On View

For far too often in the last 11 months has the sky above Ukraine been scarred by gunfire, shells, and explosions. A new exhibition of Ukrainian war photography at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston takes that same sky as a metaphor—and turns it into a kind of call to action. 
“Who Holds Up the Sky?”, as the show is called, was organized by a trio of curators from the Wartime Art Archive at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) NGO in Kyiv, and brought to the U.S. through a collaboration with the MFA. It collects the work of Ukrainian artists who have documented the war since Russia’s invasion in February of last year. 
“Overcoming the darkness of death, shelling, genocide, and blackouts, photography captures the multiple realities of war,” the exhibition’s three MOCA NGO curators—Halyna Hleba, Olga Balashova, and Tetiana Lysun—wrote in the introductory wall text. The show, they explained, was conceived as a tribute to “everyone who is holding up the sky over Ukraine.”
Installation view of “Who Holds Up the Sky?” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 21 to May 21, 2023. © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
On view are shots of missiles being launched from Russia, taken by photographer Vadym Belikov from the window of his own high-rise building, as well as a picture of the destruction that similar missiles have wrought on Ukrainian farmland, captured by war correspondent Efrem Lukatsky. 
Those two artists’ works are punctuated by several photos from Yana Kononova’s X-Scapes series, which document the physical destruction in Kyiv’s northern regions—twisted sheet metal, cratered housing structures—but are each cropped to the point of abstraction. Gone are direct indications of war, leaving the emotional devastation of the wreckage heightened.
Pillars in the MFA’s gallery are lined with illustrations from Inga Levi’s ongoing Double Exposure series, which began just days after Russia’s unprovoked invasion. Each entry in the collection depicts two realities: one of everyday life in Ukraine, one of war.  
Efrem Lukatsky, Bird’s eye view of a crater left by a Russian rocket that hit a farm field 10km from the front line. Despiteshelling, local farmers continue harvesting (2022). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Rounding out the show is a video about the “Behind Blue Eyes” project, a charitable effort that provides Ukrainian kids with disposable cameras. They’re asked to carry around their cameras for a week, photographing their daily routines. The goal, according to the view’s label, is to project a “coherent and complex footprint of the war” from the perspective of those whose lives will forever be shaped by it.
The name of the project comes from the song of the same name by The Who. The curators suggest that the blue of the title is also meant to allude to the sky—a reminder, perhaps, that we’re all united by the firmament above us, even if it looks different.
See more images from “Who Holds Up the Sky?” below.
Installation view of “Who Holds Up the Sky?” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 21 to May 21, 2023. © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Kostiantyn Polishchuk, Ukrainian soldiers (2022). © Polishchuk Kostiantyn. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Installation view of “Who Holds Up the Sky?” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 21 to May 21, 2023. © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Yana Kononova, X‑Scapes #63‑17 (2022). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Installation view of “Who Holds Up the Sky?” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 21 to May 21, 2023. © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
“Who Holds Up the Sky?” is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston through May 21, 2023.
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In just about every article, interview, or press release written about Henry Taylor, he is described as “an artist’s artist.” No matter what that term actually means, it’s undoubtedly a compliment, but it cuts out the non-artist’s ability to appreciate and respect the man’s great talent.
If anything, Taylor is an artist of the people. He paints, sculpts, and draws them furiously, as evidenced by the extraordinary breadth of work on view in the career retrospective “Henry Taylor: B Side” on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the artist’s hometown of Los Angeles.
As a chronicler of people from every cross-section of humanity, Taylor’s subjects range from family members, to fellow artists, to the patients at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital where he worked decades ago. In all of his works, there is something both universal and achingly individual, with many of his paintings serving as character studies spliced with social commentary.
In the exhibition catalogue, curator Bennett Simpson writes of Taylor: “He is also, or maybe foremost, a champion and caretaker of Black experience, suffusing his work with recognition and social commentary alike. In this role, his paintings communicate a deep sense of responsibility—to memory and community, to excellence and contingency.”
