On View

This may be the snowiest winter New York has seen in years, but the New York Botanical Garden is offering a tropical escape with “The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism.” The show has transformed the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into a colorful, almost magical paradise inspired by the bold architecture of Luis Barragán (1902–1988).
The NYBG horticulture team has planted a profusion of the striking flowering plants amid an installation of trickling water features and textured walls painted hot pink, rich purple, fiery orange, and deep red—the trademarks of Barragán, Mexico’s most famous Modernist architect.
“The set pieces were inspired by the vibrant colors and beautiful architecture that are seen throughout Mexico,” Kenia Pittman, the NYBG’s director of exhibitions design and operations, told me at the exhibition preview. “We really wanted to capture his layering of geometry and the casting of light and shadows.”
It was her team who oversaw the design, construction, and installation of the architectural elements of the presentation, and their interaction with the orchids and other plants, looking to the way that Barragán himself tried to incorporate outdoor spaces into his buildings. The goal was to create a tranquil respite, with moments for peaceful reflection amid the lush vegetation, despite the crowds that the exhibition inevitably draws.
“The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism” inspired by the architecture of Luis Barragán, at the New York Botanical Garden. Photo courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.
“We are extremely excited for visitors to come and see this show,” Pittman, who grew up in Mexico, added. “I think that it does a beautiful job in executing the vibrant culture of Mexico, in addition to giving visitors the opportunity, as we always do, to learn about plants, and the native orchids that exist in Mexico.”
The show has been in the planning for about a year, when the NYBG horticulture team dreamed up the theme for the exhibition’s 22nd edition. Past outings have drawn on the gardens of Singapore (2019), Thailand (2017), Cuba (2010), and even Brazilian Modernism and the work of artist Roberto Burle Marx (2009).
“The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism” inspired by the architecture of Luis Barragán, at the New York Botanical Garden. Photo courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.
For this year’s edition, the NYBG is also presenting a photography exhibition from Mexican artist Martirene Alcántara, who for decades has been captivated by Barragán’s architecture. Her photographs of his Mexico City home, Casa Barragán, are on view in the downstairs gallery space at the garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library. (The show was organized by the Consulate General of Mexico in New York and will appear there later this year.)
The artist, who has lived in New York for 25 years, began taking architectural photographs while studying architecture at the National University of Mexico. Soon, it became her primary focus, with Casa Barragán becoming a beloved subject.
“I have pretty much lived there for 30 years or more,” Alcántara told me. “I love that house, and every time I go, it’s like discovering a new house. Just a beautiful place.”
Photographs by Martirene Alcántara in “Homage to Luis Barragán: An Act of Poetry” at the New York Botanical Garden. Photo courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.
Her photographs isolate the architecture into its basic geometry, translating Barragán’s simple, elegant lines and angles into almost abstract compositions. (Four works from her series “Homage to Luis Barragán” are in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.) The stripped-down, minimal nature of Alcántara’s work stands in striking contrast to the maximalist approach inside the glass-walled conservatory.
The new show delivers on the “explosion of orchids that you have come to expect from this annual tradition,” Jennifer Bernstein, the garden’s president, said, but with the added bonus of other Mexican flora.
Cacti in “The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism” inspired by the architecture of Luis Barragán, at the New York Botanical Garden. Photo courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.
That includes agave, cacti, and the pink bougainvillea—the color which is echoed in some of the wall installations—as well as some of the country’s approximately 1,300 native orchids, 40 percent of which don’t grow anywhere else on earth. But other varieties of the beloved flower can be found almost everywhere, which has allowed the NYBG to stage such a wide variety of themes for the annual showcase.
“There’s over 30,000 species of orchid, native to every continent and every biome except Antarctica,” Zack Leibovitch, the conservatory manager, told me. “You can even find orchids growing wild just a couple of miles from the city.”
“The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism” inspired by the architecture of Luis Barragán, at the New York Botanical Garden. Photo courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.
The garden’s horticulture team, led by Brian P. Sullivan, vice president for glasshouses and landscape, and Marc Hachadourian, director of glasshouse horticulture and senior curator of orchids, grows many of the specialty orchids in the show on site. But these days, thanks to advances in tissue culture, the garden is able to purchase most of the plants from nurseries.
“They take a small portion of cells and grow them in a Petri dish,” Leibovitch explained. “They will be a complete clone of the parent that the cells were taken from.”
It’s much faster and less expensive than growing plants from seed or by dividing adult plants, although there are some species, like the showy slipper orchids, that don’t respond well to this method.
A lady slipper orchid. Photo courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.
The show features thousands upon thousands of orchids, in a full rainbow of colors, with both tiny flowers and massive blooms. (After the show’s run, many of them get donated to the local community, such as senior centers, through the garden’s Bronx Green-Up program.)
It’s a feast for the eyes—and for the nose, with the blossoms’ fragrant scents permeating the space. (The show’s run also features seven after-hours “Orchid Nights” with adult beverages and cumbia sonidera dance parties.) As New Yorkers eagerly await warmer weather and spring sunshine, soaking up the Mexican vibes is the perfect antidote to the winter blues.
