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      Shae Bishop Bucks Cowboy Traditions with Floral Ceramic Garments

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      Detail of “Eternal Cowboy” (2021), ceramic, underglaze, glaze, PE braid, canvas, leather, brass. Photo by Myles Pettengill. All images courtesy of Shae Bishop, shared with permission

      Shae Bishop Bucks Cowboy Traditions with Floral Ceramic Garments

      October 21, 2025

      ArtCraftDesign

      Grace Ebert

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      Ceramics and textiles share several traditions. Both media have long occupied the realm of craft, are often functional, and tend to be tied to narrative and storytelling, whether sharing in family lore or communicating something about their owner.

      For Shae Bishop, combining the two offers a way to tether the enduring and universal with the intimate and personal. The Richmond-based artist has spent more than a decade creating innumerable ceramic tiles that he stitches together into bandanas, suits, and other garments. “By merging the materials and fitting them to my body, I was seeking to merge the personal with the historical, to locate myself and my individual narrative within the larger story of human culture,” he tells Colossal.

      “Waistcoat of Earthly Delights” (2021), ceramic, underglaze, wool, poly satin, PE braid, wire. Photo by Loam

      Bishop’s garments have evolved in complexity and embellishment during the last 14 years, as he gravitates toward art historical narratives and the self-mythologizing associated with cowboy culture. Pieces like “Waistcoat of Earthly Delights” reference Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych and its alternative realities. Long interested in the human-nature relationship, Bishop draws on Bosch’s biblical retelling as a way to “reimagine our fraught interactions with strange and misunderstood creatures like giant salamanders and venomous snakes,” as he adorns a vest with a pair of white serpents and vivid flowers.

      A peek at Bishop’s Instagram reveals a deep reverence for snakes—there are several images of the artist with the reptiles draped around his neck and arms— and an interest in reinventing the fear and animosity associated with the creatures, which he hopes to present instead as “a hero, an icon, and an ecological ambassador.”

      This intention emerges, in part, through more performative works like the turquoise, fringe-lined “Rhinestone Rattlesnakeboy Suit.” Bishop often wears the elaborate getup while stationed inside a booth and handling a snake, a performance evoking entertainment ventures like Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and the Roy Rogers Show.

      The artist also frequently photographs himself out in the wild, whether knee-deep in a swampy landscape or perched atop a horse. These immersive images add another layer to the performative aspect of the project and reinforce the world-building and storytelling capacity that fashion has.

      “Rhinestone Rattlesnakeboy Suit.” Photo by Jack Mauch

      Of course, cowboy and Western culture are deeply entwined with American identity and masculinity, and Bishop reflects on these influences as he creates floral chaps and fringed hats. He adds:

      I like the tension between utility and conservatism on one hand and idiosyncratic flamboyance on the other hand. The colorful floral outfits of country music history and the high heels and ornate leatherwork of cowboy boots are such unique expressions of culture. And I look at darker elements like toxic masculinity and a gleeful love of fossil fuels. I also put myself into this work. I try to be self-critical and interrogate my own love-hate relationship with these cowboy tropes, while still keeping a sense of humor.

      “Rhinestone Rattlesnakeboy Suit” is on view through next September at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in an exhibition devoted to state fairs. This winter, Bishop will show pieces at Belger Arts in Kansas City and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and he’s currently working on a collection of ceramic diving helmets, along with leather shoes. Find more on his website.

      Detail of “Waistcoat of Earthly Delights” (2021), ceramic, underglaze, wool, poly satin, PE braid, wire. Photo by Loam

      Detail of “Eternal Cowboy” (2021), ceramic, underglaze, glaze, PE braid, canvas, leather, brass. Photo by Myles Pettengill

      “A Swimsuit To Wear While Looking For Hellbenders” (2020), ceramic, wool, PE braid. Photo by Myles Pettengill

      “Bandana” (2022), ceramic, underglaze, PE fiber. Photo by Loam

      Detail of “Rhinestone Rattlesnakeboy Suit.” Photo by Jack Mauch

      “Shorts To Wear While Looking For Pythons” (2019), ceramic, underglaze, glaze, PE fiber, cotton, leather, brass. Photo by Hannah Patterson

