Shows & Exhibitions

The pyramids of Egypt have survived for 4,500 years, despite the more recent waves of tourists and camel-entrepreneurs encircling these magnificent feats of architecture. Now, for a brief three-week period, contemporary art will also share space on the Giza Plateau with a ring of 10 site-specific art projects in the exhibition, “Forever is Now”, curated by Simon Watson and organized by Art D’Égypte.
Art D’Égypte, founded in 2016 by the Alexandria-born French-Egyptian arts consultant Nadine Abdel Ghaffar, has a track record of inserting contemporary art into historic sites in Cairo and creating a dialogue between past and present. As Ghaffar explained just before the opening of the Giza exhibition: “Ancient Egypt and this civilization influenced the whole world and our message is a token of appreciation and a sign of hope.”
It took three years of negotiations with UNESCO, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism and several embassies to achieve her dream of installing contemporary works near the pyramids at Giza, the country’s most famous archaeological site. “For [authorities], it’s a site of antiquities, it’s heritage, but contemporary art is not appealing to them,” Ghaffar said. “We changed people’s mentality and now they actually say that the art makes these ancient walls speak.”
JR’s Greetings from Giza on opening day. Courtesy of the artist and Forever Is Now. Photo: MO4NETWORK.
On Thursday, October 21, the public had its first opportunity to test out whether contemporary art enhanced or detracted from the last remaining Seventh Wonder of the Ancient World. Rather than merely block the view—an impossibility given that the Great Pyramid is over 475 feet tall—these art works transform seeing into an experiment in interactivity. JR nailed it with Greetings from Giza, a billboard of a hand that seems to be removing the top of the pyramid when viewed from the proper angle, and visitors lined up to take photographs of the comical sight.
L.A. artist Gisela Colón (who recently participated in Frieze Sculpture in Regent’s Park) took a less ironic tack by placing Eternity Now (Parabolic Monolith Sirius Titanium—a 30-foot-long and 8-foot-high mound made of aerospace-grade carbon fiber—at the foot of the Sphinx. Resembling a rising sun, it reflected shades of gold as the light shifted over the course of a day. Colón, who grew up in Puerto Rico, worked with a Latinx-owned aerospace company to realize the sculpture, bringing a collaborative spirit to the project. “My team is over 150 people and all of us who took part in this are so proud. I get to contribute to a little part of 4,500 years of history and it is a conversation across time,” she said. “It’s about unifying the human race and how we are all globalized now, and artists can lead that conversation.”
Gisela Colón, Eternity Now (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Forever Is Now. Photo: MO4NETWORK.
The artist João Trevisan, a newcomer from Brazil, explored parallel colonialist histories with Body That Rises, a tower of wooden railroad ties, a possible crate for an imaginary obelisk, while Egyptian artist Sherin Guirguis invited visitors to push-pull the moving parts of her monument to feminism, Here Have I Returned.
Ai-Da, an artificial intelligence art-making robot created by British artist Aidan Meller, was temporarily detained in customs for fear that she could be used for spying, but she eventually made it to the opening. Other participating artists included Alexander Ponomarev (Ukraine), Lorenzo Quinn (Italy), Moataz Nasr (Egypt), Shuster and Moseley (UK), Stephen Cox (UK), and Sultan bin Fahad (Saudi Arabia).
Opening day at Forever Is Now.
“Honestly, I had to go to bat for certain artists, I would not take no for an answer,” said Simon Watson, an art advisor and independent curator who had a gallery in Manhattan’s SoHo district in the 1980s and is now based in Brazil and New York.
After visiting Egypt five years ago at the invitation of Cairo artist Ibrahim Ahmed, Watson was approached by Ghaffar about a year ago to help organize “Forever Is Now”, and he had to perform what he calls “a waltz between the artists and the bureaucrats.” He is thrilled with the results. The pyramids are massive and could have overshadowed the exhibition if not for Simon’s strong vision. “Now, the site is going to attract new audiences,” he said. “People will be asked to think about the themes there through a new lens.”
Planned during the pandemic, there were many challenges to this show. In addition to the bureaucratic tangle involved with staging contemporary art at a UNESCO World Heritage site, there was the issue of raising funds for the project. Art D’Égypte was supported by a long list of partners including the local sponsors EgyptAir, Afridi Bank, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, Abou Ghalib Motors and global shipping company DHL. Cooperation from the American, British and French embassies in Egypt was also essential, although it created additional hurdles around the selection of artists.
