Eliana Willis

Typewriters from the storied collection of actor Tom Hanks will start the new year in Sag Harbor, as Barneys creative director, author, and Shelter Island resident Simon Doonan brings to life “Some of Tom’s Typewriters.” The show opens January 11, 2025, at the Church Sag Harbor, established by artists April Gornik and Eric Fischl, marking the latest installment in their community art center’s fascination with “the life of things,” a release stated, following whimsical shows around “material culture” exploring objects like bikes and guitars.
Fischl reached out to Hanks—with whom he shares friends—about staging a show after seeing the actor’s 2016 film California Typewriter, the Church’s executive director Sheri Pasquarella told me over email. Hanks has selected 35 specimens spanning the typewriter’s existence which Doonan will arrange into an installation. “Simon was initially sought because of his amazing and iconic way of bringing life to objects through ingenious, often low-fi, techniques that are resonant with our own approach,” Pasquarella said.
A Robotron typewriter in Tom Hanks’s collection. Photo courtesy of the Collection of Tom Hanks / The Church, Sag Harbor.
“The exquisite edit of the Tom Hanks typewriter collection will delight visitors of all ages,” Doonan, whose mother was a typist, reads the release. “These machines—strange, complex but also ridiculously simple—have so much to teach us about history and culture. This is why I leapt at the chance to design this installation. My goal is to spotlight the charm, engineering majesty, and social/historical [meaning] of these fascinating artifacts. After all, the soundtrack of the 20th century is the magical clacking and pinging of a typewriter. Clack, clack, clack… ping!”
A Remington typewriter in Tom Hanks’s collection. Photo courtesy of the Collection of Tom Hanks / The Church, Sag Harbor.
As the story goes, Hanks received his first typewriter from a friend who had upgraded to a newer model. When Hanks took that typewriter to get serviced in 1978, the Cleveland repair shop associate told him not to bother.
“He explained to me that I was in possession of a toy,” Hanks recalled in one interview. “It was a thing that looked like a typewriter but it was made of plastic. It was a hunk of junk. It was badly designed, and poorly manufactured.” Hanks left with a new model—and perspective. “That guy altered my concept of the place a typewriter can hold in your life,” the actor told NPR.
A Cole Steel typewriter in Tom Hanks’s collection. Photo courtesy of the Collection of Tom Hanks / The Church, Sag Harbor.
Hanks uses typewriters for thank you notes and to-do lists. In 2017, he wrote a book of short stories centered on these analog appliances, and he has been known to make room in his collection by sending pieces of it to unwitting, delighted strangers. In 2012, a podcast got Hanks to appear by sending him a spiffy 1934 Corona Smith. In 2018, Hanks even responded to a high schooler who wrote to him upon reading his book by sending her a typewriter—and a hand-typed letter wishing her the best while using it.
Although further specifics about “Some of Tom’s Typewriters” are still in the works, Pasquarella promised that “a bold emphasis on color and the role of the typewriter in advertising, popular culture, and film [will] all figure heavily into the design of the show and exhibition space.” More

