Eliana Willis

The painter Adam Himebauch, increasingly known for his performance art, hung some of the work in his own solo show in South Korea, a performative statement pushing back against the haters that tell him to “just paint, dude.”
Himebauch, the Tribeca-based artist formerly known as Hanksy, debuted his show “Here Comes the Twister” at the Gana Art Nineone gallery in Seoul on June 20. The show contains paintings that collectively illustrate the chronological evolution of the tornado.
But during the opening reception, the walls of the gallery remained empty—until Himebauch arrived to put up six of the works himself, stapling the loose-canvas paintings directly onto the walls. In a video shared with Artnet News, Himebauch is seen stretching and doing some light exercise and a little dance to limber up for the install.
Adam Himebauch hanging up his own paintings as a performative statement. Photo courtesy of Gana Art.
When he’s finally ready to begin hanging the works, he grabs a standard stepladder and attempts to ready his staple gun but appears to have legitimate problems with loading it and can be seen nervously smiling until it clicks into place. He begins to hang the works halfway through the 15-minute performance.
After stapling the top of each work to the wall, Himebauch rolls the canvas down and unceremoniously allows the cardboard tubes to thud against the hard floor in the silent room before moving on to the next.
“It went superb and everyone agreed it was incredibly different and unique. Nobody knew what to expect and it was perplexing that the walls were empty and white upon entrance. I danced to the song ‘Fantastic Man’ by William Onyeabor and it went fantastic, man,” Himebauch said in a statement after the performance.
Adam Himebauch dancing during a performance in which he hung up his own paintings. Photo courtesy of Gana Art.
In a press release about the performance, he likened it to Michael Asher’s 1974 exhibition at the Claire S. Copley Gallery in Los Angeles, where the artist removed a wall separating the gallery office from the exhibition, exposing the gallery’s operational reality to the public.
“By integrating painting and performance in the confines of an exhibition setting, Himebauch challenges conventional expectations of what constitutes a ‘painter’ in the public eye,” his team said in the press release.
He noted that comments on social media from his fans telling him to “just paint” are common whenever he engages in artistic endeavors beyond traditional painting. “This underscores a prevalent anticipation for a serious ‘painterly’ identity from an artist primarily recognized for painting, prompting Himebauch to subvert these expectations in multiple ways,” his team said.
Adam Himebauch hanging up his own paintings as a performative statement. Photo courtesy of Gana Art.
Reviewing his own performance after the fact, Himebauch said his favorite part was walking through the crowd with the ladder because it was “very awkward.”
“I had trouble loading the staples into the stapler. It was a Korean model I wasn’t familiar with. You just learn to roll with things because it’s the perceived mishaps that make things unique. Imperfectly perfect,” he added. “Elevating everyday studio rituals into art with a capital A is all a matter of set and setting. Art and life in general is perspective.”
In February, the artist livestreamed a deceptive performance commenting on truth and reality in digital media. That performance, part of the show “Never Ever Land,” involved him claiming to be meditating for a month on a small platform in the middle of Ceysson & Bénétière’s Madison Avenue gallery in New York. He was not, in fact, consistently at the gallery.
“Here Comes the Twister” is on view at Gana Art Nineone, 91 Hannam-daero, Yongsan District, Seoul, South Korea, through July 21.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

Although it is principally a showcase for the decorative arts, the V&A is not condemned to try and interest new audiences with only ancient ceramics and medieval metalware. The London institution has long ago cracked a magic formula: high fashion = high footfall. The museum has refreshed this winning format with its latest exhibition dedicated to supermodel supremo Naomi Campbell.
Is there a more worthy member of fashion royalty to receive this place of prominence? Even among the OG set of nineties runway stars like Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, and Linda Evangelista, few reached the same, enduring icon status as Naomi Campbell. “It is an honor,” the model said in a statement, “to share my life in clothes with the world.”
Installation view of “NAOMI: In Fashion” at the V&A Museum. Photo courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum.
