleague about this and I feel celebrated in a way that goes beyond activism. The beauty and experience and depth of emotion is being celebrated, as opposed to being super politicized or victimized or glamorized.”
Installation view of Yarli Allison and Letizia Miro, This Is Not For Clients (2021). “Decriminalised Futures” ICA. Photo ©Anne Tetzlaff.
Miro collaborated with Canadian-born-Hong Kong artist Yarli Allison on a two-channel video installation titled This Is Not For Clients (2021). Installed among large sculptural objects, including doll-house-scaled sex dungeons, the semi-fictional documentary explores the story of an imagined “ideal” sex worker from the perspective of a fictional client.
Through digital modeling and animation, Allison has created a kind of hyperreal narrative that transcends Miro’s real-life experiences into a fantasy realm, making visible the complexities—some of them dark—that go into clients’ imagined ideals, and the precarious position of sex workers.
“I was thinking about gender expectations and stereotyping,” Allison told Artnet News. “How do you satisfy that kind of client’s needs, and how do these fantasies work as a coping mechanism?”
The exhibition is hosted in partnership with political arts organization Arika, and is part of an ongoing project led by organizers from the sex worker-led collective SWARM (Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement). There is also an associated events program including poetry readings, screenings of sex worker-made films, panel discussions, and artists’ workshops.
“Decriminalized Futures” is on view at the ICA London through May 22.
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Los Angeles’s burgeoning gallery scene is offering an embarrassment of riches during Frieze Week, with a rash of openings timed for the fair’s opening day. Here’s our list of must-see gallery shows to check out while you’re in town.

“Will Gabaldón: This Must Be the Place” at Various Small FiresOpening February 15
Will Gabaldón, 48 Landscape (2021). Photo courtesy of Various Small Fires, Los Angeles.
For his first show with Various Small Fires, Chicago artist Will Gabaldón has made a series of oil-on-panel landscape paintings of scenes rendered from memory—or even imagined. The exhibition’s title comes from the 1983 Talking Heads song “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody),” here suggesting a place that can only be encountered through art.
Various Small Fires is located at 812 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles.

“The Rose Garden: Enrique Martinez Celaya” at UTA Artist SpaceFebruary 16–March 12, 2022
Enrique Martínez Celaya, The Laughter (2022). Photo courtesy of UTA Artist Space, Beverly Hills.
Enrique Martínez Celaya delves into our collective memories of crisis and chaos in an exhibition inspired by T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Words from the writer’s poems are written on the floor of the gallery, which hosts large-scale paintings and sculptures meant to represent both our world and our inner selves. The artist also has solo shows at the at the University of Southern California’s Doheny Memorial Library (February 22–April 9) and the Fisher Museum of Art (through April 9.)  
UTA Artist Space is located at 403 Foothill Road, Beverly Hills, California.

“Raqib Shaw” at Dries Van NotenFebruary 16–March 26, 2022
Raqib Shaw, High on Hope (2021). Courtesy of Dries Van Noten, Jeffrey Deitch, and White Cube.
Dries van Noten is teaming up with Jeffrey Deitch and White Cube on a solo show of work by Raqib Shaw. His astonishingly detailed paintings are drawn from childhood memories of his mother’s garden in Kashmir, reimagined here in fantastical scenes where nature and the city collide.
Dries Van Noten is located at the Little House, 451 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles.

“Momentary Pause” at Casa Perfect February 17–March 18, 2022
Chen Chen and Kai Williams, Stone Rose Table Lamp (2022). Photo courtesy of Casa Perfect.
Contemporary design, craft, art, `and technology come together in this group show about change and self-discovery organized by Future Perfect. Featured artists include Piet Hein Eek, John Hogan, Cody Hoyt, and Bradley L. Bowers.
Casa Perfect Los Angeles is at 1650 Carla Ridge, Beverly Hills.

“Anne Truitt: White Paintings” at Matthew Marks GalleryFebruary 17–April 2, 2022
Anne Truitt, Arundel XLIII (1977). Photo courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles.
This is the first show of Anne Truitt’s “Arundel” series since their debut at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1975. There, one critic reportedly called for the government to cut the institution’s public funding in response to the spartan works, which feature a uniform white background, a handful of graphite lines, and a few titanium white brushstrokes.
Matthew Marks is located at 1062 North Orange Grove, Los Angeles.