Many of the artists also had to raise their own funds for the fabrication and installation of their monumental sculptures, with Watson’s assistance. “Every year, we start a project without a budget, without knowing how we are going to finish, but I believe in the universe and the ‘fairy dust’ that helps us every time,” Ghaffar said. One downside is that this enormous endeavor will end on November 7, too short a run at such an incredible site.
Lorenzo Quinn, Together (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Forever Is Now. Photo: MO4NETWORK.
Ghaffar is something of force of nature, accomplishing a great deal with an all-women team in a country where inequality is pervasive. Recently awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest honor recognizing a significant contribution to the arts and literature, she is determined to change not only Egypt’s perception of women but also build an appreciation for its own contemporary art.
Part of Art D’Égypte’s mission and a sign of its success is its ability to bring contemporary artworks out into public spaces where tourists and pedestrians must see them. The company has previously worked with UNESCO on three previous projects: “Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New exhibition” at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 2017, “Nothing Vanishes, Everything Transforms” at the Manial Palace and Museum in 2018, and “Reimagined Narratives” on Al-Muizz Street in historic Cairo in 2019.
Opening just weeks before “Forever is Now”, Ghaffar also organized a series of temporary exhibitions in 12 empty shops and local cultural centers downtown to create the Cairo International Art District, funded mainly by Al-Ismaelia Real Estate Investment.
The city already has a vibrant contemporary art scene and there are several Egyptian artists who have strong international careers such as Youssef Nabil, Ghada Amer and street artist Ganzeer. But there are many more who deserve recognition, like Moataz Nasr and Sherin Guirguis, both featured in “Forever is Now”. Standing nearby the Great Pyramid, Ghaffar said of her most recent effort to draw more attention to Egypt’s potential as an arts hub: “We are showing the transcendence between our history and contemporary art, which I view as a lens to our society today.”
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For the first time in its ​​4,500-year history, the Great Pyramid of Giza—renowned as one of the most significant creations of the ancient world—is hosting a contemporary art show. 
“Forever Is Now” is the name of the exhibition, made up of large-scale artworks installed along a trail leading up to the world’s wonders. The highlight is a new steel-and-mesh sculpture by French artist JR: it depicts a giant hand holding a postcard of one of the pyramids that, when viewed from the right angle, creates the illusion that the top of the ancient structure has separated from and is levitating above its base.
​​Gisela Colón, Alexander Ponomarev, and Lorenzo Quinn are also among the 10 international artists participating in the show, which is open to the public from today through November 7, 2021. (The robot artist Ai-Da’s inclusion was nearly blocked by customs officials who feared she was a spy.)

With support from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and UNESCO, “Forever Is Now” was organized by Art D’Égypte, a private firm that—per the company’s own description—aims to “preserve Egypt’s heritage and advance the international profile of modern and contemporary Egyptian art.” The exhibition marks the firm’s fourth annual installation at an Egyptian heritage site since 2017 (with the exception of 2020).
Nadine A. Ghaffar, founder of Art D’Égypte, called the exhibition a “token of hope for humanity and a humble tribute to a civilization that stands the test of time.
“Egyptian culture is a gift to humanity, and the purpose of this exhibition is to showcase these treasures in a dialogue with the contemporary on an international scale,” she said in a statement. “Ancient Egypt has influenced artists from around the world, and so we bring the world to Egypt and Egypt to the world through art.”

In an Instagram post, JR explained that he was invited to participate in the Egypt show following his wildly popular installation at the Louvre in 2016. With his new sculpture, titled Greetings from Giza, the artist is also dipping a toe into the world of NFTs for the first time. 
He cut the installation’s image file into 4,591 pieces—the approximate age of the pyramids—so that “each piece becomes one NFT,” he explained in a separate post. “The pieces are very similar to what my monumental installations look like from very close—black and white dots, a bit abstract—but then make sense when all assembled together.” 
The artist added that he has hidden “743 hieroglyph rarities,” each with a secret message, throughout the collection. Registration for the NFTs opened today on a dedicated website, where they will soon sell for what appears to be ​​$250 a pop.
