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

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    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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      Through Fairy Lights and Butterflies, Chiharu Shiota Tethers Presence and Absence

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      “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable. All images courtesy of Red Brick Art Museum

      Through Fairy Lights and Butterflies, Chiharu Shiota Tethers Presence and Absence

      May 22, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      In one of the foundational texts of Taoism, Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou recalls a dream in which he was a butterfly, soaring through the sky with no recollection of his human form. Upon waking, though, he finds himself firmly in a bipedal body, prompting an important question: is he a butterfly dreaming he’s Zhuang Zhou or a man dreaming he’s a butterfly?

      This ancient story of transformation and the thin line between states of mind informs a dazzling new installation by Chiharu Shiota (previously). “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” suspends glimmering lights and faint butterfly wings above an iron-framed twin bed topped with a white blanket and pillow. Rejecting the strict separation between body and mind, Shiota references her belief in the spirit’s ability to endure long after one’s final breath. “While each time we slip into sleep, it is a rehearsal for death—a journey beyond the body,” she says.

      “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable

      Exemplary of the artist’s interest in memory and knowledge, “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” is just one of the immersive works in the monumental exhibition Silent Emptiness at Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing.

      On view through August 31, the show revolves around Shiota’s ongoing explorations into the “presence in absence,” this time extending such inquiries into ideas of emptiness as it relates to Eastern philosophy and enlightenment.

      Included in the exhibtion is an antique Tibetan Buddhist doorway that anchors “Gateway to Silence,” an explosive installation that entwines the elaborately carved wood structure in a dense, criss-crossing labyrinth of string. Red thread, one of the artist’s favored materials, symbolizes relationships. And in this case, it’s an invitation to introspection and finding an awareness of the present moment.

      Metaphorically interlacing art, memory, and faith, Shiota very literally visualizes the intextricable web in which we’re all bound, regardless of geography or era. Pieces like “Echoes of Time” and “Rooted Memories” incorporate materials like soil and large stones, presenting the passage of time as cyclical and the past as always shaping the present.

      Detail of “Gateway to Silence” (2025), antique porch and red wool, dimensions variable

      Born in Osaka, the artist has lived in Berlin for much of her life, and Silent Emptiness also tethers her roots to more global experiences. Shiota likened her understanding of herself to the way salt molecules appear as crystals only after water evaporates. “I was not visible as an individual in Japan,” she says. “Whereas I did not know who I was, what I wanted to do, and what was necessary in the water, I feel that I became an individual and crystal, and understood those things for the first time by coming to Germany.”

      Another example of finding presence in absence, Shiota’s migration and experience of discovery provides an important touchstone for her thinking and practice. She adds, “Absence does not signify disappearance but rather an integration into a vaster universe, re-entering the flow of time and forming new connections with all things.” (via designboom)

      “Gateway to Silence” (2025, antique porch and red wool, dimensions variable

      Detail of “Gateway to Silence” (2025, antique porch and red wool, dimensions variable

      Detail of “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable

      “Rooted Memories” (2025), red rope, boat, and earth, dimensions variable

      “Rooted Memories” (2025), red rope, boat, and earth, dimensions variable

      Detail of “Rooted Memories” (2025), red rope, boat, and earth, dimensions variable

      “Multiple Realities” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable

      “Echoes of Time” (2025), black yarn and rock, dimensions variable

      “Echoes of Time” (2025), black yarn and rock, dimensions variable

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      Descend into ICA SF’s New Space for Masako Miki’s Otherworldly ‘Midnight March’

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      Installation view of ‘Midnight March’ at ICA SF. Foreground: “Possessed Ancient Monolith Ghost” (2023), wool on XPS foam and walnut wood, 46 x 40 x 32 inches. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno. All images courtesy of the artist, ICA SF, and Jessica Silverman Gallery, shared with permission

      Descend into ICA SF’s New Space for Masako Miki’s Otherworldly ‘Midnight March’

      May 20, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Huddled together like birds of a feather or standing resolutely on their own, Masako Miki’s vibrant, playful sculptures come to life at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco. Whether standing on spindly legs, seated on the ground, or suspended from the ceiling, there is a sense of movement and energy in the room, as if each characterful object could walk or roll away at the slightest provocation.

