Eliana Willis

Come fall, London’s art enthusiasts eagerly await the unveiling of Tate Modern’s annual Turbine Hall commission–a rare chance for a contemporary art star to work on a truly monumental scale, filling the museum’s cavernous central exhibition hall. In recent memory, Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui wowed audiences with the sheer scale of his cascading bottle caps. Last year, Mire Lee’s grotesque body-horror contraptions divided opinion. But the response to this year’s much subtler installation by Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara has been comparatively muted.
Decreed “tame” by the critics, Goavve-Geabbil does not stun or surprise like its predecessors. Instead, it asks of us a more intimate engagement. In return, Sara promises to open our eyes to a different way of life, one in which humans hold sacred their interdependent relationship with nature. These are the lessons of Sámi philosophy, developed over centuries by people Indigenous to the Sápmi region, which stretches across the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
“You are activating a whole philosophy, a different way of being,” said Sara during a press conference at Tate Modern on Monday morning. “You have to connect spiritually, to awaken a different knowledge apparatus that lives in your body, when you live with animals in this close co-existence.”
Installation view of “Hyundai Commission: Maret Anne Sara” in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, 2025. Photo: Larina Fernandez, © Tate.
Rendering Reverence
Goavve-Geabbil has two parts. The standout piece at the back, titled Geabbil, invites audiences to wander through a maze-like structure of simple wooden fences that, in four places, spiral inwards to reveal a circular nook of fur-lined seats dotted with headphones. Sara is descended from a Sámi reindeer herding family and the viewer can tune into her personal account of learning to care for and revere the animal. This pact between man and beast also involves the latter’s slaughter, a sacrifice honored by the careful use of its entire being, from bones to fur and meat. As such, skulls decorate Sara’s structure.
“The beauty is what you can make out of them, how you can give them a new life,” said Sara.
Seen from above, on the Turbine Hall’s bridge, Geabbil‘s swirling forms mimic those found inside a reindeer’s nose. This astonishing labyrinth is a feat of biological engineering with the ability to heat each new breath of air by 175°F, allowing reindeer to survive the extreme cold. By magnifying these forms until they dwarf us, Sara emphasizes our humble position within nature’s sprawling systems, whether we care to acknowledge it or not.
Portrait of Máret Ánne Sara at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, 2025. Photo: Sonal Bakrania. © Tate.
“Your experience is of bodily inferiority, entering this universe of natural intelligence embedded with Indigenous science,” explained Sara. “It’s so big you might lose your direction at certain points. A modern human with modern rationality believes they can rule over nature but from the Sámi perspective we are equal to everything.”
Other references to the herding tradition include “reindeer earmarks,” distinctive markings that are passed down generations, carved into the fence’s poles. Further immersing the attentive viewer is a layered scent and soundscape that includes recordings from the Sápmi landscape and examples of joik, a form of Sámi song that can serve as a channel for communion with the elements of our world.
Climate Focus
The work’s second part, Goavve, towers over the viewer, reaching up over 90 feet to the ceiling. Its column of reindeer hides tautly stretched by electrical power cables is a memorial to reindeer lives lost to climate change. Sudden temperature fluctuations are disorientating and can also prevent animals from accessing crucial food sources. The cables also refer to the ongoing exploitation of Sápmi lands through mining activities, which not only destroys habitats and displaces communities, but risks diminishing age-old ancestral practices.
“I work very consciously with materials in terms of the power they bear,” said Sara. “The hides carry a very strong life energy and spirit within them.” Tied up by cables for Goavve, they become “a symbol of life trapped within the mechanisms of capitalism and extractivism.”
Installation view of “Hyundai Commission: Maret Anne Sara” in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, 2025. Photo: Yili Liu, © Tate.