See pictures from the exhibition below.
“Henry Taylor: B Side” is on view at MOCA Grand Avenue, 250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, through April 30, 2023. 
Installation view, “Henry Taylor: B Side” at MOCA Grand Avenue. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Henry Taylor, Screaming Head (1999). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Jeff McLane.
Henry Taylor, Untitled (2022). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Jeff McLane.
Henry Taylor, Too Sweet (2016). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Sam Kahn.
Henry Taylor, Untitled (2021). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Ken Adlard.
Installation view, “Henry Taylor: B Side” at MOCA Grand Avenue. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Installation view, “Henry Taylor: B Side” at MOCA Grand Avenue. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Henry Taylor, Andrea Bowers (2010). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Robert Bean.
Installation view, “Henry Taylor: B Side” at MOCA Grand Avenue. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Installation view, “Henry Taylor: B Side” at MOCA Grand Avenue. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Henry Taylor, I Was King, When I Met The Queen – Syllable X’s Rhythm Equals Mumbo Jumbo (2013). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Sam Kahn.
Henry Taylor, “Watch your back” (2013). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Sam Kahn.
Installation view, “Henry Taylor: B Side” at MOCA Grand Avenue. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Henry Taylor, Untitled (1991). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Jeff McLane.
Henry Taylor, Cora (cornbread) (2008). Image and work ©Henry Taylor, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
Installation view, “Henry Taylor: B Side” at MOCA Grand Avenue. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Jeff McLane.
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Marc Newson is one of today’s most prominent designers. His Lockheed Lounge (ca. 1990), primarily made from fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin and aluminum, became the most expensive piece of design when it sold for £2.4 million ($3.7 million) at Phillips London in 2014.
But the 59-year-old Australian-born, London-based designer is chiefly motivated by problem-solving, setting himself complicated challenges to do with techniques and materials. This trailblazing vision is on view in a new exhibition at Gagosian Paris from January 25–March 18.
Marc Newson. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd, courtesy of Gagosian.
The intimate show brings together a variety of pieces made over the last few years. Most intriguing are a lounge sculpture and chair made from a cloisonné technique featuring dizzying patterns of small enamel circles. They were created in Beijing where Newson’s team built a factory to revitalize China’s centuries-old cloisonné method.
Artnet News spoke to Newson at the preview of the exhibition.
What sparked your interest in the cloisonné process and why did you want to recontextualize it in these new works?
When I was at art college, I did jewelry and silversmithing, and was always aware of this cloisonné process. Like in a lot of my work, I had ambitious ideas to upscale things, to play with scale, and people would be scratching their heads about how you did it. I had this vision in my head, but we had no idea where and how we were going to do it, and whether the skills still existed.
Marc Newson, Cloisonné White and Blue Chair (2022). Photo: Paris Tavitian, courtesy of Gagosian.
Cloisonné was perfected by the Chinese five or six centuries ago in Beijing. But when I went to China, I couldn’t find anyone to do it, ironically. The process was almost dying out. People could do small pieces but not large ones. So we had to find certain individuals who could recruit and retrain people.
We built this factory and got it up to a point where we could produce these crazy shapes which I don’t think they even could have done five or six centuries ago. There are 30 people executing steps along the way, doing the enamel and stuff. It’s a mad process.
Marc Newson, Extruded Ribbon Console (2022), carved from a single piece of Azul Macaubas stone. Photo: Paris Tavitian, courtesy of Gagosian.
Also on view is Extruded Ribbon Console, carved entirely from Azul Macaubas quartzite but resembling machine-molding. Why did you choose this material?
It’s as much about what you don’t see as about what you do see. The conceit is that it’s as if you’ve taken a completely rigid material and bent it like plasticine which, of course, you can’t do with marble, but people think you can. I like creating the illusion that you can do something with material that you really can’t.
How do ideas and knowledge gained from your industrial projects bleed into your sculptural projects and vice versa?