      Miki’s solo exhibition Midnight March is now open at ICA SF’s new exhibition space, The Cube, which activates a former bank building as a site for non-traditional exhibition presentations. The Japanese artist sets her mixed-media pieces, which incorporate materials like wool, bronze, wood, ink, and watercolor, into a darkened, starry interior in which each vibrant, cartoonish individual appears to glow.

      “Umbrella’s Whispers” (2025), wool on XPS foam, walnut wood, 48 1/2 x 14 x 14 inches. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno

      Largely abstract in their nebulous forms, felted textures, and colorful patterns, Miki’s sculptures often hint at a life force inside. A single eye peers from a blue shape in “Enchanting Pine Tree Reaching Clouds” or human-like legs extend to the floor in “Umbrella’s Whispers.” We begin to realize that we’re being observed as much as we are observing.

      “Midnight March helps us understand deeper aspects of Miki’s ‘othered’ figures and recognize difference as a positive force, even as we are unsettled by it,” says an exhibition statement.

      The indigo sky throughout the exhibition complements Miki’s two-dimensional works, which she calls Night Parades, welcoming visitors into an experiential context. The artist says, “I hope that my works generate the kind of curiosity and empathy that enables us to come together.”

      Midnight March continues through December 7 in San Francisco, and you can explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

      “Midnight March (Blue and Red Violet)” (2025), watercolor on paper, 44 5/8 x 63 1/2 x 2 inches. Photo by Phillip Maisel

      Foreground: “Watcher with Continuous Eyes” (2018), wool on XPS foam, 18 x 56 x 16 inches. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno

      “Enchanted Pine Tree Reaching Clouds” (2024), wool on XPS foam and walnut wood, 32 x 23 x 15 1/2 inches. Photo by Phillip Maisel

      “Fox Delivering Messages” (2025), patinated bronze, 15 x 11 1/2 x 5 inches. Edition of 4 plus 2 artist’s proofs. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno

      “Ancient Tree Witness” (2023), wool on XPS foam and walnut wood, 76 x 48 x 42 inches. Photo by Steve Ferrera

      “Awa-dancing Cat Leading the Crowds” (2025), patinated bronze, 15 1/2 x 13 x 7 inches. Edition of 4 plus 2 artist’s proofs. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno

      “Midnight March (Blue and Deep Gray)” (2025), watercolor on paper, 44 5/8 x 63 1/2 x 2 inches. Photo by Phillip Maisel

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    • 113 Shares121 Views

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      Ubiquitous Objects Transform into Ambient Soundscapes in Zimoun’s Installations

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      All images courtesy of Zimoun, shared with permission

      Ubiquitous Objects Transform into Ambient Soundscapes in Zimoun’s Installations

      May 19, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      Objects often regarded as fixtures of modern life—cardboard boxes, glass cups, and plastic jugs, to name a few—become generative materials in the soundscapes of Swiss artist Zimoun (previously). Connected to small, direct-current motors, wires and strings strung across installations of these unassuming items rattle and twirl to create continuous, ambient noise.

      Zimoun frequently references the tension between chaos and order in his works, particularly as it relates to the relationship between the individual elements and the larger composition. For a recent project for Rewire in The Hague, for example, the artist tethered piano strings to 24 polyethylene tanks in one room and to 36 water containers in another.

      While the basic construction was the same, the way the vibrating wires interacted with the vessels affected their timbre. “Each of the spaces sounds distinctly different, even though the same principle was applied throughout. Both deep, bass-like sounds and very varied, constantly changing overtones can emerge,” the artist says.

      Exploring the possibilities of such simple materials is at the core of many of Zimoun’s works, as he shifts our perspective on their uses and functionality. Appearing animate, each object becomes an instrument in its own right, as the kinetic, often frenetic, movement of the machines transforms a wood-slatted door or metal barrel into a sonic apparatus.

      It’s worth poking around Zimoun’s Vimeo to explore the breadth of the installations and their subtly varied sounds. The artist has several exhibitions planned for later this year and throughout 2026, so follow the latest on Instagram.

