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    Across 92 Screens in Times Square, Yuge Zhou’s ‘Trampoline Color Exercise’ Celebrates Global Unity

    All images © Yuge Zhou, courtesy of Times Square Arts, shared with permission

    Across 92 Screens in Times Square, Yuge Zhou’s ‘Trampoline Color Exercise’ Celebrates Global Unity

    May 27, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Spanning a gridded background of rectangular, pink trampolines, hundreds of gymnasts mesmerizingly flip and twist, shapeshifting as they tuck and tumble. “Trampoline Color Exercise,” a monumental digital video collage installation by Chicago-based artist Yuge Zhou, takes a bird’s-eye view of athletes at peak form while abstracting their bodies and movements into undulating ripples of color.

    Born in China, Zhou has long explored the emotional, psychological, and geographic distance between her chosen home in the Midwest and the country of her birth. Themes of separation, loyalty, and cultural contrasts undergird much of her multidisciplinary work. She initiated her series of Moon Drawings, for example, during the pandemic when she was unable to travel the long distance to to Beijing to visit family.

    For “Trampoline Color Exercise,” Zhou interrogates colors in their role as national symbols. Pulling from archival Olympics footage, she collages gymnasts wearing primary colors in a nod to global national flags, literally and figuratively fluctuating in a reflection of our ever-evolving geopolitical reality.

    “‘Trampoline Color Exercise’ was created over the past few years amid intense political and international divisions, and now it feels especially timely,” Zhou says in a statement. “At its heart, the work is a celebration of globalization and a reflection on allegiance.”

    Co-presented by Times Square Arts and artnet, the monumental work will be screened across 92 electronic billboards in the legendary New York City intersection. Part of Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment series, the city’s largest public art program, visitors will be able to see Zhou’s three-minute work every night between June 1 and 30, starting at 11:57 p.m.

    Explore more on Zhou’s website.

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    Endless Fields of Detritus Blanket Cássio Vasconcellos’s Aerial Composites

    Detail of “Air Force.” All images courtesy of Cássio Vasconcellos and Nara Roesler Gallery, shared with permission

    Endless Fields of Detritus Blanket Cássio Vasconcellos’s Aerial Composites

    November 12, 2024

    ArtClimatePhotography

    Kate Mothes

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    Where do jets go when they no longer fly? What happens to shipping containers when they aren’t useful anymore for cargo? The answer is invisible to most of us, but for Cássio Vasconcellos, abandoned trains, planes, and automobiles are far from forgotten.

    For more than four decades, the São Paolo-based artist has been fascinated by the relationship between humans and the landscape. Over the years, his work has captured dramatic impressions of sprawling cities around the globe, often from the air, spurring an ongoing series called Collectives that condenses details of urban infrastructure like highways and parking lots into sprawling, all-over compositions.

    “Collective 11: Airplanes”

    Collectives 2, to which these images belong, focuses solely on the mesmerizing—and mind-boggling—quantity of scrapped vehicles and metal indefinitely parked in nondescript places. Vasconcellos draws from tens of thousands of aerial photographs he has made of junkyards, scrap heaps, airplane graveyards, and dumps to create remarkable, large-scale composite images.

    The artist has mapped all of the junkyards around São Paolo, plus numerous more near the Brazilian cities of Cubatão, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro. He has also documented desert landscapes in the U.S. that serve as final resting places for commercial airliners and military jets.

    “Over,” for example, considers numerous associated meanings, like “overview,” “all-over,” “overdose,” or “game over.” The title references not only excess but the overflow of visual information in contemporary society.

    “Seeing an image like this is to make clear that there is no ‘throw away,’” Vasconcellos says in a video about “OVER,” which took him about a year and three months to complete. “This volume of things that are in the work… they are out there,” he adds. “I just put them together.”

    Detail of “Over”

    “These photos may look like post-apocalyptic scenarios, but they could be our future,” the artist says in a statement. “We still have to learn that by throwing things away and taking them out of our sight, we don’t make themdisappear. In fact, they keep existing somewhere else, outliving us mostof the time.”

    Vasconcellos cuts out individual shipping containers, trucks, dumpsters, and piles of detritus in a meticulous and time-consuming digital process. He never repeats an element in a composition, and each piece is scaled and situated so that the shadows align with the directionality of the light. He then adds dust and dirt to the surfaces, simultaneously emphasizing the patina of time and an eerie sense of timelessness.

    Devoid of people, Vasconcellos’s images nevertheless describe the human predilection to produce, consume, and cast aside. “It’s kind of nonsense, because there are some paths, but you don’t really understand how a person or a car can get in there—or get out,” Vasconcellos says. “It is a possible world, but at the same time, an absurd one.”