In the meantime, see more images of the artworks in “Forever Is Now” below. 

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A 2018 exhibition on the pioneering spiritual abstractionist Hilma af Klint’s (1862–1944) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York essentially rewrote the art history books, recognizing the Swedish artist at long last as the inventor of abstraction. Now, her work is returning to the Upper East Side, where David Zwirner will unveil a recently discovered group of eight watercolors.
The exhibition features one of two copies of “The Tree of Knowledge,” a series of watercolors on paper the artist made between 1913 and 1915. Until recently, it was assumed that the Hilma af Klint Foundation owned the only copy of the works, but it turns out she made a second version for her friend Rudolf Steiner, founder of Anthroposophy, a spiritual and philosophical movement that inspired the artist.
When Steiner died in 1925, the artwork passed to Albert Steffen, his successor as president of the Anthroposophical Society, as well as a poet and painter. His foundation, the Albert Steffen Stiftung in Dornach, Switzerland, only recently realized it was sitting on a trove of af Klint’s work, which now belongs to a private collector.
“I am thrilled to be exhibiting ‘Tree of Knowledge’ by Hilma af Klint, which has such a fascinating history. This is the only major work that exists outside of the foundation’s collection,” Zwirner told Artnet News in an email. “The fact that she personally gave this set of watercolors to Rudolf Steiner, whose philosophical beliefs deeply influenced her, is remarkable.”
Hilma af Klint. As seen in Beyond the Visible, a film by Halina Dyrschka. Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber.
Af Klint began experimenting with abstract, symbolic paintings in 1906, years before similar innovations from more widely credited artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. Her route to abstraction, of course, was not through the avant-garde art community, but through the spiritual and supernatural world.
Her work was forgotten for decades, in part due to specifications in her will that prevented it from being exhibited, as she believed society was not ready to understand her otherworldly vision.
That view may have been prescient, since af Klint’s work has only become wildly popular in recent years. Her show at the Guggenheim proved an unlikely blockbuster, attracting a record of over 600,000 visitors during its run in 2018 and 2019, and she inspired a 2020 documentary film, Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint.
Installation view, “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future.” Photo by David Heald, ©Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
The first part of a seven-volume catalogue raisonné for the artist came out in February, and af Klint is currently featured in “Women in Abstraction” at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (through February 27, 2022).
At Zwirner, the works will be available for sale to institutional buyers, price on request. Despite the artist’s growing fame, only 51 works have ever been offered at auction, with a top price of just 1,600,000 SEK ($165,825) set in 2019, according to the Artnet Price Database. The previous record of 220,000 SEK ($35,871) had stood since 1990, and only nine other works have topped four figures.
“Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge” will be on view at David Zwirner, 34 East 69th Street, New York, November 3–December 18, 2021.
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The Boca Raton Museum of Art is hoping to bring the magic of Machu Picchu to Florida this fall with an unprecedented showcase of golden treasures paired with a virtual reality experience that will transport visitors to the famed Inca city in the clouds.
“Many of these objects, in fact most of them, have never left Peru,” museum director Irvin Lippman told Artnet News. “It’s kind of extraordinary.”
The 192 artifacts, many of which come from Andean royal tombs, are on loan from the Museo Larco in Lima, Peru. Boca Raton is the first stop in an international tour organized by World Heritage Exhibitions, which has previously staged shows on such topics as King Tut, Pompeii, and the the Titanic. A portion of the proceeds will go to Inkaterra Asociación, a nonprofit dedicated to conservation and biodiversity of the Amazon, and the Ministry of Culture of Peru.
Many of the objects on view don’t come from Machu Picchu itself, which was a kind of Incan resort, but from other parts of Peru. Though it is the best-known remnant of the Inca Empire today, Machu Picchu was only inhabited for roughly 100 years before the mountainous retreat was abandoned in 1572. But the empire had united a number of Andean civilizations already had established rich cultures for thousands of years prior.
Ear ornament of gold, shell, and stone (turquoise or malachite), depicting eight iguanas. Four of the iguanas are gold and four are turquoise (1 AD-800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
“We have in this exhibition some 3,000 years of a variety of cultures that were in Peru, and of course it culminates with the Inca Empire,” Lippman said. “Once people see the objects, they will have a better idea of the people who built Machu Picchu. People will come away with a renewed appreciation for these strong cultures that dominated South America.”