“The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism” and “Homage to Luis Barragán: An Act of Poetry” are on view at the New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, New York, February 15–April 27, 2025.  More

During Frieze Los Angeles later this month, Christie’s will host at its Beverly Hills branch an exhibition of art belonging to Francois Pinault, the French billionaire businessman whose holdings include the auction house.
The show, titled “Eye Contact,” will include a wide range of portraiture by eight artists: Marlene Dumas, Llyn Foulkes, Thomas Houseago, William Pope L., Jim Shaw, Cindy Sherman, Luc Tuymans, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Nothing will be for sale, according to Christie’s. Houseago will install his outdoor sculptures on Christie’s first-floor terrace in collaboration with the Pinault Collection’s curatorial team. A fun fact: More than half of the over 10,000 works in Pinault’s holdings address the subject of the human body.
The show was initially slated to open last month, but was bumped to February due to the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles.
Christie’s recently appointed CEO Bonnie Brennan noted in an email that “Eye Contact” is the latest in a string of non-selling exhibitions that the auction house has hosted in L.A., which have included a 2023 show in collaboration with the local nonprofit Desert X, and in 2024, a presentation of Warhol film stills on loan from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Thomas Houseago, Study (New York Mask I), (2010) Artist Credit: Thomas Houseago Studio © ARSPhoto Credit: Fredrik Nilsen Studio
Selections from the Pinault Collection are regularly exhibited at three museums that it operates—the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana in Venice and the Bourse de Commerce in Paris—as well as at other institutions around the world.
Some of the works in the L.A. show have been seen only rarely, like paintings by Tuymans and Dumas that are making their U.S. debuts. Others have never been publicly displayed, such as a portrait of Pinault by Los Angeles artist Jim Shaw.
Christie’s L.A. venue “is our second-largest gallery in the Americas, with beautiful exhibition space in our first floor galleries as well as our second floor terrace,” Brennan said. (Christie’s headquarters at Rockfeller Center in New York has the most gallery space.)
Luc Tuymans, Anonymous III (2018). © Luc Tuymans. All rights reserved. Courtesy Studio Luc Tuymans, Antwerp, and David Zwirner
In response to the recent wildfires, Christie’s has made donations to the California Community Foundation Wildfire Recovery Fund, the Los Angeles Food Bank, and the Getty’s L.A. Arts Community Fire Relief Fund. “Our hearts have broken for everyone affected by the devastation caused by the recent wildfires,” Brennan said. “We are proud to have a home in Los Angeles and will continue to stand in solidarity with our friends, family, and colleagues in this great city as we rebuild together.”
“Eye Contact: An Invitation to the Pinault Collection,” will be on view at Christie’s Los Angeles, from Wednesday, February 12, through Friday, April 4. More

Israel’s war in Gaza has been documented like no conflict before, with footage filmed directly by impacted civilians and spread rapidly across the globe. For many, especially younger audiences, these firsthand accounts have become a more trusted source of information than mainstream media outlets, which many believe are obscuring the reality in line with their own agenda.
Utilizing this power of the image to cut through the discourse surrounding geopolitical conflicts and bring the focus back to its impact on everyday life, Palestinian artists have long been documenting their experiences, community, and surroundings. In many cases, violence is only obliquely referenced, either by the physical manifestations of occupation, like fences, watchtowers, or a ravaged landscape, or by its psychological aftermath: displacement, grief, longing.
Though the making of art is an interpretative, subjective act, it can unveil truths that may be otherwise impossible to convey. This is certainly what brings together projects by three Palestinian photographers living in exile —Ameen Abo Kaseem, Nadia Bseiso, and Lina Khalid—that are included in a new exhibition, “Longing: In Between Homelands,” at Palo Gallery in New York City, on view through February 8, 2025.
Ameen Abo Kaseem, Untitled. Image courtesy of the artist and Palo Gallery.
Most of the works by Ameen Abo Kaseem, from a series titled “We Deserved a Better Time on this Earth,” are diptychs that pair joyful snapshots from everyday life, including moments of bliss or affection, with more threatening scenes of chaos on the streets or armed soldiers on patrol.
The Palestinian-Syrian photographer based in Beirut said appearing in the show made “the weight of memory and exile feel shared, not solitary.”
“This work isn’t about giving answers—it’s about holding space for the questions,” he said. “What does it mean to belong when your home exists only in memory? How do we carry the land within us, making it visible even when it feels lost? And how do we keep moving forward, with love and poetry, even in the shadow of exile.”
Installation view of “Longing: In Between Homelands” at Palo Gallery in New York until February 8, 2025, featuring works by Ameen Abo Kaseem. Photo: Thomas Barrett.
Kaseem has also poured his despair into wall texts that accompany the photographs and read as private diary entries. “I wonder: if I were born on the other side of the world, would I be in this same moment?” reads one. “I stare at the ground for a long time, muttering, ‘we deserved a better time on this earth.’” Another reads: “There was never anything I believed in like love, but today I find it a compass pointing to nothing.”
