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      This October, a Global Public Art Project Turns 35 Cities into Playgrounds

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      Nomad Studio, “Socarrado (Scorched)” (2025), Parque Natural Sabinares del Arlanza – La Yecla, Castilla y Leon, Spain

      This October, a Global Public Art Project Turns 35 Cities into Playgrounds

      October 17, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      This month, urban centers around the world are hosting a massive public art project helmed by Nōvo Collective. uncommissioned has tapped 54 artists for a global initiative that sees the city as a playground, inviting participants “to slip playful, overlooked, or quietly defiant gestures into the cracks of everyday life.”

      In Stellenbosch, South Africa, Strijdom van der Merwe installed sun-activated text works displaying heady phrases like “the visible is a shadow cast by the invisible.” Escif painted tiny fruits among the architecture near his home in Valencia, while Vhils painted a collection of fragmented portraits atop a Munich cultural center.

      Vhils, “Antennas” (2025), KUNSTLABOR 2, Munich. Image courtesy of Jose Pando Lucas, MUCA

      Perhaps most striking is Nomad Studio’s wooden structure erected in a park in Castilla y León, Spain. Appearing to fan outward in a circle, a collection of branches forms a meditative space with an opening to the sky that lets light stream inside.

      uncommissioned continues throughout October with works by Cannupa Hanska Luger, Jason deCaires Taylor, Stephanie Brown, and many others slated for 35 cities total. See more on the project’s website.

      Nomad Studio, “Socarrado (Scorched)” (2025), Parque Natural Sabinares del Arlanza – La Yecla, Castilla y Leon, Spain

      Nomad Studio, “Socarrado (Scorched)” (2025), Parque Natural Sabinares del Arlanza – La Yecla, Castilla y Leon, Spain

      Strijdom van der Merwe, “Shadow Words” (2025), Stellenbosch, South Africa

      Strijdom van der Merwe, “Shadow Words” (2025), Stellenbosch, South Africa

      Leon Reid IV, “Of a Free Will” (2025), Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Photo by Leon Reid IV

      Escif, “Infinite Still Life” (2025), Valencia. Photo by Escif

      Escif, “Infinite Still Life” (2025), Valencia. Photo by Escif

      Vhils, “Antennas” (2025), KUNSTLABOR 2, Munich. Image courtesy of Jose Pando Lucas, MUCA

      Vhils, “Antennas” (2025), KUNSTLABOR 2, Munich. Image courtesy of Jose Pando Lucas, MUCA

      Emmanuel Aggrey Tieku, “HOW TO HEAL A B-R-O-K-E-N WORLD-Cemetery of Belongings” (2025), Osu Cemetery, Accra, Ghana

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    • 125 Shares161 Views

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      Ruth Asawa Arrives in New York with a Monumental Retrospective

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      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Ruth Asawa Arrives in New York with a Monumental Retrospective

      October 17, 2025

      Art

      Jackie Andres

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      One of the most iconic figures of the mid-20th century, trailblazing Japanese-American artist Ruth Asawa led a prolific life of art-making, advocacy, and civic engagement. Over a decade after her passing, the last year has ushered in a momentous wave of exhibitions for Asawa—appearing at David Zwirner in her first solo exhibition in Greater China, followed by two major showings of Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.

      In a tale of two MoMAs, the enormous exhibition recently traveled from its point of origin in San Francisco, where the artist fostered a deep, lifelong connection to the city. Its arrival in New York City now marks the largest show dedicated to a woman artist in the museum’s history.

      Photograph by Laurence Cuneo. © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      Featuring more than 300 of Asawa’s artworks spread across a whopping 16,000 square feet, the expansive collection documents the artist’s six-decade-long career. You can expect to get a close look at her groundbreaking wire sculptures, intimate paintings, drawings, and prints, as well as bronze casts and monumental public works.

      Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective opens at the Museum of Modern Art on October 19, where it will be on view until February 7, 2026. Explore more from Asawa on Colossal, and delve further into her practice through her estate’s website.