“Phyllida Barlow: Glimpse” at Hauser and WirthFebruary 17–May 8, 2022
Phyllida Barlow, Undercover 2 (2020). Photo by Furukawa Yuya, courtesy the artist and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
For her first L.A. solo show, Phyllida Barlow worked on site at the late-19th- and early-20th-century industrial buildings that house the gallery to create new large-scale works that are tall enough for viewers to walk under.Hauser and Wirth is located at 901 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles.

“Womanhouse” at Los Angeles Nomadic DivisionFebruary 18–April 2, 2022
Karen LeCoq and Nancy Youdelman, Leah’s Room in the original “Womanhouse.” Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Nomadic Division.
It has been 50 years since Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro organized “Womanhouse,” an all-female art show about the home at an abandoned East Hollywood mansion, featuring the work of students from the CalArts Feminist Art Program in Los Angeles. LAND is partnering with Anat Ebgi Gallery on a new exhibition exploring the spirit of experimentation and collaboration that fueled the project and West Coast Feminist art in the first half of the ’70s, with work from the period and ephemera and photographs from the original “Womanhouse.”
“Womanhouse” will be on view at 4859 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles. 

“Luncheon on the Grass” at Jeffrey DeitchFebruary 19–April 23, 2022
Cecily Brown, Luncheon on the Grass (2021–22). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist.
Taking a page from art history 101, Jeffrey Deitch presents a group show of over 30 contemporary artists reimagining Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), considered by many to be the first Modern paining. Following in the footsteps of luminaries from Claude Monet to Pablo Picasso are new works by the likes of Nina Chanel Abney, Karen Kilimnik, Naudline Pierre, Christina Quarles, Walter Robinson, and Salman Toor, as well as a 1979 Robert Colescott.
Jeffrey Deitch is located at 925 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles.

“Leilah Babirye: Ebika Bya ba Kuchu mu Uganda (Kuchu Clans of Buganda)” at Gordon Robichaux February 20–April 3, 2022
Leilah Babirye, Abambowa (Royal Guard Who Protects the King), 2020. Photo courtesy of Gordon Robichaux, Los Angeles.
In her wood and ceramic sculptures, Ugandan artist Leilah Babirye imagines an alternate queer history for the Bugandan clan system that still shapes the culture of the city of Kampala. These kuchu statues take their name from a code word used among the region’s trans community, elevating trash and other found materials to create totems that celebrate a group threatened under Ugandan law. Babirye herself sought asylum in the U.S. due to the anti-gay discrimination and criminalization she faced at home.
Gordon Robichaux is located at 1464 West Temple Street, Los Angeles.

“Noelia Towers: Opening an Umbrella Indoors” at De BoerThrough February 26, 2022
Noelia Towers, Remember Me. Courtesy of De Boer.
Chicago painter Noelia Towers was born in Barcelona, where, according to family lore, she was cursed from infancy when her parents refused to give a Romani woman money on the day of the artist’s baptism. She likens that bad luck to that of opening an umbrella indoors, the title of the show and the subject one of the exhibition’s works, painted in photorealistic style based on photos Towers took of herself.
De Boers is located at 3311 E. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles.

“Rachel Harrison: Caution Kneeling Bus” at Regen ProjectsThrough February 26, 2022
“Rachel Harrison: Caution Kneeling Bus” at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, installation view. Photo courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
Catch new works from Rachel Harrison, who uses readymade objects to make handmade, abstract sculptures. She’s also debuting paintings based on photos taken with the smartphone app Scanner Pro. Harrison sparingly paints atop partially distorted landscapes featuring glitches generated by the app’s algorithm.
Regen Projects is on view at 6750 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles.

“Jonas Wood: Plants and Animals” at David Kordansky GalleryThrough March 5, 2022
Jonas Wood, BBall Studio (2021). Photo by Marten Elder, courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
Made over the last three years, the colorful, highly detailed paintings in Jonas Wood’s new show started out as photographs, drawings, and collages before reaching their final form in oil and acrylic canvases. These scenes of interior spaces and the natural world seemingly come to life in their vibrancy.
David Kordansky Gallery is located at 5130 W. Edgewood Place, Los Angeles.

