Eliana Willis

Adam Himebauch’s ears are burning. With his eyes closed, he sneaks a smile as I question Francesca Pessarelli of Ceysson & Bénétière in New York about his performance. He’s in it, meditating while laying down on a white slab with his head on a small pillow—a position he is expected to maintain for over a month. The piece is about “mortality, entombment, sacrifice”—supposedly.
Except, that would take serious discipline and focus. Which I guess a painter would be required to have. But something still feels off and I can’t shake the feeling. I start to wonder: can’t he just go home at night to sleep in his bed? The gallery does close, after all.
But the performance, part of the show “Never Ever Land,” is being livestreamed throughout the duration on YouTube. People would see him get up and leave. Still, wouldn’t he have to go off-camera to use the restroom? Looking closer, I notice a can of seltzer sitting on the platform with Himebauch, sweat dripping down its side as if he had to rush into position when hearing the gallery door buzz.
“Is he really expected to lie here the whole time?” I asked Pessarelli. She looks a little caught off guard and unsure of how to respond. After a brief glance at Himebauch, who remains in character, she begins to talk. (Spoiler alert: By continuing to read this story, you are ruinning the surprise of Himebauch’s piece.)
Adam Himebauch is pictured “meditating.” Photo by Adam Schrader.
“The way the exhibition was communicated publicly, mainly through Adam’s social media… is that people are expecting a performance to be occurring throughout the duration of the exhibition, which is the truth,” Pessarelli responded slowly. “The more direct expectation that people are coming in with is to publicly see him lying here on the platform throughout the show, 24/7. It’s the moment they come in and their expectations aren’t met when the performance is actually effectively happening.”
It turns out, I had caught Himebauch lying on the slab one of the few times throughout the performance he is actually expected to do so. The rest of the time, he will not be at the gallery, but carrying on with his life elsewhere and popping in every now and then to keep up the illusion. The livestream was pre-recorded a few days before the show opened using various camera angles, and filmed throughout the day to allow for changes in light.
People would come in and interact with him in different ways and Pessarelli would pretend to sleep, among other scripted interactions. It’s a fairly short loop, only a couple of hours long. An eagle-eyed viewer might be able to tell that there’s only one camera in the room of the gallery despite multiple camera angles appearing on the screen.
Francesca Pessarelli is pictured removing a seltzer can placed next to the body of Adam Himebauch. Photo by Adam Schrader.
“It wouldn’t be too difficult to tell that it is a loop. And you can see the windows, so if the weather is not quite the same, you know…,” Pessarelli said. She noted that the gallery and its workers, as well as friends of Himebauch, may inadvertently ruin the surprise by posting photos of him while he’s supposed to be meditating.
Buried in its write-up about the show, the gallery dropped clear clues into what is going on, such as noting that “Does it even matter if Adam is really here?” Pessarelli said all one would have to do is read the exhibition text and they would be 90 percent there already. Plus, the meditation slab has a QR code that when scanned, will reveal a livestream where viewers would see the artist “meditating,” even if he were not in the room, a clear reveal.
“The intention is not to lie to people or maliciously trick them. The intention is to play on the habits we all have,” she said. “The orchestrators are not any better or smarter than the spectators who come in. We consume media in the same way. We’re just puppeteering or leveraging our shared relationship with information and the media.”
Only one camera, apart from two security cameras, can be seen in the room with Adam Himebauch during his performance. Photo by Adam Schrader
Himebauch, born in 1983, first made a splash in the New York art scene in 2011 under the cheeky moniker “Hanksy.” But his most recent success is due to his long-running performance project, Back to the Future, which saw him craft the faux persona of an established artist who had found fame in the 1970s. The extensive project culminated in the 2022 solo exhibition at Trotter & Sholer, titled “Retrospective” and an accompanying Taschen book. “Blurring the lines between fact and fabrication is a very interesting thing as I believe we’re all playing roles whether we know it or not,” he said in an Instagram post announcing the book.
Pessarelli said that Himbauch’s latest performance could trigger some spectators into a “defensive reaction” after feeling tricked, which Himebauch and his team accepts. But there is precedent for such a performance by artists who have come before Himebauch, such as 4’33”, composer John Cage’s suite of silence.