A selection of funerary objects provide a window into Andean cosmology, and a way of understanding a society that had no written language.
Frontal adornment of 18-karat gold headdress depicting a feline head with half-moon headdress and two birds (ca. 1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
“One of the major themes you’ll see in these objects is duality. There are wonderful metal vessels that are half gold and half silver, silver being the moon and gold being the sun. It reinforces the concept of duality, rain and drought, man and woman, the overworld and the underworld,” he said.
The show fills both floors of the Boca Raton Museum, culminating in a virtual-reality journey to Machu Picchu. The sweeping footage was filmed by drone during the pandemic, when in-person visits to the historic site were suspended—allowing the filmmakers to capture the popular tourist destination free of crowds.
“The climb will be so much easier,” Lippman said, “here at sea level in Boca Raton.”
See more objects from the exhibition below.
Ai Apaec, copper funerary mask with applications of shell and stone, depicting an anthropomorphic visage with feline fangs (ca. 1 AD –800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Ai Apaec, copper funerary mask with applications of shell and stone, depicting an anthropomorphic visage with feline fangs (ca. 1 AD –800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Gold and turquoise nose ornament depicting figure with half-moon and club-head headdress, circular ear ornaments and loincloth, holding a rattle (ca. 1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Ai Apaec, copper funerary mask with applications of shell and stone, depicting an anthropomorphic visage with feline fangs (ca. 1 AD –800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Frontal adornment of 18-karat gold headdress depicting a feline head with half-moon headdress and two birds (ca. 1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Frontal adornment of gold headdress depicting feline head with feathers, bird-beak nose, and figure with headdress of plumes and triangular pendants, depiction of two animals (monkeys) on the upper part, stepped designs with volutes and two-headed- serpent designs on the lower part (ca. 1300 AD-1532 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Huaca de la Luna adobe bricks with colorful bas relief of creator god Ai Apaec of the Moche or Mochica culture. Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Gold-silver-copper alloy ear ornament with depiction of ten human heads with half-moon headdress, circular earornaments, and breastplate. Necklace of spherical beads made of a gold-silver-copper alloy. (ca. 1300 AD–1532 AD) Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Set of forty-two circular metal discs of gilded silver, shown in hypothetical use on a shirt (ca. 1250 BC–1 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
Sculptural stirrup spout bottle depicting ananthropomorphic figure with supernatural traits (hero Ai Apaec) holding aknife or tumi (1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
“Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru” is on view at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida, October 16, 2021–March 6, 2022. 
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Located at New York’s iconic United Nations Plaza, the 50 United Nations Plaza (“50UNP”) duplex penthouse balances grandeur with gallery-like precision, making it a jaw-dropping setting for world-class artworks. In this one-of-a-kind space, stunning floor-to-ceiling bay windows showcase the sprawling metropolis outside, while the refined interior—designed by famed architects Foster + Partners—offers a serene, even meditative response. 
Now, the Artnet Gallery Network has curated a virtual exhibition that takes inspiration from the residence’s unique features. One finds the harmony of natural elements in features like the glass-enclosed fireplace, distinctive oak details, and the 33-foot infinity-edge pool. The artworks selected by the Artnet Gallery Network are meant to emphasize the architectural details of this 9,700 square foot space. The duplex’s soaring ceilings, which rise up to 13-feet are particularly suited to large-scale sculptures—a rare asset for any collector. 
Emerging artist Patrick Hurst’s stainless steel sculpture The Mind of Others presents an evocative, seemingly gravity-defining silhouette at the center of the spacious living room which spans the entire 73-foot east face of the building, with unobstructed views of the river and beyond. In addition to its grand living and dining areas, the lower floor includes a state-of-the-art kitchen with generous counter and storage space, as well as two guest bedrooms and a private terrace facing the Manhattan skyline. A curved oak and stainless steel staircase leads upstairs to the half-floor master suite, ipe wood deck and pool, and separate guest bedroom and entertainment room with an adjoining kitchen. 
Dale Enochs, Postindustrial Mandala. Courtesy of Long-Sharp Gallery.
