Eliana Willis

Three thousand years ago, the Egyptians domesticated cats and set humanity on a long trajectory towards feline companionship and contention, treats and brushing and endless cans of tuna. The animals have also served myriad symbolic purposes, as objects of worship and fear. In recent years, cat videos and the emergence of the “childless cat lady” trope have brought the animals into the news cycle and further emphasized their association with the feminine. Whatever humans think about cats, in any given era, inevitably reveals something about us.  
“CATS!,” an exhibition opening at Hamburg’s Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) in December, aims to unpack these disparate cultural histories. The show unites ancient artifacts with contemporary artworks to tell larger stories about shifting values and beliefs through the lens of our furry friends.
Karagöz figure by unknown Kedi Master, 19th century. © MARKK. Photo: Paul Schimweg.
Some of the show’s oldest objects hail from ancient Egypt and connect cats to the spiritual realm. Two gilded and painted cartonnage masks for cat mummies date from the late period to Ptolemaic Period, 1st millennium B.C.E., when cats could serve as offerings to the goddess Bastet. Their owners also mummified them in the hopes they’d be reunited in the afterlife.
A green faience statuette of the goddess Sekhmet with a small cat at her feet, from the New Kingdom to Late Period (c. 1550–332 B.C.E), suggests early conceptions of cats’ duality and mystique. According to the Egyptian Museum, Sekhmet “was seen as the protector of the pharaohs and led them in warfare.” When she was in a calmer state, she shape-shifted into “the form of the household cat goddess Bastet.” 
Mask for cat mummy, 1st millennium B.C.E. © Ägyptisches Museum Bonn, Photo: Mick Vinzenz.
Across the Atlantic, pre-Columbian culture took an interest in the house cat’s more predatory relatives. Pumas, jaguars, and pampas cats featured in early Peruvian crafts, reflecting the region’s unique ecosystem.
The MARKK show includes an embossed gold sheet pendant in the shape of a spotted cat from ca. 500 B.C.E.–700 C.E., likely by an artist from the Vicús or Moche culture. A clay and colored slip Moche vessel, from ca. 100–700 C.E., features a fearsome feline with large eyes, swirling stripes, and open jaws. The jaguar held special significance for the peoples of Latin America, the press materials noted, who perceived the creature as “a mysterious and sacred being that walks between worlds, bridging boundaries between life and the afterlife like a shaman.”
Pendant in the shape of a spotted cat by artist probably from the Vicús or Moche culture, c. 500–700 C.E. © MARKK. Photo: Paul Schimweg.
The exhibition detours from these ancient civilizations to 19th century Europe and Asia: a Turkish animal hide sculpture, a Japanese drawing, and a children’s cap and shoes from China display a vast range of media and craftsmanship. The 20th century ushered in the ability to capture our cats on film. American performance artist Carolee Schneemann famously included her cat in her feminist films, including Kitch’s Last Meal (1973–76), which honors their domestic bond in the lead up to the animal’s passing. 
Hello Kitty Paladone lamp, Tomik Toys GmbH, licensed by Sanrio China, 2024. © MARKK. Photo: Paul Schimweg.
The exhibition organizers seem particularly interested in where cat representations have landed today. Two of the youngest objects on view are from last year: a plastic Chinese Hello Kitty lamp and an election campaign poster that read “Cat Ladies for Kamala” with a cat face at the center. Once sacred, it seems cats have become emblems of new a new duality: between protest and product, campaigning and consumerism. 
U.S. election campaign poster, “Cat Ladies for Kamala 2024, produced by LifeSizeCustomCutouts, 2024. © MARKK. Photo: Paul Schimweg.
“CATS!” is on view at Museum am Rothenbaum, Rothenbaumchaussee 64, Hamburg, Germany, December 5, 2025–November 29, 2026. More