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    • 138 Shares179 Views

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      ‘Level Up’ by GAFFA Transports Us to an Uncanny Parking Garage

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      Installation view of ‘Level Up.’ Photos by Ladina Bischof. All images courtesy of GAFFA and Kunsthalle Arbon, shared with permission

      ‘Level Up’ by GAFFA Transports Us to an Uncanny Parking Garage

      May 12, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      When you think of an orange safety cone, you might imagine rows of the small reflective objects placed around temporarily parked vehicles or, say, next to potholes. But a stroll through GAFFA’s recent exhibition, Level Up at Kunsthalle Arbon, and the everyday sight took the form of an unmissably imposing, monumental structure.

      GAFFA is a collective founded nine years ago by Wanja Harb, Linus Lutz, Dario Forlin, and Lucian Kunz. Through a signature blend of humor, irony, and an interdisciplinary approach involving zines, collages, photography, sculpture, and installation, the group challenges our perceptions of physical space, history, and society.

      In their sometimes absurd installations, GAFFA often brings the outdoors in, like importing a beach chair and umbrella into a concrete room or constructing an enormous brown slug that slid across a gallery floor. In Level Up, traffic serves as the primary focus—both its symbols and the fine line between regulation and chaos.

      GAFFA transformed the Swiss art gallery into a parking garage containing an extra-long stretch limo, an entry ticket, orange cone, and double-arrow directional sign. We don’t know to whom the car belongs or where they are.

      Viewers are transported into a kind of Alice in Wonderland experience where the scale of everything feels befuddling and incongruent. The car, though life-size, is made of cardboard, and the yellow sign is an oil painting.

      “Underground garages and parking garages are places we usually only notice in passing,” the gallery says in a statement. “They are purpose-built ‘non-places’ to which hardly anyone pays attention, yet they have their own aesthetics: the strict geometry of the parking spaces, the rhythmic movement of the barriers, the seemingly random arrangement of the holes on a parking ticket.”

      Anyone who has driven into a large garage knows the anxieties of a gate not opening when it’s supposed to or the ticket machine not working. Within the large yet controlled space of the Kunsthalle Arbon, Level Up begged the question: how does one get out of here? Explore more on the collective’s website.

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    • 138 Shares199 Views

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      Celeste’s Immersive Textile Installations Embrace the Warm Intimacy of Home

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      “Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz” (2024), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 4.5 x 7.5 meters, installation view at Escuela Primaria Maestra Antonio Caso, Mexico City. Photo by Israel Esparza. All images courtesy of Celeste, shared with permission

      Celeste’s Immersive Textile Installations Embrace the Warm Intimacy of Home

      May 9, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      When María Fernanda Camarena and Gabriel Rosas Alemán aren’t in their Mexico City studio, you might find them pulling weeds or chopping vegetables. “We love cooking and gardening—practices rooted in care, and ones we’d love to weave into our work someday,” they say. “There’s a quiet mindfulness in both that aligns perfectly with what we aim to express.”

      This desire to care roots much of the artists’ practice, which they present together under the name Celeste. Thinking of themselves as hosts, Celeste transforms galleries and museums with large-scale textile installations. In warm shades of pinks, oranges, and reds, the translucent cotton often allows light to filter through and cast tinted shadows around the space. Each work becomes a sort of mise-en-scène as viewers are invited to lounge with friends, enjoy a meal, or perform among the textiles.

      Installation view of “Melons Covered in Willow Leaves” at the artists’ studio. Photo by Anna Pla Narbona

      The earthy color palette—originally inspired by natural dyeing materials like avocado pit and turmeric root—began after the onset of COVID-19, when the artists wanted to create “an atmosphere that felt like an embrace, a much-needed warmth after the isolation of 2020,” they say. “This concept of solace stayed with us, and today, the palette has come to symbolize safe spaces, with the womb as a recurring motif: a protected, intimate interior.”

      Projects include “Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz,” or “Against fear and darkness, the colorful and happy party,” made in collaboration with a 4th-grade class from Mexico City’s Granada neighborhood. After adding their own drawings to the cotton panels, the students used the vivid installation as the backdrop for a school festival.

      The monumental “Melons Covered in Willow Leaves” is even more immersive, as viewers were invited to wander underneath a tent of draped fabric. And in their most recent exhibition at Rebecca Camacho Presents in San Francisco, the artists have installed a trio of suspended works that bisect the gallery, with arched openings that allow visitors to pass through. Referencing Diego Rivera’s “Agua, el origen de la vida” mural, the triad explores the connections between water and the impact of Mexico City’s colonial history on its landscape.