“I Do My Own Stunts” at Spazio AmanitaThrough March 7, 2022
Mickey Lee, Wanton Fields (2022). Courtesy of Spazio Amanita.
Spazio Amanita has brought together a buzzy list of woman painters—Cristina de Miguel, Mickey Lee, Ruby Neri, and Karyn Lyons, among others—for this group show celebrating the physicality of art-making. Unlike massive workshops, these artists “do their own stunts,” so to speak, allowing the voice of the woman creator to retain its power.
Spazio Amanita is located at 1015 Cahuenga Boulevardd, Hollywood.

“Tori Wrånes: Mussel Tears” at Shulamit Nazarian Through March 12, 2022
Tori Wrånes, ECHO FACE, VEGA|ARTS Vega Scene Copenhagen. Photo by Frida Gregersen, courtesy the artist and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles.
Combining elements of performance, sound, painting, and sculpture, multi-disciplinary artist Tori Wrånes mines her birthplace, the fishing town of Kristiansand, Norway, for inspiration for her own fantastical world. A soundtrack of foghorn sounds periodically in the galleries, while sculptures borrow the form of oblong mussels shells a vital, if threatened part of the local ecosystem that helps filter the coastal waters.
Shulamit Nazarian is located att 612 N. LaBrea Ave, Fairfax, Los Angeles.

“Olafur Eliasson: Your Light Spectrum and Presence” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery Through April 2, 2022
“Olafur Eliasson:  Your Light Spectrum and Presence” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, installation view. Photo courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles.
Olafur Eliasson’s long-term fascination with visible light can be seen—no pun intended—in this exhibition of 11 circular paintings from his “color experiment” series, dating from 2012 to 2021. Created in consultation with a color chemist, the paintings attempt to match an exact tone of paint to each nanometer of light in the spectrum.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is located at 1010 N. Highland Avenue, Los Angeles.