One unlikely art venue is holding its own amid the mega-galleries of Chelsea, New York. This season, Gotham dispensary is presenting “The Smoking Section,” a sprawling show of 50-odd ashtrays that the trendy “cannabis concept store” commissioned from more than 45 renowned artists and designers. At last night’s reception, even passersby were curiously peeking inside at the mind-boggling creations of Netflix-famous glass blower Deborah Czeresko, sculptor and SNL costume designer Kate Rusek, rising textile artist Tura Oliveira, and their cohorts.
View of the reception for “The Smoking Section” from 10th Avenue. Photo by Vittoria Benzine
New York-based art collector, angel investor, and Gotham founder Joanne Wilson opened the legal dispensary’s original East Village location in 2023. Since then, Gotham has added stores in Williamsburg, Hudson, and most recently, Chelsea—all selling pre-rolls, flower, and vapes alongside high brow beauty products, cultural magazines, and the chicest smoking accoutrements you’ve ever seen.
Rachel Berks, Gotham’s vice president of product development and partnerships—who conceptualized and curated “The Smoking Section”—is one of the few employees who’s been with the company from the start. She told me over a video call that Wilson drew inspiration for Gotham from the now-defunct Parisian concept store Colette, beloved by the fashion set. “You really see concept stores more in Europe than you do in the U.S.,” Berks said.
A wood ashtray by Richard Haining, and a soldered glass and copper ashtray by Grace Horan on view in “The Smoking Section.” Courtesy of Gotham
Gotham has nourished art world connections since its inception. Its East Village location has a mezzanine gallery that often exhibits emerging artists, like the colorful drawings of Jared Freschman and the abstractions of Adee Roberson. In 2024, one of Gotham’s vendors, Amitha Raman, a prominent art collector with her own line of cannabis accessories, co-hosted a dinner at Derrick Adams’s Crown Heights studio with Gotham. Adams went on to produce his own line of Gotham merchandise.
It’s hosted group shows before, too. Alyssa Alexander, Adams’s studio manager, will curate one spanning Gotham Chelsea and Gotham East Village this January. Nevertheless, the ”The Smoking Section” marks the first time that Gotham has curated a group show of entirely new works in-house.
Installation view of “The Smoking Section” featuring Anna Sew Hoy’s stoneware Blacknoir Ashtrays in the foreground, with Tura Oliveira’s silver and epoxy Ashtray behind it. Courtesy of Gotham
Berks had been holding the concept for “The Smoking Section” close since she started working for Gotham. When she quit smoking cigarettes 16 years ago, Berks threw out all her ashtrays. But working at Gotham reminded her of the object’s innate beauty, ritual significance, and capacity as a canvas.  “I am married to an artist; all my friends are artists,” Berks added. “I knew I wanted to curate a show of commissioned ashtrays.”
She’s an artist too, as is her sister. Their works are in the show. The remaining participants were either friends of Berks, artists she already admired, new talent she found online, or contributions from her colleagues; some she met when Gotham showed at New York’s Shelter Design Fair earlier this year.
Ashtrays by Stefanie Haining, John Gill, Stephanie Boyd-Berks, and Math Bass in “The Smoking Section” at Gotham. Courtesy of Gotham
The directive was simple: “Really, just make an ashtray,” Berks said. “Some people made more than one.”
John Gill, a New York-based ceramicist represented by Miami-based Mindy Solomon gallery, created seven colorful, geometric ashtrays, all featuring little nooks for lit joints. Rusek, meanwhile, made five far smaller ashtrays in blue, violet, and indigo forms elaborating on her signature organic style. All five offerings that had amassed red dots by the time I arrived were part of sets, too, including three dark, earthen ashtrays by L.A.-based sculptor Anna Sew Hoy, and two stoneware paper fortune tellers by Brooklyn-based Stephanie Haining.
Piera Bochner,Ritual Object #1. Courtesy of Gotham
This exhibition is certainly not predictable, to say the least. Styles and shapes vary widely, as do the price points, which range from $55 to $24,000. There’s tiny ashtrays (I particularly liked the acrylic and resin Stay Focused Ashtray by interdisciplinary artist Kim Mullis) and massive statement pieces, like the plaster and coal firepit by Ridykeulous, the queer feminist curatorial initiative by acclaimed French-American painter Nicole Eisenman and Brooklyn-based polymath A.L. Steiner.
Ridykeulous, Coal Smoke. Courtesy of Gotham
The show’s artists have employed extremely diverse materials, too. Sure, there’s plenty of clay, glass, and metal on offer, but there are also ashtrays made from beeswax, abalone, and sinuously carved wood. The line between art and craft has proven a hot topic in this century—“The Smoking Section” makes a strong case for abolishing it. As I marveled at illustrator Jennifer Xiao’s incredibly detailed paper mache ashtray Dirty Dishes, replete with sudsy standing water and a little rat, I overheard another guest telling her friend my exact thoughts: “I wouldn’t even want to mess this up by using it.”
Jennifer Xiao, Dirty Dishes, with ashtrays by Kate Rusek, Alma Berrow, and Lauryn Sigel behind it. Courtesy of Gotham
Berks plans on making this type of show an annual tradition. “I don’t know what next year’s will be—maybe pipes, maybe bongs, maybe stash boxes,” Berks said. “But I think it’s a very exciting proposal to reach out to artists of all mediums, working across disciplines, saying ‘there are no restrictions.’”
“The Smoking Section” is on view at Gotham, 146 10th Avenue, New York, New York, November 6, 2025—January 5, 2026. More

