Art & Exhibitions

When the Carnegie Museum of Natural History shuttered their Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt last year, many of the museum’s priceless Egyptian relics left the public eye. More than 80 pieces from its cache of 5,000 objects went back on view last weekend in “The Stories We Keep: Conserving Objects from Ancient Egypt,” a new show that allows viewers to follow their preservation.
While the museum resolved last year that it would no longer display human remains, “The Stories We Keep” will share spectacles like a classic coffin lid and a 3,500 year old limestone stela alongside ancient ephemera like makeup and beer mugs.
Conservation technician Jenna Anderson with the coffin lid in “The Stories We Keep.” Photo: Matt Unger, courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
The show’s main draw is a 4,000 year old Dahshur funerary boat—one of only four known examples—currently under the care of renowned wood expert Mostafa Sherif, who CMNH recruited last year. Museum conservators will give daily demonstrations of their efforts amongst the show during its year-long run.
“Andrew Carnegie purchased the boat in 1901 and it arrived in New York later that year via steamer and traveled via rail from New York to Pittsburgh,” CMNH assistant curator Lisa Haney told me. “Once it arrived, it was quickly revealed that it would be too large to fit inside. So it was housed in a makeshift boathouse constructed outside the museum for five years while the museum was remodeled.”
Associate conservator Mostafa Sherif at work on the Dahshur boat. Photo: Matt Unger, courtesy of the Carnegia Museum of Natural History
According to Carnegie Magazine, Sherif has worked on two of the four boats from Dahshur. There, head curator Gretchen Anderson explains how CMNH’s specimen sustained damage since arriving. The boat was in a case from 1907 to 1956, but went on view, once staff coated it in a permanent compound called Wife’s Pride for protection. While it was exhibited over the next 20 years, visitors etched graffiti on the boat, and even climbed aboard.
Sherif’s “minimal intervention” to reinforce its structural integrity will avoid painting over gaps, which he considers “forgery.” He’ll then reassemble the boat, plank by fragile plank, for the 2026 show “Egypt on the Nile.”
Conservation technician Jenna Anderson at work. Photo: Matt Unger, courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
In addition to working before visitors in the show’s Visible Conservation Lab, conservators will host office hours and solicit questions via QR code to answer over social media. Attendees can try black lights and microscopes for themselves and reassemble 3-D scans of pot shards.
Objects on view in the Visible Conservation Lab. Photo: Matt Unger, courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
A press release around the exhibition acknowledges society’s longstanding fascination with its subject matter.
“I think ancient Egypt is so fascinating because there is such an amazingly preserved presence that is still visible,” assistant curator Haney told me. “All of the temples, architecture, and beautiful visual culture are so compelling and engaging.”
A coffin lid being conserved in the show. Photo: Matt Unger, courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
“The Stories We Keep” also recontextualizes these artifacts without demystifying them by drawing parallels amongst life across the ages.
One display presents Ancient Egyptian baubles alongside contemporary counterparts—including a beaded bracelet that belonged to an Ancient Egyptian child, hanging next to a plastic hospital bracelet worn by the newborn daughter of the museum’s director of exhibitions and design. Inviting viewers to observe these conservation efforts while staging such comparison inspires respect for yesterday’s trinkets as today’s treasures.
A visitor examines the Visible Conservation Lab in “The Stories We Keep.” Photo: Matt Unger, courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
“The Stories We Keep: Conserving Objects From Ancient Egypt” is on view at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, through March 9, 2025.
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Name a celebrity, and the British photographer John Rankin Waddell—better known as Rankin—has probably photographed them. Over the course of a three-decade career that began with co-founding the magazine Dazed and Confused (now Dazed) in 1991, Rankin has shot the likes of Kate Moss, Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Jay-Z, and Oasis. He has selected some of his most iconic images for a new show at Tin Man Art gallery in London.
How does Rankin get take some of the most photographed faces on the planet and create something new that allows each personality to shine through? “My main approach is actually just talking to them about collaborating,” he said during a conversation at the show’s opening. “Obviously, I’m quite directional but I’m not trying to take the photograph, I try to make a photograph with the person. That approach allows people to feel comfortable.”
Rankin, No Different From Anyone Else?, David Bowie for Dazed & Confused magazine in 1995. Photo: © Rankin.
As you might expect when meeting a legendary musician, some of the shoots were filled with fond memories for Rankin. When meeting David Bowie in L.A., for example, “I thought I was going to meet the king of cool,” he recalled. “In bounced this guy who was the most enthusiastic sixth former [high-schooler] I’ve ever met. He was just extraordinary.”