It was a crisp night in early October when Project for Empty Space (PES) unveiled its new expansion to Ironside Newark. The 2,500-square-foot space in the redeveloped warehouse had been transformed into a gallery displaying colorful still life paintings, photographs, and other works by New York artist Azikiwe Mohammed.
“Most of these I did with no brushes,” Mohammed confided in me. Instead, he uses a variety of different paint markers, delighting in the unexpected chemical reactions that occur when he combines different brands, such as alcohol-based ink and acrylics that start to bubble when used together.
The show represents the fruits of the first year of his 2023–2025 stint as an artist in residence at PES, which specializes in artists whose work hopes to have a social impact.
It’s been a busy year for the Newark nonprofit, run by Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol. It also reopened its flagship at 800 Broad Street in September, following a yearlong renovation funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, plus assistance from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s Activation, Revitalization, and Transformation program.
Project for Empty Space’s renovated flagship. Photo courtesy of Project for Empty Space, Newark.
At the same time, the directors were also launching “Body Freedom for Every(Body),” a mobile exhibition promoting trans and reproductive rights currently crisscrossing the country in a 27-foot-long box truck. (The last stop will be at Art Basel Miami Beach in December.)
The new Ironside space is just down the block from PES’s main location, creating a new campus. It is part of what the city has dubbed Newark Grounds, an initiative meant to connect 75 of the city’s public artworks and arts and culture spaces through a walkable cultural corridor.
And while PES Ironside is technically on the second floor, the back of the building opens onto a plaza, letting visitors enter directly into the exhibition space.
“Azikiwe Mohammed: Trains, Buses, and the Four C’s” at Project for Empty Space Ironside, Newark. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“It’s this amazing thing where we can present art to folks who are not searching for art,” Jampol told me.
“Azikiwe Mohammed: Trains, Buses, and the Four C’s” is a particularly eye-catching show with which to inaugurate the space. The walls are painted in vibrant shades of orange, teal, and robin’s egg blue. The paintings are displayed in a charmingly mismatched array of thrifted frames, and the space is invitingly scattered with couches and chairs, some of which are painted sculptures by the artist.
For the opening, Mohammed had carefully planned out every detail of the evening, from the mason jar mugs he had hand-painted for each place setting to the tablecloths, featuring his photographs, which he planned to donate to a thrift store once the night was done. (The leftover food, meanwhile, Mohammed would offer to unhoused people in the neighborhood.)
Azikiwe Mohammed designed the tablescapes for the opening reception for his show at Project for Empty Space Ironside. Photo courtesy of Project for Empty Space, Newark.
He had enlisted a local restaurant owner, Kai Campbell, to prepare the dinner, with a menu that included lasagna and Jamaican rasta pasta. For dessert, artist Paul John, head of community at New Inc., and Elizabeth Cocco, the head of VIP relations for NADA, had brought a cooler full of their homemade vegan ice cream. (It was fantastic.) To serve it, Mohammed even thrifted porcelain bowls to match the colors of the saffron- and passionfruit-flavored treats.
I am embarrassed to admit that I initially mistook Mohammed for part of the event’s catering staff, dressed as he was in an apron and chef’s hat. But the apron featured more of the artist’s photography, and he was in character as Leroy, the proprietor of Leroy’s Luncheon, a project he’s staged at 1-54 art fair and Canada gallery, both in New York last year.
Feeding people, it turns out, is part and parcel of his practice. You see, Mohammed is a problem solver, and he sees art not as a vessel for his own artistic vision, but as part of his tool kit as an activist.
Azikiwe Mohammed’s New Davonhaime Food Bank fed 200 people at an event held at Project for Empty Space in Newark as part of the artist’s residency there. Photo courtesy of Project for Empty Space, Newark.
“I don’t believe in inspiration. It’s for lazy people,” Mohammed told me. “What’s the problem? Solve the problem. Nobody got no damn foods? Make paintings of food. Sell them. Buy food with the money from your fake food and then give it to people so they can have real food.”
Since 2019, the Tribeca native has run his own downtown food pantry, the New Davonhaime Food Bank, feeding the hungry through a combination of restaurant donations and food he buys in large part with the proceeds of his art career. (The name is a portmanteau of New Orleans, Detroit, Jackson, Birmingham, and Savannah—the five U.S. cities with the highest-density African-American populations.)
Its headquarters are the Black Painters Academy, Mohammed’s free art school that he opened in Chinatown in 2021, but the artist organizes food distributions across the city as his resources permit. And in June, for New Jersey’s North to Shore Festival, the food bank came to PES, operating for one day out of the new Broad Street galleries.
A painting by Azikiwe Mohammed. Photo courtesy of Project for Empty Space, Newark.
“It is one of the most impactful programs that we have ever done. To invite homeless people into our space even before it opened, give them an art show and a warm meal—it was a little eye-opening to me,” Jampol said. “We fed 200 people and sent them home with groceries.”
For Mohammed, it was all part of his mission as an artist—and his life’s work.
“People are hungry, and I can make up money where it doesn’t exist. Look, I just made a Jell-O cake,” he said, pointing behind me to a still life of the jiggly red dessert hanging on the wall. “I can go ‘magic wand,’ make that into real Jell-O. That’s crazy. It’d be irresponsible to not do something with that.”
“Azikiwe Mohammed: Trains, Buses, and the Four C’s” is on view at Project for Empty Space Ironside, 110 Edison Place, Newark, New Jersey, October 11, 2024– January 25, 2025. More