Born in London in 1970, Campbell was always a natural performer; she appeared in the music video for Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” at the age of eight and went on to study dance at the renowned Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. She was scouted to be a model on the street in 1986 and by her 16th birthday had already appeared on the cover of British Elle. This feat was to be followed by a string of historic firsts: she was the first Black British woman on the cover of British Vogue in 1987, the first Black woman to ever appear on the cover of Vogue Paris in 1988, and the first Black woman to open a Prada show in 1997, to name just three.
Such an impressive career makes for an exciting spectacle at “Naomi: In Fashion” (on view until April 2025). Covering the past five decades, vintage pieces of couture, personal photographs, or other mementoes are placed in glass cases beside vast projections that mix up archival footage from catwalks and editorial photoshoots from star photographers including Peter Lindbergh. Campbell’s ability to compel a crowd is undeniable and it is impossible not to be drawn in by this sea of eye-catching imagery.
Installation view of “NAOMI: In Fashion” at the V&A Museum. Photo courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum.
However, as the V&A’s senior curator of fashion, Sonnet Stanfill, openly admitted at a press conference in March: “It is not for us to tell Naomi’s story, we want her to tell her story.” It is unusual to be given free reign to produce a blockbuster exhibition about your own life, and without a more rigorous curatorial eye the finished product is shiny but a tad one-dimensional.
“Naomi: In Fashion” offers little historical context or meaningful insight and the tone of its guiding wall texts sometimes veers into sycophancy. Fawning exaggerations like “Campbell’s impact on the catwalk and the page is unmatched,” do not feel necessary to convey the model’s import. The work speaks for itself. In another section, a grid of screens features figures like Anna Wintour, RuPaul, and Kate Moss, who each take their turn to provide reverential accounts of their relationships with Campbell.
Meanwhile, a stint of community service in 2007 after Campbell flung her phone at an employee—allegedly, not for the first time—is reframed as Campbell overcoming “media scrutiny,” by “chronicling the week in W magazine, sharing her remorse and her personal perspective.” On view is the glittering gown that Campbell wore while strutting out of the Manhattan sanitation garage where she had been put to work. Recorded by a swarm of paparazzi, the moment offers an irresistible mix of glamor and audacity, and it is more real and more memorable than the unadulterated adulation to be found elsewhere in this show.
Installation view of “NAOMI: In Fashion” at the V&A Museum. Photo courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum.
As the main lender to the show, Campbell has provided the original items associated with a host of memorable moments from her career. One showstopper is the golden dress with a blue skirt that she wore on her first, history-making cover with British Vogue. Also present are the Vivienne Westwood shoes that sent her toppling over on the runway in 1993 and the head-to-toe protective gear worn on a plane in early 2020, an image that went viral, and became iconic.
The exhibition’s long run until next Spring is surely a bid for some fantastic visitor numbers and with a subject as iconic and headlining as Campbell, the museum is in good shape to achieve them. Even though the experience of “Naomi: In Fashion” is unusually concise and could probably be completed in about 20 minutes, those willing to simply bask in her glory will find more than enough to marvel at. Anyone hoping for a deeper or more candid insight into Campbell’s life may be left wanting more.
“Naomi: In Fashion” is on view at the V&A in London through April 6, 2025.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

“If people say: ‘Whose eyes are those?’ I am good with that.”
Artist Sonya Clark was talking about her latest major project, a public artwork titled The Descendants of Monticello, that officially debuts today, June 24, at Declaration House, the Philadelphia landmark where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Clark, in partnership with nonprofit public art, history, and design studio Monument Lab, is shining a light on a lesser-known and discussed aspect of the historical narrative behind one of America’s founding documents. During that summer of 1776, Jefferson was accompanied by 14-year old Robert Hemmings, an enslaved valet that he brought with him from his plantation at Monticello, just outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Hemmings was also the half brother of Jefferson’s wife Martha Wayles Skelton.