“It really threw me because I was expecting him to be like his other pictures,” he added. “It taught me not to presume too much from what I saw in photographs.” The image was published in a 1995 issue of Dazed & Confused.
Press photo of Radiohead (1997), Pulp album promotion (2001), and PJ Harvey for Q Magazine (2001) at “RANKIN: Sound Off – Musicians 1990-2023” at Tin Man Art in London. Photo: Benjamin Deakin, courtesy of Tin Man Art, © Rankin.
While taking press photos for the band Pulp, Rankin was surprised when lead singer Jarvis Cocker suggested the shoot take place in his old Datsun minivan. “It’s kind of the most anti-popstar picture ever,” Rankin said with a laugh. “I think he bought [the car] because he was obsessed with the ads for it in the ’70s.”
“It’s kind of brilliant because it sums Pulp up in a way,” added Rankin, who also shot the cover for the band’s album Different Class (1995). “It’s almost the best Pulp picture I’ve ever taken because they’re very down to earth, very common people.”
Rankin, Smokey Richards, Keith Richards tour promotional image from 2002. Photo: © Rankin.
In a pre-Instagram age when images of celebrities were accessed via newsstands, Rankin was responsible for some highly memorable editorial shoots from the 1990s. Provocative, fun, and informal photographs that appeared in the pages of Dazed & Confused captured the spirit of Britpop and a cultural renaissance in both British art and fashion.
Rankin, Thom Yorke: You Do it to Yourself (1996). Photo: © Rankin.
“Thom Yorke was always exciting to photograph. He knew how to be himself perfectly,” Rankin recently wrote on Instagram. “Being so anti-commercial, Radiohead were perfect for conceptual shoots.” The image appears in a 1996 issue of Dazed & Confused.
Yorke recently showed his own artworks at the same gallery Tin Man Art, produced with long time artistic collaborator Stanley Donwood.
“Rankin’s visionary photography and publishing has transfixed music lovers for 30 years,” gallery director James Elwes said of the new show. “The works in this show empower and iconize an array of musical artists—for me, there are moments where we see pop transcend into folklore.”
Rankin, Blondie Eyes Shut, Debbie Harry for Dazed & Confused magazine in 1996. Photo: © Rankin.
On shooting Debbie Harry, Rankin has said: “You really have to try and push every image you’ve seen of her out of your mind when you photograph her. Everyone has seen hundreds of amazing pictures of her, you have to make a real effort to be different.”
Now the founder of HUNGER magazine, Rankin is still photographing stars of the British pop scene like Sam Smith and Dua Lipa, as well as titan of the U.K.’s grime music scene, rapper Stormzy. His view on how visual culture has changed since the 1990s? It’s become “very boring.”
Rankin, Spectre, Sam Smith in 2015. Photo: © Rankin.
“I reminisce about the period of time when you weren’t chained to the phone, this 24/7 always ‘on’ thing,” he said. “I know it feels attractive or like it makes us less bored but actually I think it makes us more bored. The greatest ideas come from me not being engaged with other people in the new way, through social media or video calling. It’s either when I’m walking my dog and being bored, reading books, going to a gallery. If I don’t do that, I feel very empty.”
He also lamented an era in which “you aren’t really make mistakes anymore. Everything’s being photographed or filmed 24/7. Everyone has a camera in their pocket and essentially doesn’t understand how powerful and destructive a camera can be,” he said. “It makes people anxious and creates a feeling of constantly being watched. That’s very bad for human beings.”
“RANKIN: Sound Off – Musicians 1990-23” is on view at Tin Man Art in Cromwell Place, London, through March 24. 
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The press got its first glimpse of the always anticipated Whitney Biennial yesterday. Curated by Chrissie Iles and Meg Olni, this 81st edition of the museum’s signature survey is titled “Even Better Than the Real Thing.”
Curiously, the Whitney’s press release leads off by saying that the title is meant to capture the threat to our sense of reality posed by Artificial Intelligence. Truth be told, this topical theme seems at best a side note in its story. It is mainly represented in two works by the Berlin-based duo Holly Herndon and Matt Dryhurst (their project is also featured on the museum’s website) They seem like conceptual and aesthetic outliers here.
6TH FLOOR
P. Staff, Afferent Nerves (2023) and À Travers Le Mal (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
Four works by Harmony Hammond. Photo by Ben Davis.
