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    From Tiny Strips of Cardboard, Greg Olijnyk Fashions Fantastical Monuments

    All images courtesy of Greg Olijnyk, shared with permission

    From Tiny Strips of Cardboard, Greg Olijnyk Fashions Fantastical Monuments

    February 21, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Greg Olijnyk is no stranger to the possibilities of a single, seemingly simple material. In his ever-evolving world of robots, machines, insects, and buildings, cardboard proves endlessly versatile. He meticulously cuts, folds, and glues tiny pieces to resemble everything from rivets and windows to columns and balustrades.

    The Melbourne-based artist’s most recent works play with unexpected juxtapositions, like a classical cathedral dome with the base of a missile, a gothic tower fitted with jet propulsion boosters, and a lighthouse on a ship being guided through a craggy canal. Find more on his website and Instagram.

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    Splashes of Stainless Steel by Zheng Lu Embrace Philosophy, History, and Technology

    “Undercurrent” (2023), stainless steel, 340 x 410 x 630 centimeters. All images courtesy of Zheng Lu and Galerie Sept, shared with permission

    Splashes of Stainless Steel by Zheng Lu Embrace Philosophy, History, and Technology

    February 20, 2025

    ArtNature

    Kate Mothes

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    Composed of highly polished stainless steel, the sculptures of Zheng Lu (previously) appear suspended in space and time. Whether secured atop a pedestal, installed in a public park, or hanging in midair, each piece strikes a fine balance between motion and stillness and fluidity and fixedness.

    The Beijing-based artist is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese philosophy and calligraphy. The energy, or qi, that courses through the universe shapes his work and is known to facilitate health, stability, and harmony in all aspects of life. Thousands of Chinese characters borrowed from historic texts additionally coat many of his sculptures, calling upon the past as a way to interface with the present.

    “Undercurrent,” stainless steel

    Lu is also increasingly interested in the burgeoning relationship between human artistry and artificial intelligence. “The advancement of technology will inevitably blur the boundaries between tools and creators, but the essence of creation remains rooted in human nature,” the artist tells Colossal. Viewed as a tool rather than a stand-in for human creativity, he is interested in how machine learning prompts us to more carefully consider authorship.

    Through a creative approach that alternates between human and machine, Lu likens his process to “a relay race, with the artwork itself as the baton.” He continues:

    I pass the baton to the computer, and it passes it back to me, each of us shaping the piece in turn. The final outcome is not entirely predictable. The existence of the world is defined by balance, and none of us can escape this principle. Hence, I embrace this method both in my life and work, where the process of creation is akin to the growth of life.

    Lu is represented by Galerie Sept, and you can find more on the artist’s website.

    Installation view of “Undercurrent”

    “Water in Dripping Vortex,” stainless steel

    “Whatever Journey it Takes” (2024), stainless steel, 560 x 540 x 240 centimeters

    “Water in Dripping Circulation,” stainless steel

    “Colosseum Fantasy” (2024), stainless steel, 120 x 100 x 242 centimeters

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    Rooms and Buildings Have a Life of Their Own in Eamon Monaghan’s Uncanny Dioramas

    “Road Refrigerator” (2025), cardboard, tin foil, aluminum wire, epoxy clay, and watercolor, 33 x 63 x 15 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Moskowitz Bayse, Los Angeles, shared with permission

    Rooms and Buildings Have a Life of Their Own in Eamon Monaghan’s Uncanny Dioramas

    February 19, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Framed by steel I-beams, aluminum cladding, or floor boards, Eamon Monaghan’s chaotic dioramas appear ready to burst from their own confines. Made from everyday materials like cardboard, tinfoil, wire, and epoxy clay, his sculptures capture harried moments of disarray seemingly frozen in time.

    In the artist’s current solo exhibition, Under the Floorboards at Moskowitz Bayse, the sculptures jump off the wall, angles jutting this way and that. Beams intersect with appliances; floor boards bend; stairways emerge from nowhere and terminate in open space; and radiator steam infiltrates everything in its path.

    “Foggy Pipes” (2025), cardboard, tin foil, aluminum wire, epoxy clay, and watercolor, 34 x 70 x 18 inches

    Monaghan draws on the work of 20th-century underground legends like cartoonist R. Crumb or clay animator Bruce Bickford. In the artist’s three-dimensional scenes, tiny figures sometimes emerge comically half-concealed, sometimes grappling with the situation at hand and sometimes simply swept up in the action.

    He embraces unpredictability and farce, playfully examining the relationships between stability, movement, time, and a sense of control. In “Stages,” for example, a series of platforms and rooms shift around in a puzzle-like arrangement, with one figure apparently taken by surprise by a steel beam, another crawling behind a curtain, and yet another passed out on a sofa while helping to “pull the strings” of the entire uncanny production.