      “Eternal Cowboy” (2021), ceramic, underglaze, glaze, PE braid, canvas, leather, brass. Photo by Myles Pettengill

      “Shirt” (2016), porcelain, underglaze, glaze, canvas, PE fiber, 32 x 18 x 9 inches. Photo by Mercedes Jelinek

      Detail of “Shirt” (2016),porcelain, underglaze, glaze, canvas, PE fiber, 32 x 18 x 9 inches. Photo by Mercedes Jelinek

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      Through Fractured Forms, Kat Kristof Renders the Architecture of the Mind

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      “Echo” (2025), oil on canvas, 230 x 230 centimeters. All images courtesy of Beers London, shared with permission

      Through Fractured Forms, Kat Kristof Renders the Architecture of the Mind

      October 20, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      As we spend much of our lives online and find ourselves ensnared in an increasingly dystopian reality, glitches and fractures seem all the more apt in rendering the contemporary mind. Kat Kristof (previously) attends to this disjointed—and even duplicitous—feeling in her vivid portraiture. Visible brushstrokes invoke gestures past and the memories that scaffold our lives, while layered patches build upon one another, forming complex structures within each piece.

      “My work explores the architecture of the mind. These are scattered, fragmented, and riotous projections of self,” Kristof says, referring to her latest body of work, Exhale. Co-presented by BEERS London and Saatchi Gallery, the exhibition plumbs the artist’s formal training in architecture, which she undertook in her native Hungary before moving to Folkestone, Kent. Likening the abstract shapes that form a face or torso to a hallway or room, the artist invites viewers into the intimate interiors of her subjects.

      “Doubt I” (2025), oil on canvas, 180 x 180 centimeters

      While each portrait contains some level of psychological distortion, Kristof expands and contracts their surreal qualities. “Echo,” for example, features a mirrored subject looking directly at the viewer, although the figure on the right peers out from a face turned upside down. The gltich in “Alone” is much more jarring, as two faces stare at each other through a central stripe bisecting the work.

      For Kristof, there’s endless space for our minds to break into new territories, although like the walls that protect our homes, there are barriers we have to cross to step outside ourselves. “What we long for remains elusive, not because it doesn’t exist, but because we carry our mindset with us,” she adds.

      Exhale runs from October 23 to November 16 at Saatchi Gallery in London. Find more from Kristof on her website and Instagram.

      “Alone” (2025), oil on canvas, 125 x 145 centimeters

      “Drift” (2025), oil on canvas, 220 x 175 centimeters

      “Blur” (2025), oil on board, 80 x 60 centimeters

      “Breathe” (2025), oil on canvas, 220 x 115 centimeters

      “Crave” (2025), oil on canvas, 150 x 100 centimeters

      “Exhale” (2025), oil on canvas, 170 x 145 centimeters

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      Antique Writing Desks Converge with African Masks in Sonia E. Barrett’s Sculptures

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      Detail of “Desk number 6.” All images courtesy of Sonia E. Barrett, shared with permission

      Antique Writing Desks Converge with African Masks in Sonia E. Barrett’s Sculptures

      October 20, 2025

      ArtHistory

      Kate Mothes

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      When we think of the European colonization of Africa, one period that comes to mind is an era during the mid- to late-1800s known as the Scramble for Africa. The British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese—predominantly—had already staked control of communities in coastal areas. It was during this time that inland regions became increasingly attractive for resource extraction and the promise of further economic gain. But the so-called Scramble for Africa was far from the beginning.

      By the 1870s, Europeans controlled one-tenth of the continent, mostly in the north, along the Mediterranean, and in the far south. The Dutch East India Company had established the first European settlement in Africa in Cape Town in 1652. But the transatlantic slave trade had already been active for nearly a century and would continue for nearly two more, during which a staggering 12.5 million or more people were put on ships—mostly to the New World.

      “Desk number 7” (2021), antique portable travel desk with leather inlay and wicker, 160 x 60 x 30 centimeters

      During this time, colonists wrote and conveyed all messages by hand. Small, portable, wooden desks made it possible to send letters from virtually anywhere, with fold-out surfaces covered in leather and storage areas for holding pens, nibs, and ink.