An introspective centerpiece in the expansive entertainment room, Dale Enochs’s Postindustrial Mandala casts a captivating circle of light that in cooler months will echo the room’s electric fireplace and overlook the private outdoor pool year-round. 
Ferruccio Gard, Untitled. Courtesy of Cris Contini Contemporary.Ferruccio Gard, Effetto Colore in Op Art. Courtesy of Cris Contini Contemporary.
Two of Ferruccio Gard’s uplighting op-art creations add pops of color and geometry to the room. Across from the entertainment room is the master lounge, part of the half-floor master suite, which allows for more secluded relaxation and access to the pool.  
Kim Jaeil, Vestige. Courtesy of Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
Jeffrey Robb, FL-KM12941336. Courtesy of Cris Contini Contemporary.
In a spacious second-floor guest bedroom, Kim Jaeil’s Vestige (Space Silver) offers a fascinatingly textured work that captures the eye almost as much as the views of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Jeremy Robb’s Rorschach Flower, too, offers a reflective space to pause and contemplate in the master bedroom suite.
Anila Quayyumb, Hidden Diamond – Saffron. Courtesy of Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
Meanwhile, in the intimate space of the guest bedroom with northwest views, Pakistani artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s hanging sculpture Hidden Diamond fills the interior with dynamic shadows and lights that mimic the effect of sunset between the city buildings.
Nic Fiddian-Green, Still Water. Courtesy of Sladmore Gallery, London.
Moving out onto the second terrace, a moment of pause is offered in Nic Fiddian-Green’s towering Still Water (2016) a monumental equestrian bust that defies the buzzing motion of the city beyond with its powerful sense of serenity.
These artworks draw out the careful details of the 50UNP duplex penthouse, which are rare in new construction. The thought given to the space is in many ways tied to the residence’s history; 50UNP has been spearheaded by third-generation developers William Lie Zeckendorf and Arthur Zeckendorf. The Zeckendorfs’ grandfather, William Zeckendorf Sr., first purchased 17 acres of land along New York’s East Rivers in 1946 and offered the space home for the United Nations in a deal supported by the Rockefeller family. Sixty years later, his grandsons purchased the property directly across from the United Nations, which they have developed in homage to their grandfather (and to note, their maternal grandfather, Trygve Lie was the first Secretary-General of the United Nations). This spectacular duplex penthouse is a tribute to their family legacy and a place where artwork thrives.
This one of a kind indoor/outdoor space is available for immediate occupancy and provides a perfect balance for today’s work at home lifestyle.  For more information about this stunning property, please visit 50UNP.com and contact the Sales Office to schedule a private tour.

[email protected]
212.906.0550G-Z/10 UNP Realty, LLCSee additional images of the breathtaking duplex below. 
The floor-to-ceiling windows create the sensation of being within the sky itself.
Four master-sized bedrooms allow ample space for luxurious living and home offices with uninterrupted skyline views.
The majestic, 33-foot infinity pool with unparalleled outdoor space.
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The art fairs Frieze London and Frieze Masters have returned to Regent’s Park this week after a year’s hiatus. In that time, Londoners had ample space to reflect on what matters most to the city’s rich cultural landscape.
While many surely missed the social energy and market momentum of the art fairs during lockdown, it was also a time to rediscover London’s stellar art institutions and how they contribute to fabric of our lives in ways that are very different from the two pop-up tents in one of London’s royal parks.
To that end, here’s a round up of what not to miss in museums this week.

Abbas AkhavanChisenhale GalleryThrough October 17
Abbas Akhavan, curtain call, variations on a folly(2021). Installation view, Chisenhale Gallery, London, 2021. Commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Andy Keate.
In “curtain call, variations on a folly,” Montréal-based artist Abbas Akhavan continues to explore the potential of chroma key green screen technology, which he has paired with his fascination with an ancient building material made of subsoil, water, and straw called cob. For the Chisenhale commission, he filled the gallery with a green screen infinity wall, on top of which he placed cob sculptures replicating the forms of a colonnade that once led to the Arch of Palmyra in Syria, much of which was tragically destroyed by ISIS in 2015.
By mixing the infinite possibilities afforded by the green screen, and the dark history of the heritage site’s destruction, the installation is somewhat of a portal through time and space, and leaves the viewer feeling transported with it.