The artist said that he had some trepidation about showing works like these in a commercial gallery setting. “My work is dark, personal, and not the kind of thing that feels ‘sellable’,” he said. “I worried about how it would be received. But hearing people say they’ve connected to these moments and feelings has meant everything to me.”
Nadia Bseiso, Hot Spring (2017). Image courtesy of the artist and Palo Gallery.
The only color images are those by Palestinian-Jordanian Nadia Bseiso, who is based in Amman, Jordan. The works in Infertile Crescent explore the convergence of geopolitical and ecological concerns in a region sometimes known as the Fertile Crescent for the early human civilizations that once flourished there by cultivating its lands. They were mostly made between 2016 and 2018, years leading up to the planned construction of a pipeline that would tackle water scarcity in the Middle East by moving water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.
As such, the works often take as their subject diverse water sources native to Jordan and scenes of everyday life and survival in the Jordan Valley. The pipeline, which was criticized for its potential damage to natural ecosystems, was eventually abandoned. The Jordanian government cited a lack of interest from Israel, which had originally agreed to help fund the project.
“As Palestinians in the diaspora, we remain connected to our homeland by an invisible umbilical cord,” said Bseiso. “Even if we have man-made borders, whatever happens in Palestine hits close to home.” She added that Infertile Crescent was a way to capture “how invisible lines, geopolitics, conflict, and water scarcity [have] dictated how we lived in the region and how they are responsible for shifting the area from what it once was, to what it is today, and what it might soon become.”
Lina Khalid, 75-300mm (2024). Image courtesy of the artist and Palo Gallery.
Lina Khalid, was born to a Palestinian family that took refuge in Jordan after they were expelled from their village of Qalunya in Jerusalem during the Nakba of 1948. Now living in the capital Amman, she grew up forced to only know her homeland from afar. On family trips to the Dead Sea, she could just about make it out in the far distance.
In the black-and-white photographs of To Look Over there is a Sin, Khalid explores the complexity of this apparent proximity in a landscape scarred by manmade borders. In some of her images, these borders interrupt an otherwise timeless and tranquil topography.
Lina Khalid, The Sea is Over There. Do You See It (2024). Image courtesy of the artist and Palo Gallery.
Khalid said the exhibition is “a space to express the profound experiences of loss and transformation that deeply impact our lives as Palestinians born and living in exile.”
She added: “I’m happy to share my experience in navigating the complex relationships between memory, identity, and art as a means of healing and resistance. Each image in the project and the exhibition, featuring my colleagues Nadia and Amin, reflects a moment of contemplation on our personal and collective experiences, forming an attempt to document emotions often lost amid the chaos of reality.”
The three artists featured in “Longing: In Between Homelands” were selected from the Arab Documentary Photography Program, a joint initiative of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Magnum Foundation, and the Prince Claus Fund, which provides mentorship for photographers from the Middle East.
“Longing: In Between Homelands” is on view at Palo Gallery’s second location at 21 East 3rd Street in New York City until February 8, 2025. All proceeds from the exhibition will go directly to the artists. More

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art highlights its latest acquisitions of works by Native American artists in a new exhibition celebrating the intergenerational expressions of Indigenous artists through historical and contemporary art.
Artist-curator Jordan Poorman Cocker co-curated “American Sunrise: Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges” with Ashley Holland, director of curatorial affairs at the Art Bridges Foundation. The latest acquisitions came from direct talks with the artists as well as from Native American markets and through art galleries, said  Cocker, who also serves as the museum’s officer for compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGRPA).
Ryan RedCorn, Raymond RedCorn (2018-2023). Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Among the new acquisitions is a photograph by the Osage artist Ryan RedCorn which depicts the late fashion designer Ardina Revard Moore, who founded the Indian apparel business Buffalo Sun. Moore, who was also one of the last remaining speakers of the Quapaw language, is pictured holding a young baby named Hikele Byrd.
“In Redcorn’s portrait, generations, legacy, resilience, and the importance of family is highlighted in monumental scale,” Cocker said, highlighting the RedCorn work as one in the exhibition that best represents the thematic aspect of kinship.
Cocker herself is an Indigenous artist from the Kiowa Tribe and from the Kingdom of Tonga in the Polynesia region of the Pacific. Her artistic and scholarly work seeks to promote Indigenous knowledge and creativity.
Frank Buffalo Hyde, Big Hat Energy (2023). Courtesy of Frank Buffalo Hyde/Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
“Misrepresentation and underrepresentation of Indigenous-led stories and narratives has historically led to an over-representation of stereotypical imagery and propaganda within museums due to settler colonialism,” Cocker said. “When museums support Indigenous curators to work closely with artists and communities to tell our own stories in our own ways, museums move closer toward best practice.”
The new acquisitions also include, among other pieces, a characteristic punching-bag sculpture by Jeffrey Gibson, a mixed media work by Ojibwe artist Andrea Carlson, a painting by Onondaga and Niimíipuu artist Frank Buffalo Hyde inspired by a 1962 advertisement for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes cereal, and a beaded necklace by the artist Bobby Dues called IHS Dental Plan (2024) that Cocker described as “fabulous.”