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      “Poppy” (1965), lithograph, 30 1∕16 × 20 9∕16 inches, edition of 20. Image © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      “Untitled (S.398, Hanging Eight-Lobed, Four-Part, Discontinuous Surface Form within a Form with Spheres in the Seventh and Eighth Lobes)” (1955), brass wire, iron wire, and galvanized iron wire, 8 feet 8 1/2 inches × 14 1/2 × 14 1/2 inches. Image © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      “Untitled (BMC.145, BMC Laundry Stamp)” (1948–49), stamped ink on fabric sheeting, 36 3/4 × 45 1/2 inches. Image © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy of David Zwirner

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

      Installation view of ‘Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective.’ Photo by Jonathan Dorado, © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

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    • 175 Shares140 Views

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      Conrad Bakker Recreated All 1,100+ Books in Pioneering Land Artist Robert Smithson’s Personal Library

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      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 2014. All images courtesy of Conrad Bakker, shared with permission

      Conrad Bakker Recreated All 1,100+ Books in Pioneering Land Artist Robert Smithson’s Personal Library

      October 16, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      An autodidact and polymath, Robert Smithson cemented himself as one of the pre-eminent land artists in his short lifetime. Along with his fellow artist and wife Nancy Holt, Smithson pioneered a new way of working that explored connections to the landscape and place and endlessly probed the formation of knowledge.

      When he died in a plane crash in 1973 at just 35 years old, he left behind a vast personal library that represented his broad interests: there were books on crystals and rock minerals, dinosaurs and insects, myths and children’s rhymes, and classics like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and Jorge Luis Borges’ Ficciones. Holt donated the entirety of Smithson’s collection— approximately 1,120 books—to the Archives of American Art after his death, where it’s still housed today.

      ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ member Pep Fernàndez, holding his book in Barcelona, Spain

      There’s also, though, another way to peek into the narratives and materials that shaped Smithson’s thinking and practice. In 2019, Conrad Bakker completed a five-year-long project of recreating every title in that original collection on a 1:1 scale. Presented in museums and galleries from Utah to Arkansas to New York, “Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club” is both a painstaking ode to the pioneering artist and a bold consideration of how we access and consume information.

      “I can’t really remember my first encounter with Robert Smithson, but I’ve always been a fan of his artwork and, in particular, the way he oriented his sculptures to coexist inside the physical space of a gallery and outside in the landscape,” Bakker says. He first encountered the artist’s library through Ann Reynolds’ Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere, which provided a comprehensive catalog of each title and edition in the collection.

      “I was captivated by this wonderful list of books and curious about the diversity of his research subjects, the intensity of his self-education through books,” Bakker says, adding that the library also serves as a “time capsule of artistic research of the 1960s. I imagined this collection of books as an extension of Robert Smithson’s mind, his curiosity, and thinking.”

      This prompted one component of Bakker’s ongoing Untitled Projects, a practice of recreating everyday objects like chocolate bars or VHS tapes to explore facets of economic systems, production, and consumption. Using images from online booksellers, he carved and painted wooden replicas of each edition.

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Displayed in cardboard-like boxes and stacked on the floor, Bakker’s collection has taken many forms, from room-sized installations to a full-scale bookstore in the storefront of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas. While the library remains intact in his studio, the “Book Club” also allowed collectors to purchase a second sculpture for a time. He created about 350 additional works for this element of the project.

      The library is just one part of Bakker’s interest in books as objects, which includes a used paperback sale and an archive of self-help titles from the 1970s. For the artist, these objects offer numerous lines of inquiry from “books as historical records of culture and personal memories, books ascommodities, bookstores as public spaces, books as (outdated) technology, and books as portable containers of information, instructions, and ideas,” he writes.

      Bakker is currently working on several projects, including a full-scale copy shop (think 1980s-era Kinko’s) for The Weather Station in Lafayette, Indiana. In early 2026, he’ll also show a piece connecting capitalism and climate change at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. The library is likely headed to Stockholm in the coming months, but keep an eye on the project’s Instagram for more.

      You might also enjoy Bernie Kaminski’s papier-mâché objects and Matt Stevens’ Good Movies as Old Books.

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Installation view of ‘Untitled Project: Smithson’s Books’ installed in the storefront windows of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas, 2021

      ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ member Ruth Lopez holding her book

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 2014

      Detail of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Installation view of ‘Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club’ installed in the exhibition ‘Extra Taste at International Objects,’ NYC, 2024

      Conrad Bakker inside ‘R. Smithson Books.’ Photo by Meredith Mashburn Photography

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    • 138 Shares133 Views

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      Armed with Scraps, Lydia Ricci Builds a World of Messy Miniatures

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      “They Made It Look So Easy” (2024), collected scrap materials, 22 x 26 x 15 centimeters. All images courtesy of Lydia Ricci, shared with permission

      Armed with Scraps, Lydia Ricci Builds a World of Messy Miniatures

      October 12, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      For Lydia Ricci, a broken pencil, outdated forms, long-ago paid bills, and tattered bits of fabric are prime materials for her elaborate, small-scale worlds. The artist credits her parents’ obsession with collecting as the beginning of what’s grown into a scrap-centric process.

