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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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      Tiny Art Show Repurposes a Disused Stairwell into a 1:6-Scale Gallery

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      All images courtesy of Tiny Art Show, shared with permission

      Tiny Art Show Repurposes a Disused Stairwell into a 1:6-Scale Gallery

      October 14, 2025

      ArtDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      In 2016, while artist McKay Lenker Bayer was still an undergraduate, her professor assigned the class the task of exhibiting their work. Unsure about presenting her work to the public, she downsized, quite literally, showing miniature paintings with teensy-tiny labels. And the idea for a minuscule exhibition space was born.

      In 2018, Lenker Bayer established Tiny Art Show, a community art project that utilizes unique and unexpected spaces around Provo, Utah, to show original work by numerous artists. Until this year, the project was largely nomadic, but Tiny Art Show now has its own dedicated space.

      Installed at 1:6 scale, the storefront-style gallery sits inside what was originally a stairwell, accessible from street level. Its blue facade is reminiscent of retail spaces in New York City or London, and inside, it’s what Leker Bayer describes as “a fully functional, commercial art gallery… that just happens to be tiny.” Original work is for sale, opening events draw gatherings of people who enjoy tiny snacks, and you can even grab a tiny newspaper from the vending machine near the door.

      In addition to its miniature brick-and-mortar presentations, Tiny Art Show also facilitates a series of art projects like the Monthly Mini Mail Club, a subscription that dispatches an itty-bitty periodical called The Tiny Times, plus a booklet from that month’s gallery show. You can also purchase tiny art kits in the shop, along with prints and merchandise.

      Explore more on the project’s website, and keep an eye on Instagram for updates about forthcoming shows.

      Work by Brian Kershisnik

      Work by Merrilee Liddiard

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    • 138 Shares99 Views

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      Paolo Puck Imagines a World Called Fliffmellington and Its Uncanny Artifacts

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      All images courtesy of Paolo Puck, shared with permission

      Paolo Puck Imagines a World Called Fliffmellington and Its Uncanny Artifacts

      October 8, 2025

      ArtDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      In Paolo Puck’s imaginary realm of Fliffmellington, surreal characters come to life through elaborate costumes. Often weathered and tumbled-looking, a series of handbags, purses, and helmets glimpse a wonderfully weird world.

      “I’m in the long process of faithfully recreating various artefacts from the world of Fliffmellington,” Puck tells Colossal. “Long-term, I will be making a book and short film, as well as an anthropological exhibition of the artefacts.”

      The artist aims to highlight the world of Fliffmellington through its material culture, which often features motifs of expressive or abstracted animals and absurdly large vegetables. The overall costumes reference personalities like the “Gherkin God” or an enigmatic, fantastical character named Celeste, who is associated with an organization called Jezilwik Grindlewax.

      Puck’s approach to making detailed, wearable pieces is through the lens of archaeologist and conservator, as if the objects have been carefully excavated or recovered from a forgotten place, shedding light on an unknown culture.

      Enter Puck’s uncanny world via the artist’s website and Instagram, and find tutorials and making-of insights via Substack. You might also enjoy Nikolas Bentel’s hyper-bespoke accessories.

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    • 175 Shares140 Views

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      Craig & Karl’s ‘Mateys’ Bring Vibrancy and Joy to Bridges in Brisbane and Beyond

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      Detail of “Converge.” Photo by Alex Chomicz

      Craig & Karl’s ‘Mateys’ Bring Vibrancy and Joy to Bridges in Brisbane and Beyond

      October 1, 2025

      ArtDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      In vibrant colors, patterns, and shapes, the immersive works of Craig & Karl invite us to relish moments of joy and surprise. While Craig is based in New York, and Karl is based in London, the two collaborate across the pond—and around the world—to produce multimedia installations that revitalize urban spaces and celebrate the power of play.

      As part of the 2025 Brisbane Festival, Craig & Karl created a pair of large-scale inflatable interventions on two of the city’s bridges, both riffing on the idea of the arch as passageway. Additionally, numerous illustrations, interactive sculptures, and inflatable “Mateys” — a series of quirky characters with expressive faces — pop up on buildings and sidewalks to enable joyful encounters as part of the expansive, city-wide exhibition titled Rear Vision.