It’s not often that a man known for dwelling in his mother’s basement becomes a revered cultural icon, but Joseph Cornell has long enjoyed cult status among the cognoscenti of the 20th-century art world. Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Yayoi Kusama, and Peggy Guggenheim were among the many artists and collectors who turned up to the New York artist’s family home in the hopes of gaining access to the highly secretive studio where he made his eccentric assemblages. Few made it past the kitchen table.
“He didn’t let many people in, but the people he did were really interesting,” said Jasper Sharp, ex-curator of modern and contemporary art at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. In this way, the humble workshop became something of a microcosm of its era’s most radical ideas, pre-empting pivotal postmodernist movements like Neo-Dada and Pop Art.
Cornell continues to inspire creatives to this day, including the legendary film director Wes Anderson. He has teamed up with Sharp to recreate Cornell’s studio, complete with some of his best-known works, at Gagosian in Paris next month. “We thought, wouldn’t it be fascinating to bring it back to life?” Sharp said.
An Artistic Affinity
Growing up in Houston, Texas, Anderson first encountered Cornell’s work at local museums like the Menil Collection, which owns Palace (1943). Typical of the artist’s “shadow boxes”—glass-fronted boxes containing assemblages of found objects, often with a surreal effect—the work contains a palatial building set before a forest of twigs. Its attractive symmetry echoes that of the Grand Budapest Hotel in Anderson’s 2014 film of the same name.
Sharp has not been the first to note an affinity between the director and Cornell, both of whom are admired for their highly original approach to creating stylized and antiquated, diorama-like worlds. “They both can take quite simple things and have an alchemical effect on them,” he noted.
Joseph Cornell’s studio in the basement of his family home in Queens, New York, 1971. Photo: © Harry Roseman.
Anderson and Sharp, another longtime Cornell head, have based their reconstruction of the artist’s studio on surviving black-and-white photographs. These reveal one wall of shelves stacked with shoeboxes full of found objects. The artist was a regular at flea markets and antique shops, obsessively hoarding a vast array of items from feathers and seashells to discarded toys, marbles, and maps. Other walls of his studio were lined with curiosities, unfinished constructions, or craftsman’s supplies, from glue and tape to saws and drills.
First stop for Sharp and Anderson was the Joseph Cornell Study Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where the contents of Cornell’s studio were preserved some years after his death in 1972. Objects borrowed from the Smithsonian have been bolstered by the collection of a U.S. artist and close confidant of Cornell’s who received many of his books, shoeboxes, and collages by mail. They will be loaning several hundred to the Paris show. Meanwhile, Sharp and Anderson’s team are scouring markets across Paris and New York for thousands more objects to complete the set.
Labor of Love
At the center of the reconstructed studio will be Cornell’s work table, littered with his X-acto knife, gluing paste, and old magazines from which he cut material for his collages. The time capsule will also feature several unfinished shadow boxes from the Smithsonian. “It will be almost as if he’s just gone out to lunch,” said Sharp.
Some details of the reconstruction could only be described as a labor of love. A galvanized metal sink just like Cornell’s will be decorated with the same cleaning detergent he used. Anderson’s set designers are learning the artist’s handwriting so that they can scrawl true-to-life labels over the white-washed shoeboxes that will replace fragile originals. Some objects have been baked in the oven to give them an artificially aged patina, a technique that Cornell also used.
Presented as a storefront tableau to curious passersby, the installation seeks to capture the softly lit atmosphere of a studio where Cornell mainly worked at night. “We’re not attempting to create a facsimile of the studio,” said Sharp. “We’re trying to get as close as we can in spirit.”
Joseph Cornell, Pharmacy (1943). Photo: Dominique Uldry, © 2025 The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, courtesy Gagosian.
Competed works like the antique apothecary Pharmacy (1943) or the art history-laden Untitled (Pinturicchio Boy) (ca. 1950) have been chosen to demonstrate Cornell’s considerable range. “He often gets accused of being whimsical, in a derogatory way,” said Sharp. “People see him as a bit light and poetic, which I’ve always found peculiar because he was so substantive in his thinking, and so influential on so many artists.”
The city of Paris held a special significance for Cornell, who had been promised a post-graduation trip that never materialized after the death of his father. “He traveled there in his head,” said Sharp. The artist, a recluse who rarely left New York, pored over guidebooks and postcards from Paris. One of the first times he met Duchamp, who would become a close friend, Cornell stunned the French artist with his “almost photographic memory of a city he’d never seen.”
This passion brings a certain poignancy to Sharp and Anderson’s mission. “There is something lovely about bringing him here in perhaps the most intimate form,” said Sharp. “Not just bringing his work here, but the place where the work was born.”
“The House on Utopia Parkway: Joseph Cornell’s Studio Reimagined by Wes Anderson” is on view at Gagosian, 9 rue de Castiglione, Paris, December 16, 2025–March 14, 2026. More