Julia Phillips, Mediator (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
Julia Phillips, Nourisher (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
Diane Severin Nguyen, In Her Time (Iris’s Version) (2023-24). Photo by Ben Davis.
Carmen Winant, The Last Safe Abortion (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
Detail of Carmen Winant, The Last Safe Abortion (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
Various works by B. Ingrid Olson. Photo by Ben Davis.
Works by K.R.M. Mooney. Photo by Ben Davis.
Nikita Gale, TEMPO RUBATO (STOLEN TIME) (2023-24). Photo by Ben Davis.
Various works by ektor garcia. Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Seba Calfuqueo, TRAY TRAY KO (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of work by Holly Herndon and Matt Dryhurst [foreground] and Suzanne Jackson [background]. Photo by Ben Davis.
Various works by Suzanne Jackson. Photo by Ben Davis.
Sharon Hayes, Ricerche: four (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.
Carolyn Lazard, Toilette (2024) [foreground] and Mary Kelly, Lacunae (2023) [background]. Photo by Ben Davis.
Eddie Ruoolfo Aparicio, Paloma Blanca Deja Volar/White Dove Let Us Fly (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.
Kiyan Williams, Statue of Freedom (Marsha P. Williams) (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
The second association the museum proposes for “Even Better Than the Real Thing” is more clearly where this show’s heart is. The defiant tone is meant to suggest a questioning who is considered the “real thing” and who has been considered marginal, fake, or derivative.
The show is full of statements about disability (Carolyn Lazard, Constantina Zavitsanos, and the collective People Who Stutter Create); statements about contemporary discrimination (Carmen Winant’s The Last Safe Abortion, Sharon Hayes’s piece interviewing queer elders); and works celebrating Indigenous resilience (Cannupa Hanska Luger, Rose B. Simpson, Demian DinéYazhi).
5TH FLOOR
Charisse Pearlina Weston, un- (anterior ellipse[s] as mangled container; or where edges meet to wedge and [un]moor (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Tourmaline, Pollinator (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Dora Budor, Lifelike (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, Too Bright to See (2023-24). Photo by Ben Davis.
An element of Torkwase Dyson, Liquid Shadows, Solid Dreams (A Monastic Playground) (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.
Canupa Hanska Luger, Unziwoslal Wašičuta (from the series “Future Ancestral Technologies”) (2021-)
Maja Ruznic, Deep Calls to Deep (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
Two paintings by Mary Lovelace O’Neal. Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Dionne Lee, Challenger Deep (2019). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Isaac Julien, Once Again… (Statues Never Die) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
installation view of Karyn Olivier, How Many Ways Can You Disappear (2021) and Stop Gap (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
Various paintings by Takako Yamaguchi. Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Constantina Zavitsanos, All the time (2019) and Call to Post (Violet) (2019/24). Photo by Ben Davis.
Various paintings by Mavis Pusey. Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Lotus L. Kang, In Cascades (2023-24). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of works by Jes Fan. Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Eamon Ore-Giron, Talking Shit With my Jaguar Face (2024) and Talking Shit With Amaru (Wari) (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Dala Nasser, Adonis River (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Rose B. Simpson, Daughters: Reverence (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Ligia Lewis, A Plot, A Scandal (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of Clarissa Tosin figurines at the Whitney Biennial. Photo by Ben Davis.
Installation view of one part of Demian DinéYazhi, we must stop imagining apocalypse/genocide + we must imagine liberation (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.

There’s also a notable theme of celebrating heroic figures from Black history, in works by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich (a tribute to Suzanne Césaire), Isaac Julien (an installation that examines the story of Alain Locke), and Kiyan Williams (a deck sculpture of Marsha P. Johnson).
3RD FLOOR
Pippa Garner, Inventor’s Office (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
Detail of Pippa Garner, Inventor’s Office (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.

STAIRCASE
Speakers playing Holland Andrews, Air I Breathe: Radio (2024). Photo by Ben Davis.

GROUND FLOOR
Installation view of work by Ser Serpas. Photo by Ben Davis.
Detail of Installation by Ser Serpas. Photo by Ben Davis.

EXTERIOR
Billboard of by People Who Stutter Create, Stuttering Can Create Time.
On the whole, the show is anti-spectacular, with a focus on abstraction, assemblage, and fragments of things that suggest instead of speaking.