      “Walk This Way” (2025), Kangaroo Point Bridge, Brisbane. Photo by JD Lin

      Collectively titled “Walk This Way,” the bridge installations encourage Brisbanites to see their city with fresh eyes. The expressive, flexible characters are also immanently relatable for viewers of all ages. “The Mateys serve as companions that help foster community and shared experiences, welcoming us into different corners of the city,” says a festival statement.

      Craig & Karl are known for their vivid participatory projects, which range from mini-golf courses to playgrounds to murals. The artists initially met 30 years ago while studying at Griffith University in Brisbane, and since, their collaborative practice has included partnerships with global brands and publications like Adidas, Nike, Apple, Chanel, The New Yorker, Variety, and more.

      While the bridge installations came to a close at the end of September, you can still stroll along the Public Art Trail through October 20 to spot Craig & Karl’s sculptures and installations in unexpected places. Then, drop by the exhibition Double Vision at the Griffith University Art Museum, which continues through January 7.

      Plot your course on the Brisbane Festival website, and see more of the artists’ projects on their site and Instagram.

      “Mateys” (2025), part of ‘Rear Vision’ Public Art Trail, Brisbane. Photo by Claudia Baxter

      “Mateys” (2025), part of ‘Rear Vision’ Public Art Trail, Brisbane. Photo by Alex Chomicz

      Detail of “Converge.” Photo by Alex Chomicz

      “Converge” (2025), Neville Bonner Bridge, Brisbane. Photo by JD Lin

      “Prismatic,” Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong

      Detail of “Unfold,” Suzhou, China

      “Cosmos,” Melbourne Central, Melbourne

      Detail of “Cosmos”

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    • 150 Shares187 Views

      in Art

      Cultural Narratives and Craft Converge in the 2025 World of WearableArt Competition

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      Faris Fairusham (Victoria University of Wellington, Malaysia), “Wau Bulan.” Photos by Stephen A’Court. All images courtesy of World of WearableArt, shared with permission

      Cultural Narratives and Craft Converge in the 2025 World of WearableArt Competition

      September 22, 2025

      ArtDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      Wellington’s extravagant World of WearableArt is back for 2025, including pieces by 85 finalists that showcase today’s most elaborate and fanciful costumes. One hundred designers from 17 countries competed for a prize pool of more than $200,000 New Zealand dollars across 25 awards. The competition culminates in an elaborate performance, with this year’s top honor, known as the WOW Supreme Award, handed to design duo Dawn Mostow and Ben Gould.

      The U.S.-based designers have been finalists several times since 2017, and this marks their first win. Mostow and Gould’s piece “Tsukumogami” draws on Mostow’s time living in Japan, nodding to the country’s folklore and craft traditions through a reference to mythological tools that can be imbued with a spirit, or a kami. Two figures completely covered in blue-and-white latex stand like elaborate classical vases, with ikebana flower arrangements on their heads.

      This year’s runner-up is Fifi Colston’s “Meine Erste Liebe,” a title which means “my first love” in German. The wearer is transformed into a medusa, with an elaborate bodice and globular headdress, plus an elaborate, bell-like skirt embellished with detailed jellyfish.

      2025 World of WearableArt Show: RISE performances continue through October 5 at TSB Arena in Wellington. Explore more, including an archive of pieces from earlier shows, on the contest’s website.

      Dawn Mostow and Ben Gould (United States), “Tsukumogami”

      Fifi Colston (New Zealand), “Meine Erste Liebe”

      Evita Camilleri and Dan Draper (Australia), “Fractilians”

      Catherine Anderton (New Zealand), “Autumn King”

      Vanshika Jain (Indian Institute of Art and Design, India), “Stripy Mischief”

      Katherine Bertram (New Zealand), “Drift”

      Abhishek Chauhan (India), “Thaliora”

      Xuan Jiang, Yuxin Zhou, and Yuhan Lin (Donghua University, China), “Ember”

      Anna Hayes-Moeau (New Zealand), “Ko Au Ko Harakeke, Ko Harakeke Ko Au”

      Tracey Murphy and Isabel Costley (New Zealand), “See Me in Tokyo”

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    • 138 Shares169 Views

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      Descend into the Underworld via Anish Kapoor’s Sculptural Subway Station Entrances

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      All images courtesy of Anish Kapoor, shared with permission

      Descend into the Underworld via Anish Kapoor’s Sculptural Subway Station Entrances

      September 17, 2025

      ArtDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      West of Naples, along the Tyrrhenian coast, sits the storied Lake Avernus. Situated in a volcanic crater, its Latin name is synonymous with hell or the underworld, and to the ancient Romans, it was considered the portal to Hades. Dante Alighieri echoed the belief in his seminal Inferno. More recently, Anish Kapoor set out to explore the notion in a striking new entrance to the Monte Sant’Angelo subway station in central Naples. “In the city of Mount Vesuvius and Dante’s mythical entrance to the Inferno, I found it important to try and deal with what it really means to go underground,” the artist says.