      For artist Sonia E. Barrett, these antique desks are a tangible connection to a protracted era of cultural clashes fraught with greed, violence, and usually a one-sided telling of history. “These were the laptops of the day,” Barrett says of the portable tools that form her Desk series. “On them, they ‘wrote Africa’ in letters home, journals, and reports that now form the archives in Europe of Africa.”

      Using pieces of reclaimed wood, leather, velvet, pens, ink, and wicker in addition to the found Edwardian writing surfaces, Barrett animates her sculptures with expressive faces redolent of African ceremonial masks. “I thought (the desks) could be a way of speaking back to Empire beyond the archived letters written on them.”

      While different regions and cultures across the African continent created unique masks reflective of their beliefs and traditions since time immemorial, the European fashion for collecting these objects gave rise to a commercial industry that continues today. Similar to the wooden desks covered in leather or velvet, the carved African masks were whittled from timber and embellished with leather. The mahogany used in the manufacture of the writing desk would have matured in a tropical climate, “shipped in much the same way as we were,” the artist says, referring to the international African slave trade.

      The artist wearing “Desk number 6” (2021), lockable antique portable travel desk, mahogany, with embossed leather inlay, wicker, ink, and key, 100 x 60 x 60 centimeters

      Barrett adds wicker structures to the bases of the desks, which suggest shoulders and bodies and can also be donned loosely, as one would wear a ceremonial costume. In a sense, the pieces are like conduits or metaphysical transporters. “These heads can join with African diasporan bodies and enable us to reach back, as they enabled our ancestors,” the artist says.

      Some of Barrett’s sculptures are on display as part of The Ground Beneath: Material Memory and the Resilience of Hope at Messums London, which continues through November 15. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

      “Desk number 8” (2021), antique portable travel desk with leather inlay, wicker, and fountain pen nibs, 160 x 60 x 30 centimeters

      “Desk number 9” (2021), antique portable travel desk with velvet inlay, leather, and wicker, 60 x 60 x 50 centimeters

      Detail of “Desk number 8”

      Detail of “Desk number 7”

      “Desk number 6” (2021), lockable antique portable travel desk, mahogany, with embossed leather inlay, wicker, ink, and key, 100 x 60 x 60 centimeters

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      This October, a Global Public Art Project Turns 35 Cities into Playgrounds

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      Nomad Studio, “Socarrado (Scorched)” (2025), Parque Natural Sabinares del Arlanza – La Yecla, Castilla y Leon, Spain

      This October, a Global Public Art Project Turns 35 Cities into Playgrounds

      October 17, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      This month, urban centers around the world are hosting a massive public art project helmed by Nōvo Collective. uncommissioned has tapped 54 artists for a global initiative that sees the city as a playground, inviting participants “to slip playful, overlooked, or quietly defiant gestures into the cracks of everyday life.”

      In Stellenbosch, South Africa, Strijdom van der Merwe installed sun-activated text works displaying heady phrases like “the visible is a shadow cast by the invisible.” Escif painted tiny fruits among the architecture near his home in Valencia, while Vhils painted a collection of fragmented portraits atop a Munich cultural center.

      Vhils, “Antennas” (2025), KUNSTLABOR 2, Munich. Image courtesy of Jose Pando Lucas, MUCA

      Perhaps most striking is Nomad Studio’s wooden structure erected in a park in Castilla y León, Spain. Appearing to fan outward in a circle, a collection of branches forms a meditative space with an opening to the sky that lets light stream inside.

      uncommissioned continues throughout October with works by Cannupa Hanska Luger, Jason deCaires Taylor, Stephanie Brown, and many others slated for 35 cities total. See more on the project’s website.