One of the most significant private art collections in Germany has gone on public display for the first time in Berlin. The trove of masterpieces includes pieces by Goya and the French Impressionists, as well as leading contemporary names like Katharina Grosse and Daniel Richter. The Scharf Collection has been amassed over four generations of one visionary family.
Visitors to “The Scharf Collection: Goya – Monet – Cézanne – Bonnard – Grosse,” on view at the Alte Nationalgalerie through February 15, 2026, will be treated to a veritable “who’s who” of Western art history. Among more than 150 works, they will discover a story of growing collector ambition across three centuries.
“You dive deep into the historical developments, learn about the different personalities who have been collecting and preserving the collection,” promised Anette Hüsch, director of the Alte Nationalgalerie.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Seated Clown, Miss Cha-U-Kao from the series “Elles.” Photo: Peter Tijhuis, © The Scharf Collection.
The collection has its origins in the passions of Berlin entrepreneur Otto Gerstenberg, who started out buying Renaissance and Baroque-era prints from Germany and the Netherlands. Over time, his interests expanded to include a much wider range of artists, from legendary Spanish painters El Greco and Francisco Goya to major London names like Joshua Reynolds and James McNeill Whistler. But it was French art that really took Gerstenberg’s fancy. He acquired works by Gustave Courbet, Eugène Delacroix, and Honoré Daumier, and become the owner of the world’s largest hoard of work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Among the examples of Gerstenberg’s Toulouse-Lautrec treasures are lithographs from his “Elles” series, all studies of stage and sex workers seeming relaxing in the time between shifts. The artist himself often lived in brothels for weeks at a time, and this is reflected in his broadly empathetic view of their residents. One of his frequent models was the clown Miss Cha-U-Kao, and in one seated depiction she is shown with her legs spread in a provocatively gender-blurring pose.
Edgar Degas, Nude Combing Her Hair (1886–1890). Photo: © The Scharf Collection, Ruland Photodesign.
After Gerstenberg’s death in 1935, his collection of some 2,200 artworks, including 116 paintings and 1,600 prints, was passed down to his daughter Margarethe. She worked with Berlin’s Nationalgalerie to ensure their protection during the air raids of World War II, although some pieces were looted by Russian troops and taken to Saint Petersburg. The artworks, including Edgar Degas’s notable 1875 painting Place de la Concorde, have never been returned.
Degas is best-known for his distinctive, cropped compositions that offer an unusual vantage point onto a myriad scenes of modern Parisian life, as well as figure studies of ballet dances or jockeys on the racecourse. Many of Degas’s women are shown not in the spotlight but backstage, usually in an unposed and private moment observed from afar. In many cases, the focus is on the curves of her bent body as she washed or combs her hair.
Claude Monet, Waterloo Bridge (1903). Photo: © The Scharf Collection, Ruland Photodesign.
In 1961, Margarethe’s estate was split between her two sons Walther and Dieter, who each went on to develop their share in new directions. Dieter would become known for his eye for leading Surrealists, including Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and René Magritte. He sold many of Gerstenberg’s works to secure these acquisitions, and many of his best finds are on public display at “Surreal Worlds” at the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection in Berlin.
Walther, meanwhile, kept a stronger focus on 19th-century French art. Together with his wife Eve, a mechanical engineer and successful businesswoman, he began buying works by Impressionists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Degas, as well some Post-Impressionist pieces by Paul Cézanne and Pierre Bonnard.
One classical example is Waterloo Bridge (1903), one of several views that Monet made of London’s Thames. He was particularly drawn to the atmospheric effects produced by a hazy layer of smoke that draped the city, describing these conditions as “so idiosyncratic” in a letter to his wife in 1900. The randomness of the elements meant that every time Monet settled on the riverbanks, he was met with a new impression. Years later, the painter recalled how London’s “fog gives it its magnificent breadth. Its regular and massive blocks become grandiose within that mysterious cloak.”
Paul Cézanne, The Palace of Fontainebleau (1905). Photo: Philipp Hitz, © The Scharf Collection.
A generation after the Impressionists first used quick, visible brushstrokes to capture fleeting moments that felt true to life, the Post-Impressionists advanced their ideas, bridging them with the modernist developments of the 20th century. Perhaps no artist had a bigger influence on the likes of Picasso and Matisse than Cézanne, who revealed the underlying geometric structure of his still-lifes and landscapes by emphasizing the role of line and form in the pictorial plane.
Meanwhilem Cézanne’s contemporary Bonnard, another favourite of the Scharfs, is admired for his expressive use of color in otherwise unremarkable but charming domestic scenes.
Works by Katharina Grosse in the exhibition “The Scharf Collection: Goya – Monet – Cézanne – Bonnard – Grosse.” Photo: David von Becker, © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie / VG Bild-Kunst.
Walther and Eve’s drive to accumulate important works was inherited by their son René, who has expanded the collection to include modern and contemporary art. Having worked at Christie’s auction house in London and New York, he founded Scharf Fine Art in New York in 1988. Inevitably, the city brought him closer to the work of great Abstract Expressionist artists, and for a time he began supporting figures like Maurice Estève and Sam Francis.
Since 2001, René has been living in Germany with his second wife, Christiane. The pair specialize in leading Berlin artists like Katharina Grosse, Daniel Richter, and Liverpool-born Tony Cragg. Their works pull into the present the story of rapid and radical change that is told by the Scharf Collection.
“The Scharf Collection: Goya – Monet – Cézanne – Bonnard – Grosse” is on view at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin through February 15, 2026. An altered version of the exhibition will travel to the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf from March to August 2026.  More

