On View

For just a few short weeks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is hosting “Artists Inspired By Music: Interscope Reimagined”, which pairs paintings by Ed Ruscha, Amoako Boafo, Kehinde Wiley, and Anna Weyant with songs or albums from Interscope Records. The exhibition came about as a means to celebrate the music label’s 30th anniversary, and Dr Dre, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Nine Inch Nails, and Lady Gaga are among the musicians from which the participating artists drew their inspiration.
The show closes on February 13, so in case you can’t go see the works yourself, take a look at (most of) the work on view here.

Adam Pendleton, Untitled (Dr. Dre, The Chronic) (2021), reimagining the Dr. Dre album The Chronic (1992), silkscreen ink on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
Amoako Boafo, 6Lack – Black Woolen Hat (2021), reimagining the album FREE 6LACK (2016), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California.
Anna Park, Intermission (2021), reimagining the Billie Eilish album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019), charcoal on paper mounted on panel. Private Collection.
Anna Weyant, Dessert (2021), reimagining the Gwen Stefani album The Sweet Escape (2006), oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian
Burnt Toast, Seeing Sounds (2021), reimagining the N*E*R*D album Seeing Sounds (2008), digital file. Courtesy of the artist.
Cecily Brown, If Teardrops Could Be Bottled (2021), reimagining the Billie Eilish EP don’t smile at me (2017), oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist.
Chloe Wise, The River’s All Wet (2021), reimagining the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album It’s Blitz! (2009), oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech.
Damien Hirst, Addict (2021), reimagining the Eminem album The Slim Shady LP (1999), mixed media. Private Collection.
Derrick Adams, The Breakthrough (2021), reimagining the Mary J. Blige album The Breakthrough (2005), acrylic on wood panel. Courtesy of the artist.
Ed Ruscha, All Eyez on Me (2021), reimagining the 2Pac album All Eyez on Me (1996), acrylic on linen. Private Collection.
Emily Mae Smith, Broken (2021), reimagining the Nine Inch Nails EP Broken (1992), oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery, New York.
Ferrari Sheppard, Blackstreet Harmony (2021), reimagining the song “No Diggity” (featuring Dr Dre and Queen Pen) from the Blackstreet album Another Level (1996), acrylic, charcoal and 24k gold on canvas. Ferrari Sheppard Studio.
Genesis Tramaine, Black Woman Saint Cleans Jesus (2021), reimagining the Summer Walker album Over It (2019), acrylic, oil paint, Lawry’s Seasoning Salt, the Holy Spirit. Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech.
Henni Alftan, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Olivia Rodrigo album SOUR (2021), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
Henry Taylor, Untitled (2021), reimagining the song “DNA” from the Kendrick Lamar album DAMN (2017), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection.
Hilary Pecis, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Selena Gomez album Rare (2020), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection.
Issy Wood, Gwen with All the Obstacles (2021), reimagining the song “Cool” from the Gwen Stefani album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004), oil on linen. Lent by the artist and Carlos/Ishikawa, London.
Jenna Gribbon, Lana Watched (2021), reimagining the Lana Del Rey album Born to Die (2012), oil on linen. Private Collection.
Jennifer Guidi, Seeking Hearts (Black Sand MT, Pink Sand, Pink CS, Pink Ground) (2021), reimagining the BLACKPINK album The Album (2020), sand, acrylic and oil on linen. Private Collection.
John Currin, Newspaper Couple (2016), reimagining the song “Beautiful Day” from the U2 album All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000), oil on canvas. Gagosian, Courtesy of the artist.
Jordy Kerwick, Bloody Valentine (2021), reimagining the song “Bloody Valentine” from the Machine Gun Kelly album Tickets to My Downfall (2020), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection, courtesy of Vito Schnabel Gallery.