Several prominent French art critics have lambasted the Musée d’Orsay’s blockbuster exhibition on the Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, titled “Painting Men.”
The show (on view until January 19, 2025) is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see a large body of the artist’s oeuvre, thanks to exceptional loans. Despite praise, some critics from across the political spectrum argue that the exhibit places too much emphasis on a gendered interpretation of Caillebotte’s work, suggesting he was gay—a point for which there’s little supporting evidence, and arguably, one that shouldn’t matter. These critics also largely attribute this interpretive approach to American perspectives on art.
“The Musée d’Orsay, under the influence of its American partner coproducers, chose to study the painter’s ‘masculinity,’” writes Le Figaro’s Eric Biétry-Rivierre, leading the charge against the gender-themed exhibit in an early review. The show will travel to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Art Institute of Chicago (A.I.C.), and was jointly organized by a leading curator from each institution: Paul Perrin at the Musée d’Orsay, Scott Allan at the Getty, and Gloria Groom at the A.I.C.
More recently, a writer at the leftist Libération exclaimed that American-developed gender studies in art history have “crossed the Atlantic and landed,” at the Paris institution. Joined by a third critic at Le Monde, they agreed with Le Figaro, that curators took a “biased” view of the artist’s practice, focusing on his more numerous depictions of men over that of women as further evidence that Caillebotte was gay. This, critics point out, is supported by “suggestive” wall texts throughout the show, featuring some 140 artworks.
In his searing review, Le Monde’s Harry Bellet notes the absence of Caillebotte’s later paintings of flowers. Their “pistils”—the female organs of the flower—”were surely not suggestive enough, or would, on the contrary, contradict the curators’ argument,” he writes. Philippe Lancon, of Liberation, holds little back when he states, “Contrary to what the wall labels heavily insinuate, nothing proves that Caillebotte, who lived with a woman, was gay, and to be honest, it doesn’t matter.”
Gustave Caillebotte Nu au divan (c. 1880) oil on canvas. 129.5 x 195.6 cm. Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of art, The John R. Van Derlip Fund, 67.67 Image Courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art
Indeed, no information exists about the artist’s sexual orientation, and the curators have repeatedly said no conclusive information was found on the topic. Nevertheless, the ensuing, rather jumbled debate has brought the question further to the fore, suggesting that to some degree, it does appear to matter after all.
The exhibition’s introductory texts state that the artist made unusual depictions of men for his time, often bachelors captured in domestic, intimate settings typically reserved for the “women’s sphere” in the 19th century. “It is these subjects and that ‘gender trouble’ (as the philosopher Judith Butler put it), that give the artist’s work much of its vital tension and subversive power, which this exhibition and its catalogue seek to explore,” reads the show’s press release.
In interviews, the catalogue, and wall texts, curators vacillate between asserting that we know nothing about his sexual orientation; questioning potentially homoerotic desires on Caillebotte’s part; and stating that he was simply painting his surroundings, which happened to include a lot of men.
The Art Institute of Chicago’s Groom rejected both the notion that the Americans had influenced the French in the show’s making, and that it implied Caillebotte was gay. After reading those accusations in the Figaro review, she told me, “I was amused, because he was saying the Americans inflicted their wokeness on Paris.” In fact, “the idea for this exhibition came from Paris.”
Groom defended the exhibit’s gendered lens, claiming that Caillebotte broke from other Impressionists who regularly painted women (a subject that was easier to sell) and instead showed the male-dominated world around him. His subjects were depicted with stark honesty, whether bathing, rowing boats, lounging on a sofa, or defecating. This was an exceptional, modern approach, deserving of attention, she argued. “His subject matter is very radical during the time, because men were not supposed to stare at men, and he’s staring at men,” she said. “It’s the elephant in the room. It’s what makes him so different.”
She added that several works are “definitely sensuous, [there’s] definitely a gaze, and definitely an appreciation of the male body and the male sportsman, and things that make males male … you can say that. But is that homosexuality? I think that’s a bridge too far,” she said. “He’s looking for a way to come up with a modern form of masculinity.”
Gustave Caillebotte, Raboteurs de parquets (The Floor Scrapers) (1875). Photo © musée d’Orsay, dits. RMN – Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
“The exhibit affirms nothing concerning the artist’s sexuality,” the Orsay’s curator Perrin told me. “However, it does not forbid itself from asking the question: ‘What is the gaze of one man on another man about?’ [and] ‘What is eroticism when applied to the masculine body?’”
Perrin notes that one section of the exhibition features three major nudes, including a large painting of a woman and another of a man drying himself after a bath, which was inspired by Degas’ depictions of bathing women. In Caillebotte’s unusual rendering, the toned buttocks of the almost life-sized man become the focal point. With this 1884 painting, Man at His Bath, “we evoke that question because the artwork asks us to […] or to put it differently, the question of desire in painting,” Perrin added. “Caillebotte may not have had a sexual preference that he recognized during his life, but it might also not prevent him from having a kind of gaze, in which there is a bit of desire,” he said.
The French curator also felt the Le Figaro article had unfairly put the exhibit on “trial” for referencing gender studies. The discipline “clearly scares a lot of people, because there’s an impression art is being used for ideological purposes, which is not the case here. [Gender studies] is just a tool for modern art historians, which allows us to better understand the artworks.”
He confirmed the exhibit was not influenced by his American collaborators, and that the Paris museum chose the theme, before it was further elaborated upon by the trio of curators from all three institutions. Still, he observed that American art historians have been more interested in the question of gender and sexuality than French counterparts. “I wouldn’t deny that there is an Anglo-Saxon art historic influence on ways of looking at painting […] but the United States did not impose anything on this exhibit,” he said.
The show organizers had also strived to offer a fresh take on Caillebotte, who is celebrated for his groundbreaking, almost photographic framing, combined with unusual perspective. But if his framing and composition is so critical, shouldn’t we look at his subjects of choice, asks Perrin? “We’re not here to endlessly repeat the same saintly history of Impressionism. It’s the role of museums to also question artworks and place them in relation to current interrogations, without ever falling into an anachronism,” he said.
Gustave Caillebotte, Le Pont de l’Europe (1876). Oil on canvas. 125 x 180 cm. Geneva Association des amis du Petit Palais, 111 © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln
Some of the exhibition interpretation does go way out on a limb when describing imagined narratives in some of the paintings. For instance, in the iconic painting showing one of Paris’ new, industrial bridges, Le Pont de l’Europe [The Europe Bridge] (1876) a man walks towards the viewer, said to be a self-portrait of the artist. He turns back slightly to a woman walking just behind and to his left, but he simultaneously glances at a man in front of him, who is leaning over the bridge railing, admiring the view. “Has the man just accosted a sex worker?” the show’s label asks, apparently in reference the woman in the painting. “Is he not, in fact, more interested in the worker towards whom his gaze seems to be directed …?”
Such questions are scattered throughout, adding confusion to the compelling thesis the curators have expressed in interviews and in the catalogue. Namely, that Caillebotte painted men differently than his contemporaries did, just as he painted women differently, for that matter, with an extraordinary, and unmatched modern lens. One that strove at all costs to convey with honesty the life he experienced around him.
Gusave Caillebotte, Boating party also called Rower in a Top Hat (Canotier en chapeau haut de forme) (1877) Private collection Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images.
It was a vision that considered men in all states and forms, including what would be considered flattering at the time, or not at all, making for an unlikely subject of a painting. It was also a risk Caillebotte could take. Born into wealth, he did not need to sell his paintings to make a living. Thus, male subjects can be found lounging and reading literature on sofas, in what are considered more “feminine” activities for the time, per the exhibit, or as more “manly” men: rowing boats, or else as soldiers bored or relieving themselves.
These men are also painted right up close, as in the Boating Party (ca. 1877-78) acquired by the Musée d’Orsay in 2022, where the viewer is positioned near enough to smell the sweat of the handsome man across from them wielding the oars. Caillebotte radically recoded painting genres of his time, and that seems to be the central takeaway the Musée d’Orsay hopes to convey. Unfortunately, it ultimately stumbles in its efforts. More