Bobby “Dues” Wilson, IHS Dental Plan (2024). Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
That work is accompanied by a projection of a video titled Smiling Indians by Redcorn and Sterlin Harjo.
“The throughline between both works is Indigenous joy, happiness, and imagery of smiling Indigenous people which is rarely shown in the museums and the media,” Cocker said. “This pairing and other works in the exhibit upend negative and inaccurate stereotypes of Native American people.”
Cocker also praised the work The Zenith by artist Cara Romero, who is slated to have her first solo show at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, in January. That work, a photograph, features a person with a spaceflight helmet on in outer space while surrounded by floating cobs of corn. To Cocker, it highlights the show’s theme of Indigenous Futurism. Meanwhile, Kelly Church’s Sustaining Traditions into the Future was selected by Cocker as the best example of the theme of place.
Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Home of the Brave (2013). Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
The exhibition features six new commissions by Church, Jeri RedCorn, Jane Osti, and Roy Boney that have never been seen by the public. In total, more than 30 artists spanning more than 150 years of artmaking are featured.
“American Sunrise: Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges” is on view through March 23, 2025 at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas. More

To exhibition-goers and culture lovers, “Life is Architecture” at M+ in Hong Kong has been nothing but a treat since it opened in late June. The show, billed as the first major retrospective of Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei (1917–2019), offers a rare opportunity to revisit the iconic buildings and high-profile projects he built around the world that made him one of the most influential architects of the 20th and 21st centuries.
To architects, the exhibition on Pei carries an extra layer of meaning. It is not just about one big name, but it offers the audience a glimpse of what the practice of architecture is about, according to architect Betty Ng.
Installation view of I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, 2024. Photo: Wilson LamImage courtesy of M+, Hong Kong.
“Despite that the exhibition is billed as a retrospective of Pei, his work is exhibited and curated as a body of work that involves a vast amount of collaborators, ranging from his clients to glass manufacturers and artists. Among my favorites are the illustrations by Helmut Jacoby, who also collaborated with Norman Foster,” noted Ng, who is the founder and director of the Hong Kong headquartered firm Collective, which has worked on architecture and exhibition design projects across the region and beyond, including Christie’s new Asia headquarters.
The “refreshing” approach shows “how architecture is done through a coherent understanding across various parties, which is a reality in practice but not well understood by outsiders,” she said.
Peter Rosen,First Person Singular: I. M. Pei (1997). Image courtesy of the director.
The Pritzker Prize-winning architect I.M. Pei, whose full name is leoh Ming Pei, may be best remembered for the National Gallery of Art East Building in Washington, D.C., as well as the Louvre Pyramid, which went from being one of the most hated proposals during the museum’s renovation to an iconic piece of contemporary architecture in Paris. Other major projects are the Bank of China Tower, which challenged the public’s perception of architecture in Hong Kong and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the latter of which he built at the age of 91. Despite his institutional might, Pei did not get a museum retrospective until now.
Curated by Shirley Surya, design and architecture curator at M+, and Aric Chen, general and artistic director of Nieuwe Instituut (New Institute) in Rotterdam and formerly M+’s founding lead curator for design and architecture, the show was organized with the support of the Estate of I. M. Pei and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners has been seven years in the making.
Installation view of I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, 2024. Photo: Dan Leung. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
The exhibition tells the story of Pei’s life and practice through six chapters and it features more than 400 objects, with many being shown for the first time.
“It’s hard to pick ‘favorites’ as each exhibit—be it a video, a letter, model, or drawing—is key in revealing certain aspects within each thematic section of the exhibition,” said exhibition curator Surya. While attention is likely drawn to some of Pei’s landmark designs, Surya noted that as a historian, she was grateful to have found several lesser-known exhibits that demonstrated Pei’s versatility not just as an architect but also for his transcultural vision.
Installation view of I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, 2024. Photo: Lok Cheng. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Among them is a series of short documentaries about Pei from 1970 that were kept at Pei Cobb Freed’s archive. It “revealed Pei’s articulate and reflective stance on his practice and presented him as an important public figure even before accomplishing other projects later,” the curator pointed out.
The other is the model of Taiwan Pavilion at Expo 1970 in Osaka. The model on view was built in collaboration with master’s students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Architecture, which also served as the exhibition’s dedicated model maker.
I.M. Pei’s Bankers’ club drawing from undergrad project at MIT. Photo: M+.
“As a temporary structure, few knew of Pei’s involvement in this project. But its design for a circuitous exhibition path—through two multi-story triangular volumes with multiple bridges—akin to the unfolding sequence of spaces experienced while walking through a Chinese garden really demonstrated Pei’s ability to reinterpret culturally specific historical archetypes for the design of a contemporary and modern structure,” said Surya.
The I.M. Pei designed Suzhou Museum opened in 2006. Photo: M+.