Julie Curtiss, Venus (2021), reimagining the song “Just a Girl” from the No Doubt album Tragic Kingdom (1995), acrylic and oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
KAWS, Better Days Ahead (2021), reimagining the Snoop Dogg album Doggystyle (1993), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection.
Kehinde Wiley, The Watcher (2021), reimagining the Dr. Dre album 2001 (1999), oil on canvas. Private Collection.
Lauren Halsey, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Kendrick Lamar album To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), gypsum on wood. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
Loie Hollowell, Mandalora Squeeze (2019), reimagining the Lady Gaga album The Fame Monster (2009), oil paint, acrylic medium and case resin on linen over panel. Private Collection.
Lucy Bull, 10:00 (2021), reimagining the song “Spiderwebs” from the No Doubt album Tragic Kingdom (1995), oil on linen. Private Collection.
Marc Quinn, We Share Our Chemistry with the Stars (MGK200) (2021), reimagining the Machine Gun Kelly album Tickets to My Downfall (2020), oil on canvas. Marc Quinn Studio.
Matthew Wong, The Outside World (2018), reimagining the Lana Del Rey EP Paradise (2012), gouache on paper. Matt Wong Painter Ltd.
Nicolas Party, Portrait with a Parrot (2021), reimagining the Lady Gaga album Joanne (2016), pastel on cardboard. Private Collection, courtesy of Karma, New York.
Nina Chanel Abney, 2 PM (2021), reimagining the 2Pac album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996), collage on panel. Pace Prints and courtesy of the artist.
OSGEMEOS, The End (2021), reimagining the Black Eyed Peas album The E.N.D. (2009), mixed media on MDF. Courtesy of OSGEMEOS.
Rashid Johnson, Good Kid (2021), reimagining the Kendrick Lamar album good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012), ceramic tile, mirror, red oak, oil stick, spray enamel. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
Raymond Pettibon, No title (Lake Placid) (2019), reimagining the Lana Del Rey album Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019), ink on paper. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner.
Reggie Burrows Hodges, Swimming in Compton: Look Ma (December Day) (2021), reimagining the song “Swimming Pools (Drank)” from the Kendrick Lamar album good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012), acrylic and pastel on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
Richard Prince, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Nine Inch Nails album The Downward Spiral (1994), acrylic and ink jet on canvas. Courtesy of Richard Prince.
Sayre Gomez, Commemorative Merchandising (2021), reimagining the 50 Cent album Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ (2003), acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of François Ghebaly Gallery.
Shepard Fairey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2021), reimagining the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album Fever to Tell (2003), stencil impression and mixed media collage on album covers. Courtesy of Obey Giant Art Inc.
Stanley Whitney, Roma 32 (2021), reimagining the song “King Kunta” from the Kendrick Lamar album To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), oil on linen. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.
Takashi Murakami, Goodbye & Good Riddance (2021), reimagining the Juice WRLD album Goodbye & Good Riddance (2018), acrylic on canvas mounted on wood frame. Courtesy of Kaikai Kiki Co Limited.
Titus Kaphar, Seeing Through Time (2021), reimagining the Eve album Scorpion (2001), oil on panel. Private Collection.
Toyin Ojih Odutola, Damn (2021), reimagining the Kendrick Lamar album DAMN. (2017), graphite on black board; graphite on Duralar. Private Collection.
Umar Rashid, The Dar al harb according to Tupac. Or, Shakur vs the other world. Earth like, violent, and prone to frequent periods of injustice. Alas, if one seeks it, one can find beauty in the hideous. (Me against the world) (2021), reimagining the 2Pac album Me Against the World (1995), acrylic and spray paint on canvas. Courtesy of Half Gallery and Blum and Poe.
Will Boone, HELMET (2021), reimagining the Helmet album Meantime (1992), acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.

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“Can you spot a Deepfake?” That is the question that first greets visitors to the website for In Event of Moon Disaster, an Emmy Award-winning documentary that uses deepfake technology to present an alternate history of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon.