British diver Tom Daley has made headlines at the Olympics for 16 years now, not just for the five medals he’s won, but also for his penchant for knitting in the stands, creating some pretty fabulous sweaters while cheering on his fellow competitors. Now, his handiwork is being honored with an exhibition at Tokyo’s Parco Museum.
Tokyo, of course, was where the world first learned of the famed athlete’s prowess with the knitting needle. Daley, hard at work at a handmade sweater, was quite the sight in the stands. The result was an impressive white cardigan, with the Olympic rings and “Team GB” on the back.
“I’d been knitting since March 2020, but no one really cared until they saw me do it at the Olympics,” Daley, now age 30, told the Guardian. “I think some people thought I didn’t care about the Olympics, that I was just knitting. Some people thought it was brave to be knitting in public, and some thought: ‘What the hell is he doing?’”
Great Britain’s Tom Daley knitting as he watches the Women’s Synchronised 3m Springboard Final at the Aquatics Centre on the first day of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in France. Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images.
Daley had already been a star since bursting onto the Olympic scene at the 2008 Beijing games, after winning European diving gold at the age of just 13. But his knitting won Daley legions of new fans, who were delighted to see him back at it at this year’s Paris Olympics.
He now has a dedicated knitting Instagram account, @madewithlovebytomdaley, with 1.4 million followers (his main account has another 4 million), a clothing line of the same name, and a book, Made With Love, compiling 30 of his knitting and crochet patterns.  A bona fide museum show will only help further spread the word of his artistic activities.
Tom Daley at the new exhibition in Tokyo, 2024. Photo: Richard A. Brooks / AFP via Getty Images.
“Over a year in the making, I’m proud to share my knitting journey back where it all began!” Daley wrote on Instagram, noting that the show would feature “some of my favorite creations.”
“If there was an Olympic gold for knitting,” the official Instagram account of Olympics responded approvingly.