I’ve always done work like this and, at the other end of the spectrum, I’ve always done work in aviation, designing office chairs or products for the luxury sector—luggage for Louis Vuitton, shoes for Nike, perfume bottles, or pens for Montblanc. Each of them teaches me different things [and] the variety is what really helps me to do what I do. For me, design is a problem-solving exercise. I’m a gun for hire.
Marc Newson, Clear Surfboard (2017), an aluminum board that began as a prototype for surfer Garrett McNamara. Photo: Robert McKeever, courtesy of Gagosian.
Your best-known piece is Lockheed Lounge. What problems did you want to solve when you made it?
I did that when I was in my early 20s. I was able to respond to the challenge that I set myself in a very limited way. I had a vision of this amorphous object in a shiny metal, and the only way I could think to do it was to cover it in small panels. I wouldn’t do it like that anymore.
A video produced by the Hour Glass shows that you own works by Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye and Italian artist Alighiero Boetti, who was connected to the Arte Povera movement. What genres do you collect?
I’m not a huge collector; I have a few pieces. I love Wim’s work, he’s a friend, and I find it really funny and whimsical. I’m a big fan of everything that’s Italian—post-war, Arte Povera, and the design that started coming out of Italy in the 1950s and ’60s. It was an incredibly interesting, fertile moment in time. Alighiero Boetti and Lucio Fontana are among my favorite artists, historically.
Marc Newson, Blue Glass Chair (2017), solid cast glass of quarter spheres. Photo: Jaroslav Kvíz, courtesy of Gagosian.
When clients approach you, do you feel pressured to live up to a certain reputation? How does your sculptural work counterbalance that?
[My sculptural] work allows me to be me and do things at my own cadence, although the pieces are difficult and complex. We do these sort of fun exhibitions in different parts of the world and can cherry-pick the [works] that we think will be appropriate.
Marc Newson is on view at Gagosian, 9 rue de Castiglione, Paris, January 25–March 18, 2023.
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Last fall, a few astute visitors to the Art Institute of Chicago noticed that the museum had quietly swapped out the wall text for Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s 1991 artwork Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). Whereas a previous placard alluded to the artist’s late partner, Ross Laycock, who died from an AIDS-related illness the same year the piece was created, the new signage simply describes Untitled’s conceptual framework.
“The erasure of Ross’s memory and Gonzalez-Torres’s intent in the new description is an unconsciable [sic] and banal evil,” read one Twitter user’s post, which was reshared on the platform thousands of times. Others online soon decried the museum’s supposed act of “erasure,” too, and some even postulated that it was part of a larger effort on the part of Gonzalez-Torres’s foundation to distance the artist’s biography from his work.
“There’s no obliterating Felix’s biography. [There’s] no desire to, no reason to,” said Andrea Rosen, president of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, when asked about the incident in a recent interview. Near the Art Institute’s label for Untitled, she pointed out, is a QR code that directs viewers to an audio guide describing the work’s connection to Laycock and the context of the AIDS epidemic. 
Rosen was clearly rankled by the accusations of erasure. That she would feel that way makes sense: A former dealer, Rosen hosted one of Gonzalez-Torres’s first solo shows in 1990, and continued to represent him up to and beyond his death in 1996 from AIDS-related illness. For three decades now, she has been the foremost promoter of his work; their accomplishments are inseparable. (Rosen now co-represents the artist’s estate with David Zwirner.)    
Still, she managed to find a silver lining. “It is crazy how Felix’s work continues to generate such meaningful and complex dialogue,” Rosen said. “Thank god!” 
Installation view of “Felix Gonzalez-Torres” at David Zwirner, New York, January 12 – February 25, 2023. Courtesy of David Zwirner.
Indeed, what the incident at the Art Institute illustrated was the complexities and nuances inherent to Gonzalez-Torres’s work—and the intense personal connection to his story that many feel. 
