Eliana Willis

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    These Were the Highlights of the 4th Lagos Biennial

    Last month, the Lagos Biennial assembled the works of over 80 artists for its fourth edition, on a site named in honor of the first Prime Minister of an “independent” Nigeria. Prior to being renamed Tafawa Balewa Square in 1960, the 14.5-hectare plaza had been known as “Lagos Racecourse,” having been “given” to British colonial authorities by the Oba of Lagos in 1859. In less than two centuries, this particular piece of land was transferred through the hands of the Lagos Royal Family, the British Royal Family, the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and—since Abuja became Nigeria’s capital city—the Lagos State Government. The square is a high-potential and largely underserved space, and the co-artistic directors of this year’s Lagos Biennial, Folakunle Oshun and Kathryn Weir, invited audiences to use the historically charged site to reflect on the idea of the nation-state.
    A Curatorial Critique
    Given the title and theme of “Refuge,” the 2024 Lagos Biennial was undeniably ambitious, in a way that has prompted a flurry of urgent conversations on the ontology of art biennials in post-colonial African urban centers. Unfortunately, public audiences and engagement during the show’s short run were lower than expected. That fact, coupled with a flurry of tech issues, caused considerations around functionality, utility, and accessibility to rise to the fore.
    La Biennale di Venezia, the first art biennale, was founded in 1895, at the height of European imperialism. It is challenging to disassociate its offspring, even in their contemporary and supposedly revolutionary forms, from that origin. So long as art-making practices from Africa and the Global South continue to write themselves into a Eurocentric canon, they will find themselves subjected to the gross power imbalances of Eurocentric hegemonies. The alternative models proposed by the major players in the current restitution wave—of which Nigeria is definitely one—in the coming years are likely to have defining consequences.
    Installation view of the Traces of Ecstasy Pavilion. Image courtesy of the Lagos Biennial.
    Yet the agility of Lagosians and indeed Nigerians remains unmatched, as demonstrated by this event’s extremely dedicated team. Amid global difficulties that are felt exponentially more keenly in Lagos, the mere completion of the event’s fourth edition deserves applause. Indeed, the caliber of works presented was impressive, albeit with a notable number of comments about the lack of (younger) local and regional artists. If imperialism ruled the 19th through to the first half of the 20th century, and the proceeding period of nationalism is being eroded by multinational tech companies, the ways in which African philosophical, artistic, and cultural production choose to assert themselves at this moment feel increasingly critical.
    The philosophies of Ubuntu and universal consciousness are intrinsic to African epistemologies, expressing connection both across space with other humans, the planet, and the cosmos, and across time through the prevalence of ancestral veneration and divination. In African belief systems which understand existence beyond the linearity of time, the importance of process is perhaps already a given for an art event like this. Yet at the same time, the curatorial theme of this Lagos Biennale, “Refuge,” also appeared to semantically echo much of the thinking from documenta 15 (whose theme was collectivity), and the wider global cultural shift that has become popular in non-commercial praxis. And considering the sheer, possibly daunting scale of Tafawa Balewa Square, which requires a certain level of scenography due to its vast open spaces, the curatorial decision to show prototypes rather than final works and to allow for aesthetically ambiguous outputs was bold, if also possibly symptomatic of funding constraints.
    Em’kal Eyongakpa, Betok babhi, Babhi betandat, bassem (2022-2024). Image courtesy of the Lagos Biennial.
    There can be no question about the power and pertinence of the content presented at the fourth Lagos Biennial. Nevertheless, the modes of presentation make for a little bit of head scratching. The jury is still out on how well its theme translated and resonated, within the unique context of Lagos.
    Works of Interest
    Upon entering the main arena at Tafawa Balewa Square, guests were invited to step into a portal of new possibilities by revisiting the wisdom of the past, through the display of a set of doors by legendary artist Demas Nwoko. The artist and architect was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Architectural Biennale in 2023, an apt recognition for his decades of contributions to the discourse on modernity.
    Bruce Onobrakpeya’s sculptures. Image courtesy of the Lagos Biennial.
    The doors prefaced the towering sculptures of one of Nwoko’s Zaria Art Society contemporary, Bruce Onobrakpeya. Masks and Onabrakpeya’s metal works were caged in by used car parts, motherboards, and other waste materials, which formed the outer structure of the sculptures. The artist invites us to remember that energy never dies and that even the most discarded materials may find new purpose and meaning—an important omen in the context of a global state of affairs which seems to be leading to increased violence, both against one another and against the planet itself.
    A packed performance program was kicked off with an emphatic group spectacle by Native Maqari. On a long stretch of fabric, a dancer dressed in a custom piece from the Lagos-based “wearable art brand” IAMISIGO and sporting an extended ponytail covered in black paint contorted her way across its length, marking both the canvas and the surrounding audiences. In a spine-tingling performance underscored by the piercing sounds of the lira (a Moroccan Berber flute), Maqari floated through the crowd, reading out the descriptions of skin bleaching products, and handing out samples to guests. Skin bleaching is a topic that is still under-discussed yet has a booming industry regionally—a blatant hangover from the deep internalization of Eurocentric beauty standards.
    Native Maqari’s performance at the Lagos Biennial. Image courtesy of Ugochukwu Emebiriodo.
    In a film and performance by Jermay Michael Gabriel and Justin Randolph Thompson titled Members Don’t Git Weary, the artists remembered Tafawa Balewa Square as the site of FESTAC ’77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. A guitar solo by Thompson coupled with Amharic prayers and incantations by Michael Gabriel brought to life a moving-image work that revisited pan-African memories through texts from W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey.
    Cameroonian artist Em’kal Eyongakpa’s interpretation of the theme of “refuge” connected deeply with a variety of guests (notably the on-site and construction staff). Incorporating a bass speaker set beneath a wooden palette, the piece’s sound vibrations seemed to invigorate the audiences, who took to sitting, standing, and lying on the installation. In a fast-paced city whose citizens are subjected to all the ills of capitalism, where the acquisition and accumulation of capital supersedes most other ambitions, this opportunity to connect with embodied feelings was particularly well received.
    “Traces of Ecstasy,” a cohesive and collaborative pavilion curated by K.J. Abudu and designed by Nolan Oswald Dennis, most efficiently demonstrated and presented the positive intent of the fourth edition. There, Evan Ifakoya ring-fenced a space for processing healing and trauma, via a sound work that reflected on the migration of spiritual practices across the Black Atlantic.
    At the center of the structure, Temitayo Shonibare’s noteworthy three-channel video installation invited audiences to revisit the recent traumas from Nigeria’s End SARS protests from 2020. Combining animation, raw footage recorded on mobile phones, and found visuals and audio, the piece is underscored by a delectable sound mix, charged with the revolutionary spirit of the fatal protests.
    Overhead view of the Traces of Ecstasy pavilion. Image courtesy of the Lagos Biennial.
    Overhead in the pavilion, a revived interest in Yoruba spirituality—particularly amongst younger generations of continental west Africans, and a diaspora in South, Central, and North America, as well as in Europe—manifested through the flowing adire fabrics of Adeju Thompson’s design practice, Lagos Space Programme. Drawing on the importance of indigo in many west African spiritual practices, the artist prompted the audience to look beyond themselves and take solace in the knowledge of divine protection.
    And truly, the Lagos Biennial was most deeply rooted in the power of faith, which Victor Ehikhamenor deftly presented through the latest evolution of his chapel series, titled Miracle Central. From the center of a physical imitation of a chapel, the voices of bellowing Pentecostal pastors projected to an audience of hanging chairs, instruments, microphones, and a pulpit, with one of the artist’s well-known large-scale rosary works suspended as the backdrop of the chapel.
    Ehikhamenor continues to meditate on the omnipresence of religion in Nigeria, creating space for the urgently needed reflections and conversations on one of the country’s—and the continent’s—most contentious subjects. Through an installation that resonated powerfully with local audiences, the artist demonstrated the possibilities of how multidisciplinary and installation practices can critically engage communities beyond the art industry itself, both locally in Nigeria and in the wider West African region.
    Where Next?
    Even as a host of new galleries cropping up in Lagos in recent years, the city’s biennial is establishing itself as a noteworthy case study for non-commercial exhibitions, locally and in the Global South at large. There was a certain warmth felt as local and international art communities gathered to realize this 4th edition of the Lagos Biennial. Collaboration and community were the most consistent feeling permeating the event, though it must be admitted that these seemed contingent on a certain degree of exclusivity. Simply put, there was also a slight feeling that the art world had descended upon Lagos to talk to itself for a week.
    CBN outdoor cinema at Plan B. Image courtesy of Plan B.
    But finally, some encouragement can be drawn from the fact that the biennial’s conceptual fingerprints are left lingering throughout the city—perhaps most excitingly around the corner from Tafawa Balewa Square, where the multinational collective of artists, curators, and organizers known as CBN (a Fela Kuti-esque parody of the Central Bank of Nigeria), created a 10-day street-cinema. Hosted on the facade of Plan B, an artist residency space, the outdoor screenings programmed an imaginative selection of short and feature films, among other moving-image work by artists. During the run of the biennial, it quickly established itself as the after-hours highlight. The ten-day program was frequented by Lagos Island locals, who were joined by the city’s young creative community and some of the spillover crowd from the biennial.
    Lagos needs no invitation to innovate, and there is a united appreciation for the biennial’s fourth edition as a physical exhibition, especially after the 3rd edition responded to the constraints of COVID by converting itself into a publication. Therefore, despite the challenges faced, one must hope that this exhibition will have inspired new ways of approaching, thinking, and making in Nigeria and beyond. The impact of these, even if slow, may generate positive lasting effects.
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    The Every Woman Biennial Champions More Than 200 Artists. Here’s a Look Inside