After viewers answer either “yes” or “no,”—if you click yes, the response chides: “Okay Hot Shot, Let’s Go”—they watch a short film and then are asked a series of questions to discern what in the video is real and what is not. The results are surprising, to say the least.

That’s because the video depicts US President Richard Nixon informing the public that the Apollo 11 astronauts did not survive their mission. The speech was written for Nixon by William Safire in case such an unfortunate scenario occurred. Since it didn’t, the speech was never delivered.
At the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, the film, presented on an older model television set in a period-appropriate living room, serves as the centerpiece of a fascinating, timely, and unsettling exhibition “Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen.” The show explores the phenomenon of “deepfake” videos, which use advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to create deceptive content, and how they are used to manipulate audiences and perpetuate misinformation or propaganda.
Installation view of In Event of Moon Disaster at the Museum of the Moving Image. Photo by Thanassi Karageorgiou / Museum of the Moving Image.
The moon disaster film, which was co-directed by Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund and produced by the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality, is a perfect jumping-off point to explore the potential harms and benefits of deepfake technology.
By presenting “an alternative version” of landmark historical events, the installation demonstrates that the representation of both the past and present is subject to powerfully effective technical manipulation, which can challenge our belief in what is real, according to a statement about the show.
Excerpts from the documentary To Make a Deepfake (2020), produced by Scientific American, are also on view, as well as a wide range of deepfake videos distributed online.
Installation view of How do you spot a deepfake? Mirror Room. Photo by Thanassi Karageorgiou / Museum of the Moving Image.
The show also offers examples of contested depictions of actual events from throughout the history of the moving image, ranging from a Spanish-American War reenactment dating to 1899 and credit to Thomas Edison, to the 1963 Zapruder footage of the JFK assassination.
Keep an eye on the related event series “Questionable Evidence: Deepfakes and Suspect Footage in Film,” which includes screenings and other public programs that explore synthetic media from a variety of perspectives.
The exhibition was organized by Barbara Miller, the museum’s deputy director for curatorial affairs, and Joshua Glick, assistant professor of English, film, and media studies at Hendrix College and a fellow at the Open Documentary Lab at MIT.
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“The feeling of presence: this is the defining quality of the metaverse.” 
So begins an audio composition in Theo Triantafyllidis’s new exhibition “The Metaverse and How We’ll Build it Together” at Meredith Rosen Gallery. That paradoxical line as well as others in the recording, which blasts from inside ceramic pots installed on old Amazon boxes, were culled from the video Facebook released upon rebranding itself to Meta, an eerie piece of technocratic propaganda that was lampooned to death on social media last fall.
Like many, Triantafyllidis—an artist who builds virtual worlds to interrogate our lived-in, physical one—found the video unsettling. 
“There is this very bizarre conflict between reality and fiction—between this totally utopian, almost completely tone-deaf, representation of our own lives that Mark Zuckerberg seems to have in his mind versus the banal reality of our online experience,” the artist said over video chat recently, Zooming in from Athens, Greece, where he was born and raised. (He’s primarily based in LA.)
An installation view of Theo Triantafyllidis’s exhibition “The Metaverse and How We’ll Get There Together,” 2022 at Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York. Photo: Adam Reich.
“Banal” is a funny word for the artist to use, given the way he illustrates that disjunction between fiction and reality in the second half of the exhibition. Two live simulations—that is, video games controlled by AI rather than human button-pressing—play out on a pair of screens.
The first is populated by a family of tech-obsessed orks. Operating by a code similar to that which drives The Sims, the creatures mindlessly perform a series of repetitive tasks in their virtual home as various catastrophes slowly destroy the world around them.
One ork sprawls before the TV, for instance, while another texts atop a toilet or surfs the web. A tortoise with a camera strapped to its back rides a Roomba, or at least tries to, as his weight keeps the robotic vacuum in place—a clever metaphor, perhaps, for how technology both speeds up our lives and keeps them in place. A fire in the kitchen blazes the whole time.  