      Later this month at The Bentway in Toronto, the pair will also present “Casting a Net, Casting a Spell,” a quilted canopy of 100 individual panels created as both a suncatcher and a necessary repreieve from the summer rays. It’s their largest project to date.

      Installation view of Hacer brotar / To sprout at Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco. Photo by Robert Divers Herrick

      With each work, Celeste hopes to “invite the spectator not only in the sense of contemplation but rather in the involvement with the ceremonial… In this setting, the sensorial and emotional realms are recognized as legitimate sources of knowledge and an experience of hospitality and acknowledgment can take place without restrictions.”

      Celeste’s Hacer brotar / To sprout is on view through June 14 in San Francisco. Explore much more of the duo’s practice and process on their website and Instagram.

      Detail of “¡Qué llueva, qué llueva!” (2025), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 66 x 109 inches

      Installation view of Hacer brotar / To sprout at Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco. Photo by Robert Divers Herrick

      “Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz” (2024), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 4.5 x 7.5 meters, installation view at Escuela Primaria Maestra Antonio Caso, Mexico City. Photo by Israel Esparza

      “Hacer olas” (2023), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 2.7 x .25 x 12 meters, installation view at The Contemporary Austin, Austin, Texas. Photo by Alex Boeschenstein

      “Mellons Covered in Willow Leaves” 2024), scale model of the project in the artists’ studio 

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      Ethereal Weavings Merge Architecture and Nature in Élise Peroi’s ‘For Thirsting Flowers’

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      Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers.’ All images courtesy of the artist and CARVALHO PARK, New York, shared with permission

      Ethereal Weavings Merge Architecture and Nature in Élise Peroi’s ‘For Thirsting Flowers’

      May 8, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Imagine standing at a window at dawn as the pale yellow morning light filters through the trees, slowly illuminating flower petals and setting the scene for birdsong. As you move around, the light dapples and changes, and details emerge or disappear around other forms. For Élise Peroi, this sensation provides a starting point for elegant textile sculptures.

      Onto graceful wooden frames, the French artist weaves ethereal, layered screens evocative of dreamy portals to nature. “The luminosity of Peroi’s woven paintings is such that we might feel ourselves carried outside to watch the sky brighten, the air soft against our skin,” says Dr. Rebecca Birrell in an essay accompanying Peroi’s solo exhibition, For Thirsting Flowers, at CARVALHO PARK.

      Detail of “Pensée I” (2025), painted silk and linen, 36 x 28 x 3 inches

      The artist taps into the long tradition of European tapestries, which were used for both decoration and to help keep homes and churches insulated. Stitched by hand, the works could reach architectonic proportions and contain highly detailed figurative and narrative scenes. Peroi departs from customary associations with tapestries by removing the pieces from the wall and creating standalone, self-supporting structures.

      She also emphasizes a kind of opening-up of the textile itself. The interactions between warp and weft are loose, delicate, and irregular. And each piece’s depth is determined by the wooden framework, details of which often jut outward in gentle yet willful angles.

      Peroi’s sculptures appear to subtly morph as one walks around, merging internal and external perspectives. The artist explores relationships between emptiness, form, perception, and the built environment, hinting at recognizable shapes like flowers and foliage set against muted diamond-shaped geometric patterns or open spaces in the weave. And the frames serve both as display devices and looms—the process and finished piece merged into one.

      For Thirsting Flowers continues in Brooklyn through May 23. See more on the artist’s website.

      Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York

      “La lune” (2025), silk, silver leaf, gouache, acrylic, and linen, 64 x 55 x 6 inches

      “Pensée I” (2025), painted silk and linen, 36 x 28 x 3 inches

      Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York

      Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York

      “Songes II” (2022), painted silk and linen, 55 x 78 x 6 inches

      Detail of “Songes II”

      Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York

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    • 150 Shares159 Views

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      Discarded Packaging and Labels Find New Life in Kelly Kozma’s Vibrant Patchworks

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      “Magma & Reef” (2025). All images courtesy of Kelly Kozma and Paradigm Gallery + Studio, shared with permission

      Discarded Packaging and Labels Find New Life in Kelly Kozma’s Vibrant Patchworks

      May 2, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      From dozens of Chiquita banana labels to toothpaste packaging to color-coded quality control stickers, Kelly Kozma finds beauty in everyday ephemera. “Piece by piece, she saves any colorful or textured box that she encounters, even though most are expected to be discarded after their original use,” says Paradigm Gallery + Studio, which opens the artist’s solo exhibition Watch Me Backflip this weekend.