      Nomad Studio, “Socarrado (Scorched)” (2025), Parque Natural Sabinares del Arlanza – La Yecla, Castilla y Leon, Spain

      Nomad Studio, “Socarrado (Scorched)” (2025), Parque Natural Sabinares del Arlanza – La Yecla, Castilla y Leon, Spain

      Strijdom van der Merwe, “Shadow Words” (2025), Stellenbosch, South Africa

      Strijdom van der Merwe, “Shadow Words” (2025), Stellenbosch, South Africa

      Leon Reid IV, “Of a Free Will” (2025), Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Photo by Leon Reid IV

      Escif, “Infinite Still Life” (2025), Valencia. Photo by Escif

      Escif, “Infinite Still Life” (2025), Valencia. Photo by Escif

      Vhils, “Antennas” (2025), KUNSTLABOR 2, Munich. Image courtesy of Jose Pando Lucas, MUCA

      Vhils, “Antennas” (2025), KUNSTLABOR 2, Munich. Image courtesy of Jose Pando Lucas, MUCA

      Emmanuel Aggrey Tieku, “HOW TO HEAL A B-R-O-K-E-N WORLD-Cemetery of Belongings” (2025), Osu Cemetery, Accra, Ghana

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      Alison Friend Packs a Lot of Personality into Witty Dog Portraits

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      All images courtesy of Artisan, shared with permission

      Alison Friend Packs a Lot of Personality into Witty Dog Portraits

      October 17, 2025

      ArtBooks

      Grace Ebert

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      Dogs, they’re just like us! Perpetually anxious pizza lovers.

      The pups taking center stage in Alison Friend’s beloved paintings sport a range of personalities that feel all too familiar: several hungrily snack on pastries, sip cocktails, and even present their self-portraits on everyone’s favorite toy, the Etch A Sketch.

      Friend is known for her witty pieces that portray our domestic pals in the style of the Old Masters, lending a sense of reverence to her furry subjects. The artist’s first monograph, Dog Only Knows, is available this month from Artisan and collects 125 of her canine works, a small fraction of which are shown here.

      Pre-order your copy in the Colossal Shop, and find more from Friend on Instagram.

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      Ruth Asawa Arrives in New York with a Monumental Retrospective

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      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Ruth Asawa Arrives in New York with a Monumental Retrospective

      October 17, 2025

      Art

      Jackie Andres

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      One of the most iconic figures of the mid-20th century, trailblazing Japanese-American artist Ruth Asawa led a prolific life of art-making, advocacy, and civic engagement. Over a decade after her passing, the last year has ushered in a momentous wave of exhibitions for Asawa—appearing at David Zwirner in her first solo exhibition in Greater China, followed by two major showings of Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.

      In a tale of two MoMAs, the enormous exhibition recently traveled from its point of origin in San Francisco, where the artist fostered a deep, lifelong connection to the city. Its arrival in New York City now marks the largest show dedicated to a woman artist in the museum’s history.

      Photograph by Laurence Cuneo. © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      Featuring more than 300 of Asawa’s artworks spread across a whopping 16,000 square feet, the expansive collection documents the artist’s six-decade-long career. You can expect to get a close look at her groundbreaking wire sculptures, intimate paintings, drawings, and prints, as well as bronze casts and monumental public works.

      Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective opens at the Museum of Modern Art on October 19, where it will be on view until February 7, 2026. Explore more from Asawa on Colossal, and delve further into her practice through her estate’s website.

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      “Poppy” (1965), lithograph, 30 1∕16 × 20 9∕16 inches, edition of 20. Image © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      “Untitled (S.398, Hanging Eight-Lobed, Four-Part, Discontinuous Surface Form within a Form with Spheres in the Seventh and Eighth Lobes)” (1955), brass wire, iron wire, and galvanized iron wire, 8 feet 8 1/2 inches × 14 1/2 × 14 1/2 inches. Image © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      “Untitled (BMC.145, BMC Laundry Stamp)” (1948–49), stamped ink on fabric sheeting, 36 3/4 × 45 1/2 inches. Image © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

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      Conrad Bakker Recreated All 1,100+ Books in Pioneering Land Artist Robert Smithson’s Personal Library

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      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 2014. All images courtesy of Conrad Bakker, shared with permission

      Conrad Bakker Recreated All 1,100+ Books in Pioneering Land Artist Robert Smithson’s Personal Library

      October 16, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      An autodidact and polymath, Robert Smithson cemented himself as one of the pre-eminent land artists in his short lifetime. Along with his fellow artist and wife Nancy Holt, Smithson pioneered a new way of working that explored connections to the landscape and place and endlessly probed the formation of knowledge.