A still from Theo Triantafyllidis’s Ork Haus (2022). Courtesy of the artist.
The orks look more like Shrek than those of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but that’s not to say they’re all cute and cuddly. Triantafyllidis’s creatures are crude and vulgar; that’s why he chose them as his avatars. Within gaming communities, the artist explained, there’s a debate about orks, with some saying they’ve been villainized in popular culture through the coded racial attributes we’ve chosen to assign to them. For Triantafyllidis, the idea relates to algorithmic radicalization, or the theory that the algorithms driving social media platforms inherently push people to extremist views.  
Algorithmic Radicalization is also the name of the second simulation in the show. Whereas the first plays out a domestic simulation, the second is all-out war. Humans and monsters alike fight, die, decompose, and respawn in an endless, self-perpetuating loop of violence on a blank battlefield.  

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“The more you look at the work the more you realize how stuck these characters are in the simulation,” Triantafyllidis said. 
The game-like war scene may look like it exists in a different world than the Zuckerberg-themed sound installation found in the room opposite, but for the artist, there’s a line to be drawn between the cycle metaphorized in the simulation and Facebook/Meta’s technocratic vision.  
“I think there’s a direct link between the radicalization pipeline and this utopian aura that this new video tried to present, offering up this new dream to look for during the hellscape situation that we’re in right now,” Triantafyllidis concluded.   
“Theo Triantafyllidis: The Metaverse and How We’ll Build it Together” is on view now through February 26, 2022 at Meredith Rosen Gallery in New York.
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This morning, joggers in New York’s Central Park may have come across a curious, rather illustrious sight. A cube composed of 186 kilograms of pure 24-karat gold, conceived by the German artist Niclas Castello who has billed it as a conceptual “socle du monde” (base of the world) sculpture for our time, was wheeled out to the Naumburg Bandshell this morning at around 5 a.m. 
Although the work is not for sale, according to the artist’s team, based on the current price of gold at $1,788 per ounce, its material worth is around $11.7 million. Flanked by a heavy security detail, the 410-pound work is set to be displayed in the park until the day’s end.
In a message sent this morning to Artnet News, Castello called the work “a conceptual work of art in all its facets.” He said the idea was to “create something that is beyond our world—that is intangible.” 
And so, as with all things in 2022, an accompanying cryptocurrency is being launched alongside the physical artwork. The Castello Coin, traded as $CAST, is available for purchase online at an initial price of €0.39 ($0.44) each, with an accompanying NFT auction scheduled for 21 February. 

The Castello Cube being cast in a foundry in Switzerland.
“The cube can be seen as a sort of communiqué between an emerging 21st-century cultural ecosystem based on crypto and the ancient world where gold reigned supreme,” says the Viennese gallerist Lisa Kandlhofer, who was in New York for the artwork’s launch.
According to Castello’s team, golden cube was cast at a foundry in Aarau, Switzerland, requiring a special handmade kiln in order to withstand both the sheer size and volume of gold, as well as the extreme temperatures needed to melt it, reaching up to 1100 degrees Celsius. The cube measures over a foot and a half on all sides and has a wall thickness of about a quarter inch. 
Later tonight, the sculpture will make its way to a private dinner on Wall Street, where numerous celebrities are said to be attending. 
Niclas Castello with his piece The Castello Cube in Central Park, New York. Photo by Sandra Mika.
Born in 1978 in East Germany, Castello currently lives between New York and Switzerland, and is known largely for his sculptures and paintings partly inspired by artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Castello’s previous works lean heavily on imagery from pop and consumer culture. 
His cube can, in some respects, be compared to Damien Hirst’s infamous diamond encrusted skull, a memento mori that is also a commentary on art’s endless entanglement in money and capital, or Piero Manzoni’s tongue-in-cheek provocation Artist’s Shit (1961), a tin can containing the artist’s feces which he sold for its weight in gold. 