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Born in 1976, in the year of the dragon according to the Chinese zodiac, artist Tu Hongtao welcomes the fifth dragon year of his life with an exhibition at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, making his New York debut.
Best known for his visceral portrayal of dense cityscapes packed with bodies, Tu Hongtao developed his distinctive style in the early 2000s, following a brief stint in the clothing business in Guangdong Province, where he witnessed firsthand the frenzy and debauchery of a society grappling with rapid urbanization and globalization.
For the following decade, Tu maintained a studio on the outskirts of his hometown of Chengdu, and sought solace in nature, poetry, and classical Chinese arts. His earlier critique of rampant consumerism and unbridled desires turned introspective, morphing into psychologically charged landscapes that grew increasingly abstract.
The Covid years marked the latest evolution of that style, which is on display in Tu’s current show, “Beyond Babel.” A general reference to the biblical story, as well as a literary one to George Steiner’s linguistic treatise After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975), the mythical tower stands as the symbol for a new language in an era of technological advancement.
Installation view of Tu Hongtao’s exhibition “Beyond Babel” at Lévy Gorvy Dayan
“I feel the new Tower of Babel is artificial intelligence,” Tu said in an interview with gallery co-founder Brett Gorvy. “Man has advanced technology and the homogeneity of the world and global communication appear to have been restored. But how much longer can the world order and our existing social ecology remain?”
Such reflections stem from Tu’s experiences during the Covid lockdowns in China, which prompted him to question the application of technology in societal control. While such technology emphasizes the precision of converting individuals into digital data, just like AI aims to achieve an ever-higher degree of mimetic accuracy, Tu Hongtao seeks the opposite—an appreciation for ambiguity and uncertainty that remains distinctly human.
For the artist, this poetic uncertainty is where creative freedom lies, and it is also part of the reason that Tu has turned to abstraction.
“Tu Hongtao is a highly trained artist who brings together a deep understanding of traditional picture-making and a powerful gestural expressionism. While proudly Chinese in his identity, he strives for an international language that can be understood universally,” said Gorvy, commenting on Tu’s painting “language.”
Tu Hongtao, The Corrupted Garden of Eden, 2020-23. Image courtesy of Tu Hongtao Studio and Lévy Gorvy Dayan.
A highlight of the exhibition, the monumental, three-panel composition The Corrupted Garden of Eden (2020-23) reveals the artist’s process, in which he covers an initially figurative composition with layers of gestural lines and colors. This piece, three years in the making, also chronicles Tu’s emotional tumults and creative challenges throughout the pandemic. He nearly abandoned the painting twice. The many sheep that appear are a playful reminder of that period, playing on the homophonic nature of the Chinese word for “sheep” (yáng) and “testing positive.”
As his inaugural exhibition in New York launched, we had a conversation with Tu Hongtao about his latest creations, his reflections on the Covid years, and his outlook on the world.
Installation view of Tu Hongtao’s exhibition “Beyond Babel” at Lévy Gorvy Dayan.
How was your experience during the years of the pandemic?
In my city, Chengdu, there were intermittent lockdowns. We had to get vaccinated because without the vaccine, my child couldn’t go to school, and then after attending school for a few days, classes would stop again. In the first two years, people’s values, as well as their emotions, were all somewhat dazed. Starting from the third year, especially in the latter stages of preparing for the exhibition, I felt that people’s vitality was gradually restored. Last October, I chatted with some artists from Nanjing and Beijing, and it seems that everyone was more or less the same. Our values were shrouded in confusion.
During that time, were you able to go to your studio? Did you have the motivation and inspiration to paint?
For nearly two months, I was locked in my studio by myself. Creation came in stages. It was especially apparent with the large painting [The Corrupted Garden of Eden] that took three years to complete. At the beginning, I was very impulsive and painted for two or three months, then suddenly I lost the desire to paint and left it there for half a year before I felt the urge to continue painting. It was like adjusting to a new time zone, sometimes my eyes couldn’t focus. In the second year, I was so angry at one point that I tore the canvas down from the stretcher. Later, I made a new frame and stretched the canvas back onto it before finally finishing the painting. It was a process that happened in stages.
Installation view of Tu Hongtao’s exhibition “Beyond Babel” at Lévy Gorvy Dayan.
Could you tell us more about Babel and how it became the theme that tied the show together?