“Digital Combines” at Honor FraserThrough April 2, 2022
Daniel Temkin, Right-Triangular Dither 15% Teal. Photo courtesy of Honor Fraser, Los Angeles.
The 20th century had Robert Rauschenberg and his combines. Now, the age of NFTs brings us “Digital Combines” at Honor Fraser, a potential new genre proposed by artist Claudia Hart that allows physical paintings and a related digital file with relevant metadata to become one single conceptual object. The group show features Nancy Baker Cahill, Jakob Dwight, Claudia Hart, Tim Kent, Gretta Louw, LoVid, Sara Ludy, Daniel Temkin, and Saya Woolfalk, with contributing scholar Charlotte Kent.
Honor Fraser is located at 2622 S. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. 
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For the Indonesian artist Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, getting Luka dan Bisa Kubawa Berlari (Wounds and Venom I Carry as I’m Running) (2022), a monumental installation inspired by the Bible, on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has been a long, fraught ride.
Commissioned by the museum, the contemporary centerpiece of the newly opened exhibition “Revolusi! Indonesia Independent” is more than the fruits of lengthy Zoom discussions and a challenging, cross-continental research process during the Covid-19 pandemic. The work, which employs historic objects from the Rijksmuseum’s collection, also symbolizes a realignment of Indonesia’s colonial history within the country’s former colonizer, the Netherlands.
“This is like a black box [flight data recorder] that reveals what had happened after a catastrophe, allowing us to reflect on the revolution,” Kusno told Artnet News about his creation. “Where are we standing now? What does history mean to you? Working on this piece has been emotional for me.”
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, Luka dan Bisa Kubawa Berlari (Wounds and Venom I Carry as I’m Running) (2022). Photo: Vivienne Chow.
Turning an Artistic Lens on History
One of the powerful European economic concerns that encircled the globe, the Dutch East India Company, arrived in Southeast Asia in the 1600s, and after the company was abolished in 1796, the Dutch government took over governance of the Indonesian archipelago. The nation’s struggle for independence between 1945 and 1949—a chapter of colonial history that had a tremendous impact on many countries, yet that is comparatively under-discussed—is laid out in this major exhibition, which presents some 200 objects on loan from various private and public collections in Australia, Belgium, the U.K., Indonesia, and the Netherlands.
The exhibition, which runs through June 5, focuses on works and records from the period between two key historical events: the declaration of Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, by the nationalist movement leader and revolutionary Sukarno, and his return to the country on December 28, 1949, the day after the Netherlands finally completed the transfer of sovereignty, following the Dutch-Indonesian Round Table Conference held in The Hague. A total of 97,421 Indonesians and 5,281 Dutch soldiers died during this period.
“Research and exhibitions in the Netherlands often focus on the Netherlands’ role in this period and its consequences here, but with this exhibition, we aim instead to provide an international perspective,” Taco Dibbits, the Rijksmuseum’s general director, writes in the exhibition catalogue. In particular, he adds, the show’s inclusion of personal histories, those “that were previously denied proper attention,” intends to rectify “a silence that is painful for many to this day.” “Revolusi!” follows the museum’s 2021 exhibition on slavery and the Dutch role in the slave trade and takes a similar tack, by re-contextualizing objects from the permanent collection to reveal stories less often told.
Tony Rafty, Battle of Surabaya (November 14, 1945). Photo: Vivienne Chow.
On one hand, it is an art exhibition, as there’s no lack of artworks on show. Besides paintings by some of the best-known Indonesian artists, such as Affandi, Hendra Gunawan, and Sudjojono, the exhibition also includes protest art and pamphlets confiscated by Dutch military intelligence, as well as a series of sketches of what appears to be a war zone by Tony Rafty, who was assigned by the Australian newspaper The Sun to cover the early months of the Indonesian revolution in 1945.
Other important works are miniature watercolors by Mohammad Toha, an 11-year-old boy who was among the five young pupils of realist painter Dullah. Disguised as a cigarette vendor, Toha secretly painted the scenes he witnessed during the Dutch military offensive between 1948 and 1949, which killed hundreds of civilians—including two of his fellow pupils. The Rijksmuseum later acquired Toha’s watercolors.
The exhibition also brings a firm historical backing, presenting an array of archival objects and rare footage to document this pivotal period. It is through these stories, told from multiple perspectives, with personal accounts from 23 eyewitnesses, that “Revolusi!” aims to weave a richer, more complex, and human narrative of Indonesia’s turbulent past.
Mohammad Toha, Republican Troops Returning to Yogyakarta (June 1949). Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
A Collaborative Effort
“Revolusi!” is the outcome of a collaborative effort between curators from Indonesia and the Netherlands, who have managed to pull together the show despite challenges presented by the ongoing pandemic. Representing the Rijksmuseum are Harm Stevens, curator of history, and Marion Anker, junior curator of history; their counterparts in Indonesia are Amir Sidharta, director of the Universitas Pelita Harapan Museum and cofounder of the Jakarta-based Sidharta Auctioneer; and Bonnie Triyana, historian and editor-in-chief of Historia.ID.
To Anker and Sidharta, the collaborative curatorial process gave them the opportunity to learn about different versions of history. Both say that making this exhibition has been among the most meaningful projects they have worked on in their career.
“We found new things by accident sometimes. The stories that are told contribute a lot to the general knowledge,” Sidharta told Artnet News.
“We tried to have many different stories. Some may be known to [people in Indonesia] but not to me, because I didn’t learn it in the Dutch school. We hope to present different perspectives in this exhibition. Maybe people can see a part of themselves, and also see things that they do not recognize,” said Anker.
Hendra Gunawan, Pengantin Revolusi (Bruid van de Revolutie) (1957). Courtesy of Museum Seni Rupa, Jakarta.
The Past Is Present
The Book of Revelation in the Bible is one source of inspiration for Kusno’s newly created Wounds and Venom I Carry as I’m Running. The installation consists of objects from the Rijksmuseum’s archives, including flags signifying the anti-colonial forces, as well as empty frames that once held the portraits of the Dutch governor-general, laid on the ground as if they were tombstones in a cemetery.