Architect Ng, who also teaches architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong with her Collective directors Juan Minguez and Chi Yan Chan as a collective teaching cohort, was the team behind this education engagement. Students were asked to conduct in-depth research of two of Pei’s culture-related projects: a Museum of Chinese Art for Shanghai in 1948, an unrealized proposal that was originally Pei’s Harvard Graduate School of Design thesis, and Taiwan pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka. These aspiring architects were asked to reflect on the idea of “Chineseness” through Pei’s work. Ng and her teammates found this exercise inspiring.
“To us, as architects from different places practising in the context of Asia, we have always been asked to create ‘a design with Asianess’. There is no straight forward answer to this delicate matter, but the collaboration was a great exercise to explore various design methodologies through the understanding of characters instead of motifs,” said Ng.
Liu Heung Shing, I. M. Pei with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and guests at Fragrant Hill Hotel’s opening (1982). Photo: © Liu Heung Shing
The show also highlights the backdrop of important historical moments throughout the decades of Pei’s career that saw key cultural and geopolitical transformations across the world. Important archival images on view include those depicting Pei’s interaction with important figures such as French-Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and scenes representing the modernization of China.
To Ng, projects that Pei had worked on with real estate tycoon William Zeckendorf being showcased alongside other arts and cultural projects was moving. The collaboration gave Pei a reputation of being “an architect for a developer.” Reflecting on this, Ng noted that private developers play a more dominant role in the architecture ecology in Hong Kong and the region, compared to Europe, where she had worked before. By putting these commercial projects on view, it helped to clarify the basis of architecture design, which is about methodology, rather than genres and styles. “We do not believe in being a particular type of architect. We believe in architecture,” she said.
Marc Riboud, I. M. Pei and Zao Wou-Ki in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris ca.1990 © Marc Riboud/Fonds Marc Riboud au MNAAG/Magnum Photos
The exhibition will run until January 5, 2025. But in case one isn’t able to make a trip to Hong Kong for the show, don’t fret. There may be a chance to see the show elsewhere afterwards. “We are currently in various discussions to bring this exhibition to a wider audience in different parts of the world,” Surya noted. More

Every fall, Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art hosts blockbuster exhibitions to assert its position as a leading institution in the region, and this year is no exception. Two major shows, a solo presentation of Anicka Yi and the group exhibition “Dream Screen,” are running through the end of the year.
Yi’s “There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One” is certainly the headline attraction as the first and most expansive museum exhibition of the renowned Korean-American artist in Asia. Yet many visitors would agree that “Dream Screen,” organized by artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, has stolen some of the spotlight.
Infused with horror-genre themes, the show features a dynamic group of artists millennial-aged or younger whose practices explore and negotiate cultural encounters experienced through screens, whether via the internet, video games, or films within local and regional contexts. After its opening in September, the show quickly became one of the most talked-about exhibitions of the fall.
Installation view of 2024 Art Spectrum “Dream Screen.” Photo: Yeonje Kim. Image courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art.
The exhibition is part of the museum’s Art Spectrum program, a biennial initiative launched in 2001. Originally established as a platform to showcase emerging Korean artists amid the country’s growing contemporary art scene, this edition has been revamped. The previous award system was removed, and the program expanded its scope to feature artists from across the region. “Dream Screen” presents the work of 26 artists and collectives from various parts of Asia, organized by Tiravanija, who served as artistic director and co-curated the show with Leeum’s curator Hyo Gyoung Jean and guest curator Jiwon Yu.
Installation view of 2024 Art Spectrum Dream Screen. Photo: Yeonje Kim. Image courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art.
The show explores the proliferation of digital technologies and the sense of the uncanny that is created as our lives become overloaded with information, sensory stimuli, and narratives all shared through screens.
Perhaps there is no better way than presenting this in the form of a haunted house. The exhibition’s entrance is the façade of a house, which is inspired by the Winchester Mystery House, dubbed “the creepiest mansion” in the U.S. Built by Sarah Pardee Winchester, who received a massive inheritance from her late husband, William Winchester, a firearms mogul, the 110-room 19th-century mansion located in San Jose, California, was said to be built to house the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle so she could be spared by the ghosts of these victims.
Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran, The Spinning Shadows (2024) Commissioned by Leeum Museum of Art. Image courtesy the artist.
What connects an American haunted house to Asian horror? The exhibition offers no explicit explanation, but its format speaks volumes. Featuring 26 artists and collectives, each occupying a room, courtyard, or hallway within a labyrinthine structure inspired by the Winchester House, the show balances individual expression with a unified narrative. Given Asia’s legacy of iconic horror films like Ring (1998), The Eye (2002), and A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), it’s a fitting setting for exploring the genre’s global resonance.
Installation view of Bo Wang’s Asian Ghost Story (2023). Photo: Vivienne Chow.
As visitors enter the house, they are greeted by music from a live jam session at a bar—an installation by the international collective Sparkling Tap Water, whose members performed throughout the opening night. Deeper inside, a room features the haunting video installation Asian Ghost Story (2023) by Amsterdam-based, Chongqing-born artist Bo Wang. This powerful work reflects on the late 20th-century hair trade, set against Asia’s economic rise, industrialization, Cold War tensions, and migration.