“Abbas Akhavan: curtain call, variations on a folly” is on view at 64 Chisenhale Road London E3 5QZ

Alvaro Barrington South London GalleryThrough November 21
Installation view, “Alvaro Barrington: Spider The Pig; Pig The Spider” at South London Gallery. Photo by Naomi Rea.
Unbelievably, this is Alvaro Barrington’s first solo show in a U.K. institution. The market star—whose is represented by a full eight galleries internationally—is a prolific producer, and his bespoke installation at the South London Gallery responds to the architecture of the space in a way I’ve not seen before. Titled “Spider The Pig, Pig The Spider,” the show presents several new bodies of work that, in line with Barrington’s practice, play with historical and contemporary cultural references—including a new series of Hermès blankets smeared with concrete and hung up like cloud paintings, and mixed media paintings that smoosh the children’s TV character Peppa Pig with the pigs from Orwell’s animal farm.
“Alvaro Barrington: Spider The Pig, Pig The Spider” is on view at 65–67 Peckham Road London SE5 8UH.

Mixing It UpHayward GalleryThrough December 12
Lisa Brice, Smoke and Mirrors (2020) in “Mixing It Up: Painting Today” at Hayward Gallery, 2021. ©Lisa Brice 2021. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery. Photo by Rob Harris.
If you want an overview of the landscape of contemporary painting today, “Mixing It Up” is a necessary port of call. The show brings together the work of 31 contemporary painters, from emerging Iraqi artist Mohammed Sami, whose poetic paintings dredge up traumatic memories of military conflict and refugee life to striking recent works by Lisa Brice, which conjure up dreamlike worlds of women painters at work, who shrug off the the male gaze of art history that has so often cast them as muses and models.
“Mixing It Up: Painting Today” is on view at Hayward Galley, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX.

Phoebe Collings-JamesCamden Art CenterThrough December 23
Installation views of Phoebe Collings-James, “A Scratch! A Scratch!,” at Camden Art Centre, September10–December 23, 2021. Photo: Rob Harris.
London-based artist Phoebe Collings-James is having her first institutional solo show in the U.K. Titled “A Scratch! A Scratch!”—after Mercutio’s reaction to being slain by Tybalt in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet—the wide-ranging exhibition presents a sensory environment of sound and sculpture that—invoking the traditions of mythology, folklore, and Black queer sound—explores themes of grief, heartbreak, and desire.
New bodies of work on view include a group of torso casings resembling Roman armor plates, multi-panel clay paintings inscribed with images, words, and phrases, and an audio patchwork of sounds captured from daily journeys through the streets of London echoing out of water-filled vessels. It also includes new recordings of poetry generated in tarot circles, led by artist and poet Daniella Valz Gen over the past year.
“Phoebe Collings-James: A Scratch! A Scratch!” is on view at Camden Art Centre Arkwright Road London NW3 6DG

Summer ExhibitionRoyal AcademyThrough January 2
Gallery view the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition 2021. Photo: ©David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts.
Anyone can enter their work for consideration for the Royal Academy’s annual summer exhibition, meaning it offers a true bird’s eye view of the landscape of contemporary art and architecture. Delayed until fall this year due to the pandemic, it includes work by leading artists including Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Rose Wylie, as well as slews of emerging talent. Hung across the RA’s main galleries, it is always a delight and full of discovery, and if you are in a buying mood, most of the work is also for sale.
“The Summer Exhibition” is on view at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD

Theaster GatesWhitechapel GalleryThrough January 9
Installation view: “Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon,” Whitechapel Gallery, September 29, 2021–January 9, 2022. Image courtesy Whitechapel Gallery. Photo by Theo Christelis.
Both his practice as a potter working with clay and his deep religious belief are central to the work of Theaster Gates, who says both teach you how to “shape the world.” Fittingly then, the Chicago-based artist’s latest outing at the Whitechapel Gallery is titled “A Clay Sermon,” and includes work spanning two decades of production, from early hand-thrown pots to his large-scale Afro-Mingei sculptures. The artist has also selected historic ceramics from public and private collections to show alongside his own, and is debuting a new, musically rich film that takes the form of a sermon on clay.