    As Women’s History Month comes to a close, run—don’t walk—to see the latest iteration of the “Every Woman Biennial,” which is as dynamic, fascinating, and just plain fun as ever. The show, formerly known as the Whitney Houston Biennial and now in its fifth edition, closes Sunday.
    The female and non-binary art festival features 200 contemporary artists whose works are hung in a salon-style exhibition, as well as a slate of performances. The 2024 exhibition’s title, “I Will Always Love You,” continues its homage to Whitney Houston’s music, and includes work by stars like Michele Pred, Pussy Riot/Nadya Tolokonnikova, Phoebe Legere, Swoon, and many more.
    Image courtesy Every Woman Biennial
    The wide-ranging material on view includes paintings, prints, textiles, and video. Pred’s eye-catching Love as Activism (2022), a neon-red heart surrounding a pink fist, lights up La MaMa’s street window and is visible to passersby. Pussy Riot/Nadya Tolokonnikova’s Holy Squirt (2023) is a pink and glittered take on a holy water fountain, inviting all to be “conceptually baptized” in the Holy Rainbow Church of Matriarchy (matriarchy is a theme explored by several artists in the show).
    A dedicated section of the gallery also includes specially created (and very affordable) talismans by each artist that in many cases derive from or expand on the nearby works, many of which have already found buyers.
    The show, which launched on March 2 and drew an opening night crowd of roughly 2,000, is marking its closing weekend with high-energy performances with music, dancers from the Metropolitan Opera, and a mixed-reality “rock opera” from Erin Ko and Kanami Kusajima.
    Pussy Riot/ Nadya Tolokonnikova, Holy Squirt, (2023) at the Every Woman Biennial.
    The show is co-curated by a team that includes founder C. Finley, executive director and producer Molly Caldwell, artistic director Eddy Segal, and gallery and production manager Jerelyn Huber.
    When the show started in 2014, it was an organic response to create a place for women artists not being equally represented in exhibitions and biennials.
    C. Finley was asked by friends what she would do if she ran a biennial and she responded: “I’d make it all women!” Segal had the idea to name it the Whitney Houston Biennial. A one-night show  was organized in which women came together in a Brooklyn loft, hung their artworks, and made impromptu performances for hundreds of friends and fans.
    Kariny Padilla, Guilty of Nothing (2024). Image courtesy of the artist and Every Woman Biennial.
    Two years later, the show was timed to coincide with the Whitney Biennial, and was expanded to a full exhibition of women and non-binary artists in a downtown gallery, with work selected from an open call. The event have continued to be presented in New York since then and has expanded to sister cities—Los Angeles in 2019 and London in 2021.
    Identity and gender fluidity, social and racial justice, women’s rights, and flipping the stereotypes of “women’s work” are focuses of many of the artists’ pieces, which provide representations of their daily lives, bodies, desires, and traumas. Many also immortalize those they cherish—friends, lovers, mothers, grandmothers, mentors, and icons.
    The show continues through Sunday March 24 at La MaMa Galleria at 47 Great Jones Street, New York.
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    Why Dutch Golden Age Portraitists Loved Painting Exaggerated Facial Expressions