“Colonialism was seen as the doomsday, the end of the world, and the fight against colonialism was a holy call,” Kusno said. “Years later, we are still being haunted by the leftovers of colonialism. Social injustice and the power mechanism [from the colonial times] linger in our contemporary life, and the impact of the colonial policies and governance still resonate today.”
However, Kusno says he appreciated the opportunity to look into a chapter of Indonesia’s colonial history on an institutional level. According to curator Sidharta, a version of this exhibition is expected to travel to Indonesia next year, though details are yet to be announced.
“It’s important to have this dialogue and discussion about this subject, otherwise it would just slip away,” said Kusno.
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Frida Kahlo‘s great grandniece, who worked for a year to help produce “Immersive Frida Kahlo,” the digitally animated light show based on the great Surrealist’s work, says she is overwhelmed with joy by the exhibition.
Mara Romero Kahlo, the granddaughter of Cristina Kahlo, Kahlo’s sister, and Mara’s daughter, Mara De Anda, traveled to Boston for the opening of the show, which incorporates not only Kahlo’s art, but also family snapshots and historical photographs from her lifespan.
“I was crying in the moment,” Mara Kahlo, who serves as president of the Fundación Familia Kahlo, told Artnet News. “You feel our family, the heart of Frida, the music, the emotion, everything—it’s spectacular.”
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
The touring Kahlo exhibition, which will travel to nine cities, is the latest offering from producer Massimiliano Siccardi, the organizer of the blockbuster “Immersive Van Gogh,” as well as “Immersive Klimt: Revolution.” And there are already imitators: “Mexican Geniuses: A Frida and Diego Immersive Experience” opens in London and Washington, D.C. in the spring.
Organizers told Artnet News that the decision to incorporate biographical and historical information into the Kahlo display was not a response to criticisms that the Van Gogh show glossed over his mental health issues and ultimate suicide.
“Absolutely not,” Svetlana Dvoretsky, co-founder of Lighthouse Immersive, the company organizing North American tours of Siccardi’s productions, told Artnet News. “Frida is a representation of so many aspects of social and political issues in modern history. Massimiliano felt the special importance of showing who she was as a human being and a person, not just her art. Frida is Frida and Van Gogh is Van Gogh.”
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
Kahlo’s family—which launched a legal campaign against toymaker Mattel in 2018 when it made a non-unibrowed Kahlo Barbie—also gave its stamp of approval to “Frida: La Experiencia Immersiva,” a similar production staged last summer in Mexico City by the National Bank of Mexico Citibanamex and OCESA, a Mexican promotion company. But Mara Kahlo and De Anda were especially moved by Siccardi’s approach.
“We were very confident that Massimo would deliver a wonderful experience,” De Anda told Artnet News. “And you’re really immersed. You feel in some parts a little dizzy, with the music and the marvelous way that they used the technology.”
In Boston, the exhibition sprawls over 500,000 cubic feet and includes reproductions of masterpieces such as The Two Fridas, The Wounded Deer, and Diego and I. Tickets start at $39.
“Frida would be very happy that art has evolved to [include] this technology, which is used magnificently,” De Anda said. “She is like this exhibition, revolutionary.”
See more photos from the exhibition below.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
“Immersive Frida Kahlo.” Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
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On a recent January night, the concrete walls and pillars of Kraftwerk, a large former East German power plant, trembled from deep bass. The arts and culture venue in Berlin is a cold space with multiple levels, towering ceilings, and impenetrably dark corners: from the darkness, dancers emerged onto an intimate stage as the beat pummelled a hushed audience—all set up there by LAS, an emergent nonprofit art foundation.
The dancers, who are led by Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal and her co-creator Gai Behar, had been rehearsing and performing pieces from their arsenal at Kraftwerk for two months this winter as part of a residency organized by LAS, which culminated January 26–27 with the unveiling of a new commission called Wet. The trio of interlinked dances were presented on two evenings to a packed house, showcasing Eyal’s uniquely talented ballet dancers who have cracked every mold of traditional training while retaining exactitude. Almost always dressed in sleek bathing suits and silky socks, they twist up their bodies and slide into superhuman angles, delivering a choreography that is coordinated but individualistic. You can pick up the shudder of a reference here or there, but otherwise it feels inventive, introducing a radical human element to what we’ve known as ballet—it’s really much unlike anything you have seen before.
Eyal’s troupe and her devoted international following sit on the periphery of the so-called art world, but that is precisely why LAS has incorporated her work into its program. The nomadic nonprofit is a relative newcomer in Berlin’s landscape of private foundations and public institutions. On February 10, the proceedings moved to yet another space, Schering Stiftung in the museum-rich area of Unter den Linden, to open a show created by Libby Heaney with quantum computing.
Ensemble Tanzmainz, Promise (2021) which was performed as a part of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s residency at Kraftwerk. © Andreas Etter.
LAS sits more or less between the various outlets in the German capital, explained Amira Gad, head of program, a versatile curator who joined the Berlin foundation from London’s Serpentine Galleries, where she had organized exhibitions by Arthur Jafa and Jimmie Durham.
“We are trying to create a new model of what it is to go to an art exhibition,” she told me as we sat under the blue light of a soaring installation by Robert Irwin—another commission on view at Kraftwerk, alongside Eyal’s performances. The two creators are of markedly different generations and discourses, but they sit well together. “If we imagine LAS as a kind of organism that is incorporating itself into an echo system of the art world,” Gad went on, “then the raison d’être of LAS is to claim the gray areas that have emerged there.”
LAS, which stands for Light Art Space, has tiptoed onto the Berlin art scene, seeming to take heed with every step while finding fitting venues for projects as they go. The project is backed by a quiet but certain presence of funder and co-director Jan Fischer, who politely declined to be interviewed. Bettina Kames, co-director of LAS who founded the initiative together with Fischer, calls him the “spiritual rector” and the project his brainchild.
“Refik Anadol: Latent Being,” presented in 2019 at Kraftwerk Berlin. © Refik Anadol