Adam Himebauch is pictured “meditating.” Photo by Adam Schrader.
But one thing that didn’t quite sit with me as I was talking to Pessarelli was the justification of the trickery as playful, while discussing one of the most serious issues facing the news industry—media illiteracy and the false presentation of fact.
“It’s easier to think about serious things when you interject humor into it,” Pessarelli responded on Himebauch’s behalf when pressed. Later, Himebauch said in an emailed statement through Pessarelli that “it’s the jesters and comedians who have historically been able to get away with telling the truth.”
Vita Kari, another performance artist, attended the show with me and said they found it inspirational how Himebauch played with the illusion of reality in his work, particularly the digital integration of the livestream into the performance.
“Obsessed. It was really different than what I thought it was going to be,” they said. “I thought it was going to be like a resilience training piece, but it was more of a ‘what am I really looking at’ piece. And way more playful than I thought.”
“Adam Himebauch: Never Ever Land” is on view at Ceysson & Bénétière, 956 Madison Ave #2F, New York, through March 16.
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The third edition of the biennial Desert X AlUla show is now open in Saudi Arabia. “In the Presence of Absence” draws on what the organizers say are misconceptions of the desert as an empty space where, they say, “there is much more than meets the eye.”
Consisting of 15 newly commissioned pieces, the biennial is led by independent curator Maya El Khalil and Brazilian artist Marcello Dantas, with artistic direction from curator and art advisor Raneem Farsi, and independent curator Neville Wakefield.
Ayman Yossri Daydban, A rock garden in the shape of a full-sized soccer field, Desert X AlUla 2024, photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy of The Royal Commission for AlUla
An open-air exhibition that is free to all, the show takes place in the desert on the Arabian Peninsula. For the first time, this edition will be sited across three locations: in the desert landscape of Wad AlFann; among the black lava stone terrain and striking views of Harrat Uwayrid; and at the AlManshiyah Plaza, which features the carefully preserved AlUla Railway Station.
Site-responsive works by Saudi and international artists appear side by side, including Monira Al Qadiri, Sara Alissa, Ayman Yossri Daydban, Kimsooja, Ibrahim Mahama, Giuseppe Penone, Faisal Samra, and Bosco Sodi, among others. 
Karola Braga, Sfumato, Desert X AlUla 2024. Photo by Lance Gerber, Courtesy of The Royal Commission for AlUla.
In particular, a press release for the show describes a piece by performance artist Tino Sehgal, tucked away like a bonus track on a record. Sehgal’s work, (un titled) [sic], “emphasizes the interaction between the natural elements of the desert and the human intervention through movement and sound,” the release reads, “creating a connection between the visitor, the environment, and the intangible aspects of experience and imagination.”
Artnet News’s Rebecca Anne Proctor called Desert AlUla one of the six must-see art events across the Middle East for 2023. Proctor wrote in 2022: “The seeds are being sowed in AlUla for a future art ecosystem, and the biennial can arguably be viewed as a catalyst.”
“We challenged the artists to adjust their perspective to encounter the unseen aspects of the place with reverence, attuning to the forces, rhythms and processes that shape the landscape in imperceptible ways,” El Khalil said. 
See more images from the show below.
Aseel AlYaqoub, Weird Life_ An ode to desert varnish, Desert X AlUla 2024. Photo by Lance Gerber, Courtesy of The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Ayman Yossri Daydban, A rock garden in the shape of a full-sized soccer field, Desert X AlUla 2024, photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy of The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Kimsooja, To Breathe – AlUla, Desert X AlUla 2024, photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy of The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Ibrahim Mahama, Dung Bara – The Rider Does Not Know the Ground Is Hot, Desert X AlUla 2024, photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy of The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Desert X AlUla is on view in AlUla through March 23.
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Andy Warhol once thought it would be downright glamorous to be reincarnated as “a great big ring on Liz Taylor’s finger.” It’s this fascination with fame and celebrity that drove him to create dozens upon dozens of hagiographic portraits—of musicians, cinematic stars (Taylor included), athletes, political figures—over his career. These works didn’t just take the form of his signature silkscreens, but also as his lesser-seen film portraits, a kinetic format that framed subjects in no less of an exalted light. He called them his Screen Tests.