But after its one-day exhibition, where will The Castello CUBE go next? The artist’s team has so far remained tight-lipped about that. One thing is certain, however: Central Park just got a lot more bling. 
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London’s art critics have, almost unanimously, given the KAWS exhibition, which opened recently at the Serpentine Galleries, a thumbs down. But a much younger crowd, which has been viewing the show on the videogame Fortnite, has a very different opinion.
“New Fiction” is the artist’s first major solo show in the UK capital, and in addition to the presentation of paintings and sculptures in London, visitors across the globe can see the exhibition online through the massive multiplayer game Fortnite—an experiment for all the parties involved. There are also virtual versions of the artist’s famous crossed-eye “Companion” sculpture that can be viewed via Acute Art’s augmented reality app.
But the technological twists have apparently failed to please the critics. The Evening Standard’s Ben Luke said the show is “unspeakably awful” and “soul-crushingly boring,” giving it just one star. “I have no idea why the Serpentine has got involved with this,” bemoaned Eddy Frankel, who also gave the show one star in Time Out. “I want to be immersed in KAWS about as much as I want to be immersed in a vat of pus […] It has no concepts, no emotions, no beauty and absolutely no point.” And The Telegraph’s Alastair Smart calls the show a “lost KAWS.”
On the other hand, Fortnite players who choose to roam around the virtual grounds of the Serpentine wearing KAWS-themed skins, appear to be having a great time in the show, jumping around and chasing after each other in the gallery, which wouldn’t be allowed in reality. Some have even said they loved the works, a stark contrast to Smart’s prediction in his review that it would be “hard to see any player having a meaningful experience in the would-be exhibition.”

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“I would say it’s pretty awesome,” Max Kipiniak, a 17-year-old Brooklyn-based high school student, told Artnet News. Kipiniak said he was familiar with KAWS and owned clothes from the artist’s collaboration with Japanese brand Uniqlo. He also found the partnership between an online video game and an artist impressive and he hoped to see more of it.
“The art itself in the gallery was not extremely impressive to me. I guess I prefer to see art in person rather than online, but it was still cool to see his sculptures and art pieces come to life in a video game,” he continued. “I respect artists like KAWS for being open-minded enough to seek out unique ways to publicize their art to new audiences.”
John Olusetire, a 25-year-old software developer based in Nigeria who does not regularly visit art galleries, said “the creative hub and the art (both paintings and sculptures) were cool.” He added that the Fortnite show “was easy to navigate. There’s a 2D map you can access,” and he pointed to a game-specific feature that particularly won him over: “I loved the maze, figuring it out was fun.”
“Overall [it was] a good experience,” said a 16-year-old gamer from India, who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s good to see art displayed inside a game like Fortnite. I have never been to any actual art museums in person, now with the pandemic situation, I am happy to see it in the form of a creative hub.”

Serpentine has said that the show, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, artistic director of the VR and AR production company Acute Art, could reach some 400 million Fortnite players. Organizers have declined to reveal exactly how many players have checked into the virtual show since it debuted a week ago, but it is certainly discussed online. Some players have written on Reddit saying that the show was cool. On Twitter, @GAMMAVERSE_ said: “I am in awe.” @OgEcomiMemelord replied: “You literally got me into kaws fam!” And @Masa_LJwG said: “I enjoyed the exhibition a lot! Thank you from Japan.”
For those unable to join the game, there is no lack of players’ tour videos streaming on YouTube. “So beautiful,” commented Youtuber ShiKago773, who visited the virtual exhibition in a pink KAWS-themed skin. In the video, ShiKago773’s character is seen standing in front of nearly each single work and examining each of them.
“I have these [sculptures as] keychains. I love them. That’s badass,” ShiKago773 adds. “There are so many of [the artworks], so many feelings. Wow. Oh my gosh, Fortnite, thank you. I love it.”