Those upset by the eliding of Laycock and AIDS from the museum’s wall label weren’t wrong. That’s the thing about Gonzalez-Torres’s work: It allows, even encourages, different emotional reactions. From his poetic billboards to his piles of candy, no artist was better at generating conceptual prompts that felt both personal and universal, both specific enough to grab you and open-ended enough for myriad points of entry. 
Now, on the occasion of Gonzalez-Torres’s new exhibition at David Zwirner, where two installations conceived by Gonzalez-Torres have been realized for the first time, Rosen and the rest of her team are again thinking about the unique interpretability of the artist’s output. The show marks the formal introduction of the Foundation’s new Core Tenets—that is, a series of documents that outline the conceptual parameters of Gonzalez-Torres’s artworks. 
Through Zwirner’s website, gallery-goers are provided with sheets of paper that look, at first glance, like contracts. That is what they are, in a way—contracts that define the rules of works on display, based on language from the artist himself. 
“Each of the candy works is a unique artwork… The candy works, as with all manifestable works, exist regardless of whether they are physically manifest… The possibility for the work to be manifested with ease is an ongoing intention of the work,” reads some of the bulleted tenets for Gonzalez-Torres’s candy installations, one example of which (“Untitled” (Public Opinion) from 1991) is on view at Zwirner in two different parts of the gallery. 
A page from the “Core tenets of Gonzalez-Torres’s candy works,” an in-process draft fromJanuary 9, 2023. Courtesy of David Zwirner.
Printed on foundation letterhead, the documents are dry and rather dense. Each catalogues the works to which the stated tenets apply (there are 20 iterations on the “Candy Works” document, including Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)), and boasts a list of postscript annotations long enough to make David Foster Wallace blush. 
So authoritative are the tenets that they almost feel like a direct response to the Art Institute controversy. Viewed through that lens, it is as if the documents are saying, “No, this is how you read Gonzalez-Torres.”
But Rosen said that the project, which goes back years, is about doing the exact opposite. The idea, she explained, is to point to “what is stable within Felix’s work,” while also showing how individual installations fit within a broader corpus. 
It’s a novel solution to the unique challenges of presenting and experiencing this particular artist’s creations. For those that already find Gonzalez-Torres too heady, the tenets may feel like more homework. 
But then again, who really thinks that about him? The artist’s genius came through his ability to establish a set of conditions to which everyone—from academics to children copping a piece of candy—could relate on their own terms. To its credit, the Tenets project gets that people will bring to Gonzalez-Torres’s work the kind of intense attention that only comes through personal connection.
Installation view of “Felix Gonzalez-Torres” at David Zwirner, New York, January 12 – February 25, 2023. Courtesy of David Zwirner.
Rosen echoed this idea too, noting that the project “creates as much responsibility for people to understand the work as it does provide information.” Rosen went on, “It’s a way of becoming a kind of Felix thinker.”
And it’s not objectivity the foundation is after. In addition to the tenets, Rosen also commissioned a handful of writers and curators to reflect on their own, highly subjective relationships to Gonzalez-Torres’s art in a series of audio essays that are available on Zwirner’s website.
“The more subjectivity around Felix, the more diverse ideas around Felix—the better,” Rosen said.
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French designer Philippe Starck’s pioneering work from the 1980s, which unabashedly subverted classical forms, is spotlighted in a trio of exhibitions in Paris. They evince the zealous interest in Starck’s output from that decade, which led to his becoming a household name through industrial products such as the lemon squeezer, Louis Ghost chair for Kartell, and innumerable hotels and restaurants worldwide.
Starck’s furniture pieces are included in the multi-disciplinary extravaganza “Années 80. Mode, design et graphisme en France” at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (through April 16) alongside furniture by fellow designers Martin Szekely and Elisabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti, as well as Jean-Paul Goude’s graphic photography of Grace Jones and fashion by the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler.