Amid extensive research and a site visit to Monticello earlier this year, Clark realized that there are no known historical images of Hemmings. It became a driving force for the resulting art project: documenting the eyes of the descendants of the roughly 400 people enslaved at Monticello alone. The Descendants of Monticello encompasses a multichannel video installation facing the intersection of 7th and Market streets in Philadelphia.
Sonya Clark, The Descendants of Monticello (2024), on view at Declaration House, Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, PA. Photo: Steve Weinik/Monument Lab.
Contemporary video portraits of the eyes of living descendants are juxtaposed with photographs of those in Monticello’s archives. It is visible to anyone walking or driving past the site.
The videos “play in each window, blinking, watching, and haunting the space,” Clark told me. “But I also think of it as being a lighthouse in a way. I think of it as a reclamation.” Her last word nods to the title of the book of the same name, written by her friend Gayle Jessup White, who is herself a descendant of Jefferson.
From the very start of the project, Clark knew she would be working with the facade of Declaration House and that it would be a public-facing artwork. “I think of the windows as being like the soul of the building—what allows you to see in and see out—aligned with the idea of eyes being the window of our souls. The soul of the nation necessarily is these Black descendants and their eyes.”
The building itself, which is overseen by the National Park Service, is currently closed. The original was demolished in 1883, before it was reconstructed by the NPS in 1975.
Sonya Clark at Declaration House, Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, PA, 2024. Photo: Terrell Halsey/Monument Lab.
Clark said the windows are constantly in movement so viewers never see the same eye appear at the same time. “There is something really haunting about having a lot to singular eyes look at you. And you can tell there is so much information even in the reduction or cropping of the image.”
She worked directly with Jessup White, who also works at Monticello, and the Getting Word African American Oral History Project. Later the installation may travel to and be on display Monticello itself, where historians have recently uncovered new archival information about Hemmings such as samples of his handwriting.
In a previous project that was shown at the Fabric Workshop in 2019, titled Monumental Cloth, the Flag We Should Know, Clark delved into the history of a lesser-known flag in U.S. history, the one that was flown by the Confederacy during the Civil War and was used to surrender.
L to R: Paul Farber, director and co-founder of Monument Lab, author Gayle Jessup White, and artist Sonya Clark on a site visit to Monticello in connection with Getting Word, Declaration House, Charlottesville, VA, 2024. Photo: AJ Mitchell/Monument Lab.
The history of that flag of truce dates back to April 9, 1864, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee sent a rider forward waving it, putting an end to the long and deadly national conflict. Union General Ulysses S. Grant accepted the Confederacy’s surrender and cut the flag in half so that the rider, who had purchased the repurposed dishtowel just days before in Richmond, Virginia, could ensure safe passage back across Union lines. For that project, Clark teamed up with the Fabric Workshop to create 101 replicas of the cloth, including a massive one that was 100 times the size of the original.
As for Philadelphia and Declaration House, the official unveiling of the project today will be celebrated with a block party, as part of the city’s Welcome America festival, and 15,000 copies of a printed newspaper detailing the project and the significance of the Declaration of Independence will be distributed.
Sonya Clark, The Descendants of Monticello (2024), on view at Declaration House, Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, PA. Photo: Steve Weinik/Monument Lab.
Like most artists, Clark does not want to be prescriptive about what viewers take away but said it’s fine if people “walk away with an open-ended question.” She added: “That will allow the work to do what I believe artwork does very well. I love the capaciousness and generosity of artwork to hold as many thoughts and ideas as possible.”
The Descendants of Monticello is on view at Declaration House, 700 Market St, Philadelphia, through September 8.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

“My aim is to make from my obsessions and ideas the strongest, most coherent visual statement possible,” artist Christina Ramberg once said, describing her process and intentions.
Closely affiliated with the Chicago Imagists, a loose group of artists formed in the mid-1960s who favored representation and bold aesthetics, Ramberg (1946–1995) produced a powerful body of work with a distinctive personal style during her comparatively short life and career.