The Tower of Babel has provoked a lot of thought in me. On the one hand, it represents globalization, as if everyone has a shared dream. But today that dream seems to have collapsed or, rather, torn apart. Reality is moving in the completely opposite direction. On the other hand, the Tower of Babel comes from George Steiner’s book After Babel, in which he questioned the language of technology and consumerism. In the book, Steiner says language has become very much like advertising, losing a lot of its original implications and experiences about humanity. Today, technology is advancing very quickly, and scientism has become a collective Tower of Babel. Steiner felt that language could save the collective unconsciousness of humanity from the turmoil of reality. And I agree with him.
You mentioned that consumerism, including the commercial shaping of language, has been an important theme in your work. Is it still the case?
Before 2010, I would criticize or mock consumerism more directly. Later, I moved beyond it. At that time, consumerism constituted a dilemma in reality, and today I feel that this dilemma might be created instead by technology and technicism. I want to find a more personal visual logic. Influenced by poetry and philosophy, I feel that nonfigurative forms are purer, hence I have gradually moved towards abstraction.
Abstraction is an attitude. AI can do a better job of depicting things. Abstraction, like poetry, is inherently undetermined. Technologies like AI are moving towards certainty; the larger the dataset, the more accurate it becomes, whereas human thought and language are uncertain and infinite. On the surface, abstraction seems vaguer, but in fact, it is more accurate. Like poetry, the mood they create are more fitting, even though it is not precise or quantifiable. In this sense, abstractness is actually more accurate.
Tu Hongtao, Melancholic Neuschwanstein, 2023. Image courtesy of Tu Hongtao Studio and Lévy Gorvy Dayan.
Is this attitude rooted in an understanding of classical Chinese culture?
I’ve spent a long time studying and understanding classical Chinese culture, as well as being familiar with Western and post-war culture, trying to blend the two. However, overall, I lean more towards the classical and the spiritual. I really have no interest in the materiality that the West often focuses on. Chinese classical culture has its own issues; it later became rigid and closed-off. When the classical spirit encounters today’s realities, having learned and understood a lot about Western art, whether Chinese art can release a new kind of feeling and perspective is a concern and practice of mine.
Are you worried that doing more abstract work will reduce the recognizability of your works?
I’ve been quite confident recently because I’ve found that the rhythm and sense of abstraction of lines are very unique. Western artists might have more experience with light, so they are good at colors and layers. If I were to progress in the direction of color blocks, it would indeed be difficult to truly step out of the contemporary context. I have come to value lines more and more. Especially the paintings upstairs, they are representative of my latest developments. They are powerful and full of energy, and I believe painting as a language can transcend other human languages.
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Last year, New York celebrated the 50th birthday of its proudest musical offspring, hip-hop, with a string of exhibitions and concerts across the city. On May 9, the American Museum of Natural History continues the festivities by spotlighting an aspect of hip-hop culture with a slightly longer timeline: its minerals and gemstones.
From the gold rope chains of early pioneers Run DMC to the diamonds of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Tiffany campaign, hip-hop artists have forever used jewelry as a means of creative expression. “Ice Cold” will speak to this fact by bringing together a dazzling collection in which items of jewelry blur the lines between status symbol and work of art.
Housed in the moody atmospherics of the museum’s recently revamped Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems, the exhibition offers pieces from each decade of hip-hop, from items sported by the 1980s Bronx trailblazers through to those worn by contemporary artists who continue to innovate the genre today.
There’s Notorious B.I.G.’s gold Jesus piece (seen on his posthumous 1999 record Born Again), which boasts a lineage of wearers including Ghostface Killah from Wu-Tang Clan and Jay-Z. Slick Rick has called jewels a “super hero suit” and his gem-studded crown is included here, a nod to having being raised in the U.K. There’s the diamond-studded medallion of Roc-A-Fella, the record label that has platformed the likes of Kanye West and Cam’ron. There’s Nicki Minaj’s “Barbie” necklaces and further jewelry from the likes of Erykah Badu, A$AP Rocky, and Tyler, the Creator.
“Hip-hop jewelry has had a huge impact on our wider modern culture,” said Sean M. Decatur, the museum’s president, in a statement. “These jewelry pieces are not just magnificent in and of themselves, they’re an important part of hip-hop history and hip-hop culture as artists claimed and transformed traditional symbols of luxury and success.”
The show is in essence part three of a trilogy on the subject of hip-hop and its eye-catching jewelry. All parts are named Ice Cold. First came a documentary series by Karam Gill that sought to answer the question of how and when jewelry became incorporated in hip-hop culture.