    Early Netherlandish painters of the 1400s pioneered portraits as highly detailed, distinctive records of an individual. Two centuries later, artists of the Dutch Golden Age made these faces come alive with an expressive, characterful twist. This genre of smirks, pouts, glowers, and gapes was dubbed the “tronies.”
    “Turning Heads,” a survey of “tronies” that features works by world famous Old Master painters like Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, and Johannes Vermeer, recently opened at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. Some examples of the genre that will be familiar with audiences include Rembrandt’s The Laughing Man (1629–30) and Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat (ca. 1665–67).
    Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Red Hat (ca. 1665–67). Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
    This small jewel painted on panel from Vermeer’s limited oeuvre has a particularly spontaneous air, as though the subject has turned with surprise to see us enter the room. Though no amount of ravishing detail is spared on the rich textures of the woman’s hat and shawl, her face stands out for its strikingly lifelike, everywoman familiarity.
    Circle of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Man with the Golden Helmet (ca. 1650). Courtesy of Gemäldegalerie Berlin.
    Rather than rely on descriptive documents of a specific sitter that may or may not be saved for posterity, intimate studies of human subjects could be used to capture fleeting interior states with universal resonance. The private contemplation tinged with anguish on this elder man’s face provides an interesting counterpoint to the obviously impressive glimmering gold of his helmet.
    Rembrandt van Rijn, Interior with Figures (1628). Courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
    A rare genre scene attributed to Rembrandt, Interior with Figures is a dimly lit work that contains an ambiguous confrontation between a group, in which narrative depth is provided by the the expressions and gestures exhibited by the central figures. Across the canvas, we can variously read defiance, shock, confusion, and shame.
    Michael Sweerts, Head of a Woman (ca. 1654). Courtesy of J. Paul Getty Museum.
    The Brussels-born Flemish painter Michael Sweerts worked in many places, including Persia (now Iran) and Goa, India. In his mid-twenties, he moved to Rome for nearly a decade, joining a movement of fellow Dutch and Flemish genre painters known as the Bamboccianti for their shared interest in everyday scenes of peasant life and people living on the margins of society. Erring from caricature, Head of a Woman is empathetic painting of a humble woman captures some of her vulnerability through its careful depiction of her weathered features, toothless grimace, and teary eyes.
    Peter Paul Rubens, Head of a Bearded Man (c. 1612). Photo courtesy of Princely Collections Liechtenstein, Vienna.
    With the invention of “tronies,” artists of the Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque era were able to get creative, experimenting with technical skills to bring about fun visual effects. In this way, they also discovered the capacity of painting to materialize otherwise abstract, intangible notions like emotions, age, wisdom, or fragility. Explorations and introspections like these would have a lasting influence on modernism.
    Michael Sweerts, Head of a Woman (ca. 1654). Photo courtesy of Leicester Museum & Gallery.
    “Turning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer” is on view at the National Gallery of Ireland until May 26, 2024. 
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    ‘Ceramics Are as Contemporary as a Smartphone:’ Chiara Camoni on Her Tactile Sculptures