It’s never easy to choose a dress for your sibling’s wedding. But the stakes are especially high if you happen to be queen: the wedding is televised, and an entire nation (nay, an entire Commonwealth) will take cues from your sartorial decisions. 
Such were the pressures on Queen Elizabeth II in the lead up to the 1960 wedding of her sister, Princess Margaret, to photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones. Elizabeth had been queen for seven years, and the event marked the first royal wedding to be captured on television. She tapped British designer Norman Hartnell, who’d created her own wedding dress, for the task. Hartnell crafted a light blue gown with a crinoline skirt, plus a bolero jacket to go on top. Famed British photographer Cecil Beaton captured the queen in this outfit, adorned with gloves, a fabric rose hat, and pearls. Around 300 million people watched the nuptials. An image of Elizabeth, steady and devoted to her family and to the British people, prevailed. 
Ensemble worn for the wedding of Princess Margaret, Norman Hartnell, 1960. Credit: © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2025 | Royal Collection Trust. Photo: Paul Bulley.
The famous outfit will go on view next year at the King’s Gallery in London’s Buckingham Palace, in an exhibition titled “Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style.” The show will be the largest display to date of the former monarch’s clothing, some of them never beore seen. The checklist of nearly 200 pieces features items from all 10 decades of her life alongside outfits by contemporary British designers Erdem Moralioglu, Richard Quinn, and Christopher Kane, who took inspiration from her royal wardrobe. These pieces confirm the queen’s enduring influence on British fashion, even in the wake of her 2022 passing.
Sketches and illustrations offer insight into the extensive craft and process that went into dressing the queen. An official publication will include reflections by Moralioglu, Kane, Quinn, former Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, and dress historian Amy de la Haye. 
In a statement, Kane highlighted the historical and metaphorical importance of the Queen’s closet. “From the decline of the court dressmaker to the rise of couturiers like Hartnell and Hardy Amies, her garments tell the story of Britain and its changing identity through fashion,” he said. “[The wardrobe] offers a masterclass in silhouette, construction, repetition, symbolism and, perhaps most importantly, restraint.”
Transparent rain coat, Hardy Amies, 1960s. © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2025 | Royal Collection Trust. Photo: Jon Stokes.
The exhibition will showcase Elizabeth’s formal attire along with more casual wear. A clear plastic raincoat by Hardy Amies, who’d go on to make costumes for Stanley Kubrick’s futuristic 2001: A Space Odyssey, offers a modern element. It prefigures the queen’s famous color-tipped clear umbrellas, which added brightness to her nation’s famously rainy weather. Amies and the queen worked together for 50 years.
A tweed jacket and Balmoral tartan kilt by Hartnell appears along with his regal off-white designs for both Elizabeth’s own wedding and coronation day. Such pieces lend themselves to exhibition curator Caroline de Guitaut’s thesis that “Queen Elizabeth II’s wardrobe was a masterclass in symbolism, tailoring, and British craftsmanship.”
Princess Elizabeth’s Wedding Dress, Norman Hartnell, 1947. Photo: © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2025 | Royal Collection Trust.
The show provides a striking contrast to “Marie Antoinette Style,” now on view at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum through March 2026. Its tag line, “Shaped by the most fashionable queen in history,” seems to throw a challenge to the British royalty’s sartorial prowess. Ornate and decadent, the British are not. But at the end of the day, it’s Elizabeth who ruled for seven decades. And, of course, kept her head.
“Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style” is on view at the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, April 10–October 18, 2026. More

