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      Song Dong’s Monumental Installations Mirror Memories, Globalization, and Impermanence

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      “A Quarter” (2021-2024), interactive installation of steel, mirrors, collected daily objects and furniture from different
      households, lighting fixtures, small stools, and carpets. All images © Song Dong, shared with permission

      Song Dong’s Monumental Installations Mirror Memories, Globalization, and Impermanence

      September 5, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Mirrors, lights, and household furnishings converge on a grand scale in the luminous installations of Song Dong. The Chinese artist’s interdisciplinary practice often combines performance, sculpture, painting, video, and calligraphy to summon memories and create monumental immersive experiences.

      Themes of transition and ephemerality often appear in Song’s pieces, like a series of installations and performances in which tabletop constructions reminiscent of metropolitan skylines were constructed from edible treats, dismantled brick by brick—or biscuit by biscuit—as visitors passed by. Playful and saccharine on the surface, these works examine the artist’s own childhood experiences of food scarcity along with themes of ephemerality and globalization.

      “Waste Not” (2009), installation performance, Museum of Modern Art, New York

      “Waste Not” —which was shown initially at Beijing Tokyo Art Projects before being exhibited in major institutions in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Germany—explores related themes of consumption and impermanence. Incorporating more than 10,000 items his mother had accumulated over the course of five decades, the installation-performance became “an act of physical and psychological unpacking,” says Pace Gallery, which represents the artist. Viewers were presented with “a veritable landscape of commodities, ranging from bottle caps, shoes, blankets, toothpaste tubes, metal pots, and toys.”

      Through the use of old wooden windows, bed frames, doors, mirrors, lamps, color-coated glass, porcelain, and other found objects and “daily necessities,” Song composes elaborate, structural installations. These evoke dreamy notions of home, belonging, security, and migration while exploring the relationships between memory and fact, humor and trauma. He culls his materials from the streets of Beijing, sourcing discarded furniture, architectural elements, and quotidian objects.

      “These collaged remnants of people’s homes carry with them the history of a city and the lives of its people,” Pace says. “As viewers are invited to peek inside, they are transformed into voyeurs: imagining their homes, their stories, and perhaps identifying shared experiences, and primed to think of the future.”

      Now on view as part of the vibrant 36th São Paolo Biennial, Song’s work appears among ambitious installations by dozens of artists from around the world. His commissioned piece “Borrow Light” takes the form of a mirrored world brimming with lamps that reflect from every surface, not unlike one of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms.

      “Borrow Light” (2025). Installation view of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, ‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice’ © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

      The artist considers the concept of “borrowing” in terms of its inherent temporality. He positions it as something of an ethos for understanding our short time on Earth, whether life’s cycles or even the presence of humans at all over the course of millions of evolutionary years.

      Song draws inspiration “from both a carnival’s house of mirrors and the traditional Chinese feng shui method of using mirrors and windows to expand interior space by ushering in the external world,” says an exhibition statement. “Borrow Light” becomes a participatory experience, where visitors’ movements are reflected and illuminated throughout the space. Chairs and lamps, all lent from private homes, provide places for rest and contemplation.

      “Playing with fluid elements such as light, reflection, and illusion, Song’s installation immerses the audience into an infinite universe, where our images and minds become entwined in a silvery, glowing light,” the biennial says.

      Explore more exhibitions and learn about the artist on Pace Gallery’s website.

      Detail of “Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3.” Photo by Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Pace Gallery

      Detail of “Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3.” Photo by Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Pace Gallery

      “Borrow Light” (2025). Installation view of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, ‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice’ © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

      “Borrow Light” (2025). Installation view of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, ‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice’ © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

      Detail of “Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3.” Photo by Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Pace Gallery

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    • 88 Shares60 Views

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      Mystery Abounds in Angela Burson’s Engimatic Paintings

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      “Disconnected” (2025), acrylic on panel, 9 x 12 inches. All images courtesy of Hashimoto Contemporary, shared with permission

      Mystery Abounds in Angela Burson’s Engimatic Paintings

      September 5, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      What do the objects we surround ourselves with say about who we are? For Angela Burson, the shirt we pluck from the closet in the morning and the drink we sip with dinner are especially engaging insights into personal and familial identities.

      The artist, who is based in Savannah, often begins with old photographs and re-interprets vintage fashions, tile patterns, and household items in acrylic. She tends to skew proportions and perspectives, achieving a surreal style intensified by her signature crops and headless figures. A vivid, old-fashioned palette of yellow, baby blue, and pale, dusty rose characterizes the mysterious scenes, which peer into intimate moments rife with intrigue.