    Chiara Camoni believes that there are two kinds of artists. There are “those who do not touch matter,” she says, “and those who cannot do without it.”
    “I belong to this second group,” Camoni adds. That feels apparent when looking at her highly sensual works, rich organic matter mixes with tactile ceramics. Her carefully conceived sculptures explore the meeting point between domestic design and the natural world: vibrant flowers, colorful vegetation, and anthromorphized forms meet in energetic installations, which are created via her instinctive gestures.
    The Italian artist also draws and makes vegetable prints; she has previously worked on expansive films. Much of this range is on view in “Call and gather. Sisters. Moths and flame twisters. Lioness bones, snakes and stones,” her new exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, the largest body of work ever shown by the artist.
    The exhibition’s radial floor design is inspired by Italy’s late Renaissance gardens and ancient amphitheaters, inviting viewers to wander through its various pathways or linger for a moment among individual works.
    Photo: Arthur Pequin
    “When I entered the Shed space at Pirelli HangarBicocca, I immediately felt the need to seek its center, then to open the doors to let the light in,” Camoni tells me in an interview. “At that point, I began to relate to the space in its entirety. Without raising walls, I drew corridors, rooms, environments. Images of archaeological sites and gardens came in, and we know that weeds, shrubs, and wild vegetation happily grow where there are ruins.”
    Her Butterfly Vases (2020–22) challenge the imagined line between art and craft and are made using foraged plants. They are glazed with sand collected from local rivers and the iridescent ashes of flowers, reimagining Egyptian canopic jars, ancient food storage earthenware, and antique decorative vases.
    The show also features the artist’s human-sized Sisters (2017–23), which change form through the duration of an exhibition. Some, for example, are made of wax which gradually melts, creating a constantly evolving form.
    Chiara Camoni’s Sister, (2022). Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2024. Produced by Biennale Gherdëina. Courtesy the artist; SpazioA, Pistoia, and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo: Agostino Osio
    “I work by addressing monumentality not in terms of size, but rather in poignancy, density, reiteration of gestures, temporal duration,” Camoni says. “The Sisters are monumental figures, although they are on a human scale. They are sculptures that live in change, filled with themselves, composed of thousands of small pieces of hand-molded terracotta. They configure themselves differently each time: they come, they show off, and then they are ready to disappear again!”
    Camoni’s ceramics mirror the inherently individual nature of her organic matter. They are rustic, asymmetrical, and carry the various marks and scars left by the artist’s hand. “I believe they come from an unconscious, emotional zone and do not follow the linear progression of rational thought,” she adds.
    Chiara Camoni’s “Call and gather. Sisters. Moths and flame twisters. Lioness bones, snakes and stones.” Exhibition view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, (2024). Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo: Agostino Osio
    Camoni has a highly collaborative process with nature, but also with friends and family who take part in creative workshops. “Much of my work originates at home or in the garden, conditioned by the weather and climate, as well as the surrounding sounds and voices,” she says. “I experience the wonder, the encounter with the artwork, which I consider a subject in its own right, that demands an active relationship.”
    She began working together with her grandmother, Ines Bassanetti, early in her artistic practice in 2002. Bassanetti went on to become her assistant, leading to an unusually close familial artistic bond. Her grandmother created a body of plant and animal drawings with Camoni, part of La Grande Madre series. More recently, the artist invited friends and collaborators to choose books and memorabilia for Carrozzone (2021), an installation taking the form of a traditional wagon.
    Chiara Camoni’s “Call and gather. Sisters. Moths and flame twisters. Lioness bones, snakes and stones.” Exhibition view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, (2024). Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, MilanPhoto Agostino Osio
    “I believe that authorship can be opened to other people,” she notes. “I like to bypass a certain technical competence, to welcome unexpected deviations. I also feel that around the artworks in the before and after—in the creative moment that precedes them and in the fruition and activation that follows—moments of intensity, little epiphanies coagulate. If I am not alone, if there is someone with me who sees and feels all this, then they really exist.”
    Many of the items used in the artist’s work—from plants to ashes, sand, and soil—are collected from her surroundings. It is important to her that they come from her everyday experience, and she often transforms original materials in radical ways, sometimes burning or combining, modeling or sorting them. While she roots her practice within ancestral and archaic traditions, she also references a sense of collapsing time with her materials.
    Chiara Camoni’s Dogs (Bruno and Tre), (2024). Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2024. Produced by Pirelli HangarBicocca. Courtesy the artist; SpazioA, Pistoia, and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo: Agostino Osio
    “Ceramics, stone, or wood are as contemporary to us as a smartphone,” she says. “It all starts with a walk, which can also take place in a city; I collect flowers, leaves, wild herbs and, thanks to the juices they release on the fabric, these figures ‘arrive.’ I consider them to be spirits hidden behind the first level of reality, as we see it.”
    Camoni hopes her works create an embodied experience for the viewer, which goes beyond the visual. “This exhibition is informed with energy, which I hope will be felt,” she notes. “There is a vibration running through it all, moving in the snakes slithering low to the ground, rising in the more vertical figures, winding up and down. There are so many eyes, looking everywhere, crossing the audience’s gazes but also looking at each other…”

    “Call and gather. Sisters. Moths and flame twisters. Lioness bones, snakes and stones” is on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, through July 21, 2024.