There may not be a knitting event at the games yet, but Daley has done remarkably well in his chosen sport.
Over five games, he has taken home two individual bronzes in the 10 meter platform event, plus a medal in each color for synchronized platform diving, most recently a bronze in Paris. (The lone gold was in Tokyo, with Matty Lee.)
Tom Daley of Team Great Britain is seen knitting during the Men’s Synchronized 3m Springboard Final on day seven of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
In Paris, Daley completed a fetching blue jumper with his last name written across the back, and a bottom border of alternating French and British flags. He announced his retirement the day after the closing ceremony.
His passion for his crafty hobby is keeping Daley busy now that his diving career has come to an end. He is in Tokyo for the opening, teaching a live knitting workshop at the museum.

“Knitting is an important part of my life and it’s what calms me,” Daley told British craft and entertainment magazine Prima. “Through this exhibition, I would like to share with as many people as possible the joy of making things and the comfort that knitting brings to the heart.”
“Made with Love by Tom Daley” is on view at the Parco Museum Tokyo, Shibuya, Japan, 〒150-0042 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Udagawacho, 15−1 渋谷パルコ 4F, November 8–25, 2025. More

Pomellato founder Pino Rabolini hailed from a long line of goldsmiths. In 1967, however, he broke from tradition to test his hypothesis that a playful pret-a-porter approach and avant-garde eye could shake up the stodgy fine art jewelry sphere. Rabolini’s hunch proved correct.
For six decades now, his Milanese house has adorned cultural icons with inventive designs setting colorful gems set amongst Pomellato’s signature, rich rose gold. Their Nudo ring in particular has become a cult classic. Helmut Newton shot Pomellato’s early black and white campaigns, but today the house experiments with advancements like artificial intelligence. Still, Pomellato remains true to Rabolini’s daring vision by periodically returning to their most legendary silhouettes.
The exhibition’s outdoor entryway. Image: Pomellato.
The luxury jeweler is now ready for its first retrospective, which just opened at Shanghai’s Fosun Art Foundation this past weekend. The exhibition, “Art & Jewelry: Pomellato’s Legacy of Creativity and Craftsmanship, From 1967 to Today,” showcases over 100 mesmerizing jewels alongside rarely-displayed archival campaigns shot by Lord Snowdon, Peter Lindbergh and more over the years. Alba Cappellieri, head of jewelry design at the Polytechnic University of Milan, curated this ultra-luxe showcase.
A photo from Michel Comte’s 1994-95 Pomellato campaign features here to the left amongst the exhibition. Image: Pomellato.
The exhibition opened to the public on November 3, and kicked off with a glitzy gala the night before. Acclaimed pianist Wu Muye and the Shanghai Theater Academy both performed. Star-studded attendees included Hong Kong actress Janice Man, Winter Olympics champion Yang Yang, and fashion columnist Teresa Cheung.
A hallway within the show leading towards a glamor shot from one campaign circa 1970. Image: Pomellato.
Italian photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri’s 1971 shot of actress Lilly Bistrattin wearing Pomellato’s iconic Wave Collection greets guests entering into the show’s red lacquered exterior portal. The spectacle begins with an ode to Milan, before immersing viewers in the aesthetics of each decade in Pomellato’s existence. The 1970s area highlights “bold and highly creative chains that epitomize the era’s free-spirited aesthetic,” Pomellato’s press release explains. The 1980s installment embodies the period’s “audacious spirit” through vivid hues. The 1990s-themed area remembers third wave feminism “through generous, sculptural volumes in jewelry design.”
“Art & Jewelry” concludes with an eye towards the future. Chinese artist Chen Man, who has photographed the likes of Grimes, encapsulates society’s more expansive ideas about femininity through Pomellato’s latest Iconica line. Alberto Maria Colombo—the talent behind their AI ad campaign last year—has joined fellow Milanese artist Anna Paladini in crafting “an artistic experience” intent on “underscoring AI-generated portraits encompassing the multifaceted nature of Pomellato’s timeless women.”
Chen Man’s contribution to the show, shot this year. © Chen Man.
“We are thrilled to share our passion, craftsmanship, and joyful spirit through this beautifully curated exhibition, inspiring a new audience to embrace our jewels as empowering statements of personal style,” Pomellato group CEO Sabina Belli remarked in the release.

“Art & Jewelry: Pomellato’s Legacy of Creativity and Craftsmanship, From 1967 to Today” remains on view through November 24. More