The exhibition also seeps across London to an intervention in the ceramics galleries at the V&A, and a concurrent show at White Cube Mason’s Yard. The project will culminate next summer when the artist takes on the annual Serpentine pavilion commission.
“Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon” is on view at 77-82 Whitechapel High St London E1 7QX

Anicka YiTate ModernJanuary 16
Anicka Yi, Installation view 7,070, 430K of Digital Spit, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015.
This one is a bit of a cheat as, of this writing, we don’t yet know what the Korean American conceptual artist has in store for her installation in Tate Modern’s cavernous Turbine Hall. The institution is notoriously quiet about the commission until it is officially unveiled, which will be later today, but we’re confident enough to add it to this list. The artist, known for working with microbial matter and other unconventional materials, has cryptically hinted that the new work will be an “aquarium of machines,” and the institution said it will build on themes the artist has focused on throughout her career, exploring the links between art and science, and working to activate different senses. We are titillated.
“The Hyundai Commission: Anicka Yi” is on view at Turbine Hall Bankside London SE1 9TG
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Not that long ago, the prospect of gathering for a piece of live performance art seemed unthinkable. Yet even then, the organizers of Performa, New York’s scrappy performing arts biennial, knew this year’s edition would go on.   
“We didn’t think for a minute that we weren’t going to do it,” said RoseLee Goldberg, the event’s founder and chief curator.
To meet that goal would require some improvisation—and you’ll see evidence of that this week, as Goldberg and her team opens their ninth Performa biennial with new commissions by Sara Cwynar, Tschabalala Self, and others.
The event is smaller in scope than in previous years, and it comes a month sooner than usual. But it won’t be unrecognizable, either. Improvisation, after all, has always been fundamental to Performa’s identity. 
“We’ve always tried to find the most creative solution,” said Goldberg. 
Whereas past events have featured dozens of artists from all over the world, just eight artists were commissioned to make pieces this year. All hail from the New York region. (International travel restrictions limited participant options.) Each was asked to stage their creations outside, in an effort to limit any possible exposure to COVID. 

These were practical decisions, of course, but also conceptual. New York’s streets are more than the site of this year’s artworks—they’re the inspiration, too. 
The pandemic drastically redefined our relationship to the city’s public space, Performa’s senior curator Kathy Noble explained. “We ended up using [these sites] so much more, eating outdoors, gathering in parks.” In a time of profound isolation, she went on, “those were small joys.”
The theme also harkens back to the tradition of “radical urbanism” from 1970s-era architectural discourse, Goldberg added, “this idea that you can change the nature of the street through action.”
Kevin Beasley’s The Sound of Morning is perhaps the purest distillation of this. A dance piece and “sonic sculpture,” the artwork will be soundtracked by the ambient noise of the Lower East Side walkways on which it will take place.
In other cases, the connection to New York is indirect. The great Madeline Hollander, for instance, will pay tribute to the city’s dance communities with Review, a staged compilation of gestures from performances canceled during the pandemic. 
There are some other differences with this year’s biennial too. For the first time ever, each event will be live-streamed via Performa’s website, giving out-of-towners the chance to tune in. And for those that can make the trip, the performances will be free of charge. 
“It has to do with offering people something they haven’t had in a year and half that feels meaningful,” said Noble. “We wanted to do something for the community here.”
The Performa 2021 Biennial will take place from October 12-31 across various locations in New York.
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By the end of her life, the self-taught artist Nellie Mae Rowe (1900–1982) had been widely recognized for her unique artistic practice, finding both institutional and commercial success for her drawings and sculptures made from all manner of household materials. But a new exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta is the Georgia-born artist’s first major exhibition in 20 years.
“People here know how brilliant she was,” Katherine Jentleson, the High’s curator of folk and self-taught art, told Artnet News. “I really want to make her name known and her art appreciated outside of Atlanta.”
To that end, after it closes at the High in January, “Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe” will embark on a national tour with the Art Bridges Foundation through 2024 (venues have not yet been announced). The exhibition is drawn largely from the museum’s deep holdings of the artist’s work, including a 130-piece gift from the dealer Judith Alexander, who was the first in the art world to champion Rowe.
Nellie Mae Rowe, What It Is (1978–82). Collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Judith Alexander.
Born in 1900 in the then-rural town of Fayetteville, Georgia, Rowe only dedicated herself to art-making late in life.