Ramberg’s work is immediately recognizable, primarily focused on figural elements of the female form—such as hands, hairstyles, garments, and, most notably, torsos—and rendered in a graphic and highly stylized aesthetic. Tapping contrasting themes and ideas and embracing experimental modes of framing and cropping, Ramberg forged an intrepid path along the boundary between abstraction and representation.
Installation view of “Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective” (2024). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Heralding a resurgence of interest and critical attention to Ramberg’s singular oeuvre is the exhibition “Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective,” on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through August 11, 2024—the first comprehensive survey of her work in nearly three decades. Bringing together roughly 100 works from the Art Institute’s collection as well as from other public and private collections, the show traces her evolving style from early paintings that explored pattern and form through to her mature (and most recognizable) works that feature female torsos, lingerie, and restraints.
Marking this pivotal retrospective, we took a deep dive into Ramberg’s life and work, and below are (just) the essentials you should know about her practice.
Installation view of “Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective” (2024). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Early Inspirations
Even while still a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Ramberg’s fixation with elements of the human body—namely hair, hands, and women’s garments—was evident in her work. Studying under some of the institution’s most historically influential teachers, including Ray Yoshida, a primary mentor of what would become the Chicago Imagists, Ramberg along with her classmates produced work that focused on what the present retrospective terms “furtive figuration.”
Christina Ramberg, Belle Rêve (1969). Photo: Jamie Stukenberg. © The Estate of Christina Ramberg. Collection of Michael J. Robertson and Christopher A. Slapak.
This approach to figuration first fully coalesced in a series of student exhibitions with SAIC as well as in two exhibitions, “False Image” and “False Image II,” organized by Ramberg and fellow students in 1968 and 1969 at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center. “We are interested in the effects gained by withholding information in a work,” Ramberg told the Chicago Daily News while describing the ethos of the work created by the False Image exhibition artists. And withhold her work did.
Christina Ramberg, Hair (1968). Photo: Kris Graves. © The Estate of Christina Ramberg. Collection of Joel Wachs, New York.
An isolated bustier, a cropped foot in a heeled shoe, or, most well-known from the period, depictions of women’s heads from behind, with only the details of their hairstyle shown, Ramberg’s early works were nearly as recognizable for what they showed as for what they didn’t. Within the context of Ramberg’s oeuvre, they foreshadow the artist’s creative trajectory and the themes and motifs that ultimately served as the foundation for her most important works.
Iconic Forms
The 1970s saw Ramberg produce her most iconic body of work. Continuing her exploration of isolated body parts and their configuration, which can be traced in her meticulous sketches and studies of hands, the feminine elements of her work took a turn to the risqué. Corsetry and black lace, brassieres and other lingerie coupled with suggestive poses as well as hands in contorted shapes with carmine-painted nails—and never featuring the subjects’ face—each of Ramberg’s compositions allude to the various ways women’s bodies can be shaped and fashioned.
Christina Ramberg, Probed Cinch (1971). Photo: Clements/Howcroft, Boston. © The estate of Christina Ramberg. Private Collection, New York.
Ramberg’s memories of watching her mother dress informed the works, with Ramberg describing “… I think that the paintings have a lot to do with this, with watching and realizing that a lot of these undergarments totally transform a woman’s body … I thought it was fascinating … in some ways, I thought it was awful.”
Operating along the line between “fascinating” and “awful,” Ramberg’s paintings are at once uncanny and sensually alluring, tapping into the language of fetishism.
Christina Ramberg, Black ‘N Blue Jacket (1981). Photo: Jamie Stukenberg. © The Estate of Christina Ramberg. Collection of Kathy and Chuck Harper, Chicago.