In time for Frieze Week, Christie’s Los Angeles, in partnership with the Andy Warhol Museum, will showcase a special selection of these Screen Tests. It will be a rare outing for these four-minute moving image works, the preservation and digitization of which remain an ongoing project for the museum and its Film Initiative.
“We’ve preserved about 40 percent of them and that means there are a lot more that haven’t been seen or shared,” Patrick Moore, the museum’s director, told Artnet News over the phone. “That’s what we’re trying to do at Christie’s. We want people to see some of the iconic figures, but also show them a few that they wouldn’t have been before because they’ve just been transferred.”
Andy Warhol, Lou Reed (Coke) [ST269] (1966). © The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved. Film still courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum.
Between 1964 and 1966, Warhol shot upwards of 400 of these Screen Tests, which depicted people in his circle or whoever else happened into his Factory. There were his superstars like Jane Holzer, Gerard Malanga, and Edie Sedgwick; musicians including Bob Dylan and members of the Velvet Underground; and downtown figures ranging from poet Allen Ginsberg to writer Susan Sontag. Warhol instructed them to sit in front of his 16-millimeter camera, which captured the tiniest facial tic or movement, without sound.
“A proper painter was not supposed to be also a filmmaker in those days,” Moore explained. “The Screen Tests opened up a different kind of portraiture for Warhol. It was the beginning of an idea, which is, ‘I’m not going to be pigeonholed into any artistic medium.’”
In his lifetime, Warhol would deposit the camera originals of his Screen Tests at the Museum of Modern Art, which today works with the Andy Warhol Museum to transfer the films to high-definition digital formats. This work has enabled modern-day showcases of the Screen Tests, such as in a 2009 series of concerts, where the films were accompanied by musicians Dean & Britta’s haunting soundtrack, and in 2015, when they were splashed across Times Square billboards as part of a Midnight Moment.
Andy Warhol, Jane Holzer [ST144] (1964). © The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved. Film still courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum.
The Christie’s exhibition will present eight of these portraits, including ones of Dennis Hopper, Bob Dylan, Salvador Dalí, Lou Reed, and Niki de Saint Phalle. Two new Screen Tests will go on view for the first time, featuring Holzer and Sedgwick (in color). They will be projected on a loop in Christie’s dedicated gallery space, at 14 feet in height and 16 feet in width, in a screening that the auction house’s deputy chairman, Sonya Roth, described as “immersive.”
“It ends up being this intimate portrait of the person,” she told me. “You’re really forced to look at the detail at that scale. They’ll be really engrossing.”
Both Roth and Moore were quick to highlight the role of collector Maria Bell in pushing through the exhibition. Bell, who is currently producing a documentary on Warhol, was keen to display the Screen Tests, Moore said, to spotlight the Film Initiative and “how much support the films need to be preserved and made accessible.”
Not least, that Warhol’s Screen Tests would go on view in L.A., the heart of America’s moviemaking machine, seems apropos to an artist who always looked to the stars. Moore, in a statement, called it “fitting that his films would now serve to inspire new generations of artists and filmmakers.” Warhol might even deem it glamorous.
“Andy Warhol Screen Tests” are on view at Christie’s Los Angeles, 336 N Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, California, February 27 to March 14. 
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Alreadymade, its title inspired by Duchamp’s concept of the “readymade”—wherein an ordinary object is elevated to the status of a work of art—extends beyond mere attribution, prompting questions that may arise from the very answers she seeks.
History reveals a pattern of reluctance to recognize the intellectual and creative authority of female artists and writers. Figures like Artemisia Gentileschi, Simone de Beauvoir, and Lee Krasner were overshadowed by their male counterparts in their lifetimes. Through Alreadymade, we are reminded of historical injustices, urging us to reassess the narratives we’ve been taught.
See more images from the show below.
Installation view of “Barbara Visser – Alreadymade” at Kunsthaus Zürich. 2024. Photo: © Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich. © Barbara Visser.
Installation view of “Barbara Visser – Alreadymade” at Kunsthaus Zürich. 2024. Photo: © Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich. © Barbara Visser.
Installation view of “Barbara Visser – Alreadymade” at Kunsthaus Zürich. 2024. Photo: © Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich. © Barbara Visser.