“When she was a little girl growing up on a farm, she would take all the time she could find in her days to make art. She would make dolls out of scraps of dirty laundry, she would make drawings,” Jentleson said. “Like many self-taught artists, Rowe was somebody who knew from childhood that she had a gift.”
But Rowe married young, and she worked in domestic labor, cleaning the home of a white family for 30 years. It wasn’t until her second husband died in in 1948, and her employers died in the late 1960s, that Rowe began revisiting that early passion.
Nellie Mae Rowe, Untitled (Dandy), 1978–82. Collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Harvie and Charles Abney.
By 1971, Rowe had transformed her home in suburban Vinings into an elaborate art installation she called her “Playhouse,” decorating the outside with her multimedia works.
“She had mulberry trees and dogwood trees and urns filled with other flowering plants, and she would embellish those natural elements with artificial flowers so she had blooms year-round,” Jentleson said. “She hung the trees and the roofline with clotheslines she turned into garlands with ornaments and plastic fruit and baby toys, creating this shimmering, moving site-scape within the yard.”
“There were tons of chairs scattered all around the yard where people could sit, but some were decorated in ways that would impede sitting, with these thronelike installations,” Jentleson added. “Rowe would affix all types of things to the fence, like dolls’ heads and chewing-gum sculptures [that] she would embed with marbles and beads and other decorative things. She covered every surface with different decorative arrangements, laying seashells on the stumps of old trees.”
Some people responded negatively—Rowe’s home was vandalized, and she was accused of witchcraft. But after local press caught wind of her creative endeavor, the Playhouse became something of a tourist attraction, even keeping a series of guestbooks for visitors to sign.
Scale model of the Playhouse in “Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe.” Photo: Mike Jensen. Courtesy of the High Museum of Art.
Alexander began working with Rowe after encountering her in a 1976 folk art exhibition at the Atlanta Historical Society. Representation was a turning point for Rowe, with Alexander providing large-format acid-free paper for the artist to work on.
“It allows her this new freedom,” Jentleson said. “With these large, flat surfaces, that’s when her imagination just exploded onto paper. Rowe starts to create these rich compositions that are much more like quilts, decentralized with all of these interlocking forms that harmonize together. There’s so much symbolism and narrative embedded in every single work.”
Those drawings represent the bulk of Rowe’s surviving works, since the Playhouse was dismantled after her death. (The exhibition includes instead a six-by-six-foot reimagining of the home, created by New York documentary firm Open Dox for the forthcoming This World Is Not My Own.)
Re-creation by Open Dox of the Playhouse’s interior, in “Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe.” Photo: Mike Jensen. Courtesy of the High Museum of Art.
In Rowe’s era, “Assemblage and installation art was just beginning to be understood in the art world,” Jentleson said. “It was a practice that was only starting to be acknowledged as something that was important. I think it was too soon, unfortunately. When she passed, there wasn’t a precedent [for preservation].”
And the unique nature of the Playhouse also has complicated Rowe’s legacy.
“Part of why Rowe hasn’t been taken as seriously as she should have been was that she framed her work as play and returning to her girlhood,” Jentleson said. “She’s been as unfairly infantilized. That’s something that has to do with her identity, with being a woman and being Black. We’re willing to let so many white male artists reclaim their childhood and embrace this state of liberated play and exploration. That’s a sophisticated thing for Picasso or Kandinsky, but with Rowe, it’s held her back, and that’s something that should change.”
Nellie Mae Rowe, Real Girl (1980). Collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Judith Alexander.
Though much of Rowe’s work was decorative, she was also deeply engaged with the social and political issues of the day. She made a series of drawings responding to the Atlanta child murders between 1979 and 1981, which targeted Black adolescents. Another work was a tribute to Black women getting the right to vote in Atlanta in 1965.
“Working on this show during 2020 was a very profound experience. The Black Lives Matter movement and the urgency around acknowledging racial violence in this country provided a different lens through which I started seeing Rowe’s work and her experience,” Jentleson said. “I hope the show is going recontextualize her as a very significant Black feminist artist…. She was taking a very bold stance, demanding visibility for herself and her artwork.”
“Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe” is on view at the High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree Street NE, Atlanta, Georgia, September 3, 2021–January 9, 2022.
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