As her practice evolved, however, Ramberg’s figures became less erotic—and less human overall. Pieces from the late 1970s and early 1980s once again feature her signature cropped female torsos but they instead appear robotic, and even diagrammatic; the core elements of painting, such as color, line, shape, and more specifically their precision (a facet of work she had then become most well-known for) became as much the subject of her work as the figures depicted.
Artist as Collector
Although Ramberg is best known for her paintings, a consideration of her oeuvre would be incomplete without mentioning her penchant for collecting.
Ramberg was a prolific collector of objects that in turn served as potent sources of inspiration for her formal works. Frequenting thrift stores and garage sales, as well as the Maxwell Street Market by Chicago’s Southside, Ramberg sought what SAIC Professor Ray Yoshida dubbed “trash treasure,” a term used for one of the sections dedicated to her collecting within the retrospective.
An iteration of Christina Ramberg’s “Doll Wall” installed in her Chicago apartment (1972). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Of the myriad things she collected—from comic book pages to medical illustrations—Ramberg’s collection of dolls, which numbers into the hundreds, stands out the most. In several of the apartments Ramberg lived in throughout her life, she mounted many of these dolls on the wall as well as in exhibitions of her work, but never in the same arrangement twice. In the Art Institute’s retrospective, 155 of her dolls are on view in a manner similar to how she would have presented them. The collection of dolls speaks to her fascination with the body, and her collection ranged from relatively new, mass-produced pieces that reflected racial and gender stereotypes of the time to unique, handmade dolls that give insight into both the doll’s maker and its intended recipient.
Installation view of “Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective” (2024). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Ramberg discussed her doll collection in a 1989 Chicago Tribune interview, saying, “I was interested only in the dolls that had been owned by someone. The ones where the face was worn off and redrawn in, or where something very strange had transpired. What I like about them is their sense of history. I’m interested in what is implied. And the simple fact that they had a life.”
A Turn to Textiles
While Ramberg had long engaged with quilting as a pastime, it wasn’t until the early 1980s that it became a central aspect of her formal artistic practice, allowing her to step back from painting for several years. Beginning in 1983, her quilts were exhibited in gallery and museum shows, with each highlighting the experimental, explorative nature of her work—and harkening back to her penchant for collecting. Though Ramberg relied on traditional quilting techniques and construction, she frequently employed unusual color schemes and patterns as well as fabrics, which were sourced on her travels as well as “trash treasure” missions.
Christina Ramberg, Japanese Showcase (1984). Photo: Jamie Stukenberg. © The Estate of Christina Ramberg. Courtesy of the Estate of Ray Yoshida and Corbett vs. Dempsey.
Just as her habit of collecting provided creative inspiration, her time spent focused on quilting ultimately fostered new ideas and approaches to painting, which she returned to in the mid-1980s with her “satellite paintings.” These new works were markedly different from her previous paintings in both style and material; where previously she favored acrylic on Masonite and applied delicate layers of paint and used careful brushstrokes, she now worked entirely in oil on canvas with impasto paint application, intense scumbling, and visible underpainting.
Christina Ramberg, Untitled #123 (1986). Photo: Jamie Stukenberg. © The Estate of Christina Ramberg. Courtesy of Corbett vs. Dempsey.
Ramberg’s compositions too were a departure from her usual subject matter. The sketch-like geometry and lines, surely inspired by the grids and repetition of quilt patterns, are evocative of a satellite or transmission tower, and their inscrutability evokes the air of abstraction.
Installation view of “Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective” (2024). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Despite a return to painting, Ramberg never ceased quilting. The year before her diagnosis with Prick’s disease—also known as frontotemporal dementia, a rare neurodegenerative disease, which would take her life at the age of 49—she created some of the most innovative and dynamic quilts of her career. Synthesizing material from her archive of collected materials and compositional elements from her earlier paintings, she numbered these late quilted works starting with the Roman numeral “I,” as opposed to her other works of the period which were already numbered into the hundreds, indicating she saw these pieces as a fresh start and new horizon even at the twilight of her life.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More