The follow-up was a glossy Taschen tome that told hip-hop’s “transformative story” of “loud and proud” with photography by Wolfgang Tillmans and David LaChapelle, and guest essays from A$AP Ferg and LL Cool J. It was compiled and edited by Vikki Tobak, who, alongside Gill and a star-studded advisory board, acts as guest curator at the American Museum of Natural History.
“Jewelry is a cornerstone of hip-hop culture and you can see the evolution of jewelry alongside the rise of hip-hop itself,” Tobak said. “This exhibition explores that world of hip-hop’s culture of adornment and celebrates the pioneering artists and jewelers who made it all come together.”
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Success arrived belatedly for generative art pioneer Vera Molnár: a major retrospective now on view opened a mere two months after her death.
It was Paris’s Centre Pompidou that broke the news on X in December with a message that read, “It is with deep emotion that we learn of the death of Vera Molnár, with whom we had worked passionately for her next major exhibition.”
That show, “Speak to the Eye,” now occupies the fourth floor of the Pompidou and offers a comprehensive look at an artist who seemed forever ahead of the curve.
To gauge Molnár’s art world standing today, look no further than the tributes that followed her passing. Aside from institutions, curators, and critics, prominent digital artists, and NFT platforms chimed in to herald the impact of her algorithmic experiments, or “Machine Imaginaire,” as she called them.
Vera Molnár, Four Randomly Distributed Elements (1959). Photo: Georges Meguerditchian Centre Pompidou.
Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1924, Molnár studied art history at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. She would later say that her first impactful encounter with art came through the pastoral paintings of her uncle. This influence is evident in the earliest works presented in “Speak to the Eye,” a collection of drawings from 1946 that present landscapes as geometric abstractions.
A year later, Molnár moved to Paris with her husband and sometime collaborator, the scientist François Molnár. There she fell in with a crowd of abstract artists that included Fernand Léger and Victor Vasarely, who pushed her geometric inclinations further. Works such as Circles and Half Circles (1953) and Four Randomly Distributed Elements (1959) speak to her contributions to the post-war geometric abstraction movement.
But the concept that would come to guide Molnár’s practice and shape her legacy was the “Machine Imaginaire.” Beginning in 1959, she used simple algorithms to inform the placement of lines and shapes. At the time, computers were elephantine, academic, screen-less things, and for nearly a decade she worked on grid paper by hand.
In 1968, Molnár talked her way into gaining access to a computer at the Sorbonne. She duly taught herself early programming languages such as Basic and Fortran and began producing work using punch cards and a plotter printer. This period is captured at the Pompidou in works such as A Stroll Between Order and Chaos (1975) and 160 Squares Pushed to the Limit (1976).
Installation view of “Speak to the Eye” at Centre Pompidou. Photo: Janeth Rodriguez-Garcia/Centre Pompidou.
This may be the breakthrough for which Molnár is best known, but “Speak to the Eye” offers an artist whose oeuvre is broader.
There’s sculpture in the form of Perspective on a Line (2014-2019), a site-specific installation that contorts exhibition walls, and a photographic series of sand and shadows from the 2000s.
Thrown in for good measure are 22 of Molnár’s diaries, filled with jottings and photographs and plans for upcoming works. She once said in interview that her whole life was squares, triangles, and lines. These diaries prove the point.
See images of works in the show below.
Vera Molnár, Icon (1964). Photo: Bertrand Prévost / Centre Pompidou.
Vera Molnár, Same But Different (2010). Photo: Philippe Migeat / Centre Pompidou.
Installation view of “Speak to the Eye” at Centre Pompidou. Photo: Janeth Rodriguez-Garcia/Centre Pompidou.
Vera Molnár, “In Search of Paul Klee”, 1970. Photo: Hervé Beurel.
“Speak to the Eye” is on view at Centre Pompidou, Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris, France, through August 26.
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“Nightlife,” a new exhibition at New York’s Marlborough gallery, brings together the works of six photographers known for chronicling the nocturnal goings-on of European and American cities in the early 20th century, including Berenice Abbot, Brassaï, Bill Brandt, Weegee, Helmut Newton, and Irving Penn.
Each of these photographers approached their subject from a different angle. In the 1920s, French-Hungarian photographer Brassaï spent his evenings walking past Parisian bars and brothels, armed with his camera and 24 glass plate negatives. His images variously captured the intimacies, excesses, and joys of night-crawlers, and were celebrated upon the release of his 1933 book, Paris de nuit. Henry Miller dubbed him “the eye of Paris.”