His work is also the subject of two gallery shows: “Ubik,” the title of Philip K. Dick’s science-fiction novel after which Starck named his agency, at Ketabi Bourdet (January 20–February 18) and another at Jousse Entreprise (March 10–25).
Yet Starck, renowned for his radical and humorous vision, is bemused by the renewed enthusiasm for his 1980s production. “I’ll reuse the words of a friend: Getting older is awful,” he told Artnet News at Ketabi Bourdet’s preview. His attendance was a surprise for the gallery, which mounted the exhibition without his input.
“I don’t think anything of the past; I’ve always thought about the future but never about the past,” continued Starck, whose fascination with futuristic forms and materials comes from his father, an aeronautical engineer. “I’m very happy to see all this here with all these charming people, but it doesn’t concern me.”
Asked about the spike of market interest in his 1980s pieces, he added: “It’s completely artificial because they think that I’m going to die, so one must increase the market value. It’s normal speculation in the field of artistic creation.”
“What’s interesting is that the pieces were made with nothing,” Starck recalled. “We had zero money, no one believed in us, there was no investment, we produced the pieces ourselves. It really was an incredible adventure.”
Installation view, “Ubik.” Courtesy of Ketabi Bourdet.
The show presents Starck’s greatest hits alongside rarer pieces and exemplifies how he invariably quashed conventions, such as the traditional four-legged chair. Among these pieces are the Pat Conley II armchair (1983), its seat gracefully sloping to the ground; the Dr Sonderbar armchair (1983) in stainless chrome metal, its ellipsoidal form standing on just three legs; the black, highly graphic chairs Miss Dorn (1982) and Wendy Wright (1986), and the neon Easylight (1979), reminiscent of Dan Flavin’s sculptures.
Prices reach as high as €65,000 ($70,704) for the rare sofa Canapé Prince de Fribourg et Treyer (1987), which has been purchased by a Hong Kong-based foundation. Other pieces have been sold to younger buyers for whom the exuberance of the 1980s is a relative discovery, according to the gallery.
“Starck is the designer who really embodied the 1980s through advertising and unrestrained craziness,” said Paul Bourdet, co-founder of Ketabi Bourdet. Bourdet started collecting Starck’s furniture in 2015 while working at Galerie Downtown François Laffanour prior to inaugurating his gallery with Charlotte Ketabi-Lebard. “I was really looking at who could be the next [designer] in the market after Jean Prouvé and Pierre Paulin,” he explained.
Across the Seine in the 1980s exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs are pieces that pinpoint Starck’s institutional importance. Fauteuil Club (1983) was acquired during François Mitterrand’s presidency for the bedroom of his wife, Danielle, at the Elysée. Typifying Starck’s anti-bourgeois approach, Fauteuil Club upended the affluent association with classical armchairs by emptying the inside and embedding an aluminum-molded seat and two metal legs—eventually with just one.
Installation view, “Années 80. Mode, design et graphisme en France.” Courtesy of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
“Starck is the best-known designer [from the 1980s] because he popularized design; his father transmitted to him the idea that research was a mission and that one should create for the largest number [of people],” said Karine Lacquemant, the exhibition’s co-curator. “His journey remains emblematic, from his commitment to innovative design to his talent as an interior designer (Les Bains Douches nightclub)—marking the decade with his visionary spirit.”
On the secondary market, it is Starck’s more recent works from the early 2000s and 1990s that have fetched the highest amounts. His auction record is for a black crystal chandelier, Lustre Zénith (2006), which sold at Artcurial in 2006 for €59,195 ($74,930).
The prices of his works from the 1980s are still relatively affordable, according to Florent Jeanniard, co-director of design at Sotheby’s. “The pieces that didn’t encounter commercial success at the time and are rare today are among the most popular and sought-after works,” Jeanniard said. “These prices, to some extent, are still accessible, enabling a generation of new and young collectors to make acquisitions.”
Philippe Starck, prototype of the Café Costes chair. Courtesy of Jousse Entreprise.