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At first glance, KAWS’s new show at London’s Serpentine Galleries appears to be a retrospective. It features more than 20 paintings and sculptures, all on loan from private collections. But there’s a twist: “New Fiction” is also a virtual exhibition, viewable in ultra high-definition via the online game Fortnite.
By teaming up with Epic Games’s Fortnite, one of the world’s largest online video games with more than 400 million registered accounts, the artist has transformed the exhibition housed in the Serpentine North Gallery into a creative hub within the game. Players can dress up as pink KAWS “Companion” skeletons (the artist’s trademark figure) and roam around the exhibition, as well as the fantasy grounds outside.
“It feels very natural,” the Brooklyn-based artist told Artnet News, “seeing my character walking around the exhibition in Fortnite. Aesthetically, it seems like it fits right with the work I’ve been making.”
The hub is now live and the Serpentine exhibition is open through February 27.
“This is the first time that we are doing something as ambitious as this,” the show’s curator, Daniel Birnbaum, told media at the exhibition’s preview. “The project will reach bigger audiences, bigger than the Venice Biennale. This is a new kind of local project that has a global reach.”
Birnbaum is artistic director of the VR and AR production company Acute Art, which also created an augmented reality experience for the show. Users of Acute Art’s smartphone app can view KAWS’s virtual sculptures inside and outside of the gallery, and share pictures and videos on social media.
American artist KAWS, real name Brian Donnelly, poses with an artwork titled SEEING. Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images.
Because the pandemic made frequent travel between New York and London impossible, KAWS had to work from home using a foam model of the show. The gaming technicians then used pictures of the model, and of the gallery, to imagine how the show and game could come together.
“Once it’s set for the game, they have tons of testing and where they see if they can crash it, just try to see if it is a functional game,” KAWS said. “It’s been a lot to get there. To work with Fortnite, to have something game-ready, you need to be so far in advance.”

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KAWS, it turns out, was already a Fortnite player. After he saw other artists, such as the rapper Travis Scott, stage events in the gaming virtual reality, he saw the potential for his own work. “I understood the scope of games outside gaming. The creative community is pretty incredible, an eye-opener.”
This is not the first time KAWS has ventured into the virtual realm. In 2020, his project “COMPANION (EXPANDED)” brought an augmented-reality version of his figure to 11 cities around the world. Viewers could view the virtual sculpture floating in the air at specific locations via the Acute Art app. And the artist’s 2019-2020 exhibition “Companionship in the Age of Loneliness” at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia hosted a complete virtual walkthrough of the show, which is still accessible today.
A member of a staff uses the Acute Art app to display an (AR) augmented reality artwork “COMPANION (EXPANDED)” by KAWS. Photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images.
Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic director of Serpentine, said “NEW FICTION” is a “unique project that tests how Serpentine can enter the multiverse.” The gallery has been experimenting with technologies in recent years, initiating projects that are bridging the gap between art and pop culture, such as a collaboration with K-pop sensation BTS.
“The idea is to connect the bubbles of different sectors. And in future, artists will be making their own games,” Obrist said.
KAWS has made it a goal to reach as many people as possible. “Even when I was putting work on the streets, I’ve been thinking about communications and how to reach people in new, unexpected ways,” the artist said. “That’s why I’m so interested in doing collaborations with fashion. It’s just a different way of reaching people in a new environment.”
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Standing in front of a painting by Rachel Jones is akin to letting her take you on a journey around her emotional landscape, with her skillful use of color and composition as your guide.
One of the artist’s focuses is Black interiority, accessed somewhat literally through her frequent inclusion of mouths and teeth. Sometimes these elements are visible and sometimes they are submerged: In works like lick your teeth, so they clutch (2021)—currently featured in the Hayward Gallery’s survey of contemporary painting, “Mixing It Up”—the teeth and mouth morph into hills, rocks, valleys, and mountains. Circles and flowers might represent grills, but they could also be trees and waterfalls, such is the ‘magic eye’ effect of Jones’s work. Unique and seductive, her abstractions manage to convey the infinite psychological landscape that exists within a person’s self.