      “My mother was an immigrant from the Ukraine who could improvise anything when we didn’t have exactly what we needed, which was most of the time. And my Italian father hasn’t ever thrown anything away because one day it might be useful, or some day he might get around to fixing it,” she writes.

      Detail of “It’s What’s Inside” (2025), collected scrap materials, 10 x 38 x 13 centimeters

      Today, Ricci pieces together bits and baubles collected for the past 30 years that many other artists might relegate to the trash. Cardboard, candy wrappers, vintage tumblers, and so much more form uncanny miniatures that she refers to as “observations of what people anticipate, complain about, or muse over. Fleeting, unscripted exchanges—mundane yet deeply human—are a continual source of inspiration.”

      Meticulous and playful, the resulting sculptures retain a messy, raw quality that is itself a collection of the original materials. Rather than mask irregularities and signs of wear, Ricci leaves traces of chaos and disorder that capture an authentic quality of modern life.

      Find much more from the artist on Instagram.

      “It’s What’s Inside” (2025), collected scrap materials, 10 x 38 x 13 centimeters

      “That’s Everything” (2024), collected scrap materials, 30 x 35 x 16 centimeters

      “They Were Just Playing” (2024), vintage red Pizza Hut tumblers and collected scrap materials, 90 x 40 x 40 centimeters

      Detail of “They Were Just Playing” (2024), vintage red Pizza Hut tumblers and collected scrap materials, 90 x 40 x 40 centimeters

      Detail of “They Made It Look So Easy” (2024), collected scrap materials, 22 x 26 x 15 centimeters

      “We Should Have Taken Better Care of It” (2023), collected scrap materials, 8  x 8 x 10 centimeters

      “How Did You Get So Good?” (2024), Ukrainian embroidery and collected scrap materials, 8 x 8 x 21 centimeters

      “Take a Turn” (2025), collected scrap materials, 80 x 46 x 5 centimeters

      Detail of “Take a Turn” (2025), collected scrap materials, 80 x 46 x 5 centimeters

      “I Think We Got Disconnected” (2025), collected scrap materials, 22 x 32 x 20 centimeters

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    • 113 Shares197 Views

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      Ant Hamlyn’s Vibrant, Smushed Still Lifes Preserve the Impermanent

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      “Chandelier.” All images courtesy of the artist and Moosey

      Ant Hamlyn’s Vibrant, Smushed Still Lifes Preserve the Impermanent

      October 9, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Known for his squishy flowers and foliage made of polyurethane-coated fabrics, often encased-slash-smushed behind panels of clear acrylic, Ant Hamlyn has a sense of humor when it comes to art history.

      Nodding to genres in Western art like vanitas still-life paintings, he creates textile reliefs that tap into our contemporary condition. From fast food to houseplants to a vibrant bar cart, his compositions playfully explore themes of indulgence, impermanence, beauty, and the quotidian.

      “Greasy Spoon”

      Until recently, Hamlyn has focused predominantly on cartoonish botanicals, and he now delves further into the still-life genre. Works like “Greasy Spoon,” “Shelf Life,” and “Drive-Thru” incorporate motifs of food and trendy home decor evocative of quirky snapshots one might see on Instagram, with people just out of frame.

      The works seen here were recently presented by Moosey, and you can find more of Hamlyn’s work on his website and Instagram.

      “Potwash (I Ought to Give You a Lesson in How to Clean Tables, Boy!”

      “Drive-Thru”

      “Berry and Rye”

      “Shelf Life”

      “Soft Vanitas”

      “Megadeal”

      “Houseplant”

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      Yen Yen Chou Embraces Change in a Whimsical Realm Brimming with Water Droplets

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      “Leaves of Becoming” (2025), watercolor and gouache on paper, 16 x12 inches. All images courtesy of Kishka Gallery, shared with permission

      Yen Yen Chou Embraces Change in a Whimsical Realm Brimming with Water Droplets

      October 8, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      With a penchant for kaleidoscopic colors and whimsy, Yen Yen Chou renders a dainty, dreamlike environment in which pastel hues and subtle gradients rule. The artist, who lives between Taipei and Brooklyn, is drawn to dualities, particularly the relationships that emerge from “the ephemeral and the physical, the micro and the macro,” she says. At Kishka Gallery & Library, Yen Yen’s presentation of two modes of working—watercolors on paper and epoxy clay reliefs—conjures the magic of polarities.