    Under the Floorboards continues through March 29 in Los Angeles. Find more on the artist’s Instagram.

    “Stages” (2025), cardboard, tin foil, aluminum wire, epoxy clay, and watercolor, 44 x 67 x 15 inches

    Detail of “Foggy Pipes”

    “Trap Door” (2025), cardboard, tin foil, aluminum wire, epoxy clay, and watercolor, 25 x 30 x 10 inches

    Side view of “Road Refrigerator”

    “Secure The Spaghetti” (2025), cardboard, tin foil, aluminum wire, epoxy clay, and watercolor, 16 x 35 x 10 inches

    “A Nice Night In” (2025), cardboard, tin foil, aluminum wire, epoxy clay, and watercolor, 28 x 45 x 14 1/2 inches

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    Beep Boop! Computers and Game Consoles Blink to Life in Love Hultén’s Retrofuturist Tech

    “R-KAID-R”

    Beep Boop! Computers and Game Consoles Blink to Life in Love Hultén’s Retrofuturist Tech

    February 14, 2025

    ArtDesignMusic

    Kate Mothes

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    From throwback pixelated video games to science fiction-inspired computer consoles, Love Hultén’s playful sculptures (previously) harken back to the birth of digital.

    Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, the artist’s explorations of video games, electronic music, and retrofuturist aesthetics continue to shape playful pieces like “R-KAID-R,” a mobile video game complete with a toggle, all of which can be carried like a briefcase.

    “The Singer”

    One recent work, “The Future Fan Stage” takes a humorous approach to a fantastical fusion of live performance, science, and computers. Commissioned for Gothenburg’s Way Out West, the screen doubles as a fully functional stage that played live recordings of the headliners “for what might be the largest yet smallest crowd in history: sperm and eggs getting ‘ready to rumble’ in a laboratory,” Hultén says.

    The artist draws on controversies surrounding in vitro fertilization (IVF) that have reached a fever pitch during the past few years. Taking an optimistic approach to science and modern medicine, Hultén references studies demonstrating that music may improve fertilization during the IVF process.

    Hultén’s work will be on view in Liljevalchs’ spring salon Vårsalong 2025, which opens on February 14 in Stockholm. Find more on the artist’s website.

    “Leto”

    “The Future Fan Stage”

    Detail of “The Future Fan Stage”

    “Y-17”

    Detail of “Y-17”

    “R-KAID-R”

    Detail of “Leto”

    “The Singer”

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    Nøne Futbol Club’s ‘Hot Wheels’ Drive at the Dualities of Systems and Society

    Detail of “Work n°144 : Hot Wheels” from the series ‘Wheeling and dealing’ (2017), charred plane wood, 59 x 59 x 21 centimeters each. All images © ADAGP, Paris, 2025, courtesy of Nøne Futbol Club, shared with permission

    Nøne Futbol Club’s ‘Hot Wheels’ Drive at the Dualities of Systems and Society

    February 13, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Combining sculpture and performative interventions, Nøne Futbol Club—sometimes referred to as Nonefutbolclub—expresses conceptual messages through ephemeral objects and time-based actions. The name is the alias of Colas Claisse, who co-founded the project as a collective but now works solo under the moniker. The initiative continues to delve into potent dichotomies like tragedy and humor, vulnerability and security, disruption and calm, and politics and fiction. 

    “Nøne Futbol Club’s work may sometimes make you smile, but it can also be serious,” says a statement. “It highlights the violence inherent in our world, where speed and productivity are seen as all-powerful.” The artist describes the project’s role as one that “takes hold of our immediate environment,” expressing social divides and examining socio-political issues with a spark of wry humor.

    Installation view of “Work n°144 : Hot Wheels” from the series ‘Wheeling and dealing’ (2017), charred plane wood, 59 x 59 x 21 centimeters each

    An ongoing series of sculptures assume the form of tires fashioned from wooden rings. Scorched with fire, the series Wheeling and dealing includes multimedia works all titled “Work nº144: Hot Wheels.” The pieces appear in the guise of Cooper or Pirelli racing tires, yet upon closer inspection, they reveal their surprising composition. Layered meanings emerge through the flames, which initially create, and in some cases destroy, the works.

    Each life-size wooden object is made from sliced tree trunks that have been carbonized, producing the rich, black texture and facets redolent of treads. “Since a tree does not grow from its core but from the periphery of its trunk, the cracks resulting from combustion are created concentrically,” the artist says, describing how the resulting patterns mimic brand new, rubber car tires.