Sara has long sought to raise awareness of issues facing the Sámi people thorough her art. The most notable example is Pile O’Sápmi, which she made in response to Norway’s order that her brother cull part of his livestock. While he launched an unsuccessful legal challenge, she created vast sculptural works out of reindeer skulls. By referring to a famous historical photograph in which men stand on a mountainous pile of bison skulls, the works’ title forges a link between the Sámi plight and those of other Indigenous communities across the world. Bison were hunted to near extinction by European settlers as a means of depriving Native Americans of a vital life force.
At the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, Sara converted the Nordic Pavilion into the Sámi Pavilion, where she placed the corpse of a reindeer calf within a swirling cocoon of hanging birch branches to make a mobile. Other sculptural works were made of reindeer intestines, referring to the emotional “gut” knowledge that belongs to all living beings. It is this infusion of Sámi philosophy that prevents Sara’s work from ever feeling morbid. Rather, it is a unique, multi-sensory celebration of all life.
“Hyundai Commission: Máret Ánne Sara: Goavve-Geabbil” is on view at Tate Modern, London until April 6, 2026.  More

Though she is nearing 80 years old, legendary performance artist Marina Abramović has no plans to slow down. In fact, this month she is set to premiere what she believes is her “most ambitious” performance yet for Factory International in Manchester. Balkan Erotic Epic is a contemporary take on ancient traditions that explores the tension between spirituality and sexuality, one that features no less than 70 performers.
Though little has yet been revealed about the highly-anticipated show, Abramović has released behind-the-scenes images from rehearsals.
From Marina Abramović’s Balk Erotic Epic (2025) for Factory International in Manchester. Photo: © Marco Anelli.
Born in former Yugoslavia, now Serbia, in 1946, Abramović has drawn on her Balkan heritage to re-examine ancient folkloric rituals and beliefs in a mega four-hour, 13-part performance of dance and live music. But the epic doesn’t stop at elaborate costumes and complex choreographies; further pre-filmed scenes will be transmitted via surrounding screens. Throughout, we will come to understand the erotic not as something taboo but as an energizing life source.
Audiences are free to navigate the space as they wish, but are warned that performances may turn “intimate” or “feverish,” with graphic scenes, full nudity, and simulated acts. If this sounds potentially uncomfortable, that’s the point. Abramović is staying true to form in confronting viewers with the full scope and intensity of human experience. Over four hours, it may even feel like something of an assault on the senses.
Rehearsal of “Tito’s Funeral” from Marina Abramović’s Balk Erotic Epic (2025) for Factory International in Manchester. Photo: © Marco Anelli.
“Through this project, I would like to show poetry, desperation, pain, hope, suffering, and reflect our own mortality,” the artist said. She is certainly no stranger to grueling performances designed to push her to her limits. These include having a bow and arrow aimed at her heart, passing out as she lay at the center of a burning star-shaped wooden frame, and walking halfway along the Great Wall of China to meet, and break up, with her ex-partner Ulay.
“In our culture today, we label anything erotic as pornography,” she added. “This gives me a chance to go back to my Slavic roots and culture, look back to ancient rituals and deal with sexuality, in relationship to the universe and the unanswered questions of our existence.”
Rehearsal of “Orgy” from Marina Abramović’s Balk Erotic Epic (2025) for Factory International in Manchester. Photo: © Marco Anelli.
No mean feat! And one that will be achieved by all manner of acts, from a giant orgy to dancing skeletons and a “mushroom garden” populated by fake phalluses. The reasoning behind this flagrant lack of modesty is Abramović’s finding that, in Balkan culture, many rituals have centered around genitalia. It was a topic that first began to interest her during the making of her 2005 film Balkan Erotic, which similarly focuses on ceremonial acts performed in the nude.
Some of the traditional rites that are being revived include the dressing of a naked corpse, men penetrating the soil to improve its fertility, and a pregnant woman being soaked in milk. These scenes will, Abramović believes, connect us to the history of humanity, revealing to us the same hopes and anxieties that we feel today.