Jim Jarmusch is known for his deadpan films that feature oddball characters and ask big existential questions. Among his best-known works in this vein are Stranger than Paradise (1984), a black-and-white minimalist comedy with a cult following, and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), the tale of a principled hitman and pigeon keeper who finds himself marked by the mafia. His cinematography also often employs surreal storytelling devices, such as the trail of pink objects in Broken Flowers (2005) that reveals important character-defining clues throughout the movie but offers little in the way of plot resolution.
Given the quiet absurdism of many of his films, it comes as no surprise that the American director has a long-standing affinity for Surrealism. “The beauty of Surrealism is looking at things in a different way,” Jarmusch said. “It’s about juxtaposing the mundane and fantastical.”
Jim Jarmusch. Photo: Laurent KOFFEL/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.
As a teenager, Surrealism was a “revelation” to the burgeoning director, first in its visual forms and then its literary ones. In his early twenties, it drew him to Paris, “where I repeatedly used [André] Breton’s “Nadja” as a kind of walking map through the mysterious nocturnal streets of the city,” he said.
Jarmusch returns to Paris this week for Paris Photo, where he has curated a selection of 34 photos at the fair to celebrate the centenary of the Surrealism movement. His picks, Jarmusch added, are not purely Surrealist, but “reflect its tenets of the transformation of the ordinary into the dreamlike, and at times vice-versa.”
Peter Hujar, Catacomb Palermo (1963). ©Peter Hujar Archive, LLC; Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy Stephen Daiter
There are plenty of recognizable works among Jarmusch’s highlights, from David Hockney’s 1970s swimming pool photos, brought by Equinox Gallery, to Peter Hujar’s eerie catacomb images at Stephen Daiter’s booth.
Robert Frank’s portrait of Jack Kerouac at Pace is part of a fair-wide dedication to the late Swiss-American photographer and documentary filmmaker in honor of his 100th birthday; Jarmusch was a close friend of Frank and credits him as an influence in his own work.
Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac–NYC (1965). © The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation. Courtesy Pace Gallery
Several works foreground outsider figures, akin to the characters that Jarmusch tends to feature in his films. Japanese photographer Kenshichi Heshiki’s scenes of mid-century Okinawa and those living on its margins stun at Ibasho’s booth. Lisetta Carmi’s subversive images of Genoa’s trans community in the 1960s, brought by Martini and Ronchetti, are both gritty and joyful.
Lisetta Carmi, I travestiti, la Sissi (1965) Courtesy Martini & Ronchetti.
More contemporary inclusions range from Zanele Muholi’s explorations of race, as seen in her portrait OwakheX, Sheraton, Brooklyn, New York (2019), at Yancey Richardson to Dawoud Bey’s ominously dusky shot of an all-American house ringed by a white picket fence at Stephen Daiter.
Dawoud Bey, Untitled #1 (From Night Coming Tenderly, Black), 2018. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter.
Of course, there are classic Surrealist works grounding Jarmusch’s curatorial strategy, 10 of which can be found at Edwynn Houk’s booth, where an entire wall has been given over to Surrealism. Among the highlights are Dora Maar’s Photo Mode II (1931) and several photos by Man Ray.
Dora Maar, Photo Mode II (1931). Courtesy Edwynn Houk.
The evening before the photo fair opened to VIPs, Jarmusch also hosted a preview of Le Retour à la raison, a compendium of four short silent films made by Man Ray in the 1920s that have been restored and scored to post-rock music by SQÜRL, Jarmusch’s experimental guitar band with Carter Logan.
[embedded content]
“I love how Man Ray experimented with photography and film, and treated the camera as a toy,” Jarmusch said before the screening, adding that he had been playing improvisational music to these films for over a decade. The resulting score, guided by Jarmusch’s feedback-heavy guitar and Logan’s synthesizer and occasional drumbeat, feels perfectly in sync with the 100-year-old film. SQÜRL recorded it at Centre Pompidou, which is currently hosting a blockbuster Surrealism exhibition.
Alongside his cinematic work, Jarmusch is also a practicing visual artist specializing in photography and collage. He has an upcoming exhibition with James Fuentes Gallery in Los Angeles next year.
Paris Photo runs through Sunday, November 10, at the Grand Palais, Paris. More