    A double entendre in the sense that the sculptures refer to the American toy brand of the same name and the literal temperature of the pieces as they burn, the artist plays with perception by creating a material that pretends to be another.

    Nøne Futbol Club continues to revel in this subtle deception, trapping the spectator in the simulacrum: “Subjected to form but destroying function, Wheeling and dealing introduces the silent unease of a double game: real tire or wood? Voluntary combustion or fatal car accident?”

    Detail of “Work n°144 : Hot Wheels”

    The series also spawns drawings made from charcoal chipped off of the sculptures when handled. Video works, such as the half-hour piece included below, chronicle the tires’ destruction in atmospheric landscapes. Bespoke molds cast tire shapes in plaster, aluminum, and—coming full circle—rubber. And later pieces incorporate puddles of metal underneath the tires, symbolizing overheating as the rims melt and serve as a display pedestal. Literally and figuratively a loop, the pieces define the cyclical nature of much of Nøne Futbol Club’s practice.

    The artist describes his approach as a “systematic hijacking or reversal of the system,” tapping into the powerful symbolism of objects that are burned or smashed amidst revolt. “Faced with a sense of powerlessness, car vandals and rioters seek an accessible way to convey a radical message,” he says. “As the embodiment of a comfortable and cushioned system, the car is a perfect target.”

    Nøne Futbol Club is slated to show work at Iconoscope Gallery in May in Montpellier and at MacBar in September in Lyon. Find more on his website and Instagram.

    “Work nº144: Hot Wheels” from the series ‘Wheeling and dealing’ (2017), burnt wood on paper, 100 x 77 centimeters

    “Work n°144 : Hot Wheels” from the series ‘Wheeling and dealing’ (2017), charred plane wood, 59 x 59 x 21 centimeters each

    “Work n°144 : Hot Wheels” from the series ‘Wheeling and dealing’ (2017), charred plane wood, 59 x 59 x 21 centimeters

    “Work nº144: Hot Wheels” from the series ‘Wheeling and dealing’ (2017), burnt wood on paper, 100 x 77 centimeters

    Still from “Work nº144: Hot wheels (Dompcevrin I)” (2017), video, 18 minutes, 23 seconds

    “Work nº144: Hot Wheels” from the series ‘Wheeling and dealing’ (2017), burnt wood, 28 x 82 x 103 centimeters

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    Lena Guberman’s Emotive Sculptures Call Upon Childhood Social Anxiety

    All images courtesy of Lena Guberman, shared with permission

    Lena Guberman’s Emotive Sculptures Call Upon Childhood Social Anxiety

    February 12, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Kate Mothes

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    For any of us who are shy or anxious about interacting with others in the outside world, we might think of the face we “put on” that enable us to feel less fearful. For Lena Guberman (previously), a recent series of ceramic sculptures titled INS_IDE_OUT delves into her childhood experiences with social anxiety and the uncertainties of the unknown.

    “The mask provides a protective shell and presents a ‘perfect’ appearance to the outside world but fails to stop the fears and emotions from bursting out,” Guberman tells Colossal.

    Each piece is modeled on the same melancholy face of a young, brown-haired girl, with painted and sculpted elements that range from spikes to arrows to a dead bird. Emotionally evocative and sometimes slightly unsettling, her sculptures explore the spectrum of feelings associated with anxiety.

    Guberman is currently planning a project that expands upon her use of ceramics by adding other materials. See more work on her website, Instagram, and Behance.

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    Joan Clare Brown Juxtaposes Anatomy and Memories in Poignant Porcelain Sculptures

    “Ed #13” (2023), porcelain and mason stain, 7 x 6 x 8 inches. Photos edited by Nash Quinn. All images courtesy of Joan Clare Brown, shared with permission

    Joan Clare Brown Juxtaposes Anatomy and Memories in Poignant Porcelain Sculptures

    February 11, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Kate Mothes

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    Depending on how you look at them, the tendrils seemingly growing from Joan Clare Brown’s porcelain bases could be perceived as soft and delicate or spiny, defensive, and slightly unsettling. Dualities lie at the heart of the artist’s approach to ceramics, especially in her ongoing series Ed, which takes personal experience and human anatomy as starting points for a poignant study of grief.

    “I started this series as a response to my father’s sudden passing,” Brown tells Colossal. “He was diagnosed with widespread pancreatic cancer and passed away the same day, ultimately of sepsis from complications of a perforated bowel.” In the Ed works, the cinched base, which mimics a frilly-edged textile cushion or pouch, represents a perforated organ, and the long, growing blades or tendrils emblematize infection.