Cj Hendry has mastered the art of the spectacle, installing adult playgrounds and floral waterfalls around the world. For her next trick, however, Hendry’s going small—and hopping on the bag charm trend—by launching her first collectible toy named juju.
Juju will debut later this month in Hong Kong, where Hendry opened a new studio in June. The floppy-eared little critter looks a bit like Hendry’s take on Sanrio’s Cinamaroll, featuring the recurring flower shape from her pool pop-ups over one eye. Juju even has its own lore. “No one quite knows where juju came from—only that it appeared quietly, padding softly into the world with a single flower draped over one eye, as if seeing everything half in magic, half in memory,” press materials state. “Juju does not demand attention or glitter for the spotlight; instead, it invites curiosity—a quiet presence that draws you in.”
“I’ve always been fascinated by the culture around collectible objects—how something playful and lighthearted can also hold meaning and craftsmanship,” Hendry mused over email regarding her latest move. “After years of working on large-scale installations and hyperreal drawings, this felt like the perfect time to explore something more intimate, tactile, and accessible, without losing that sense of detail and obsession that’s at the heart of everything I make.”
juju bag charms. Courtesy of Cj Hendry.
Of course, juju will star in a few spectacles of its own, too. On November 17, Hendry will unveil a Christmas tree crafted from 200 oversized green plush jujus at Upper House, a five-star hotel in Hong Kong. Each one is available for “adoption,” and all proceeds will benefit Mother’s Choice, a local charity that supports pregnant teens and children without homes. A representative for Hendry said this mission “resonated with her deeply, aligning with her belief that creativity and community can coexist to create meaningful change.” Hendry’s Christmas tree will celebrate the holidays through January 2.
Meanwhile, juju, which will take the form of bag charms and vinyl Edition Sculptures, will enjoy a debut outing at Phillips Hong Kong on November 29. Hendry is transforming the auction house’s flagship into a pink juju supermarket. There, she’ll release eight colors of the Edition Sculpture, each with a run of 100 ($629 apiece), plus blind-boxed bag charms in a separate rainbow of 24 hues of varying rarity ($24 each).
juju bag charm. Courtesy of Cj Hendry.
They’ll all congregate around an eight-foot tall Edition Sculpture, as well as a juju drawing in Hendry’s signature hyperrealistic style (both priced upon request). Original Hendry drawings like these are notoriously expensive—her Pink Dahlia (2020) colored pencil drawing was one of the top over-performers in Phillips’s Modern & Contemporary Art online auction this September, for instance, hammering at $61,920 against an estimate of $5,000 to $7,000. She’s also dropping merchandise like plush ears, umbrellas, and leather flower trays at Phillips.
That Phillips takeover will remain on view through December 2. Luckily, if you can’t make it to Hendry’s new hometown in time, the Edition Sculptures, bag charms, and original colored pencil drawing will all be available on her website just in time for the holidays. More