      “Western Martini” (2025), acrylic on panel, 12 x 16 inches

      In “Taking Notes,” for example, we see two people sitting at a table, the suited figure scribbling on a pad of paper while another grabs for an olive martini. We’re left unsure of whether these notes reflect an investigation into an illicit event or chronicle a more legitimate (and seemingly less likely) cause. There’s also the nefarious cord-cutter in “Disconnected,” a piece in which a black rotary phone is sure to become an object of inquiry.

      Of course, not all of Burson’s paintings appear to catch a bad actor. Her characteristic crops also zoom in on a delicate pair of sheer, polka-dotted socks or slender hands grasping a cocktail glass. The artist’s most recent body of work, Analog Conditions, depicts “artificially created situations (that) mimic real-world circumstances.”

      Recurring motifs like suitcases and beloved pets allude to themes of liberation and companionship, although Burson continues to leave us puzzled: Why, for example, is there an open pill box next to an unattended pup? And what spurred the adoption of an adorable calico kitten? While ambiguous and inconclusive, Burson’s paintings prompt us, as a statement says, “to question the existential meaning of it all.”

      Analog Conditions is on view from September 6 to 27 at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York City. Explore more from Burson on her website and Instagram.

      “Taking Notes” (2025), acrylic on linen, 31 1/2 x 40 7/8 x 3/4 inches

      “Olive and Pillbox” (2025), acrylic on linen, 16 x 20 inches

      “Yellow Shoes” (2025), acrylic on panel, 12 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches

      “Vintage Taupe” (2025), acrylic on panel, 9 x 12 inches

      “Yellow Bow” (2025), acrylic on panel, 9 x 12 inches

      “Ozark Magic” (2025), acrylic on panel, 14 x 14 inches

      “Patches” (2025), acrylic on linen, 60 x 40 x 1 1/2 inches

      “Pencil” (2025), acrylic on linen, 40 x 40 x 3/4 inches

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    • 150 Shares71 Views

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      Yasuaki Onishi Suspends Thousands of Copper Foil Molds in an Undulating Framework

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      All images courtesy of the artist and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, shared with permission

      Yasuaki Onishi Suspends Thousands of Copper Foil Molds in an Undulating Framework

      September 4, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Undulating in a Utah Museum of Fine Arts gallery, thousands of glimmering casts seem to float throughout the space. For his large-scale installation “Stone on Boundary,” Japanese artist Yasuaki Onishi has suspended 5,000 copper foils that he molded over river rocks in both Osaka and Salt Lake City.

      Begun in the artist’s studio in Osaka—a city where Japanese copper has been refined for export for around two centuries—the installation then traveled to the museum, which sits less than an hour’s drive from the world’s largest operational open-pit copper mine. Using an element found in both places and mirroring waterways or rippling topography, Onishi connects two seemingly unrelated locations through a common material and industry.

      The artist has long been interested in how objects interact with their surroundings, especially the relationship between “positive” and “negative” space. This spurred a deep dive into molding techniques and unique uses of materials, which allow him to explore themes revolving around margins, voids, boundaries, and volume. For the Salt Lake City installation, he considers the relationship between earth, the landscape, and extraction.

      “The copper foil created by Onishi presents such absence and presence through molding, suggesting that to recognize things, it is essential not only to know the surface but also to richly engage the imagination—and that even with imagination, one cannot see everything,” the museum says.

      For “Stone on Boundary,” the thin metal molds create disc- and cup-like shapes that suspend along a wire framework, which reflects the Wasatch and Oquirrh Mountains around Salt Lake City. The installation also marks the artist’s largest to date, spanning 12 x 22 x 14 meters.

      Find more on Onishi’s website and Instagram.

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    • 150 Shares105 Views

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      PITR Highlights Storefronts, Signage, and Graffiti in Ultra-Detailed Portraits of Urban Streets

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      All images © Pizza in the Rain, courtesy of Mortal Machine Gallery, New Orleans, shared with permission

      PITR Highlights Storefronts, Signage, and Graffiti in Ultra-Detailed Portraits of Urban Streets

      September 4, 2025

      ArtIllustration

      Kate Mothes

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      Whether portraying a graffiti tag below a retail window or the bond patterns of bricks, the artist known as Pizza in the Rain, or PITR, illuminates city streets and commercial ephemera in striking detail.