      Kapoor is renowned for large-scale sculptures and installations that tap into visceral psychological experiences, from a perpetually swirling whirlpool of black water in “Descension” to a meat-like slab of wax being wedged through a doorway in “Svayambhu,” which references a Sanskrit word meaning “self-born.” And, of course, there’s the iconically mirrored “Cloud Gate,” known fondly as “The Bean,” in downtown Chicago.

      University entrance

      “At Monte Sant’Angelo station, three integral themes of Kapoor’s practice have coalesced in more potent form than ever: the mythological object, the body, and the void,” a statement says. The artist’s design for two separate entrances, initiated more than two decades ago, tap into his interest in dualistic relationships like internal and external experiences or lightness and darkness.

      Kapoor’s two entrances exist in dialogue with one another, as one is made from weathered steel with a rusty patina that suggests an amorphous bodily form. The other is conceived as something of the inverse, where a tubular steel form is presented more smoothly and “cleanly” while likewise hovering over travelers like a mysterious system or gigantic conduit.

      “The station is a remarkable symbiosis of sculpture and architecture, a dynamic that has always been a central force in Kapoor’s work,” a statement says. “Kapoor’s work both holds and creates the new space in which it is experienced.”

      Explore dozens of works on Kapoor’s website, and discover even more artistic subway stations around the world.

      Looking up from within the Traiano entrance

      A side view of the university entrance

      Looking down into the university entrance

      Traiano entrance

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    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Art

      Cheng-Tsung Feng’s “Sailing Castle” Cruises Through 400 Years of Taiwanese History

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      All images courtesy of Cheng-Tsung Feng, shared with permission

      Cheng-Tsung Feng’s “Sailing Castle” Cruises Through 400 Years of Taiwanese History

      September 9, 2025

      ArtCraftDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      Through the study of time-honored craft techniques, Taiwanese artist Cheng-Tsung Feng envisions contemporary installations that connect us not only to the past but also to nature and our present surroundings.

      Working across sculpture, installation, craft, and design, the artist draws on what he describes as “ancient and gradually forgotten oriental culture,” translating traditional motifs and methods into new works that nod to the continuum of East Asian art and ingenuity. One might even position his practice within the realm of storytelling, tapping into collective cultural memories and overlapping histories.

      In his installation “Sailing Castle” in Tainan, Feng evokes the sails of wooden ships as a visual metaphor for the urban landscape, “where clusters of buildings resemble vessels gathered in harbor,” he says. Symbolizing movement, discovery, and societal progress and expansion, he creates a dialogue between architecture and advancement, along with memory and the present moment.

      The beams and sails are inspired by a number of actual buildings in Tainan like the Confucius Temple, Fort Zeelandia—built by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century—and Chihkan Tower, another Dutch outpost also known as Fort Provintia.

      Called Formosa in the mid-1600s, Taiwan was under colonial rule by the Dutch, whose trade interests centered predominantly around Chinese silks imported to Europe, where they were prized for their luxury and highly sought after. Situated at the Anping Shipyard historical site, amid the canals of the West Central District, Feng wraps the area’s maritime heritage and four-centuries-long legacy of shipping into “Sailing Castle.”

      “The overlapping sails evoke both the gathering of ships along the waterfront and the simultaneous anticipation of departure and the arrival of returning voyagers,” he says.

      Using primarily wood and canvas, Feng’s pavilion is a cross between artistic intervention and functional meeting space, complete with small surfaces jutting out of the posts on which visitors can sit. Cruising, as it were, through a green park and illuminated at night, “Sailing Castle” sparks a sense of awe at the same time as it encourages us to slow down for a moment or two of contemplation and rest.

      Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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    • 188 Shares139 Views

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      An Inflatable Building Recreates the Iconic Mecca Flats at the Heart of Chicago’s Black Renaissance

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      All images courtesy of Floating Museum, shared with permission

      An Inflatable Building Recreates the Iconic Mecca Flats at the Heart of Chicago’s Black Renaissance

      August 12, 2025

      ArtDesignHistory

      Grace Ebert

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      As the World’s Fair loomed on Chicago’s horizon, architects Willoughby J. Edbrooke and Franklin Pierce Burnham built a 98-unit hotel to house visitors. After the exposition was finished, the Romanesque Revival building with a large central courtyard was converted into apartments and became known as Mecca Flats.

      Chicago adhered to strict segregation codes in the 19th century, and Mecca Flats, located in the Bronzeville neighborhood at 3360 S. State Street, wasn’t immune. The complex originally only allowed white residents, before allowing Black residents in 1911. Quickly, the building became a site for creatives well-known in the Black Renaissance. Gwendolyn Brooks famously titled a book after the tenement, and luminaries Muddy Waters and Katherine Dunham called Mecca Flats home.

      View of the indoor atrium at the Mecca Flats, East 34th and South State Street, Chicago, Illinois.

      Although a historical beacon of Black creativity, the Illinois Institute of Technology razed the building in 1952. It was replaced by the Mies van der Rohe-designed S.R. Crown Hall.

      While Mecca Flats are long gone, its memory lives on throughout Chicago, and thanks to the collective known as Floating Museum, a new artwork revives the cultural hub. “for Mecca” is a large-scale inflatable structure recreating the once-thriving complex in grayscale polyester. Scaled down, this iteration stretches 41 feet long, with a U-shaped passageway for viewers to walk through.

      Floating Museum is co-directed by avery r. young, Andrew Schachman, Faheem Majeed, and Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford, who share that the project offers a “tangible artifact” of Chicago’s lost history. They say:

      “for Mecca” represents our collective interest in Bronzeville’s complex history. We can no longer view nostalgic images of Mies van der Rohe—enjoying a cigar in the emptiness of S.R. Crown Hall—without also imagining Mecca Flats, collapsed under his feet, and recalling the slow strategic displacement of the African American community signified by the presence of its absence.

      The project also includes several nods to former South Side institutions, including the jazz dancehall Savoy Ballroom and the Regal Theatre, a popular night club and performance venue.

      Debuting this past weekend at the original site, the project will travel around the city’s parks through the summer of 2026. “for Mecca” is the latest project in the collective’s Floating Monuments series, which seeks to uncover critical cultural and historical legacies within Chicago through public installations.

      Find more from Floating Museum on its website.

      The Stroll, Regal Theater, and the Savoy Ballroom, Chicago, 1941. Photo by Russell Lee. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.

      Savoy Ballroom, 47th Street and South Parkway, Chicago, 1929. Curt Teich Postcard Archives Digital Collection, Newberry Library.

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    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Art

      Experimenting with Color and Reflection, Kenny Harris Brews Beautiful Still Lifes

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      All images © Kenny Harris, shared with permission

      Experimenting with Color and Reflection, Kenny Harris Brews Beautiful Still Lifes

      August 8, 2025

      ArtDesignFood

      Kate Mothes

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      In 1933, Alfonso Bialetti and his son Renato began to market an aluminum contraption for brewing coffee that would make an indelible mark on Italian culinary culture and beyond. Called a moka pot after the Yemeni city of Mokha, the appliance is still manufactured today by the coffee equipment company Bialetti under the name Moka Express, providing a steam-powered, filterless way to make a rich brew on the stovetop.

      For Venice, California-based artist Kenny Harris, the metallic, faceted surface of the iconic maker inspires an ongoing series of lovely still-life oil paintings. Exploring color and form, the artist focuses on reflections and their effects. Delicate gradients and patterns are mirrored across the pot’s surface, sometimes blurring the boundary between the object and its surroundings.

      “I find delight in searching for harmonies, lost edges, and texture variation,” the artist says. “In the end, these are color experimentations in the tradition of Joseph Albers or Albert Moore: reiteration of the same forms with different color combinations. Also, I love coffee.”

      A solo show of Harris’s work titled Passage opens on September 6 at Galerie Mokum in Amsterdam, and he’s currently working toward another show in early 2026 at Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles. Explore more work on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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