As far as artistic collaborations go, the 1920 debut of Pulcinella was one for the ages. Ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev pulled the strings with Léonide Massine providing choreography, Igor Stravinsky the music, and Pablo Picasso the costumes and sets.
For Picasso and Stravinsky, it sparked a friendship that lasted a lifetime. Almost exact contemporaries, both had sought out Paris’s febrile energy and were fast becoming master craftsmen who shared an affinity for experimenting with style and form. In later years, they wrote letters to one another, exchanging news, doodles, and musical riffs.
The Ballets Russes performing Pulcinella in 1924. Photo by Sasha Hulton/Getty Images.
One such notation, a fleeting clarinet concerto that Stravinsky titled Pour Pablo, will be brought to life as part of “Picasso Symphony,” a concert experience that tells the story of the artist’s life by pairing artwork with period music played by a live orchestra. When Pour Pablo arrives as a three-minute intermezzo, it’s accompanied by Picasso’s portraits featuring musical instruments.
“Picasso Symphony,” which will open at La Seine Musical in Paris in March 2025 ahead of an international tour is the brainchild of Jason Michael Paul, a producer and musical entrepreneur who has seen success producing video game concerts with titles such as Zelda and Final Fantasy.
Igor Stravinsky, Pour Pablo. Photo courtesy of JMP Entertainment.
The inspiration for his latest outing arrived from another project that has taken an iconic artist beyond the white walls of a museum: Immersive Van Gogh. Upon visiting it, Paul found the event offered audiences an immersive experience of light and sound, something he believed was replicable in a concert hall.
After negotiating the rights to the artwork with Succession Picasso, which manages the artist’s image rights, Paul worked with music director Kevin Zakresky to trace the contours of Picasso’s life chronologically through music. “There’s an emotional mirroring or matching of the music to the art’s mood,” Paul told me via email. “The aim was to create a cohesive and insightful journey through Picasso’s world.”
A musical work Picasso sent Stravinsky. Photo courtesy JMP Entertainment.
What this amounts to is somber cello playing to his Blue Period paintings or lively acoustic guitar for the early Spanish works. Elsewhere, atonal works accompany Picasso’s abstract experiments and neoclassical pieces tie in with the more traditional phases of his career. For good measure, Paul and Zakresky have included music by some of Picasso’s favorite composers, like Eric Satie (a close friend whom he painted), Gustave Holst, Benjamin Britten, and Sergei Prokofiev.
“Music was central to Picasso’s life, in Spain and in France, music was in the air,” Paul said. “Think of the cafes, the bars, the street performers. It was part of his daily existence and he painted musicians repeatedly and he also painted portraits of composers.”
Portrait of Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso (1917). Photo courtesy JMP Entertainment.
One of these portraits, naturally, is of Stravinsky. The composer sits in a chair that seems to bend around him, the lines are thin and exact, his gaze is fixed and expectant, as though searching for some brilliant idea in the far beyond.
“Picasso Symphony” debuts at La Seine Musicale, La Seine Musicale, Île Seguin, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, March 1, 2025, before traveling to the Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium, 3401 W Lancaster Ave, Fort Worth, Texas, on May 10, 2025. More

Shanghai’s dual art fairs, ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair and West Bund Art and Design, are about to open this week and so are a slew of exhibitions as museums mount all-star shows for the city’s art week.
The pinnacle of China’s art calendar, this week in Shanghai offers an unmatched opportunity to connect with nearly everyone in the Chinese art world. While the excitement is palpable, many say that the fairs’ offerings seem “quieter” this year and attendees are coming mostly from mainland China, as the presence of international visitors remains limited for now.
Outside of the fairs, however, it’s a different story. International artists are headlining some of the biggest venues in the city, among them Marina Abramović, whose work continues to make waves at the Modern Art Museum Shanghai. The Chi K11 Art Museum Shanghai is hosting French artist César Piette’s first museum show in China while the Rockbund Art Museum showcases American artist and poet Rindon Johnson in his most comprehensive museum exhibition to date and his first in the Asia-Pacific region.
Meanwhile, homegrown talents are getting top billing at some of the city’s museums. At the Start Museum, a trio of shows opening simultaneously spotlight young Chinese artists while at Fotografiska Shanghai, Chinese artists Li Weiyi and Chen Wei are both getting the solo-show treatment. At the state-backed, Jean Nouvel-designed Museum of Art Pudong, “Cao Fei: Tidal Flux” has now been extended through February due to popular demand, alongside a captivating exhibition on JMW Turner, the museum’s latest collaboration with Tate.
But that’s just the start. Here are five other must-see shows opening this week.
“Yin Xiuzhen: Piercing the Sky”  
Power Station of Art
Yin Xiuzhen, Flying Machine (2008). Shanghai Art Museum. Courtesy of the artist.
Curated by the acclaimed art historian and critic Wu Hung, sculptor and installation artist Yin Xiuzhen is presenting a major retrospective at the Power Station of Art (PSA). It’s overdue for the artist who, at 61, is one of China’s most influential female artists. Spanning the entire first floor, the exhibition opens with the monumental Piercing the Sky, a 15-meter-long, rocket-like metal sculpture with a base reminiscent of a trombone. Sharing its name with the exhibition, this powerful piece symbolizes the courage to strive beyond earthly limitations. Featuring approximately 20 monumental works that utilize diverse materials and approaches, the highlights Yin’s signature pieces alongside her more recent creations, all of which tease out the dichotomies of heaven and earth, human and divine, and the inner self and the outside world. The show runs through February 16, 2025.
Additionally, for the fashion aficionados out there, PSA is also hosting “Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto“, the first retrospective devoted to the work of Gabrielle Chanel in China. Supported exclusively by the French fashion label, the exhibition is open through November 24. 