      With meticulous attention to geometry and quotidian features, the Chicago-based artist highlights business signage and urban facades in an almost narrative way, with the occasional figure passing through on foot or on a bike. Simultaneously immersive and nostalgic, we’re invited in and at the same time reminded of disappearing vestiges of past eras.

      From storefront to storefront, we can imagine PITR’s compositions are snapshots of one continuous city, even though many of the distinctive locations are in different places around the U.S. Many recent scenes are evocative of New Orleans, with boarded-up shutters, like those often seen in the French Quarter, or historical markers. Circo’s Pastry Shop is a real place in Brooklyn, and The California Clipper is a well-known lounge in Chicago.

      PITR renders everyday details with equal importance, from sprayed markings on the sidewalk, like the kind the gas company might make, to weathered awnings and neon logos. Nothing blurs into the background in his portraits of individual buildings and maximalist city blocks. On one hand, the locations appear realistic, yet on the other, there is a sense of fantasy and surrealism in their precisely drawn, slightly dystopian imperfections.

      If you’re in New Orleans, stop by Mortal Machine Gallery to check out these pieces alongside new works by Max Seckel in Parallel Structures, which opens on September 12. Explore even more on PITR’s Instagram.

      Collaboration with Max Seckel

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      ‘Between the Lines’ Showcases the Subversive Traditions of Art-Making While Incarcerated

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      Djan Shun Lin, “Eagle” (ca. 1994, York County Prison, York County, Pennsylvania), paper and paint. All photos by Addison Doty, courtesy of the Museum of International Folk Art, shared with permission

      ‘Between the Lines’ Showcases the Subversive Traditions of Art-Making While Incarcerated

      September 3, 2025

      ArtSocial Issues

      Grace Ebert

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      Artists aren’t strangers to creative constraints. Perhaps they work full-time and have to sneak in just an hour of painting before bed. Or a grant requires that they follow a particular set of guidelines that push their practice in a new direction. Whatever the situation, artists are often uniquely positioned to find innovative, experimental approaches to making.

      For those included in Between the Lines: Prison Art and Advocacy, which was on view this past month at the Museum of International Folk Art, constraints are plentiful. Featuring an eclectic array of works by incarcerated artists, the group exhibition offers a survey of creativity in confinement.

      Artist name redacted, “Envelope (Austin, Texas)” (June 2002, Snyder, Texas), paper envelope, color pencil, pen

      A primary thread in the exhibition—which tends to connect most artworks made during a period of incarceration—is an innovative use of materials. John Paul Granillo, for example, renders blue pen portraits on a pair of canvas prison-issue shoes. Other drawings appear on envelopes sent to the Coalition For Prisoners’ Rights, a nonprofit project that mailed newsletters inside for several decades.

      There are also several paños, a genre utilizing commissary handkerchiefs, pillowcases, or bedsheets that originated with incarcerated Chicanos in the 20th century. The largely self-taught art form is perhaps one of the best-known traditions to emerge from inside carceral facilities and is a subversive mode of expression: often sent to family and loved ones on the outside, these fabric pieces offer both a way to communicate what might otherwise be censored in letters and a financial opportunity for particularly talented artists who might sell the paños for birthday, anniversary, and other gifts.

      While much of the work comes from facilities in the Southwest and Western states, Between the Lines extends its reach to connect carceral systems across the globe. A vibrantly beaded bird with bold text reading Masallah, or may Allah, comes from 1960s Anatolia. Purchased in 2005 in Istanbul, the piece is a “protective amulet and hung from car rearview mirrors or other places,” the museum says.

      As Brian Karl points out in Hyperallergic, the exhibition is less concerned with prison reform and larger questions of abolition than it is with showcasing the necessity of creating in such a dehumanizing environment. The eagle, a motif associated with freedom in the U.S., appears in several works and speaks to the lack of agency and autonomy in such a punishing system. When people are very literally confined with meager, if any, resources for self-expression, creating becomes both a mode of survival and a revolutionary act. As the exhibition’s title suggests, prison art is always bound up with advocacy and requires makers to find defiance in interstitial spaces.