Indeed, Jousse Entreprise’s show on Rue de Seine on the Left Bank will feature several prototypes made for specific commissions. On offer will be a 1984 prototype of the three-legged chair for Café Costes restaurant in Paris (priced at €70,000) and a 1988 prototype of a chair for the Royalton hotel in New York, besides the refined Phil Lizner bar stool for Manin restaurant in Tokyo.
“I discovered Starck as a teenager and when I visited the Royalton in New York, I found it revolutionary because it was the precursor of boutique hotels,” said gallery director Matthias Jousse, who started collecting Starck’s works six years ago. “Starck is one of the only French designers known internationally, like Andrée Putman. What he made was very contemporary for its era [and] is still very contemporary in 2023.”
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The Bay Area’s newest institution, the ICA San Francisco, celebrated the final phase of its opening last night, unveiling its biggest gallery space with a compelling group show on the importance of celebrating Black beauty, rest, and self expression, curated by California artists Tahirah Rasheed and Autumn Breon.
Titled “Resting Our Eyes,” the exhibition features works from both big names and rising stars, with impressive loans by the likes of Carrie Mae Weems, Derrick Adams, Sadie Barnette, Genevieve Gaignard, and Simone Leigh.
Breon, who lives in Los Angeles, and Rasheed, who is from Oakland, met through the For Freedoms artist collective. (Group cofounder Hank Willis Thomas is among the artists featured in the show, along with his mother, photographer Deborah Willis.)
“So many people within the network just kept on assuming that we knew each other,” Breon told Artnet News at the exhibition’s opening reception. When they were finally introduced, the connection was instant.
Curators Tahirah Rasheed and Autumn Breon at “Resting Our Eyes” at the ICA San Francisco. Photo by Vikram Valluri for BFA.
The two have spent the past year curating “Resting Our Eyes,” which offers a taste of founding ICA director Alison Gass’s socially minded vision for the institution, which looks to focus on under-represented voices in the art world.
The show’s theme was inspired by the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black feminists who began meeting in 1974.
“Basically the idea is that if and when black women are free, everyone else in the world will inevitably be free, because the systems that oppress black women would have to be dismantled and everyone else would benefit from it,” Breon said.
“When T and I started thinking about the mechanisms for freedom, we kept going back to leisure and adornment,” she added. “We were looking for the artwork that tells the story how we adorn ourselves and how we prioritize rest, because we see both of those as really necessary acts.”
See some of the works from the show below.
Adana Tillman, Wild Things (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist.
Gaignard, Look What We’ve Become (2020). Collection of Bob Rennie, Vancouver. Photo by Jeff Mclane, courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter, Los Angeles.
Sadie Barnette, Easy in the Den (2019).Photo courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco.
Hank Willis Thomas, Kama Mama, Kama Binti (Like Mother, Like Daughter) (1971/2008) from “Unbranded: Reflections in Black byCorporate America.” Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. Photo by Aaron Wessling Photography.
Carrie Mae Weems, The Blues (2017). Collection of Jeffrey N. Dauber and Marc A. Levin. Courtesy of the Dauber/Levin Collection.
Lauren Halsey, Untitled (2021). Photo by Allen Chen, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
Traci Bartlow, Girl Boss (1996). Photo courtesy of the artist.
Helina Metaferia, Headdress 1 (2019). Photo courtesy of the artist.
Carrie Mae Weems, The Blues (2017). Collection of Jeffrey N. Dauber and Marc A. Levin. Photo courtesy of the Dauber/Levin Collection.
Ebony G. Patterson, …they wondered what to do…for those who bear/bare witness(2018). Photo courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.
“Resting Our Eyes” is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, 901 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, January 21–June 25, 2023. 
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Even the offhand mention of a Jewish deli evokes a world of smells and tastes: of hot latkes and matzo ball soup, of briny pickles and piles of pastrami. It’ll make your mouth water.