      Kozma takes an archival and interdisciplinary approach to working with numerous found materials, combining a variety of media into two-dimensional wall works, expansive textile-inspired assemblages, and voluminous suspended installations. “Watch Me Backflip embraces ideas of reusing material, interconnectedness, and the significance of the smallest interaction on a much larger environment,” says an exhibition statement.

      Installation view of ‘Watch Me Backflip’ at Paradigm Gallery + Studio

      “Iguana & Myrrh” and “Magma & Reef” mark the largest compositions Kozma has created. The former spans 22 feet in circumference and comprises more than 30,000 hand-stitched circles cut from a wide variety of greeting cards, found packaging, and other colorful materials. Committed to a minimal-waste practice, the artist incorporates scraps and loose threads into a number of accompanying works in Watch Me Backflip.

      “As she stitches these lovingly collected pieces, Kozma creates connections between the people in her life and the objects she interacts with, inspiring mindfulness against overconsumption and emotional apathy,” the gallery says.

      Watch Me Backflip opens today and continues through June 1 in Philadelphia. See more on the artist’s Instagram.

      “I See Your Beauty” (2025), process control patches and acrylic on panel

      Installation view of ‘Watch Me Backflip’ at Paradigm Gallery + Studio

      Detail of “Iguana & Myrrh”

      Installation view of ‘Watch Me Backflip’ at Paradigm Gallery + Studio

      “Peels So Good” (2025), banana stickers and acrylic on panel

      Detail of “Iguana & Myrrh”

      The artist working on the installation of “Magma & Reef”

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    • 138 Shares199 Views

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      Architectural Textiles by Sarah Zapata Explore Material Culture and Intersecting Identities

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      “Part of the tension (from earthen pits) II” (2024), handwoven cloth, natural and synthetic fiber, and hand coiled rope, 50 x 14 x 14 inches. All images © Sarah Zapata, courtesy of the artist, Kasmin, and Sargent’s Daughters, shared with permission

      Architectural Textiles by Sarah Zapata Explore Material Culture and Intersecting Identities

      May 1, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      In vibrant patchworks of woven patterns and fuzzy fiber ends, Sarah Zapata’s sculptures (previously) emerge as wall-hung tapestries, standalone pieces, and forest-like installations. Through the convergence of architectural structures, soft textiles, and myriad patterns and textures, her site-specific works examine the nature of layered identities shaped by her Peruvian heritage, queerness, her Evangelical upbringing in South Texas, and her current home in New York.

      Zapata balances time-honored craft practices with contemporary applications, highlighting the significance of Indigenous Peruvian weaving, for example, as a means of communication. Symbols and patterns composed into cloth traditionally provided a means of sharing knowledge and cosmological beliefs.

      Installation view of ‘Beneath the Breath of the Sun’ (2024) at ASU Art Museum, Tempe, Arizona. Commissioned by CALA Alliance

      In abstract sculptures that often merge with their surroundings, Zapata incorporates unexpected and vibrant color combinations with woven fabrics and tufted textures. Resisting easy categorization, her pieces are neither functional nor purely decorative, although they play with facets of both.

      Zapata consciously holds back from creating work that is too “beautiful,” inviting a remarkable, tactile exploration of relationships between craft, lineage, community, and memory.

      Some of the works shown here are included in Support Structures at Sargent’s Daughters, which continues through through May 3. Find more on Zapata’s website and Instagram.

      “How often they move between the planets” (2022), handwoven cloth, natural and synthetic fiber, 144 x 60 inches

      Detail of “How often they move between the planets”

      “Part of the tension (from earthen pits) I” (2024), handwoven cloth, natural and synthetic fiber, and hand coiled rope, 49 x 14 x 14 inches

      Installation view of ‘To strange ground and high places,’ Galleria Poggiali, Milan. Photo by Michele Alberto Sereni

      “Towards and ominous time III” (2022), handwoven cloth, natural and synthetic fiber, 144 x 60 inches

      Installation view of ‘To strange ground and high places,’ Galleria Poggiali, Milan. Photo by Michele Alberto Sereni

      Detail of “Part of the tension (from earthen pits) II”

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