      John Paul Granillo, “Shoes with ink drawing” (2011–2012, Federal Correctional Institution, Ray Brook, New York), blue pen ink, white fabric, rubber

      Michael Guzman, “PA. LA. Casa (To the House)” (1982–1984, New Mexico State Penitentiary, Santa Fe), paper, colored pencil, pen. Work courtesy of Stuart Ashman in honor of the talented inmates at the New Mexico State Penitentiary

      Artist name redacted, “Envelope (buffalo skull and stepped chevron design)” (October 2005,Salinas Valley State Prison, Soledad, California), paper envelope, color pencil, pen

      Artist unrecorded, “Picture Frame” (1980s, New Mexico State Penitentiary, Santa Fe), plastic-coated gum wrappers, photograph

      Artist unrecorded, “Amulet” (1960–1970, Anatolia, Republic of Türkiye), glass beads, cotton string, sequins, stuffing

      J.D., “Te Amo (I Love You)” (2018–2020, Cibola County Correctional Center, Milan, New Mexico), torn cotton bedsheets and ink

      Carlos Cervantes, “Hispanic History in the Southwest” (1996, New Mexico State Penitentiary, Santa Fe), cotton handkerchief, lead pencil, colored pencils, ink pens

      Ray Materson, “Where Are You Now” (1990, Somers, Connecticut), sock thread, silk, fiber

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    • 163 Shares112 Views

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      Decadent Alfresco Feasts Serve as Reminders of Simple Pleasures in Pedro Pedro’s ‘Picnic’

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      All images courtesy of the artist and Fundación La Nave, shared with permission

      Decadent Alfresco Feasts Serve as Reminders of Simple Pleasures in Pedro Pedro’s ‘Picnic’

      September 3, 2025

      ArtFood

      Kate Mothes

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      “I believe a picnic is a utopia,” says Pedro Pedro, whose new solo exhibition at Fundación La Nave Salinas takes its name from the titular activity. In Picnic, the Los Angeles-based artist celebrates togetherness, relaxation, and small daily luxuries as a means of maintaining balance and cheerfulness, even during challenging times.

      Picnic highlights a total of 15 new canvases. “Beneath their exuberant surfaces lies a subtle homage to the 1950s, through the depiction of mid‐century furniture and aesthetic, a lens through which Pedro critiques the relentless pace of 2025,” the gallery says. “In an age defined by nonstop notifications and doom‐scroll headlines, Pedro invites us back to a time when people savored the present moment.”

      Through a tinge of golden age thinking, paired with La Nave’s setting in Ibiza, Spain, where it perches over the Mediterannean, we’re invited to indulge in simpler pleasures like lounging on the beach and sampling from a seemingly endless array of treats.

      Using textile paint on unprimed linen, Pedro begins each work with a digital design, which he then sketches onto the substrate using chalk and fills in with color. The closer one studies a painting, the more motifs appear to replicate, like flawless and nearly identical lilies, dollops of whipped cream, orange slices, or melons.

      Just like his method, the relationship between how we read digital and “natural” imagery blurs. Half-peeled citrus, knives abandoned in pastries, and random garments suggest that whoever is enjoying the picnic has perhaps just run off to take a dip in the sea and will be back any moment.

      Mirroring the artist’s interest in utopia, an ideal and perfect society, every element of his paintings is bright, juicy, and surreally, well, perfect. He draws inspiration from the joyously rotund forms of Colombian artist Fernando Botero and the Wayne Thiebaud’s decadent pies and cakes.

      The show also taps into the ethos of memento mori, which translates from Latin to “remember you will die.” The concept was especially in vogue during the Dutch Golden Age, appearing in still life paintings in the form of motifs like wilting flowers and rotting fruit.

      For Pedro, it’s not about remembering that life ends; it’s about consciously living it to its fullest. Thus, memento vivere, or “remember to live,” serves as a counterpoint to its weightier cousin. “Each lemon slice, half-eaten tart, or toppled wine glass is not a warning about mortality, but a luminous reminder to inhabit the present with curiosity, joy, and delight,” the gallery says.

      Picnic continues through October 31 in Ibiza. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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    • 163 Shares93 Views

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      Yoshitoshi Kanemaki’s Sculptures Sport Kaleidoscopic Expressions in Their Search for a ‘True Self’

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      Detail of “Breathing Caprice A,” paint on Torreya, 135 x 75 x 55 centimeters. All images courtesy of the artist and FUMA Contemporary Tokyo, shared with permission

      Yoshitoshi Kanemaki’s Sculptures Sport Kaleidoscopic Expressions in Their Search for a ‘True Self’

      September 2, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Yoshitoshi Kanemaki is no stranger to human emotions, imbuing his playful sculptures with not one but several expressions all at once. The Tokyo-based artist is known for his “glitched” sculptures carved from single pieces of timber, and in his ongoing current series Prism, he continues to explore the nature of distortion, reflection, and self-consciousness.

      Insight Prism, the artist’s solo exhibition opening at FUMA Contemporary this month, combines two concepts the artist dovetails in his chiseled-wood compositions.