Installation view of “Barbara Visser – Alreadymade” at Kunsthaus Zürich. 2024. Photo: © Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich. © Barbara Visser.
“Barbara Visser – Alreadymade” is on view at Kunsthaus Zürich, Heimplatz, CH–8001 Zurich, February 9 through May 12. More

An elaborate installation featuring a giant dragon and a poetic tale about a half-fish, half-human creature of Cantonese origin will take over the Nordic Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale. It is the first time the pavilion will feature Nordic artists of East Asian heritage.
Conceived by Lap-See Lam, a Swedish-born artist of Hong Kong Cantonese descent, The Altersea Opera explores the existential implications of displacement and belonging as a result of migration through Cantonese myth as well as Lam’s own family heritage.
Although this is the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac, the giant dragon head and tail that will bookend the pavilion has a rich backstory beyond its astrological significance. The ornate sculptures were originally part of a 100-feet-long, three-story dragon ship. Built in Shanghai, in the 1990s it was home to a floating Chinese restaurant called Sea Palace in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was repurposed as a ghost ship at the Gröna Lund theme park after the restaurant closed.
Lam discovered the ramshackle ship at the theme park and it fueled her plans for The Altersea Opera. She also drew inspiration from the Red Boat Opera Company, a traveling Cantonese opera troupe that popularized the art form in the 19th century. The “boat” structure of the installation at the Venice Biennale will be built with bamboo scaffolding by a master of the craft who recently relocated from Hong Kong to Manchester, U.K.
At the center of Lam’s installation is a film re-imagining the journey of Lo Ting, a hybrid human-fish figure of Cantonese myth. Living between the sea and the land, Lo Ting has been regarded as a symbol of Hong Kong’s cultural identity—he is said to be one of the early inhabitants of Lantau Island, the largest outlying island in the city.
Lap-See Lam with the dragon tail by Lu Guangzheng for The Altersea Opera. Photo: Mattias Lindbäck/Moderna Museet.
Lam’s film is based on a libretto she wrote and was shot aboard the dragon ship. It tells the tale of Lo Ting’s longing to return to a former home, Fragrant Harbor, which is the literal meaning of Hong Kong in written Chinese.
The artist’s retelling of the tale centers around an encounter between two versions of Lo Ting, one of which is from the past and the other from the future. The latter attempts to reshape the fate of his kind by steering his past self onto a different path. The two versions of Lo Ting eventually meet on the dragon ship accidentally summoned by the past Lo Ting while praying to the sea goddess of Ma-Zhou (also known as Mazu or Tin Hau, Queen of Heaven), which takes them on to a journey to Fragrant Harbor. Once they arrive there, they find it transformed beyond recognition, according to the artist.
“When I started to read about the mythologies surrounding Lo Ting in the Hong Kong context, I quickly understood that it is a figure that is being used by scholars and artists,” Lam said in a video call from her studio in Stockholm. “It has very loaded significance within the contemporary art scene.”
From Lap-See Lam’s film shoot with Bruno Hibombo in the role of Lo Ting. Textile artwork by Kholod Hawash. © Lap-See Lam. Photo: Mai Nestor/Moderna Museet.
Born in 1990, Lam grew up in the back room of her parents’ Stockholm-based Chinese restaurant, which was founded by her grandmother who emigrated from Hong Kong. Her experience as a minority in Sweden underpins much of The Altersea Opera and, more generally, resonates with the biennial’s theme of “Foreigners Everywhere.”
“My work focuses on generational loss. Although the work comes from a very specific need to explore something personal, I really want to make it universal, to have that potential to reach out [to you] no matter who you are,” the artist said. “I want to make work that also lives in this emotional space, and that can be relevant for the generations before or after me.”
This year’s Nordic pavilion exhibition, which is led by Moderna Museet in Stockholm in collaboration with the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and the Finnish National Gallery Kiasma (Museum of Contemporary Art), also features a music score composed by the Norwegian-born composer Tze Yeung Ho, who shares the same heritage as Lam. A textile work by Kholod Hawash, an Iraq-born artist based in Espoo, Finland, will also feature in the pavilion. The project is developed in collaboration with Asrin Haidari, the curator of Swedish and Nordic art at Moderna Museet.
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