      An Ever Changing View, as its name suggests, takes transformation as its root. Water droplets recur throughout the works, descending from a long, thin line into a swirling pool in “Rippling,” for example, and appearing as anthropomorphic, dozing characters in “Leaves of Becoming.” While suspended on panel or paper, these forms connote movement, as they’ll eventually evaporate or combine with a larger body.

      “Rippling” (2025), acrylic and epoxy clay on wooden panel, 37 ½ x 25 inches

      For now, though, Yen Yen depicts a whimsical world on the verge of possibility. “This new body of work continues my exploration of transformation and interconnectedness in everyday life. I’ve been thinking about dualities…and how these relationships shape the way we experience life, through our thoughts, perceptions, and emotions,” she writes.

      An Ever Changing View is open through November 22 in White River Junction, Vermont. Find more from Yen Yen on her website and Instagram.

      “Lady Rainbow” (2023), acrylic on epoxy and foam, 15 x 5 ½ inches

      “To Gaze Upon a Passing Sky” (2025), watercolor and gouache on paper, 12 x 16 inches

      “Swinging in the rain” (2024), acrylic and epoxy clay on wooden panel, 27 x 22 inches

      “Daydreamer” (2025), watercolor and gouache on paper, 12 x 16 inches

      “Iridian Path” (2023), acrylic and epoxy clay on wooden panel, 26 x 21 inches

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      Paolo Puck Imagines a World Called Fliffmellington and Its Uncanny Artifacts

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      All images courtesy of Paolo Puck, shared with permission

      Paolo Puck Imagines a World Called Fliffmellington and Its Uncanny Artifacts

      October 8, 2025

      ArtDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      In Paolo Puck’s imaginary realm of Fliffmellington, surreal characters come to life through elaborate costumes. Often weathered and tumbled-looking, a series of handbags, purses, and helmets glimpse a wonderfully weird world.

      “I’m in the long process of faithfully recreating various artefacts from the world of Fliffmellington,” Puck tells Colossal. “Long-term, I will be making a book and short film, as well as an anthropological exhibition of the artefacts.”

      The artist aims to highlight the world of Fliffmellington through its material culture, which often features motifs of expressive or abstracted animals and absurdly large vegetables. The overall costumes reference personalities like the “Gherkin God” or an enigmatic, fantastical character named Celeste, who is associated with an organization called Jezilwik Grindlewax.

      Puck’s approach to making detailed, wearable pieces is through the lens of archaeologist and conservator, as if the objects have been carefully excavated or recovered from a forgotten place, shedding light on an unknown culture.

      Enter Puck’s uncanny world via the artist’s website and Instagram, and find tutorials and making-of insights via Substack. You might also enjoy Nikolas Bentel’s hyper-bespoke accessories.

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    • 163 Shares179 Views

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      Calder Gardens, a Light-Filled Museum and Prairie, Houses the Sculptor’s Work in Philadelphia

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      All artwork © Alexander Calder. All photos by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Calder Gardens, shared with permission

      Calder Gardens, a Light-Filled Museum and Prairie, Houses the Sculptor’s Work in Philadelphia

      October 3, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      Alexander Calder’s most widely recognized creation is perhaps the mobile. The lauded artist was a titan of Modernism whose desire to “draw” three-dimensional objects spirited the invention of what went on to become both an art historical achievement and a ubiquitous nursery item. Broadly interested in movement and space, Calder (1898–1976) is often cited as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

      Now, his work finds a new home in a sprawling museum in Philadelphia, the city where his family lived for generations and where he was born. Located on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Calder Gardens comprises a 1.8-acre landscape and an 18,000-square-foot building that presents a rotating selection of the artist’s works.

      The museum is designed to bring art, architecture, and nature into a constant and ever-evolving conversation. Outdoor sculptures stand amid a lush prairie by Piet Oudolf, while architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron created an interior that interacts with Calder’s sculptures. Large-scale pieces loom inside airy concrete galleries, while smaller mobiles seem to nest perfectly in a well-lit opening.

      Calder Gardens is open Wednesday through Monday. Find more on its website.

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