      “Insight Prism,” paint on Japanese nutmeg and katsura, 170 x 72 x 67 centimeters

      “The word ‘insight’ carries the meaning of seeing into the essence of things with clarity, while ‘prism’ metaphorically refers to elucidating what is complex,” Kanemaki says. Through a fragmented triangular motif, he highlights warped features that refract, separate, and reassemble—much like the ever-evolving nature of human consciousness and social interactions.

      Insight Prism marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in two years, presenting the largest sculpture he’s yet created in the Prism series—the namesake of the show. Kanemaki delves into the multiple roles we all play in our daily lives, switching between different versions of ourselves to contend with different situations or environments. He says:

      While such shifts can be seen as a necessary social manner to keep life running smoothly, there are times when we lose the vision of our “true self.”… The idea for my new sculptures began with the question: What might the form of searching for one’s “true self” look like?

      Insight Prism opens on September 12 and continues through September 27 in Tokyo. Find more on the artist’s Instagram.

      “Breathing Caprice A,” paint on Torreya, 135 x 75 x 55 centimeters

      Detail of “Insight Prism”

      “Reflection Prism,” paint on Torreya, 170 x 53 x 51 centimeters

      Detail of “Reflection Prism”

      “Ulala Caprice 3rd,” paint on Japanese nutmeg and camphor wood, 100 x 34 x 34 centimeters

      Detail of “Ulala Caprice 3rd”

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    • 150 Shares87 Views

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      Glowing Plastic Spores Spring from Invasive Vines in Mika Rottenberg’s ‘Vibrant Matter’

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      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025).
      Photo by Damian Griffiths. All images © Mika Rottenberg, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth, shared with permission

      Glowing Plastic Spores Spring from Invasive Vines in Mika Rottenberg’s ‘Vibrant Matter’

      September 2, 2025

      ArtNature

      Grace Ebert

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      When a virulent material enters an ecosystem, it can wreak havoc on existing life. Bittersweet vines in Upstate New York, for example, were brought to the region in the second half of the 19th century to combat erosion and for their sinuous, woody beauty. Native to eastern Asia, these largely poisonous plants quickly became invasive, smothering other specimens and even uprooting trees.

      For Mika Rottenberg, there’s another substance that would fall into this category: plastic. Like the bittersweet vines that have decimated forest populations near her studio, plastics have infiltrated innumerable systems, from the oceans to our homes to deep within our own bodies.

      “Lampshare (bx 1.4)” (2025), milled reclaimed household plastic, plant, resin, and electric hardware, 36 x 33 x 34 inches. Photo by Pete Mauney

      In a video from Hauser & Wirth, Rottenberg discusses how these two materials became the basis for a new body of work. On view at the gallery’s Menorca location, Vibrant Matter is the Argentinian artist’s first solo show in Spain and presents a series of glowing fungi sculptures that meld these two toxins.

      “I’ve always been interested in collaborating with the forces of nature, thinking about an artwork as something you grow and harvest,” Rottenberg says. As she began to think about the “footprint of the studio,” she turned her focus to the invasive vines in the nearby forest and laundry jugs and other disposables sourced from dumpsters and local recycling centers.

      Illuminated spores sprout from pedestals and dangle from the gallery ceiling, their vibrant, plastic tops adding a surreal veil to the largely organic forms. These Lampshares, as the artist calls them, question humanity’s enduring inclination toward toxicity, even when incorporating such pernicious materials into our lives ultimately puts us in danger.

      Rottenberg has long been interested in consumption and the rampant nature of capitalism. Along with several video installations, the sculptural works in Vibrant Matter prompt questions about agency and the necessity of regeneration.

      “I am interested in these human-made systems where the starting point is to have no clue what is really going on and to try to impose a certain logic on things, and the madness of that,” she adds.

      Vibrant Matter is on view through October 26. Find more from Rottenberg on Instagram.

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

      “Lampshare (with plant 2)” (2025), milled reclaimed household plastic, plant, resin, and electric hardware, 16 x 14 x 12 inches. Photo by Pete Mauney

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

      “Lampshare (chandelier #5)” (2024), milled reclaimed household plastic and bittersweet vines, resin and electric hardware, 45 x 12 x 12 inches. Photo by Sarah Muehlbauer

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

      “Lampshare” (2025), milled reclaimed household plastic and plant, batteries, resin, and electric hardware, 18 x 30 x 11 inches. Photo by Pete Mauney

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

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