    Vasconcellos is represented by Nara Roesler Gallery, and you can explore more of his work on his website and Instagram.

    “Collective 12: Boats”

    “Collective 10: Containers”

    “Air Force”

    “Collective 7: Metal Scrap”

    Detail of “Collective 7: Metal Scrap”

    “Collective 9: Scrap Dumpster”

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    In ‘Hidden Portraits,’ Volker Hermes Reimagines Historical Figures in Overwhelming Frippery

    “Hidden van Mierevelt IV” (2022), from “Portrait of a Man in a White Frill” (1620s) by Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt

    In ‘Hidden Portraits,’ Volker Hermes Reimagines Historical Figures in Overwhelming Frippery

    October 18, 2024

    ArtBooksHistory

    Kate Mothes

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    Engulfed in their own finery, the subjects of Volker Hermes’ portraits epitomize a bygone era. From the Italian High Renaissance to French Rococo, his digital reinterpretations playfully hide the faces of wealthy and aristocratic sitters.

    Hidden Portraits: Old Masters Reimagined, a new book forthcoming this month, gathers a quintessential selection of Hermes’ works into one volume. Highlighting the artist’s wry commentary on luxury, social status, and fame, the selection delves into the history of portraiture through a humorous lens.

    “Hidden Wright of Derby” (2023), from “Portrait of Dorothy Beridge, née Gladwin” (1777) by Joseph Wright of Derby

    Hermes expands upon the ornate silk gowns, brocade, and lace ruffs that characterized elite fashion through the centuries (previously). An enormous bow cocoons a woman in “Hidden Wright of Derby,” for example, elaborating on a portrait of a wealthy woman painted by Joseph Wright of Derby, now in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

    In striking profile, strings of pearls and a green, helmet-like hood envelop Bianca Maria Sforza, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, in “Hidden de Predis,” the 15th-century inspiration for which can be viewed at the National Gallery of Art.

    Explore more of Hermes’ work on his website, and snag a copy of Hidden Portraits on Bookshop.

    “Hidden de Predis” (2023), from “Portrait Bianca Maria Sforza” (1493-95) by the workshop of Ambrogio de Predis

    “Hidden Titian II” (2021), from “Portrait of a Man with a Quilted Sleeve” (1511) by Titian

    “Hidden de Bray” (2022), from “Portrait of a Young Woman” (1667) by Jan de Bray

    “Hidden Cornelius Johnson” (2023), from “Portrait of Thomas, 1st Baron Coventry” (1631) by Cornelius Johnson

    “Hidden de Keyser” (2019), from “Portrait of a Gentleman” (c. 1626) by Thomas de Keyser

    “Hidden Pourbus VIII” (2023), from “Portrait of a Nobleman” (1593) by Frans Pourbus the Younger

    “Hidden Anonymous (Munich Court Painter)” (2023), from “Portrait of a Young Lady” (1623), by an unknown artist

    Cover of ‘Hidden Portraits: Old Masters Reimagined,’ featuring “Hidden Jacometto” (2019), from “Portrait of a Young Man” (1480s) by Jacometto Veneziano

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    Vibrant Life Emanantes from Meggan Joy’s Magical Collaged Silhouettes

    “Try One’s Luck.” All images courtesy of J. Rinehart Gallery, shared with permission

    Vibrant Life Emanantes from Meggan Joy’s Magical Collaged Silhouettes

    September 9, 2024

    Art Nature Photography

    Grace Ebert

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    Thousands of individual flowers and plants grown in Meggan Joy’s Seattle garden form the contours of her ethereal figures. The artist (previously) collages perfectly trimmed photographs of each specimen into silhouettes lush with color and texture.

    In her most recent body of work titled Fever Dream, Joy draws on fear, loss, and the immense potential for pain. “Wide and Wild,” for example, depicts a woman cradling a Eurasian Eagle Owl near her heart. “She’s a piece for when you find your person (whether that be a lover, friend, kids, whatever), and once you have them, you know that if they disappear in any way, you also will be gone,” the artist shares in a statement.

    “Wide and Wild”

    Others relate to bad decisions yielding positive experiences and how etermal bonds require patience and understanding. Each work, Joy shares, “whisper(s) the components of the stories that tested us and, instead of condemning our faults, reveal that those moments left us the most exciting scars.

    Fever Dream is on view through September 25 at J. Rinehart Gallery. Follow Joy’s work on Instagram.

    “Thick As Thieves”

    “Thick As Thieves”

    “Try One’s Luck”

    “Icarus”

    “Tyche”

    Detail of “Wide and Wild”

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