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    A New Biennial Takes Shape in the Emerging Design Hub of Doha

    Qatar’s cultural landscape is progressing at a dizzying speed. The office leading the diminutive Gulf country’s cultural development, Qatar Museums, is investing heavily in the effort, allocating billions  to erect world-class museums, restore important heritage sites, and stage public art installations, many of them in far-flung patches of the desert. Barely the size of Jamaica, Qatar has opened no fewer than five major museums in the last 15 years, as well as numerous stadiums—as many as eight—in advance of the World Cup in 2022, the first Arab nation to host the international sporting event.
    A new biennial, Design Doha, is the latest arrow in Qatar Museums’ quiver, and the newest initiative from its chairperson, Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family. She is also a leading collector, known for acquiring major works from Paul Cézanne to Mark Rothko, on Qatar’s behalf.
    Design Doha continues Qatar’s bid to transform the peninsula’s capital city into a global center of art and design. This year, its inaugural edition, the platform featured over 100 designers from the Middle East and North African (MENA), working in a range of disciplines, from architecture, urbanism, and landscape design to graphic design, textiles, woodwork, glass, and ceramics.
    Richard Yasmine’s After Ago Collection, a tribute to Beirut’s architectural history.
    Attending the opening week of Design Doha followed a dizzying pace, too, hustling between a head-spinning line-up of events, exhibitions, popups, and activations—each one bursting with top-notch craftsmanship and novel ingenuity. The sentiment was shared by the platform’s artistic director Glenn Adamson. The New York-based art and design historian said he was taken with the “explosive energy and creativity” of the Arab design scene. “As a newcomer to the region myself, I didn’t appreciate just how much talent there was,” he continued, “and it’s been inspiring to see the energy and commitment that participants brought to the event.”
    The central showcase, “Arab Design Now” (through August 5), is said to be the first museum-level survey of contemporary Arab design. It consists of 74 works by MENA designers spread across several floors of M7, a creative hive centrally located in the modern, bustling neighborhood of Msheireb. The exhibition, curated by Rana Beiruti (founder of Amman Design Week in Jordan) reflects how “the Arab world is a diverse place,” she told me, “full of people from different walks of life and cultures. I wanted to celebrate that and show that Arab design is not disconnected from the global condition of design. Arab designers face and respond to the same challenges for our collective future.”
    Installation view of “Arab Design Now” with Salima Naji’s clay dwellings on the right. © Edmund Sumner. Courtesy of Qatar Museums.
    “I also wanted to highlight,” she added, “the importance of looking at craft as an extension of the land, and the way designers in the Arab world respond to the unique geography of the region with innovation in material and attentiveness to sustainability.”
    In one work, Sharing the Earth (Spatial Interiorities) (2023), architect Salima Naji mined her decades of research into vernacular building in Morocco, constructing a two-part cylindrical dwelling out of clay, straw, wool, and palm trunks sourced from a farm in Qatar, with traditional oculi at the top to allow for air flow. In another work, Tiamat (2023), designer AAU ANASTAS created a structure in self-supporting stone, its undulating shape informed by computational analysis of sand dunes as well as the Gothic-inspired pointed arches found across Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.
    AAU ANASTAS, Tiamat (2023). © Edmund Sumner. Courtesy of Qatar Museums.
    Another observation from Design Doha is how carefully the designers have struck a balance between traditional craft sensibilities and contemporary aesthetics. “This is clearly a region that is currently enjoying the best of both worlds,” said Adamson. “Like Japan, Italy and Scandinavia in the 1950s and 1960s—geographies that reshaped global design at the time—you have a basis of continuous artisanship combined with newly emerging experimental practice.”
    Installation view of “100 Arabic Posters.” © Jochen Braun. Courtesy of Qatar Museums.
    Elsewhere in M7, an exhibition of 100 Arabic posters presented the vibrancy of graphic design in the region while another looked back on a century of architecture in Doha, tracing the history of the city’s built environment through a variety of interpreted styles such as Arabic Deco, Doha Classicism, and Qatar’s take on Brutalism.
    Upstairs in a dimly lit, contemplative space, we took in “Weaving Poems,” showcasing the talent of Afghan-born, Amman-based designer Maryam Omar, who was commissioned to create a series of hand-woven abstract carpets inspired by the poetry and oral heritage of women weavers in Afghanistan, with whom she co-created the carpets. The exhibition is a product of Turquoise Mountain, a nonprofit founded by King Charles in 2006 to support artists across Afghanistan, Myanmar, and the Middle East.
    Installation view of “Weaving Poems.” © Julián Velásquez. Courtesy of Qatar Museums.
    Another highlight is Moroccan artist Amine al Gotaibi’s astonishing work Desert installed at the Ned. “The combination of his soulful work in copper and wool with David Chipperfield’s sublime reimagination of an existing building (the former Ministry of the Interior) is just perfection,” said Adamson.
    No cultural excursion to Doha would be complete without outings to the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art, an instant landmark when it launched in 2008; the National Library, created by Rem Koolhaas/OMA (who’s also designing the Qatar Auto Museum, to be completed later this year), said to house a million rare books, manuscripts, and other materials stacked in a single open-space plan; and the striking new National Museum, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel to resemble massive discs of “desert rose” crystal formations, the kind that occur naturally in the Arabian Desert.
    The National Museum of Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel. Photo: Lee Carter.
    Two more major museums are planned before the decade is out. Opening in 2029, the Lusail Museum—designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron—will hold one of the world’s most extensive collections of art, much of it from Qatar Museums’ holdings of European painters depicting the Arab world. And, in 2030, the Art Mill Museum will arrive, housed in a historic flour mill and designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. The museum will incorporate the mill’s signature towering silos in its design.)
    Then there’s Richard Serra’s East-West/West-East (2014) near the village of Zekreet on the western shore of the peninsula (about an hour’s drive from Doha on the east coast). Its four monumental Cor-Ten plates jut out of the sand like relics of a future civilization, in keeping with the cryptic austerity of the surrounding terrain.
    Richard Serra, East-West/West-East (2014). Photo: Lee Carter.
    There’s no question this is an optimistic moment for Qatar’s art and design scene, bolstered by the royal family’s largesse, a long history of fine craftsmanship, and a newly outward-looking perspective.
    “Now that we have this success behind us and people know what Design Doha is,” reflected Adamson, “I think it will be possible to do something still more ambitious… I think the Arab region is now positioned to assume not just a more active, but in fact a leadership role in the global design conversation.”
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    in Street Art