Research of “Tito’s Funeral” from Marina Abramović’s Balk Erotic Epic (2025) for Factory International in Manchester. Photo: © Marco Anelli.
Though she has long been one of the art world’s most talked about celebrities, Marina Abramović is having something of a moment this fall. Just last week, she threw a well-attended rave at Saatchi Yates in central London that had queues curling around the block. A sweeping retrospective has just opened at the Albertina in Vienna and a second was recently announced by the Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice, set to run during next year’s Biennale. Abramović is the first living woman artist to receive the honor.
“Balkan Erotic Epic” is on view at Aviva Studios, Aviva Studios, Water St, Manchester, through October 19, followed by an international tour.  More

“Magritte and Les Lalanne: In the Mind’s Garden,” which opened this week at Di Donna Galleries in New York’s Upper East Side, pairs the Belgian Surrealist with the husband-and-wife duo Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne. Both shared an affinity for reimagining nature as a poetic, dreamlike force. Rather than simply depicting the natural world, Magritte and the Lalannes revealed in it the mysterious and the uncanny—sometimes lighthearted, sometimes heady. They also reveled in breaking down its laws.
“There’s a strong interest in nature and also metamorphosis,” said Emmanuel Di Donna, motioning to an iconic Claude Lalanne Choupatte—“if you look at the cabbage with chicken feet. It’s morphing into a fantastical object.”
Installation view of Magritte and Les Lalanne: In the Mind’s Garden at Di Donna Galleries. Photographer: Pauline Shapiro. René Magritte: © 2025 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
“In the Mind’s Garden” unites Di Donna and Ben Brown, who first met when they both worked at Sotheby’s before setting up their own galleries. The London-based Ben Brown Fine Arts is closely associated with landmark Lalanne exhibitions, like the massive and spectacular “Planète Lalanne” in Venice. “I thought, what do I do next?” Brown said. “I thought I’d lie low for two years and then this came up. It was perfect because it’s much more intimate.”
Di Donna focused on Magritte and Brown on the Lalannes, then they’d meet in the middle. “It has come out as perfectly as we would have wanted,” Brown said. “The juxtaposition has been incredibly successful.”
Altogether, the show gathers more than 70 works, most drawn from private collections. Yes, some of the iconic Lalanne sheep flock appear, too. The show also revives the artists’ historical link to Alexander Iolas, the Greek-American dealer who represented both Magritte and the Lalannes. Sotheby’s later described Iolas as the man who “transformed René Magritte from a Belgian oddity to a worldwide celebrity.” Claude Lalanne put it more simply: “Our success was really entirely thanks to Iolas.”
The day before the opening, I toured the show with its curators. The exhibition sets two distinct visions of the surreal side by side—sometimes overlapping, sometimes diverging, always in dialogue. Here are some standout works, with commentary from the dealers.
Claude Lalanne, Portrait d’Alexandre Iolas (1974)
Claude Lalanne, Portrait d’Alexandre Iolas (1974). On loan. © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Pauline Shapiro Photography. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
The enigmatic dealer is depicted solemnly with his head framed by a jaw-like vise.
Di Donna: “He was the connective tissue” said Di Donna, “he represented all three: the Lalannes and Magritte. He was incredibly active, a Greek dealer who introduced Surrealism not just in America but also in Paris and London.”
Brown: “He died in the mid-’80s. He had galleries in Athens, Milan, Paris, New York. He worked with de Kooning, with Warhol—famously the ‘Last Supper.’ He also represented Ed Ruscha… Iolas was really the instigator of quite a lot of things in those days.”
“He put together a lot of great collections for people like the de Menils, the Agnellis, and the Rothschilds, which is why all of those collections have both Magritte and Lalanne in them, because these were stable artists. He was also a very difficult human being—complex, exuberant, intelligent, and very good at enticing wealthy collectors into his orbit.”