Inspiration from Shan State and Chiang Rai (2023) by the Yangon-based artist Soe Yu Nwe. Photo: Vivienne Chow
Among the 60 works on show, 23 of them were commissioned by the museum and exhibited for the first time. One keeps making discoveries in this maze-like structure wandering from one room to the next, not knowing what to expect.
One room features Inspiration from Shan State and Chiang Rai (2023) by Yangon-based artist Soe Yu Nwe, an installation of delicate glass and ceramic sculptures resembling mysterious plants sprouting from bodily forms. The work draws inspiration from her family history and regional folklore. Meanwhile, a corridor showcases Forms of Perfect Love (2024) by Seoul- and Amsterdam-based artist Eunsae Lee, a whimsical mural depicting various forms of human connection.
Kaeru (2024) by Jihyun Jung. Photo: Yeonje Kim. Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art
Ghost in the Machine (2024) by the Cebu-based Kolown is an installation of what appears to be a farm for internet trolls, consisting of 40 smartphones; it offers a critical take on how the ease of communication with digital devices can be a double-edged sword.
For those whose nightmares involve public scrutiny, Seoul-based Jihyun Jung’s Kaeru (2024) might be the most unsettling work in the exhibition. This large-scale installation invites visitors to attempt indoor wall climbing in front of an audience, forcing them to confront fears of failure and embarrassment.
While international blockbuster names are inevitable to draw audiences and sell tickets, platforming emerging talent from the region is equally important, especially when the global art community is becoming more receptive of artists of Asian roots. Leeum would do well to  maintain this balance in its future programming.
“Anicka Yi: There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One” and “Dream Screen” run through December 29 at Leeum Museum of Art, 60-16 Itaewon-ro 55-gil, Seoul, South Korea. More

More than four decades into painting, Kenny Scharf, a visionary of Pop Surrealism and a fixture of New York’s downtown art scene, is at the pinnacle of his career. The artist’s top 30 auction sales have all transpired since 2020 and this past May, an aerosol artwork sprayed on-site for a benefit auction sold for a record $1.1 million. Now, with three major exhibitions currently on view in New York City, Scharf’s dynamic, colorful works are being celebrated like never before.
After enrolling in New York’s School of Visual Arts in 1978, Scharf became pals with street artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The rest is history, as they say. Throughout the 1980s, he spent his time orbiting Warhol, painting the streets, and getting freaky at Manhattan’s nightclubs. He became known for his vibrant, distorted faces that are usually laughing or smiling, which are exemplified in a recently unveiled show at Lio Malca’s 60 White gallery. Meanwhile, a suite of new works joyfully commemorating the year of the dragon, are on view at the Lower East Side gallery TOTAH.
A survey at New York’s Brant Foundation, however, emphasizes the angst that has been brewing just beneath his jocular figures all along.
A view of the exhibition’s final, bottom floor. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
Brant co-curated the three-floor extravaganza alongside dealer Tony Shafrazi. Together, they supplemented their collections with Scharf’s holdings, plus loans from museums and other collectors, like Larry Warsh and Robert De Niro. Scharf hasn’t done anything this big since his exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey in 1995.
“I’ve been wanting this, obviously, for many, many years,” he said over Zoom.
“I think some people might dismiss the art as just fun and light,” Scharf continued. “I can’t control what people think—and if they choose not to look further. But I think when you see it together in this mass, it might change your mind.”
Installation view, with The Days of Our Lives (1984) at center. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
At the show’s VIP preview, Scharf said it was emotional to encounter so many works he hadn’t seen in decades. “Some of this stuff goes on auction over the years, and then you don’t know who owns it,” he said. Brant located Scharf’s scattered treasures. Some, like The Days of Our Lives (1984), proved even wilder than Scharf remembered.
“I was just going nuts,” he said. “It’s so liberating to be able to make a painting and not care at all what a painting is supposed to be, or how you’re supposed to be.”
Guests are advised to start on the show’s top floor, and descend from there. Each level explores a running theme in Scharf’s practice, starting with the cartoon family the Jetsons before moving through portals, jungles, and portraits. Works from the 1970s through the ’90s appear on each floor. Casual fans, however, would have a hard time attributing some of the earliest paintings on offer to Scharf.
A view of the Jetsons floor. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
“I was just thinking about the painting Barbara Simpson’s New Kitchen,” he said regarding one 1978 work. He read the Guardian‘s recent interpretation that the titular character has tamed the dragon in her kitchen. “That’s not it at all,” Scharf said. “She’s just happy about her new kitchen and showing it off, despite the fact that there is a dragon right in your face. She’s ignoring it.”
Scharf was raised in California’s San Fernando Valley during the environmentalist movement’s advent, in the 1960s. “I made up my mind very early [that] we need to harness solar and wind, and we have to get off petroleum,” he said. The dinosaurs that appear throughout his work reference fossil fuels. Growing up, Scharf found the Valley’s air barely breathable. “I remember talking to my parents and going, ‘God, my lungs hurt today,’” he said. His suburban family, however, mostly cared about keeping up with the Joneses.