    Banksy in London: A Dead Tree and Vivid Hues in Finsbury Park

    In an unexpected corner of London’s Finsbury Park, a new Banksy piece silently confronts passersby with a jarring juxtaposition of life and decay. Unannounced but unmistakably Banksy, the artwork features a lifeless tree standing in stark contrast to a backdrop of vibrant green splatters—created, in a twist of irony, with a fire extinguisher. This vivid use of color and medium not only captivates visually but also provokes a deep contemplation of the themes it presents.The stark imagery of a dead tree in a park, where life is expected to flourish, is immediately compelling. Behind it, the wall serves as a canvas for an explosion of bright green paint, applied with such force and volume that it suggests a wild, almost violent attempt to resurrect the greenery that should have been. This artificial canopy of leaves, rendered through the unconventional method of a fire extinguisher, speaks to a profound message of loss, resilience, and perhaps a critique of human attempts to control or mimic nature’s beauty. The contrast between the lifeless tree and the vibrant paint creates a visual and thematic dichotomy that is ripe for interpretation.Context and Significance: Beyond the SurfacePlacing this work in the context of Banksy’s oeuvre, it aligns with his penchant for addressing societal issues with poignancy and humor. Yet, this piece stands out for its direct engagement with environmental themes, using the visual medium to highlight the contrast between what is natural and what is artificial. The choice of Finsbury Park as the location adds layers to its interpretation, possibly reflecting on the park as a space of coexistence for nature and urbanity, and the ongoing struggles to balance the two.The Impact of Banksy’s Environmental CommentaryThis latest installation invites viewers to reflect on their relationship with nature and the environment. By juxtaposing the dead tree with the artificial vibrancy of the green paint, Banksy may be urging a reevaluation of how urban societies interact with the natural world. The use of a fire extinguisher to apply the paint also suggests a sense of urgency, a call to action that cannot be ignored.Conclusion: A Mirror to Our TimesBanksy’s unannounced work in Finsbury Park serves not only as a visual spectacle but as a profound commentary on the environmental challenges facing contemporary society. As with all his pieces, the true meaning may remain enigmatic, allowing interpretations to flourish and encouraging public discourse. This artwork, silent yet screaming, presents a poignant reflection on the state of our natural world and the artificial means by which we seek to preserve it.In the wake of this powerful statement, the conversation around environmental conservation and our role within it is invigorated. Banksy’s piece stands as a testament to the power of art to inspire, challenge, and provoke thought, leaving an indelible mark on the canvas of public consc (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); More

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    in Exhibitions

    Anaïs Nin’s Never-Before-Seen Paintings and Personal Artifacts Get an Outing in L.A.