“It should always be about the vision and the ideas that LAS pursues and not any one person,” said Kames. Fischer is an art collector and a member of the board of trustees of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, as well as a trustee of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, who made his wealth in the transport business.
Despite their seemingly limitless ambition, the pandemic added hurdles. After LAS staged their first exhibition in 2019, with the Turkish digital artist Refik Anadol, who presented an art installation created with machine learning to around 40,000 visitors, a subsequent public program that was set to take place around town was called off due to the virus.
Anadol’s show was the only non-pandemic project LAS has had so far. Last fall, the foundation opened a much-buzzed-about immersive show at the famed Berghain nightclub while the dance floors remained closed for 48-hour parties due pandemic measures. For the show, Berl-Berl, Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen considered Berlin’s overlooked ancient history as a swamp, reanimating its flora and fauna. Visitors lounged on beanbag chairs to gaze up at his large-scale video, which used augmented reality to create a futuristic, amorphous swamp based on the deep past.
Robert Irwin, Light and Space (Kraftwerk Berlin), 2021. Commissioned by LAS (Light Art Space). © Photo: Timo Ohler. VG Bild-Kunst, 2021.
Up next is British artist Libby Heaney, whose CV is equally populated by accolades from science as from art. She will present an 360-degree video installation made using quantum computing that explores Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. 
Come spring, Ian Cheng will present a new version of his 2021 anime series Life After BOB, a Frankenstein story updated for the A.I. era which was presented at LUMA Arles and the Shed last year. LAS’s commission will see it transformed from an animation into a hybrid analog experience. Gad called it an intentional “Disneyfication,” adding that viewers will be able to alter the piece when they are in the exhibition by entering prompts on a wiki fan page. In fall 2022, in yet another pivot, the London-based artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg will open an ambitious “living” artwork, itself an active campaign to bolster local bee populations by helping with pollination.
At first, it seems hard to draw through lines between LAS’s projects, but they usually involve some form of immersion—though it is always an erudite undertaking and far from the rash of “immersive experiences” cropping up around the world. They are united by their ambitious scale, an evident fascination with science and technology, as well as an interdisciplinary approach to art. “We want to create this diversity in our program,” said Gad. “‘Are you crazy enough to do this?’ That is one of the questions we ask.”
Left: Bettina Kames. © Robert Fischer. Right: Amira Gad. © Bastian Thiery.
To this end, switching locations has allowed for an increased sense of surprise and experimentation, but both Gad and Kames admit that they want to settle down somewhere at some point. Judging by the locations they have chosen so far, one might expect they will go for something with grand proportions.
“A picture has become a bit clearer regarding what LAS is really about, what we want to achieve, what makes it unique,” said Kames. “What we really want to be is an art institution about the future. We want to show what is relevant now but—even more so—what is relevant for the years to come.”
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