Kenny Scharf, Barbara Simpson’s New Kitchen (1978). Courtesy of the Brant Foundation.
“It made a strong impression on me, the hypocrisy of how you can just live and ignore stuff that’s right in your face,” he said. That message has only intensified 45 years on. “But if we got our brand new kitchen, we’re cool with that.”
Scharf has also famously upcycled the now-obsolete appliances that powered the 1980s and 1990s. This part of his practice, he said, is “like my fantasy idea of what an artist is and how an artist lives.” If you’ve ever ridden in one of his cars, then you understand how Scharf’s hand can elevate even the simple experience of sitting in traffic.
The Dino Phone. Photo: Vittoria Benzine.
Several answering machines appear among the show’s maximalist boomboxes, TVs, and calculators. One still holds a taped message from Haring, though Scharf can’t remember which. But, he definitely had regular conversations on the Dino Phone while living one block north of the Brant Foundation throughout the mid-’80s.
The Brant survey’s second floor features its banner image, and largest artwork, When the Worlds Collide (1983–84). The Whitney loaned the foundation this oil and aerosol painting, which appeared in the museum’s 1985 Biennial. Brant and Shafrazi received fellow downtown royalty like Charlie Ahearn in front of this piece during the VIP opening. But, amidst all the artwork’s excitement, Scharf pointed out one tiny detail—a Keith Haring “Radiant Baby” in its lower right corner.
The middle floor. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
“I had no studio,” he recalled of the moment in which he executed this tableaux. Haring, traveling in Europe, let Scharf use his SoHo space. Scharf added the baby glyph as a thank you.
One year prior, on a flight to join his Brazilian artist Bruno Schmidt for the country’s Carnival, Scharf met his wife Tereza Goncalves. He soon moved to a stretch of Brazil’s coastal rainforest. He painted there prolifically, living alongside fisherman who asked him if there was a moon in New York, too.
“I was just getting this notoriety—hanging out with Warhol and going to parties, blah, blah, blah,” he said. “Then all of a sudden, I was there in a place that had no electricity.” Scharf, who went to high school in Beverly Hills with celebrity offspring, felt leery around fame. He wanted to be taken seriously, and wasn’t sure his rockstardom helped. Neither did his authentic artist antics, though. When he and Goncalves showed up to the 1985 Whitney Biennial in a fringed outfit joined at the leg, the guests in black tie all rolled their eyes.
Kenny Scharf, Juicy Jungle (1983-84). Photo: Tom Powel Imaging
Fortunately, Scharf maintained his ties to New York while living in Brazil. Haring visited frequently. Scharf had copied Rousseau paintings extensively as a kid, dreaming of lush landscapes beyond arid SoCal. But jungle iconography entered his oeuvre afresh in the rainforest, as Scharf doubled down on environmentalism by partnering with the World Wildlife Fund. “I wish I could say we made a big difference,” he said, but matters have only worsened. Of all his tropical artworks from this era, Scharf considers Juicy Jungle (1984) the most iconic.
He moved back to L.A. in 1999. In an effort to establish community, he invited friends to sit for Old Hollywood–style portraits in his studio. Selections from this vast series round out his survey’s final floor—including the only one not painted from an original photo. Scharf pilfered his Patti Smith source image from Newsweek as a teen. At long last, he thinks, these portraits—like his early paintings—are getting their due.
One wall in the final floor’s portrait gallery, featuring Patti Smith at top. Photo: Vittoria Benzine.
“You can’t do anything about the time,” Scharf said. “Artists usually are ahead of their time.” Sure, he’s enjoyed Brant and Shafrazi’s longstanding support, but he always felt alienated by the art world’s more academic bigwigs. Based on the attendees at this survey’s dinner, this show may change that.
“Everything will catch up,” Scharf added. “Just be alive.”
“Kenny Scharf” is on view through February 28 at the Brant Foundation, 421 East 6th Street. “MYTHOLOGEEZ “is on view through December 7 at TOTAH, 183 Stanton Street. “Space Travel” is on view through January 27 at 60 White, 60 White Street. More

A 4,000-year-old tiny figurine that bears the silhouette of an elegant woman, a wine vessel in the form of a baby elephant from the 18th to 11th century B.C., and a sculpture of a mother breast-feeding an infant from the 12th century, what do they have in common besides the fact that they are ancient?
These wonders of the world are all made of bronze and hail from different parts of Asia. Thanks to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, over 70 works are gathered together as part of “Asian Bronze: 4,000 years of beauty.” The expansive exhibition features works from India, China, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nepal, and Korea, many of which left home and are being exhibited abroad for the first time, as well as objects from the Dutch museum’s own collection.
Installation view of “Asian Bronze”. Photo: Rijksmuseum/Erik and Petra Hesmerg
In Western institutions, ancient bronzes have often been shown as ethnographic objects. But the Rijksmuseum’s show positions them as part of art history and charts the trajectory of humanity’s eternal desire to tell stories from prehistoric days to contemporary times. The subject matter and aesthetics vary, the techniques and use of materials evolve, but the aspiration for beauty, harmony, and transcendence beyond the mortal realm is the same. Here, bronze is like canvas, and various casting techniques adopted by different cultures and makers in different periods are like brushes and colors.