    Rare treasures from the life of literary legend Anaïs Nin went on view in Santa Monica this week. The famed diarist was born in France, raised in New York, and returned to Paris before moving to America permanently in the 1930s. She spent a significant amount of time in LA along the way. Her ashes were scattered in Santa Monica Bay.
    Elizabeth Banks’s Brownstone Productions collaborated with the Anaïs Nin Foundation on “Celebrating a Renegade,” a multigenerational exhibition that shares ephemera, artworks Nin made, paintings made of her, and pieces from five contemporary artists inspired by her legacy. The Georgian Hotel’s creative director Amber Arbucci curated the show, which remains on view at the landmark hotel’s Gallery 33 through March 22.
    An installation featuring Nin’s typewriter, and three portraits pulled from her Silver Lake home—two of which are by John Maynard. Photo: Dashiell King, courtesy of The Georgian Hotel
    Exhibition producer Brandon Milbradt told me she pitched this concept to the Georgian while developing a TV series around Nin. “Anaïs deeply admired artists, was a champion of other creators,” Milbrandt wrote. “I thought, why not showcase Anaïs with artists inspired by Nin herself?” Throughout her life, Nin produced four novels, four works of nonfiction, five collections of short stories, and kept a diary for 63 years that detailed her poetic introspections and many torrid affairs. Never-before-seen watercolors that famed author Henry Miller painted for Nin appear in “Celebrating a Renegade.”
    Henry Miller, Childhood Dream (1973). Photo: Dashiell King, courtesy of The Georgian Hotel
    “Anaïs was a dangerous writer in her time, and, for better or worse, is just as relevant today,” Milbradt said. In the 47 years since Nin’s death, she’s been called a monster (because she terminated a pregnancy), a narcissist (because she liked ostentatious outfits), and a bigamist (because she was.) But, as Nin’s diary noted, “no one has ever loved an adventurous woman as they have loved adventurous men.”
    Anaïs Nin. Courtesy of the Anaïs Nin Foundation
    Nin was born in 1903 to two musicians. Nin’s mother moved her and her two brothers to New York after her father absconded with his mistress. Nin’s diary began as a letter entreating her father to return on that very voyage, at age 11. She dropped out of high school to work as an artist’s model and met her first husband, banker Hugh Guiler, in Havana at 20. Guiler elected to be omitted from the seven volumes of Nin’s diary that she edited and published from 1966 through 1977, but they stayed together throughout Nin’s life. Guiler’s money helped support the bohemians she knew.
    Anaïs Nin, Circle of Friends, New York. Photo by Dashiell King. courtesy of The Georgian Hotel
    “You are always asked to solve problems, to help, to be selfless,” Miller is recorded as telling Nin in a 1932 diary entry. “Meanwhile there is your writing, deeper and better than anybody’s, which nobody gives a damn about and nobody helps you to do.” Readers did give a damn about Nin’s writing though, ever since her diary debuted at the height of feminism’s second wave—and despite a period of repudiation when her ex-husband published her unedited diaries and extensive erotica.
    Henry Miller, For Anaïs from Henry (1979). Photo by Dashiell King. courtesy of The Georgian Hotel
    No amount of moralizing ever extinguished Nin’s impact. Social media and sex positivity have reinstated her accolades.
    “Celebrating a Renegade” hangs Nin’s rarely-seen Circle of Friends drawings next to a contemporary collage with her face at center by Colette Standish, who produced an entire series of treated mirrors and lightboxes titled “Anaïs Through the Looking Glass and Other Stories.” The nudes of Michelle Magdalena Maddox’s sensual black-and-white photographs evoke Nin in more ways than one. Javiera Estrada’s technicolor free love photography also appears, alongside an intimate bathtub scene painted by Chloe Strang. Elsewhere, fragments from Amanda Maciel Antunes’s Trapeze Project foreground Nin’s relics.
    An installation featuring Anaïs Nin’s diaries, old photos, and a handwritten note from Henry Miller on vintage Barbizon Hotel stationary. Photo by Dashiell King. courtesy of The Georgian Hotel
    “From the little girl with a diary who migrated with her single mother as a child to begin a life in a new country, to the woman of many deaths and rebirths whose complexity of life challenged the dominant gender paradigms of our times,” Maciel Antunes said, “I want to remember her as a woman who removed obstacles to create her own freedom and did not wait for it to be given to her.” Nin’s handwritten journals sit nearby in a glass case. Animated by the artworks of our time, you can all but hear her voice floating off the bay, encouraging everyone who passes through “Celebrating a Renegade” to seize their liberty too.
    “Celebrating a Renegade” is on view at Gallery 33, 1415 Ocean Ave, Santa Monica, California, through March 22.
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    in Exhibitions

    ‘People Are Lonely’: Terence Koh’s New Project Is the Ultimate Anti-Spectacle–He’s Serving Coffee in L.A.

    “I was drinking like eight coffees a day trying to figure this out,” Terence Koh was telling me last month, knelt over a portable burner in an empty micro gallery that would become his installation called KOHFEE. “Thinking about my move to L.A. and all these things, thinking about what the world needs right now… I don’t think the world needs another coffee shop.” I totally agree, and yet, was he on a journey to make one?
    A trail of handwritten pencil notes, transmitted as jpegs via text, had led me to this meeting with the inscrutable Xennial artist. They were sent by Koh with his signature flourishes like “2morrow” and a doodle of an eye in the place of the word “I.” For those who don’t know, Koh was one of the highest profile artists in New York City in the aughts—alongside other Lower East Side royals like Dash Snow, Ryan McGinley, and Dan Colen. That was before he began to pull away from the spotlight, a move roughly timed to the ascent of Instagram.
    Artist Terence Koh outside his installation. Image courtesy the artist and Make Room, Los Angeles. Photographer: Nice Day Photo
    Now on view through March 29 at Make Room, a commercial gallery tucked away on predominantly residential Waring Avenue between Hollywood and Hancock Park, “KOHFEE” offers an experience very different from the oppressively neutral aesthetics of cafes clad in cedar or Moroccan tiles and abuzz with loneliness.
    KOHFEE smells different, too: over the past month or so, Koh has transformed the alcove project space into a cave for coffee rituals whose floors, walls, and ceilings are held together by a mixture of raw earth and cow dung. The glaring daylight visible from the only window onto the space feels centuries away when you are kneeling under the earthen dome on the far side of the little room, huddled around Koh’s tiny campfire where he boils his brew.
    Artist Terrence Koh. Image courtesy the artist and Make Room, Los Angeles. Photographer: Nice Day Photo
    “It seemed ridiculous at first to do a coffee shop, but then, after I thought about how it’s a part of L.A. culture— like [the] sun and everything and how everybody seems like, ‘You know what? Let’s go grab a cup of coffee’—it’s a very positive thing for most people to come and gather,” Koh continued. “People let their guard down very quickly when I tell them it’s just like a simple coffee shop instead of an installation. I’m always joking that it’s almost like a serious art installation hidden inside a coffee shop.”
    The last time I interviewed Koh about his work was in 2016, when he was exhibiting an installation called Bee Chapel in galleries on both U.S. coasts—the work consisted of a domed room of proportions similar to the KOHFEE, with an infrastructure that allowed proximity to the thousands of bees Koh had begun beekeeping since leaving Manhattan for the Catskills.
    An interior view of KOHFEE. Image courtesy the artist and Make Room, Los Angeles. Photographer: Nice Day Photo
    Since then he has had a handful of shows in the U.S. and Europe, including one at Office Baroque in Antwerp that incorporated larger features of this current project—an earth-covered room and campfire. More recently, he had a show at Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York last year, whose press release was a handwritten decree similar in style to the texts I received, promising:

    for 
    the next 
    few 
    ears 
    eye 
    will 
    dedicate my life too a single body of work 
    no piece will bee larder than the size of the 
    human heart 
    —signed and dated, “24 dec ’22, lost angels.”
    Born in Beijing and raised in Mississauga, Canada, Koh came up in post-9/11 New York as the pseudonymic asianpunkboy, publishing an eponymous zine which is now on view in the Brooklyn Museum’s Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines exhibition, through March 31.  
    As asianpunkboy, he began exhibiting his work at Peres Projects’s original Los Angeles location in 2003. By 2007, his art career (and market) had feverish momentum and the media had begun to canonize him as a deity of sublime excess—a characterization that found some congruence with the content of his work. His first American solo museum show, which opened as part of the Whitney Biennial that winter, was a blinding 4000-watt lamp that turned on a black orb, set in an otherwise empty and all-white gallery on the ground floor of the Breuer Building.
    A few months prior to that, Koh had moved into a three-story party palace at 45 Canal Street—in what is now the heart of Dimes Square, standing between Cervo’s and Dimes cafe—where he opened his own art gallery called ASS (Asia Song Society). By Art Basel Miami Beach of that year, he famously declared “I am the Naomi Campbell of Art” and also claimed that he intended to retire from art in the coming year.
    Terence Koh in 2010 in New York City. Photo: Marie Havens/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
    Nevertheless, his art career continued to evolve and so did his fame. By 2010, he was not only an art star, but he was also in the headlines for things like helping Oprah coax a distraught Lady Gaga out of her dressing room at the Met Gala. That year he collaborated with Gaga on performances at the Grammy’s, an Amfar Gala, and a charity event in Tokyo. Then, in 2014, Koh left New York City. The mythologizing of how Koh quit the art world began.
    “You are the first person drinking coffee,” Koh told me, grinning. “I just realized you are the first customer in this place, and it is gonna be so different because it’s such a mess right now, but I think that’s the fun part.”
    Some artists seem practiced in pantomiming childlike excitement about their work for their audiences, but in Koh’s case it feels completely sincere. The fact that this project is more humble in scale than many of the outrageous creations that precede it seems irrelevant. “The next few weeks I’m really trying different oils and things that will go well together with herbs to make a coffee that’s very… very simple but also earthy… we might have milk options outside in pitchers,” he tells me before seeming to change his mind. “Or maybe no options of creamers. It’s a coffee shop, but there’s only one choice, and we don’t give you the option, and it’s free.”
    Terence Koh’s KOHFEE. Image courtesy the artist and Make Room, Los Angeles. Photographer: Nice Day Photo
    On the day of the opening in February, a small line of patrons hugged the wall outside the door to the cave. Koh escorted groups of three or four of them at a time into the chamber; the event was a marathon of small coffee ceremonies where, each time, Koh held a heavy blackened pot over a small flame and grated and stirred various ingredients into the mixture. Once each batch was ready, he haphazardly poured it over a cluster of Dixie cups, spilling plenty of what was sparse to begin with. At one point, he mentioned something to the effect that spilling is an aspect of Chinese hospitality. (Outside the rush of the opening, during the project’s regular hours, coffee is served in ceramic cups Koh made himself.)
    Personally, I was into the hippie brutalism of the experience. Everything about this project revolves around smallness and quiet: an anti-spectacle where nothing is for sale. I liked sitting on dirt and I enjoyed the taste and texture of a weird coffee-based potion with traces of plant sediment in it. I didn’t see God, but it was simple and special. Three women dressed like art collectors were conspicuously positive about how amazing they found the coffee to be. Someone told me they saw one of them sip theirs and then throw the rest on the street before saying how much she loved it. While Koh certainly has said nothing to suggest that his cafe is a social experiment, part of me wonders if it is in some way some kind of game.
    Terence Koh’s handmade tea cups. Image courtesy the artist and Make Room, Los Angeles. Photographer: Nice Day Photo
    Koh’s original talent was always weaving enigmas, and I don’t believe he has much control over the fact that he’s a pop star, but this circumstance gives him superhuman license to blur the lines between art and life. When stars retreat from public life, they remain stars and, in fact “retreating from public life” is something only a star can do. It would be disingenuous to say that KOHFEE is an art world comeback for Koh. For one thing, there’s no way out of the pantheon once you’re in it—as evidenced by the routine reports of his comings and goings from retirement (like Cher), despite the fact he has actually maintained a studio practice consistently since the start.
    As I waited for my first cup back in February, Koh rejoiced suddenly—”Nice, it kind of works…yay!”—as the water tossed into the pot loudly sizzled. “Loneliness and solitude are two different things. Solitude is a beautiful thing. I’m starting to learn that and appreciate that you can have solitude in L.A., and then go and be social when you want. But I think I miss [how] when you step out onto the street in New York City, you bang right onto humanity and human vibration,” he said while simultaneously adding that he was not moving back to New York. “We do innately need that, to connect with humans physically and not through the screen. And in L.A. people are lonely, and they connect through coffee shops.”
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