François-Xavier Lalanne, Hippopotame I, 1968/98
François-Xavier Lalanne, Hippopotame I (1968/98). © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Pauline Shapiro Photography. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
Combining beauty with functionality, Hippopotame I is a marvelous life-size representation of a hippopotamus that also functions as a bath, complete with a sink.
Installation view of Magritte and Les Lalanne: In the Mind’s Garden at Di Donna Galleries. Photographer: Pauline Shapiro. René Magritte: © 2025 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
Brown: “This is quite iconic. There are three of these, all different. One is in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. One was a commission from Marcel Duchamp’s wife ‘Teeny.’ This one I bought about seven years ago. It’s a fully functioning bath. The plumbing runs through the leg. You can hook it up, and it works.”
René Magritte, Le miroir universel (1938–39)
René Magritte, Le Miroir Universel (1938–39). On loan. © 2025 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Pauline Shapiro Photography. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
Le miroir universel belongs to Magritte’s La magie noire series. It depicts a nude figure leaning against a rock as her body metamorphoses from flesh into the cerulean blue sky, a seamless fusion of the intimate and the infinite. At auction, it last appeared at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October 2023, where it sold for HKD 77,575,000 ($ 9.9 million).
Di Donna: “The idea of this woman morphing into the landscape—it’s like inside and outside, which we’ve played with here in the theme of the exhibition. She’s becoming part of the landscape. It’s very poetic. She’s becoming very sculptural, with those eyes that have no pupils. She’s steady, ingrained in the landscape. The subject is his wife, Georgette. Here she’s both intimate and concealed, which speaks to themes of identity and concealment that run throughout his work.”
René Magritte, Moralité du Sommeil (ca. 1941)
René Magritte, Moralité du Sommeil (ca. 1941). © 2025 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Pauline Shapiro Photography. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
The show also highlights Magritte’s paintings that extend the exhibition’s themes of interior and exterior, private and public, dream and waking life.
Di Donna: “Moralité du Sommeil embodies two of the major themes of the exhibition—the interplay between outdoors and indoors, and the desires of the unconscious mind. The anonymous central figure is imprisoned within the darkness of her own subconscious, while the brighter, less threatening ‘real’ world lies just beyond, suggested by gentle rolling hills. This is a striking example of Magritte’s manipulation of light and shadow, compelling the viewer’s gaze to bounce between interior and exterior realms, revealing the unconscious as an active, inescapable force shaping perception.”
Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, Pomme de Ben (2007)
Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, Pomme de Ben (2007). On loan. © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Pauline Shapiro Photography. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne were intertwined and showed their work together, but they had two distinct practices and rarely combined their talents.
Di Donna: “The apple is a typical form of Claude and obviously, the monkey, is a François-Xavier animal, which he did many times. But they decided to put it together.”
Brown: “Originally, there was an invitation card to my first exhibition when they did a photo montage of two sculptures joined—the monkey on the stem of the apple. I had to explain to everybody that the they were separate sculptures. Four or five months later they said, ‘Come on, we’ve got a sculpture for you. It’s called Pomme de Ben.’” Voila.
René Magritte, Le chœur des sphinges (1964)
René Magritte, Le Chœur des Sphinges (1964). © 2025 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Pauline Shapiro Photography. Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries, New York.
Di Donna: “Deceptively simple upon first glance, this painting quickly reveals a subtle strangeness that challenges perception. A vast green forest is topped by a clear blue sky, dotted with mysterious forms seemingly extracted from the canopy of leaves below. Among these suspended shapes is a suggested pipe—one of the most emblematic motifs of Magritte’s visual language.”

“Magritte and Les Lalanne: In the Mind’s Garden” is now on view at Di Donna Galleries, 744 Madison Avenue, New York, through December 13, 2025. More

For the first time possibly ever, there is not a single ad to be seen in Grand Central Terminal. “Humans of New York,” Brandon Stanton‘s popular social media art series of photographs of people he’s interviewed on the city’s streets, has taken over each and every one of the 150 video billboards in the grand concourse, as well as the subway ads below in Grand Central Station for “Dear New York.”