Installation of Buddha Seated Under the Hood of a Seven-Headed Nāga, Thailand, 12th–13th century. Photo: Rijksmuseum/Kelly Schenk
“The beauty and breathtaking techniques, the differences and similarities, the unrivaled skills of their creators, bronze connects Asia and makers of contemporary and ancient times,” said Menno Fitski, head of Asian art at Rijksmueum. “People have been standing in front of these sculptures for centuries with their own private emotions. This makes them more than just a piece of metal.”
The result of meticulous research led by the museum’s exhibition team—including curators Anna A. Ślączka, Ching-Ling Wang, and William Southworth, as well as Sara Creange, the museum’s metals conservator—the show is organized by several thematic sections to tell the Asian bronze story in a more holistic way than chronologically or regionally.
Standing female, a figure from Mohenjodaro, Sindh province, Pakistan, circa 2500 to 1500 BCE. on loan from the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi. Courtesy of Rijksmuseum.
The technique of creating bronze from an alloy of copper and tin was discovered in Asia, which is where the exhibition’s “Materials and Beginnings” section starts. The most fascinating work here is Standing female, a figure from Mohenjodaro, Sindh province, Pakistan, on loan from the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi. Measuring only five inches tall, the work is dated to 2500 to 1500 BCE and is the oldest object on display. When it was created, bronze craftsmanship was still in its early stages, and very little is known about it.
Yet its depiction of an elegant female figure, standing upright with one hand on her hip and the other posing as if she were carrying something, makes a lasting impression. It raises questions about the perception and status of women in ancient times. For similar reasons, the anthropomorphic figure from India’s Ganges Valley (circa 1500 to 1000 BCE), on loan from Musée départmental des Arts Asiatiques in Nice, is equally fascinating.
Buddha under Naga’s hood, Thailand, 12th-13th century. National Museum, BangkokPhoto: Rijksmuseum/Erik and Petra Hesmerg
The two-part Heaven and Earth section makes up a significant portion of the show as a lot of bronze objects tended to be made with a religious or spiritual intention. Ślączka explains in her catalogue essay that bronze was broadly used across the region especially Hinduism and Buddhism because these bronze works, which represent the images of deities and sacred characters, must be strong enough to withstand the worship rituals, as these rituals ranged from offerings of food to bathing and anointing. “Wood and clay, do not last well in the hot and humid climate that characterizes many parts of Asia,” she noted.
Guhyasamaja Aksobhya, Tibet, 15th century. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
The works on view in this section showcase the remarkable skill and craftsmanship that artisans possessed centuries ago. The more than five-foot-tall statue of the Buddha seated under the hood of a seven-headed naga from 12th to 13th century Thailand is one example. On loan from National Museum in Bangkok, the highly polished work not only tells a famous story about the Buddha, its design carries aesthetic elements from beyond Thailand, such as China, Cambodia, and India.
A Tibetan Guhyasamaja Akshobhya from the first half of the 15th century is one of the highlights of the show. It offers a vivid three-dimensional depiction of the iconic personality of Tantric Buddhism. Kept in the Rijksmuseum’s collection, the enthralling gold-gilded sculpture symbolizes the unity of opposite forces and a higher state of enlightenment. Ten years ago, researchers at the museum realized it was cast from solid bronze—a technique that Europeans artisans had not yet mastered. This discovery prompted the curatorial team to question what they knew about Asian bronzes and ultimately led to this exhibition.
Wine vessel in the form of an elephant, China, 18th –11th century BC. Musée Guimet, Paris.

Ślączka noted that further scans of the work revealed that the statue contained a scroll hidden inside. What the scroll says remains a mystery as the museum did not want to extract it to avoid damaging the work.
Bronze was also used to create weapons, tools, utensils, and containers for food and drink, many of which are featured in other parts of the exhibition. A standout piece is a wine vessel shaped like a baby elephant, dating back to 12th to 11th century BCE China. Its charming depiction resembles modern toy store designs, but as Wang pointed out, it also reveals the Chinese invention of using clay molds to cast intricate abstract patterns on the vessel’s surface.

Magic mirrors by Yamamoto Akihisa. Photo: Rijksmuseum/Erik and Petra Hesmerg
The exhibition concludes with a display of mirrors set in bronze, including two works by a contemporary Kyoto craftsman, Yamamoto Akihisa, who has carried on the ancient Japanese tradition of “secret mirrors,” which were mystical objects used to project a hidden image only when light hits them at the right angle. These works were originally created in the 17th century, at a time when Christianity was forbidden by the shogunate; many contained images of the crucifix and the Virgin Mary, as well as depictions of Buddha and tree scenery.
“The Asian world is not just one thing,” said Fitski. “It’s incredibly diverse through the eye of one material, but the human element is exactly the same.”
“Asian Bronze. 4,000 years of beauty,” runs through January 12 at the Rijksmuseum, Museumstraat 1, 1071 XX, Amsterdam, Netherlands. More