“I love the idea that you can make artwork from a place of feeling, and that’s enough of a reason to make something, because I think that’s the truth of it,” she explained. “Anything that’s produced, it comes from some sort of desire or a need, and all of those things are emotional and physical reactions in our body.”
Jones appeared in an autumn 2020 group show at Thaddaeus Ropac alongside Alvaro Barrington, Mandy El-Sayegh, and Dona Nelson. Ropac signed her shortly thereafter, and institutional and collector attention followed, resulting in an intense demand for her work over the past two years. Another 30-year-old artist might be overwhelmed by so swift a rise, but the Jones has remained focused on forging a life best suited to making work.
Rachel Jones SMIIILLLLEEEE (2021). Photo Eva Herzog Courtesy Thaddeaus Ropac
Her evolving practice is on view in “SMIIILLLLEEEE,” on view at Ropac’s London gallery through February 5, taking over the majority of the large space. The show is a combination of paintings of all sizes, some on stretched canvas and some hung straight onto the wall, ranging from a few inches to meters in size.
The large-scale works for which Jones is known are present, as are some riffs on her practice to break up the formality of the gallery space. Upstairs, there is an intervention on a wall, with the words “Son Shine” written across either side. One work is a sticker on the floor and others are placed at varying heights, some very low on the wall, drawing viewers in, encouraging them to immerse themselves in the work. You are encouraged to bend down, lean back and step up to the paintings, creating a conversation between the work and the viewer.
“I am very interested in placing my history and my relationship to painting within the work, she said to Artnet News. “It’s really meaningful to have people to interrogate those ideas and to think about them. There have been so many Black intellectual writers and poets who have talked about these things for such a long time, and it’s great to be able to feel as if I’m contributing to that conversation.”
Rachel Jones SMIIILLLLEEEE (2021). Photo Eva Herzog Courtesy Thaddeaus Ropac
Jones graduated from the internationally renowned Glasgow School of Art in 2013 and went on to complete her master’s at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. There she attracted the attention of, among others, Chisenhale director Zoé Whitley, who has tapped Jones for the forthcoming solo show, “Say Cheese,” in March 2022.
“I first saw Rachel working in a different register when she was still a student at the RA schools and was thinking through what a language of her own might be,” Whitley told Artnet News. “It’s been so exciting to see how assured she’s been in finding a visual language that allows her to express so many of the very nuanced themes that she’s interested in. She has this very urgent sense of finding herself within the glare of what it means to be a painter today.”
This evolution is an artist is key for Jones, who starts each new work with the body of painting that came before. “I am really excited to see the way the work develops over the years, because I look at the practice as having longevity,” Jones told Artnet News over Zoom. “And to become clearer over the years, because each body of work relates to one another.”
Rachel Jones SMIIILLLLEEEE (2021). Photo Eva Herzog Courtesy Thaddeaus Ropac
Jones works in oil sticks, and her process both is physical and emotional, tied together with an intuitive sense for composition and balance. “Every painting pretty much involves all of the colors on the spectrum,” Jones explained. “It’s very important that there is a sense of balance and that there are moments where the eye can rest. There have to be periods within the painting where the movement allows you to linger or to pause, so that it’s not constantly like an onslaught.”
Her mark-making, although layered and complex, has a sense of immediacy that makes it highly legible. In some places the strokes are frenetic and in others they are layered and blended, there is sense of experimentation; Jones is getting to know her palette, and seeing the progression is exciting.
“The colors can be forceful, or they can be muted, they can inquire, or they can be seductive, or violent, or harsh,” Jones said. “Using color becomes like a form of communication.” In these moments, Jones is not only communicating with the viewer, but also with herself: “All of those things operating together is something that happens through making the work with a sense of following my nose and listening to my intuition, then waiting for a point to feel like the painting has enough and it holds itself together.”