    “Ed #5” (2023), porcelain and mason stain, 6 x 4 x 5 inches

    The inherent hardness and brittleness of porcelain juxtapose with the softness of textile-like surfaces and organic, plant-like fronds. Each color reflects specific childhood memories of Brown’s father, like the blue and green hues drawn from his favorite flannel shirt or light pinks and purples redolent of a tablecloth used at her family dinners.

    “Through the permanence of the ceramic form, my hope was to turn something menacing and insidious into a nostalgic and meaningful reminder,” Brown says. “And by making these pieces, in a way, I feel that he is still present.”

    Explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

    “Ed #16” (2023), porcelain, mason stain, glaze, and luster, 7 x 6 x 4 inches

    Detail of “Ed #13”

    “Ed #10” (2023), porcelain and mason stain, 7 x 5 x 5 inches

    “Ed #11” (2023), porcelain and mason stain, 7 x 8 x 7 inches

    “Ed #12” (2023), porcelain and mason stain, 7 x 5 x 4 inches

    Detail of “Ed #11”

    “Ed #4” (2022), porcelain and mason stain, 7 x 4 x 4 inches

    “Ed #3” (2022), porcelain, mason stain, glaze, and luster, 8 x 6 x 4 inches

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    ‘Imagining the Future’ Honors Aleksandra Kasuba’s Trailblazing Installations and Environments

    “Spectrum. An Afterthought” (1975–2014), synthetic fabric, neon lamps, colored filters, steel, aluminum, plywood, and plastic,
    40 x 105.6 x 53.9 meters. Photo by Antanas Lukšėnas. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    ‘Imagining the Future’ Honors Aleksandra Kasuba’s Trailblazing Installations and Environments

    February 10, 2025

    ArtDesign

    Kate Mothes

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    From immersive fabric installations and sculptures to photography, landscape design, and architecture, the work of Aleksandra Kasuba (1923-2019) merges myriad ideas about how we experience the world around us. The intersection of technology and nature enchanted the late Lithuanian artist, and she often experimented with a variety of materials and the effects of light, hue, and tension to explore relationships between ourselves and notions of shelter and place.

    The first major exhibition of her work in Europe, Imagining the Future at Carré d’Art—Musée d’Art Contemporain, explores the incredible breadth of Kasuba’s artistry.

    “Shell Dwellers III” (1989), paper and collage, 35 × 43.5 centimeters. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Born to an aristocratic family, Kasuba enrolled in art school in 1941, focusing primarily on sculpture and textiles. She married artist Vytautas Kašuba, with whom she fled Lithuania in 1944 in the wake of the Nazi occupation of the country. They landed in a displaced-persons camp in Germany where they stayed until making their way to New York in 1947, and her experience as a refugee and an immigrant significantly affected her work.

    In the U.S., Kasuba found employment in crafts and design and began laying the foundations for her future artistic practice, which merged applied and functional arts with abstraction. Her interdisciplinary practice took shape in earnest the 1950s and 1960s and was deeply influenced by tenets of modernism and the era of space exploration, which cast humanity’s existence on Earth in a new light.

    Mid-20th century scholarship on vernacular architecture also inspired Kasuba, and she was moved by a visit to Bernard Rudofsky’s 1964 exhibition Architecture Without Architects at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He took a broader view of global architecture than the field typically covered and emphasized the ingenuity and beauty of structures built by Indigenous cultures.

    Rudofsky suggested that modernism—particularly modern architecture—had lost touch with the real needs of society, and he urged viewers to pay attention to artistic, idiosyncratic, culturally rich local styles free from elitist design rules.

    “Rock Hill House” (2002). Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Kasuba’s artistic practice blended with daily life in her own living spaces, too, from her New York City home in the 1970s to Rock Hill House, a sculptural dwelling in the New Mexico desert she completed between 2001 and 2005.

    The convergence of sculpture and environmental design also fascinated the artist, spurring unique material combinations in large-scale public interventions and spatial installations. Concerned with how we move through places and are affected by our surroundings, she was also commissioned to create numerous public wall installations using materials like brick, marble, and granite.

    Kasuba explored the relationships between transparency, color, and light in works like “Spectrum,” privileging organic shapes and an immersive passageway made from stretched nylon. Her Space Shelters series, composed of fabric in curving forms without ninety-degree angles, exemplifies her desire to harmonize nature, people, and technology.

    Imagining the Future continues through March 23 in Nîmes, France. Learn more on the museum’s website.

    “Dreaming III” (1963), white marble, 103 x 91 centimeters. Photo Antanas Luksenas. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    “Live-In Environment, 43W90, NYC” (1971–1972). From the digital archive of Aleksandra Kasuba. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    “Rock Hill House” (2005). Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    “Shell Dwellers VI” (1989), paper and collage, 35 × 43.5 centimeters. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

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