“Distance of the Moon”
Prada Rong Zhai
Shuang Li, Our Lady of Sorrows (2024). Courtesy the artist, Peres Projects, and Antenna Space.
In Italo Calvino’s “Distance of the Moon,” Earth and Moon once shared a close gravitational pull, allowing people to climb between the two to collect “moon milk.” But a sudden shift in gravity leaves some stranded on the Moon, separated from those on Earth. Artist Li Shuang (b. 1990) found solace in this tale during lockdown, as she remained in Europe, cut off from family in China. This sense of isolation became central to her artistic practice, translating her disconnection into new works that explore alienation, distance, and attempts at connection.
Now based between Berlin and Geneva, Li will transform Shanghai’s historic Prada Rong Zhai into a reflective, autobiographical house. The exhibition, which runs through January 16, 2025, will feature light and sound installations, videos, and resin objects she created during the pandemic, each piece invoking themes of solitude and fragmented communication. A standout element, a “telegraph-coded letter,” is embedded within the show for viewers to decipher, inviting them to engage directly with her narrative of personal distance and the challenge of bridging separations across space and time.

“Daniel Crews-Chubb: Immortals”
Long Museum
Daniel Crews-Chubb in his studio. Photo: Tim Craig
The London-based painter Daniel Crews-Chubb (b. 1984) makes his first major museum solo debut at the Long Museum in Shanghai, which will feature more than 30 works from two pivotal series that delve into the evolution of figurative representation across history. Known for his dynamic and vibrant compositions, Crews-Chubb creates chimerical figures through a complex, intuitive process involving painting, drawing, and collage. He employs spontaneous methods of applying paint—such as spilling, throwing, and spraying ink and pigment—to create a lively base that brings his figures to life.
On view through January 5, 2025, the exhibition features “Immortals” (2022–24), a series that explores the age-old human endeavor of creating art as a gesture toward immortality. This series considers how representations of figures, from cave drawings to classical statues, achieve a sense of timelessness. His latest series, “Out of Chaos” (2024), takes a broader perspective, reflecting on the interconnectedness of all life and cosmic entities, using the human figure as a central theme to unify a plethora of spontaneous marks. The series’ title, inspired by the ancient Greek concept of chaos as the origin of the universe, underscores the thematic depth of Crews-Chubb’s work, presenting a narrative of creation and interconnectedness.

“Another Avant-Garde. Photography 1970–2000”
West Bund Museum 
Sandy Skoglund, Radioactive Cats, (Chats radioactifs) (1980). Photo: Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Service de la documentation photographique du MNAM/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn
As part of the notable collaboration between Centre Pompidou and West Bund Museum, “Another Avant-garde: Photography 1970–2000” delves into of the French museum’s rich photography collection. This exhibition, running through February 16, 2025, marks the first time in decades that key photographic works from 1970 to 2000 are showcased together, juxtaposing a diverse array of works—from modest conceptual pieces to expansive tableaux, and from singular photographs to experimental video pieces. The show not only reflects on photography’s multifaceted role as sculpture, performance, moving image, and its intersections with painting but also emphasizes its significance across varied artistic contexts. Special attention is given to works from China, featuring several loans that foster a dialogue between distinct avant-garde histories, enhancing the narrative of global photographic practices during this transformative period.
The museum is also hosting “A Cloud in Trousers: Painting Today,” co-organized with Pond Society, a non-profit founded by collector Xue Bing, that features works by 23 artists from diverse generations and backgrounds, providing a look to see the breadth of contemporary Chinese painting. 

“Issy Wood: What I Eat In A Day” 
“Pictures of the Post-80s Generation —Generational Leap”
Tank Shanghai
Issy Wood, Self portrait 60 (2024). © Issy Wood 2024, courtesy the artist and Carlos/Ishikawa, London. Photo: Damian Griffiths.
Issy Wood will present her first large-scale exhibition of small-scale works at Tank Shanghai, an ambitious institution founded by mega collector Qiao Zhibing. Unlike conventional sketches, Wood’s pieces are intimate glimpses into her daily life, each acting like a diary entry or a snippet from her internet search history, reflecting even her dietary habits. These deeply personal works, which Wood treasures, have evolved into a key part of her daily routine and a playground for visual experimentation. The show runs through January 19, 2025.
In addition to Wood’s show, the museum is hosting a group exhibition featuring works from 35 Chinese artists of the 1980s generation, through May 4, 2025. Curated by Sun Dongdong, it aims to address pressing contemporary issues. Sun describes it as a reflection of the connection between modern Chinese society and the evolving global landscape. He hopes to encourage viewers to dig deeper into the narratives presented, engaging with the complexities of our times while inspiring a renewed sense of hope for the future.  More