So will the New York Historical Society’s current exhibition, “‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli.” The show, on view through early April, honors the rich history of the deli in pictures, videos, and relics from restaurants. On view are old photos, menus, and neon signs; vintage uniforms and fake food dishes; even film clips from Seinfeld and When Harry Met Sally (the latter of which inspired the name.)
And when you inevitably end up craving something to nosh on, well the museum has that too: throughout the run of show, New York’ Historical Society’s restaurant, Storico, is offering deli-themed menu options.
Reuben’s Delicatessen Menu, 1946. Courtesy of the New-YorkHistorical Society.
Organized by the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles—where it premiered last year before traveling on to New York—the exhibition posits the deli as a distinctly American phenomenon, one born in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries as waves of Jewish immigrants migrated from Eastern Europe, bringing with them the cuisine of their homeland: cured meats, smoked fish, bagels, and so on. 
“Whether you grew up eating matzo ball soup or are learning about lox for the first time, this exhibition demonstrates how Jewish food became a cultural touchstone, familiar to Americans across ethnic backgrounds,” said Skirball curators Cate Thurston and Laura Mart—who organized the presentation with food writer Lara Rabinovitch—in a statement. 
At the show’s center is a universal story about the immigrant experience in America, past and present. 
It “reveals facets of the lives of Central and Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that echo in contemporary immigrant experiences” the curators went on. “It shows how people adapt and transform their own cultural traditions over time, resulting in a living style of cooking, eating, and sharing community that is at once deeply rooted in their own heritage and continuously changing.”
Mark Russ Federman’s mother, Anne, serves customers at Russ and Daughters in 1939. Courtesy of the New YorkHistorical Society.
After the exhibition’s run in New York, it will hit the road again, making stops at in Houston, Texas (May 4–August 13, 2023) and Skokie, Illinois (October 22, 2023–April 14, 2024).
“I’ll Have What She’s Having” tells a “deeply moving story about the American experience of immigration—how immigrants adapted their cuisine to create a new culture that both retained and transcended their own traditions,” added New-York Historical Society president and CEO Dr. Louise Mirrer.  
“I hope visitors come away with a newfound appreciation for the Jewish deli, and, with it, the story of the United States.” 
See more images from “‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’” below:
Carnegie Deli, New York, NY, 2008. Photo: Ei Katsumata /Alamy Stock Photo. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.
Menu from 2nd Avenue Delicatessen, New York City, 1968. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.
Lionel S. Reiss, Frankfurter and Lemonade (c. 1945). Courtesy of the New YorkHistorical Society.
James Reuel Smith, Louis Klepper Confectionary and SausageManufacturers, 45 E. Houston Street, c. 1900. Courtesy of the New YorkHistorical Society.

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For design, like art, January is an important month. This is when top galleries and platforms around the world mount major shows, ringing in the new year on an optimistic note—and with unrestrained creativity.
This month’s offerings are no different. Dive into this selection of six design exhibitions—spanning Milan, Italy to Portland, Ore.—that push the limits of experimentation and self-expression.

Olga Engel and Sho Ota at Mia Karlova GalerieAmsterdam, Netherlands
Installation view. Photo: Jeroen van der Spek, courtesy of Mia Karlova Galerie.
In its ”Poetic Design” exhibition (through February 10), Amsterdam’s Mia Karlova Galerie contrasts the sensuality of Latvian talent Olga Engel and the minimalism of Netherlands-based Japanese designer Sho Ota.
Engel’s ”Charlotte” furniture collection is an ode to the harmonious lines of French modernist Charlotte Perriand (who was closely associated with Le Corbusier), while Ota’s “Splint” series of wood-block chairs explores how certain universal forms, in different compositions, can better facilitate modularity and personalization.

John Shea at HB381New York, United States
John Shea. Courtesy of HB381 gallery.
HB381 is the kunsthalle-style offshoot of the more established New York collectible design gallery Hostler Burrows. Since its inception last spring, HB381 has focused on showcasing interdisciplinary talents who attempt to free sculpture from limited definitions of art and design.