Rachel Jones SMIIILLLLEEEE (2021). Photo Eva Herzog Courtesy Thaddeaus Ropac
“People are drawn to the way she communicates through color and a visual lexicon that hovers in between the concrete and the enigmatic,” her gallerist, Thaddaeus Ropac, told Artnet News. “There’s an intensity of joy and complexity in her works that instantly captivates and holds you in their thrall long after.” He has placed her paintings in such institutions as the ICA Miami; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tate; Hepworth Wakefield, the Towner Art Gallery; and the U.K. Arts Council collection—“and this was before she painted the works that are now on view in her current exhibition at our London gallery,” he added.
The waiting list for the works on view is long, according to Diane Abela, a director at advisory Gurr Johns, due to the quality of Jones’s work—but also smart management from Ropac.
“Personally, I just thought, wow, this is something completely different, something that you haven’t seen in the art world,” Abela told Artnet News. She cited the institutional interest in her work, coupled with its affordability—prices are high but are not inflatedfigures around €30,000 have been mentioned.
Jones herself is focused on the long game. A passionate gardener, she also makes music and has “only painted in silence once when my batteries ran out.” She plays CDs and takes herself off the grid while listening to whole albums, enjoying making art to a complete body of work, as opposed to a streaming online. She wants a quiet life, but one centered around art, and she is currently completing a teaching qualification, which she sees as a practice to accompany a life of making. This pared-back approach is what allows her to channel herself so completely into these complicated and consuming works.
“I’m excited to see the narrative develop and the form that that takes visually, how that shifts,” she said, “but I’m also looking forward to being able to work with people in a collaborative manner, because painting is a very solitary practice. I’m really looking forward to having the opportunity to build relationships through making work.”
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Georgia O’Keeffe was surrounded by photography for most of her life, and yet her own efforts in the medium have largely gone unstudied.
But now, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is debuting “Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer,” the first exhibition devoted to the pioneering modernist’s photographic work. Nearly 100 pictures make up the show, most black and white and all culled from a recently rediscovered archive.
Though she was a casual camera lover in her early decades, O’Keeffe’s marriage to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz in 1924 found her immersed in the medium like never before. She posed in hundreds of Stieglitz’s portraits, helped make and mount his prints, and even assisted in the design of his shows.
But it wasn’t until the mid-1940s, after the death of her husband, that O’Keeffe began seriously making photographs of her own. Studying with photographer Todd Webb, she found herself turning a lens toward her surroundings in northern New Mexico—often capturing chemically the same subjects she painted years before.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Forbidding Canyon, Glen Canyon (September 1964). © Georgia O’KeeffeMuseum.
It’s not hard to tell that O’Keeffe was the eye behind the images—and not just because the majority of them feature the same beloved New Mexican landscapes and flora that populate her paintings. Her signature sense of composition is there, too. You can recognize it in the way she photographs the bodily curves of riverbeds and adobe homes, or in her fascination with the long, graphic shadows that dramatize the desert every morning and afternoon. Her ability to capture nature’s feminine grace remains unparalleled.
After the show’s run in Texas, it will head to the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts. There, when the exhibition opens in February of next year, it will do so alongside two other presentations meant to contextualize O’Keeffe’s photographs: “Arthur Wesley Dow: Nearest to the Divine,” which brings together the work of O’Keeffe’s influential mentor in New York; and “’What Next?’: Camera Work and 291 Magazine,” a collection of images from two seminal photography journals compiled to offer a snapshot of the artistic scene surrounding her and Stieglitz.
See more examples of O’Keeffe’s photography below.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Big Sage (Artemisia tridentata) (1957). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Ladder against Wall (1961). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Waiʻanapanapa Black Sand Beach (March 1939). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Road from Abiquiú (1959–66). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Garage Vigas and Studio Door (July 1956). © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Chama River (1957–63). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Ladder against Studio Wall in Snow (1959–60). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Skull, Ghost Ranch (1961–72). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
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