Inspired by Brassaï, Brandt did the same for 1930s London, where he documented the nightly festivities of both the upper and lower classes. His own photography book, A Night in London, published in 1938, offered a glimpse into the prewar night life and labors of British folk across social classes.
Bill Brandt, In the Public Bar at Charlie Brown’s, Limehouse (ca. 1942). © Bill Brandt / Bill Brandt Archive. Photo courtesy of Marlborough New York.
Many of the photographs in “Nightlife” were made possible by the invention and commercialization of the flashbulb, which for the first time in history allowed photographers to take pictures in the absence of natural or artificial light. Prior to the flashbulb, visual documentation of nightlife had fallen to draftsmen to record these environments in sketches.
Photographers Penn and Newton, however, worked in far more controlled settings. Both were active in the field of fashion photography and vastly expanded its scope. Penn’s minimalist portraits hinted at nocturnal trends and styles. Meanwhile, German-Australian photographer Newton favored private as opposed to public scenes. His first two photography books, 1976’s White Women and 1978’s Sleepless Nights, are filled with intimate and erotic pictures of fully or partially nude women posing in bedrooms—a reflection of changing gender norms as well as a commentary on the male gaze that turns observers into voyeurs.
Helmut Newton, Security, New York III (1976). © Helmut Newton Foundation. Photo courtesy of Marlborough New York.
Then there’s Abbott and Weegee, two New York-based photographers who used the same documentary style to depict the Big Apple from opposite perspectives. Abbott’s images of 1930s New York see her hovering in the sky, presenting skylines, squares, and neighborhoods as they developed over time. The city is in the making and unless this transition is crystalized now in permanent form, it will be forever lost,” she once said. “The camera alone can catch the swift surfaces of the cities today and speaks a language intelligible to all.”
Conversely, Weegee stayed on the ground, listening in on police radio broadcasts so he could capture inner-city mishaps such as crime scenes and brawls in the moment. “What I did,” he said, “anybody else can do.” Though ostensibly a press photographer, Weegee’s dynamic frames appealed to the fine art world: his work was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943, included the show “Action Photography,” and later compiled in his first photography volume, 1945’s Naked City.
See more images from the show below.
Berenice Abbott, New York at Night (1932). © Berenice Abbott/Getty Images. Photo courtesy of Marlborough New York.
Weegee, Lovers at the Palace Theatre (1945). Photo courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery © Weegee Archive/International Center of Photography.
Brassaï, Le bal des Quatres Saisons (1932). © ESTATE BRASSAÏ – RMN-Grand Palais. Photo courtesy of Marlborough New York.
Bill Brandt, Hermitage Stairs, Wapping (1930s). © Bill Brandt / Bill Brandt Archive. Photo courtesy of Marlborough New York.
Irving Penn, Girl Behind Bottle (Jean Patchett), New York, 1949 (1978). © Helmut Newton Foundation. Photo courtesy of Marlborough New York.
Weegee, Woman at a bar (1940s). Photo courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery © Weegee Archive/International Center of Photography.
“Nightlife” is on view at Marlborough gallery, 545 West 25th Street, New York, March 7 through April 20.
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Another wave of Basquiat-fever is about to crest over the art world this spring, with a soon-to-open blockbuster show at Gagosian Gallery’s Beverly Hills outpost in Los Angeles, along with a major accompanying exhibition catalogue. It’s just one of many Basquiat projects on the horizon for 2024. 
At a time when it seems the world can’t get enough of Basquiat—the two projects promise to further deepen appreciation and understanding of the artist’s brief but fascinating and dynamic life. As most fans know, he skyrocketed to fame in the New York art world in the 1980s and died at the age of just 27, in 1988.
Then, of course, there’s his market. Basquiat’s current auction record (set at Sotheby’s in 2018) clocks in at a cool $110.5 million, with the second highest auction result not far behind at $93 million, paid at Christie’s New York in 2021. To date, five Basquiat works have fetched above $50 million each at auction. Since 2005, searches for Basquiat on Artnet’s Price Database have skyrocketed; just last year, he was the 8th most-searched artist, keeping company with the likes of Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Last year also marked the opening of the stellar show “Basquiat: KIng Pleasure” which debuted in New York at the direction of the Basquiat Estate and later traveled to Los Angeles. If ever there was proof that the artist’s star is burning bright as ever, and reaching a new fan base, it’s the news that Taylor Swift’s beau, pro football player Travis Kelce, is helping to finance a new documentary on the artist.