      When he died in a plane crash in 1973 at just 35 years old, he left behind a vast personal library that represented his broad interests: there were books on crystals and rock minerals, dinosaurs and insects, myths and children’s rhymes, and classics like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and Jorge Luis Borges’ Ficciones. Holt donated the entirety of Smithson’s collection— approximately 1,120 books—to the Archives of American Art after his death, where it’s still housed today.

      ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ member Pep Fernàndez, holding his book in Barcelona, Spain

      There’s also, though, another way to peek into the narratives and materials that shaped Smithson’s thinking and practice. In 2019, Conrad Bakker completed a five-year-long project of recreating every title in that original collection on a 1:1 scale. Presented in museums and galleries from Utah to Arkansas to New York, “Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club” is both a painstaking ode to the pioneering artist and a bold consideration of how we access and consume information.

      “I can’t really remember my first encounter with Robert Smithson, but I’ve always been a fan of his artwork and, in particular, the way he oriented his sculptures to coexist inside the physical space of a gallery and outside in the landscape,” Bakker says. He first encountered the artist’s library through Ann Reynolds’ Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere, which provided a comprehensive catalog of each title and edition in the collection.

      “I was captivated by this wonderful list of books and curious about the diversity of his research subjects, the intensity of his self-education through books,” Bakker says, adding that the library also serves as a “time capsule of artistic research of the 1960s. I imagined this collection of books as an extension of Robert Smithson’s mind, his curiosity, and thinking.”

      This prompted one component of Bakker’s ongoing Untitled Projects, a practice of recreating everyday objects like chocolate bars or VHS tapes to explore facets of economic systems, production, and consumption. Using images from online booksellers, he carved and painted wooden replicas of each edition.

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Displayed in cardboard-like boxes and stacked on the floor, Bakker’s collection has taken many forms, from room-sized installations to a full-scale bookstore in the storefront of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas. While the library remains intact in his studio, the “Book Club” also allowed collectors to purchase a second sculpture for a time. He created about 350 additional works for this element of the project.

      The library is just one part of Bakker’s interest in books as objects, which includes a used paperback sale and an archive of self-help titles from the 1970s. For the artist, these objects offer numerous lines of inquiry from “books as historical records of culture and personal memories, books ascommodities, bookstores as public spaces, books as (outdated) technology, and books as portable containers of information, instructions, and ideas,” he writes.

      Bakker is currently working on several projects, including a full-scale copy shop (think 1980s-era Kinko’s) for The Weather Station in Lafayette, Indiana. In early 2026, he’ll also show a piece connecting capitalism and climate change at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. The library is likely headed to Stockholm in the coming months, but keep an eye on the project’s Instagram for more.

      You might also enjoy Bernie Kaminski’s papier-mâché objects and Matt Stevens’ Good Movies as Old Books.

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Installation view of ‘Untitled Project: Smithson’s Books’ installed in the storefront windows of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas, 2021

      ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ member Ruth Lopez holding her book

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 2014

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Installation view of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Conrad Bakker inside ‘R. Smithson Books.’ Photo by Meredith Mashburn Photography

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      Dive into the Painstaking Process of Restoring an 18th-Century Fan

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      All images courtesy of the V&A

      Dive into the Painstaking Process of Restoring an 18th-Century Fan

      October 16, 2025

      ArtDesignHistory

      Grace Ebert

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      Armed with tweezers, a porcupine quill, and more patience than most of us could fathom, the senior paper conservator of the Victoria & Albert Museum tackles a finicky restoration project in a new video. Susan Catcher walks us through her impeccably precise process as she restores a damaged fan dating back 200 years. She shares insights into her techniques and materials, all of which have to be reversible should the project need to be redone.

      This video is one of many within the V&A’s series on conservation, which includes restoring Shakespearean costumes, a portrait of Marie Antoinette, and a Samurai figure. Watch more on YouTube.

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