“This beautiful art installation transforms the terminal into a photographic display of New Yorkers telling their stories from all walks of life—serving as a powerful reminder of our shared humanity,” MTA director of commercial ventures Mary John said in a statement. “It is the first time an artist has unified digital displays in both the terminal and subway station below, and the MTA coordinated across many corners of our organization to make this happen.”
It’s New York’s largest public art installation in 20 years, since The Gates by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a magical pathway of saffron-colored fabric in Central Park. And it’s all the more impressive in that Stanton paid for it all out of pocket, as a gift to the city.
“If it provides even the slightest amount of joy, solace, beauty, or connection to the 750,000 people who pass through Grand Central every day—we have achieved our goal,” he wrote on Facebook.
The “Humans of New York” art installation “Dear New York” in the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal. Photo: courtesy of Brandon Stanton.
The Project Was a Massive Undertaking
The original plan was to use the proceeds from his new book, Dear New York, but Stanton ended up having to dip into his life savings to cover the total cost, which included space rental and covering the station’s lost ad revenue. The artist and journalist, who wrote the best-selling book Humans of New York, declined to provide an exact figure, but told the New York Times that “I no longer have any stocks.”
Stanton has shot portraits of 10,000 people across the five boroughs and beyond since beginning “Humans of New York” in 2010, creating a kind of photographic census of the city. (He has since expanded the project’s scope internationally, to 40 countries and counting.)
The “Humans of New York” art installation “Dear New York” in the passageways of Grand Central Station. Photo: courtesy of Brandon Stanton.
“Dear New York” is projecting some of those images, enlarged to be 50 feet tall, onto the towering columns beneath the station’s famed starry ceiling. It’s all set to a soundtrack from the Juilliard School, which has provided more than 100 hours of music in various genres from live performances by students, alumni, and faculty.
Other photos have been printed on vinyl and affixed to the tile walls of the passageways down in the subway station. There’s also a photo display mounted inside the station’s Vanderbilt Hall, where Stanton has shared the stage with 10 local artists and 600 New York City public school kids.
The “Humans of New York” art installation “Dear New York” in Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal. Photo: courtesy of Brandon Stanton.
To bring the project to life, Stanton tapped Broadway producer David Korins, who worked on Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Immersive Van Gogh, as the creative director for experience in the main concourse. Andrea Trabucco-Campos, a partner at the design firm Pentagram, was responsible for laying out the installations across the labyrinthine subway tunnels below.
Stanton, who has over 30 million followers across social media platforms, spent about six months organizing the exhibition.
The “Humans of New York” art installation “Dear New York” in the passageways of Grand Central Station. Photo: courtesy of Brandon Stanton.
The opening was timed to the release of the Dear New York. (Once he covers the exhibition’s installation costs, Stanton plans to donate the book’s profits to New York City charities; he has raised over $10 million to date through “Humans of New York.”)
“It is a love letter to the people of this city, and about the people of this city,” Stanton said of the exhibition in a statement. “Everyone who visits ‘Dear New York’ will not only see the art, they will become a part of it.”
The “Humans of New York” art installation “Dear New York” in the passageways of Grand Central Station. Photo: courtesy of Brandon Stanton.
“Dear New York” is on view at Grand Central Terminal and Grand Central Station, between East 42nd and 45th Streets and Lexington and Vanderbilt Avenues, New York, New York, October 6–19, 2025.  More

The industrial halls of Berghain will soon be the site of Pierre Huyghe’s first artistic foray into quantum physics, with a new commission from the LAS Art Foundation’s Sensing Quantum program. The large-scale project, launched in partnership with Hartwig Art Foundation, opens January 23, 2026, and runs until March 8, marking Huyghe’s first solo institutional presentation in the German capital.