Basquiat’s Untitled unveiled in Phillips London. Courtesy of Phillips.
Taken together, the forthcoming Gagosian show and its accompanying catalogue will highlight Basquiat’s lesser-known L.A. period. That’s because, although the artist is often closely associated with New York City and Brooklyn, where he came of age in the heyday of street art and hip-hop, the Gagosian show delves into the heady time he spent in California, where, with the direct support and enthusiasm of the dealer himself (he even had the artist live temporarily at his townhouse with then-girlfriend Madonna) and others, the artist flourished and met a host of like-minded creatives and other artists during his time there.
Meanwhile, Rizzoli is set to release a major monograph on the artist this May, titled “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Iconic Work,” by Dieter Buchhart, the Vienna-based curator and Basquiat expert who has already published numerous books on the artist. The book also serves as the exhibition catalogue to “Jean-Michel Basquiat,” the major exhibition that took place at the Brant Foundation in 2019. That Dieter-curated show delved into the myriad sources of inspiration that influenced Basquiat and his work, ranging from jazz, anatomy, sports figures, comics, classical literature, the African diaspora, and art history. Reflecting on that 2019 show, Brant Foundation founder Peter Brant said, “It was an honor to inaugurate The Brant Foundation’s East Village space by bringing these important works back to the very neighborhood where Basquiat lived and worked, and to share his legacy with the community that was fundamental in shaping it.”
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hollywood Africans, (1983). © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo: © Whitney Museum of American Art/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NYImage courtesy Gagosian.
Jumping back to the West Coast for a moment, the show, titled “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Made on Market Street” (March 7–June 1),  is curated by Gagosian and Fred Hoffman, owner of New City Editions, a Venice-based prints and multiples publishing company, who worked closely with the artist in the early 1980s to create now iconic editions.
“For an artist who has long been affiliated with New York, Jean-Michel was surprisingly productive during the time he spent in California—he created nearly one hundred works of art in two different studios near the beach on Market Street in Venice over a two-year period, between 1982 and 1984,” Gagosian writes in the introduction to the catalogue. The show will reunite 30 works produced in Venice, including loans from major collections such as the Broad Museum, MoMA, and the Whitney Museum in New York
Gagosian first met the artist in 1981 at dealer Anina Nosei’s Soho space and immediately offered him a show, which took place the following year, at the North Almont space in Los Angeles. Gagosian hosted a second solo LA exhibition at a larger space, in 1983.
It was in 1982 that Hoffman also met Basquiat, and together the next year they produced six editioned prints including Tuxedo and Untitled, large-scale silkscreens on canvas that feature vibrant colors as well as the clusters of allusive phrases that became one of the artist’s signature marks.
The book includes a written transcript of a panel discussion held in LA in August 2023, between Basquiat’s two sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, Gagosian, Hoffman, and filmmaker Tamra Davis who spent a good deal of time with the artist while he was in L.A. and in 2010 released the documentary, “Basquiat: The Radiant Child.“
Jean-Michel Basquiat Horn Players, (1983). The Broad Art Foundation. Image courtesy Gagosian Gallery.
Asked about the first time he ever saw Basquiat’s work, Gagosian said: “I saw five or six paintings—and they stopped me cold in my tracks. I mean, my hair stood on end. I was just transfixed by these paintings and how powerful and original they were.”
Noting that it has been more than four decades since he met the artist, Gagosian called it “astonishing” to see the impact that his art and legacy have had across the cultural realm, adding that his influence is present everywhere. On a personal note, he writes, the show “has allowed me to relive the time I shared with Jean-Michel in California and to think back to when we were young and first getting to know each other in the early 1980s. I could see it then. Today his mark is one of the most widely recognized and celebrated in the world.”
Installation view of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure.” Photo by Ivane Katamashvili, courtesy of the Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate.
Following this  West Coast deep dive, Rizzoli’s May release will yield even more insight to the artist’s broader oeuvre once again. According to Buchhart, Basquiat “took the 1980s art world by storm: first New York, then Europe and the entire world.”
The book delves into 100 works and explores both the inspiration and creation process behind them. Buchart describes the artist’s work as “symbolically charged, highly complex, [and] angry.”
“Thirty-five years after Basquiat’s death,” Buchart continues, “his works and their unmistakeable aesthetic attract the highest attention on both the art market—achieving record prices on the secondary market and at auction—and in art historical writing.”
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