American talent John Shea demonstrates this philosophy with the transcendent ceramic sculptures in his “standard, abstract” solo show—on view from January 13 to February 25. His abstract sculptures are defined by intersections, where smooth geometric planes are interrupted by rough spheres. Shea’s shapes take their cues from microscopic silica crystals and the palette from Japanese painter Sanzo Wada‘s 1932 book, A Dictionary of Color Combinations.

Anne Libby and Philip Seibel at Magenta PlainsNew York, United States
Anne Libby, These Days (2022). Polished cast aluminum. Courtesy of Magenta Plains.
Philip Seibel. Courtesy of Magenta Plains.
In New York’s Lower East Side from January 13 to February 25, Magenta Plains is showcasing new wall sculptures by Los Angeles-based Anne Libby that riff on domestic window blinds. Cast in polished aluminum, the intriguing works play with light and deflected reflection as they cascade against stark white backgrounds. 
Berlin-based artist Philip Seibel’s “Gehäuse” exhibition runs concurrently at the gallery. Like Libby, Seibel challenges the perception of readily available construction materials and consumer products to create sculptural objects that serve as contemporary tombs, shrines, and ornate storage boxes. The works demonstrate his ability to satirize the typology of everyday items through meticulous craft techniques. He also distorts the pieces with engravings of agrarian scenes from the Middle Ages.

Jake Clark at Albertz BendaNew York, United States
Jake Clark, installation view. Courtesy of Albertz Benda.
Poking fun at the commercial iconography of his adopted city of New York, Australian ceramicist Jake Clark debuts his latest psycho-geographic collection “Canal Street” at Albertz Benda gallery. Ceramic vessels, key chains, mugs, and plates are emblazoned with the likeness of the signs and logos he’s observed around town as a self-proclaimed outsider.
This collection is a play on and elevation of the souvenirs that tourists can find on the very street where the gallery is located. The logos of recognizable haunts like Balthazar restaurant are joined by depictions of subway cars and ciphers.

Makers at Caselli 11-12Milan, Italy
Lewis Kemmenoe, Patchwork Cabinet. Cherry wood carcass and timber. Courtesy of Caselli 11-12.
(Left) Arnaud Eubelen, Lander table light. Old glass cover, cut wine glass bottle, rusted steel sheet, etc. (Right) Arnaud Eubelen, One Time Chair. Clothes rack tubes, burned fabric, etc. Courtesy of Caselli 11-12.
New Milanese platform Caselli 11-12 inaugurates its “Makers” series of shows with an exhibition dedicated to experimentation. Bringing together a whopping 29 avant-garde talents from across the globe, the showcase—on view through January 15—demonstrates how so many of today’s designers have taken it upon themselves to develop bespoke creative processes. Many are challenging the constraints of the design landscape by forging distinctly resourceful practices.
While Belgian up-and-comer Arnaud Eubelen creates furniture out of discarded building materials he finds around construction sites, New York-based Katy Brett sets out to evoke the quality of broken porcelain objects in the surface of solid wood tables and chairs. Many of the works on view are as thought-provoking as they are visually enticing.

Vince Skelly and Lynne Works Turner at Adams and OllmanPortland, Oregon
Vince Skelly, Redwood Arch (2022) and assorted tables and chairs. Courtesy of Adams and Ollman.
Back on the West Coast of the U.S., Portland gallery Adams and Ollman is closing out an exhibition featuring new sculptural works by woodworking savant Vince Skelly. Skelly has taken on the design world with his intuitive chainsaw and traditional hand-carved tables and chairs that evoke the ecology of the woods he sources from natural disaster sites.
Among the primordial wood pieces, minimalist painter Lynne Woods Turner has placed wall art whose lines and nuanced colorations suggest what isn’t there. A similar pensiveness carries through from her works to Skelly’s organic forms, creating a tension between these two oeuvres. 
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