Though many details remain under wraps, Huyghe’s upcoming installation is said to revolve around uncertainty as both subject and method, drawing on quantum experiments and incorporating film, sound, dust, vibrations, and light. Concepts that have long fascinated Huyghe—indeterminacy, autonomy, and systems thinking, as well as the more-than-human—resonate naturally with aspects of quantum logic.
Halle am Berghain. Photo: Stefanie Loos AFP via Getty Images.
The monumental two-story halls of Halle am Berghain, a former thermal power station from the 1950s, provide a fitting backdrop. Huyghe is known for creating immersive environments that pulse with unpredictability, which are often referred to as “ecosystems.”
“Pierre is one of the leading artists of our generation,” said Bettina Kames, the director of LAS, in a video call. “He is wholly devoted to his projects—perfection, detail, and conceptual rigor guide everything he does.”
Few who saw it will forget his outdoor installation at Documenta 13, Untilled (2011–12), where he transformed a forgotten industrial site into a microcosm of autonomous life: a bee colony thrived on a statue, while a white greyhound with a pink leg wandered through the landscape. At the Pinault Collection’s Punta della Dogana in Venice last year, for his major work Liminal, visitors navigated a dark, cavernous installation of A.I.-inflected films, performances, and living marine life—an exploration of the boundary between human and nonhuman. The move toward quantum systems, with their inherent uncertainty and instability, is a logical continuation of this trajectory.
Pierre Huyghe Liminal (temporary title) (2024–ongoing). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Marian Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Esther Schipper, and TARO NASU. © Pierre Huyghe, by SIAE 2023.
“At a moment when quantum and A.I. technologies are beginning to converge, this project not only stages their philosophical and perceptual implications, but also asks what worlds might be conceived of—impossible, unstable, or yet to come,” the institution said via email.
In a statement, Huyghe described the new work as “a hybrid creature, an infinite membrane carved by void… an observer witnessing the ambiguous nature of the entity, its monstrosity.” The accompanying film, he wrote, “portrays an inexistent being, a soulscape, a radical outside,” aiming to turn states of uncertainty into a cosmos.
Notably, the project stems from a collaboration with quantum physicist Tommaso Calarco, co-author of the Quantum Manifesto, which sets Europe’s agenda for quantum research. “Luckily, Calarco is an art lover,” Kames noted. Calarco’s discussions with the artist have informed Huyghe’s experiments with quantum systems “as raw material,” transforming quantum properties into perceptible experiences. “The project with Huyghe is at such a high level,” added Kames. “It is one of the most important projects we have ever done at LAS.”
Pierre Huyghe, 2025, video still. Commissioned by LAS Art Foundation and Hartwig Art Foundation. Courtesy the artist. © Pierre Huyghe, 2025.
LAS Art Foundation, a nomadic institution bridging art, science, and technology, launched the Sensing Quantum program to explore the implications of quantum computing and theory. Laure Prouvost’s inaugural project earlier this year, which examined audio and visual manifestations quantum noise, in an artistic collaboration with Google Quantum A.I. won the S+T+ARTS award from the E.U. Commission.
In addition to ambitious visual art projects, Sensing Quantum includes endeavors with composers, a learning program, and a symposium coming up this month, all of which aims to illuminate some of the most elusive principles and hard-to-grasp elements of quantum mechanics through direct experience. Huyghe’s project will certainly mark an apex of it.
After its launch in Berlin, the presentation will travel to Amsterdam in 2026, presented by the Hartwig Art Foundation, which is currently creating a brick-and-mortar museum. Beatrix Ruf, the director of the Hartwig Art Foundation, said she is “thrilled and grateful” to be involved in this new chapter in Huyghe’s work with the LAS Art Foundation, and that the “inspiring collaboration is now opening up exciting avenues into the forward-looking world of quantum.”
Pierre Huyghe’s Sensing Quantum will be on view from January 23 through March 8, 2026, at LAS Art Foundation, hosting at Halle am Berghain, Berlin. More