Museums and galleries throughout Tokyo are gearing up for Art Week Tokyo, November 5–9, a celebration of the local contemporary art scene co-hosted by more than 50 venues. In lieu of a typical art fair, which brings exhibitors together at a central convention center, visitors can hop on free shuttle buses that crisscross the city, taking them from site to site.
Now in its fourth edition, Art Week Tokyo is the brainchild of director Atsuko Ninagawa, owner of Take Ninagawa Gallery, and is organized by Japan Contemporary Art Platform in collaboration with Art Basel, with support from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Among the leading dealers featured are Pace, Perrotin, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, the nation’s first contemporary art gallery, which is turning 75 this year. Museums and nonprofit spaces such as the Mori Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and Espace Louis Vuitton, are also taking part.
Other highlights include special programming like a guided tour of the city’s micro homes, led by Kazuyo Sejima, and “Rituals, or the Absurd Beauty of Prayers,” a selection of video works by 10 artists curated by Keiko Okamura and screening for free at a special pavilion in the Marunouchi district.
Ichio Matsuzawa, concept image for AWT Bar 2025. Photo: ©ichio matsuzawa office, courtesy of Art Week Tokyo.
And architect Ichio Matsuzawa has designed a unique pop-up space called the AWT Bar, made from acrylic glass warped into strange shapes, where vistors can taste from a menu by chef Shinobu Namae, a recipient of three Michelin stars.
It’s a unique model, melding together the best of art fairs, festivals, and biennials. The event has drawn increasing international crowds since its soft launch during the lockdown in 2021, earning a slot on the global art world calendar. Last year, 80 percent of the event’s VIP guests were visiting from overseas, with overall attendance topping 50,000.
Here are eight must-see shows across the city this year.

“What Is Real?” at the Okura Museum of Art
Saori Akutagawa (Madokoro), From Folk Tales (1955). Photo: courtesy of Kotaro Nukaga.
Curator Adam Szymczyk, the artistic director of documenta 14, has curated this year’s AWT Focus exhibition, where 100 works by 60 international artists represented by the week’s participating galleries are for sale. Housed in the city’s first private art museum, founded in 1917, the show is inspired by the increasingly complex question of how to define the “real” in the digital age. Work by Sachiko Kazama, Gen Otsuka, and Danh Vo, among others is on display.
The Okura Museum of Art is located at 2 Chome-10-3 Toranomon, Minato City, Tokyo 105-0001, Japan.

“Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989–2010” at the National Art Center
Noboru Tsubaki, Aesthetic Pollution (1990). Taku Saiki, ©Noboru Tsubaki, courtesy of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and the National Art Center, Tokyo.
Co-curated with M+ in Hong Kong, this survey exhibition looks at contemporary art made in Japan after the end of the Cold War, as international exchange flourished during the Heisei era. More than 50 artists are featured, including Rirkrit Tiravanija (b. 1961), Matthew Barney (b. 1967), Mariko Mori (b. 1967), and Lee Bul (b. 1964).
The National Art Center, Tokyo, is located at 7 Chome-22-2 Roppongi, Minato City, Tokyo, Japan.

“Aki Sasamoto’s Life Laboratory” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Aki Sasamoto, Point Reflection (2023), video still.  ©Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Take Ninagawa and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.
This marks New York-based Japanese artist Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980) first mid-career retrospective, highlighting the range of her practice, which incorporates installation, video, dance, mathematical theory, and pop psychology. Her elaborate sculptures will be activated by four performances, to be held throughout the show’s run, including Strange Attractors, which debuted at the 2010 Whitney Biennial at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is located at 4 Chome-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto City, Tokyo, Japan.

“The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest” at the Mori Art Museum
Sou Fujimoto, House N (2008), (interior). Oita, Japan. Photo: Iwan Baan.
This is the first major museum show for architect Sou Fujimoto (b. 1971), known for projects like  the 2013 Serpentine Pavilion in London, which he constructed from a matrix of thin white steel poles. Aged 41 at the time, he was the youngest architect ever tapped for the annual project. The exhibition features the typical architectural scale models, drawings, and renderings, but also incorporates installations that the visitor can explore to get a true sense of his architectural forms.
The Mori Art Museum is located at 53F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, Tokyo, Japan. 

“Andy Warhol: Serial Portraits” at Espace Louis Vuitton
Andy Warhol, Self-Portraits (1977–86). ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Adagp, Paris 2025, ©Primae/Louis Bourjac.
Highlighting previously unseen Andy Warhol (1928–87) portraits from the Fondation Louis Vuitton collection, this exhibition unites several bodies of work. The simple and elegant line of his “Unidentified Male” series of sketches from the 1950s are joined by the colorful silk-screened canvases of his “Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century” portfolio (1980) and a series of self-portraits shot in a photo booth the year before Warhol’s death, featuring his platinum blonde “fright wig.”
Espace Louis Vuitton is located at 5 Chome, Shibuya, Jingumae,〒150-0001 Tokyo, Japan.

“Eiki Mori: Moonbow Flags” at Ken Nakahashi
Eiki Mori, Untitled from “Moonbow Flags” (2025). Courtesy of Ken Nakahashi.
Using layers of film negatives, Eiki Mori (b. 1976) has made a new series of photogram portraits called “Moonbow Flags,” named after the subtle phenomenom of a rainbow in the moonlight. The work incorporates geometric shapes inspired by flag designs, turning these symbols of authority into personal and playful works.
Ken Nakahashi is located at 3 Chome−1−32, Shinjuku City, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.

“YEYE: Telepathy” at Kaikai Kiki
One of Yeye’s paintings of her late dog Moonge. Courtesy of Kaikai Kiki, Tokyo.
This is the first large-scale solo show from Korean artist YEYE, who channeled her studies in animation and cartooning into a career in manga before transitioning to painting in 2022. Her debut show with Kaikai Kiki is a tribute to her adorable late dog Moonge, who was her dedicated companion for 15 years.
Kaikai Kiki is located at Motoazabu Crest Building B1F, 2 Chome−3−30 ,Motoazabu, Minato City, Tokyo, Japan. 

“Marina Perez Simão” and “Tomie Ohtake” at Pace
Tomie Ohtake, Untitled (1983). © Tomie Ohtake. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Nara Roesler Gallery.
Pace has staged not one but two solo shows for the occasion, pairing works by the contemporary Brazilian artist Marina Perez Simão (b. 1981) with those of one of her greatest influences, the late Japanese-Brazilian Modernist Tomie Ohtake (1913–2015). Ohtake, who immigrated to Brazil in 1936, incorporated both geometric and organic forms into abstract works that spanned painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Simão, who recently had a solo show at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo, is showing semi-abstract landscape paintings.
Pace is located at Azabudai Hills Garden Plaza-A, 5-8-1 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan. More