How Wayne McGregor’s epic ballets draw on help from his artistic friends

Choreographer Wayne McGregor’s upcoming production at the Royal Opera House, 'Alchemies', highlights his career-long commitment to cross-disciplinary collaboration with visual artists and designers. The program features a world premiere with costumes by fashion designer Saul Nash, alongside revivals of 'Yugen' and 'Untitled, 2023'. These works incorporate significant contributions from the art world, including set designs by ceramicist Edmund de Waal and previous collaborations with figures like Tacita Dean and Olafur Eliasson.

art bites why tilda swinton napped moma

In 2013, visitors to New York's Museum of Modern Art encountered actress Tilda Swinton sleeping in a raised glass box in the lobby, a performance piece titled *The Maybe*. Swinton first performed the work at London's Serpentine Gallery in 1995, developed with Joanna Scanlan, and has reprised it only twice: at Rome's Museo Baracco in 1996 and at MoMA in 2013. The MoMA iteration, curated by Klaus Biesenbach, featured Swinton alone in the glass case for eight hours a day over seven days, without the historical curiosities that accompanied the original Serpentine installation. Swinton has stated in a 2024 interview that she intends to perform *The Maybe* again "when least expected."

5 rediscoveries transforming black art narratives

Artnet News highlights five recent rediscoveries and reinterpretations that are reshaping narratives around Black artists and sitters in art history. These include Gustav Klimt's long-lost portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, an Osu prince exhibited in a racist "human zoo" in Vienna, which resurfaced in 2023 and was shown at TEFAF Maastricht with a $16.4 million price tag. Also featured are Edvard Munch's dual portrayals of Sultan Abdul Karim—one intimate, one stereotyped—on view at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and new research identifying James Cumberlidge, a Black servant in a Jean-Baptiste van Loo portrait, correcting a historical misattribution.

In a Historic Kyoto Neighborhood, a New Hotel Channels the Past

A new hotel, the Ace Hotel Kyoto, has opened in the historic Umekoji neighborhood, housed within a renovated 1920s brick building that was once the Kyoto Central Telephone Office. The project, a collaboration between Ace Hotel Group and Japanese developer NTT Urban Development, blends the original structure's industrial character with contemporary design by Kengo Kuma and Commune Design, featuring guest rooms, restaurants, and a gallery space.

On Paranoid Time

Film Notes has published Qingyuan Deng's essay exploring the intersection of Lacan's concept of retroactive meaning and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's distinction between paranoid and reparative reading, as applied to recent artists' films and moving-image installations. The essay examines how works like Alison Nguyen's installation "Perforation, Ellipse" at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture use cinematic techniques—such as perforations, splices, and missing scenes—to hold the temporal gap between an event and its belated political comprehension, focusing on the censorship of Vietnamese bolero songs after the American War.

bint mbareh sound art palestinian resistance

Bint Mbareh, a Palestinian sound artist and stage name assumed around 2019, creates installations and performances that use water and sound as metaphors for Palestinian experience. Growing up in Ramallah and later studying at Goldsmiths in London, she learned geographically specific Palestinian rain-summoning songs, which she twists and destabilizes using digital technology in works like *Time Flows in All Directions: Water Flows Through Me* (2020). After October 7, 2023, she expanded her practice to include a “choir” of collaborators performing collective grief, with appearances at an Artists for Aid benefit concert in London and at Tate Modern. Recent installation works such as *Bodies of Knowledge* (Royal College of Art) and *What’s Left?* (Sharjah Biennial) incorporate water tanks vibrated by sound, evoking both childhood and displacement.

Before He Stole the Oscars, Timothée Chalamet Stole Ballet and Opera

Actor Timothée Chalamet sparked controversy by stating in an interview that he doesn't want to work in ballet or opera, describing them as artforms where the goal is to "keep this thing alive." The comment prompted swift backlash from the dance community, with institutions extending personal invitations and op-eds criticizing his remarks.

a rhythm 0 for the tiktok age

Artist Briony Godivala is performing a year-long piece called *The Inked Link*, in which she has a QR code tattooed on her forearm that redirects to a new link each day based on public votes. Since January 2025, the voting site has been hacked to repeatedly play an anime episode, and participants have submitted links to pornographic, fascist, and racist content, as well as footage of death. Godivala, a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, previously explored collective responsibility in physical performances where audience members carried her until they dropped her; she now uses social media to continue these experiments in a virtual space.

art bites monet water lily pond

Claude Monet’s iconic water lily pond paintings are the subject of a new article exploring the artist’s deep passion for gardening. The piece details how Monet, after moving to Giverny in 1883, spent decades transforming his property into a lush, Japanese-inspired garden, complete with a pond, wisteria bridge, and exotic plants. He hired up to eight gardeners, studied botanical journals, and even faced protests from local farmers when he diverted a river to create the pond. The garden became his sole artistic focus for the last 20 years of his life, producing around 250 paintings of the water lilies.

design stephen alesch robin standefer

Design duo Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer, co-founders of the architecture and design studio Roman and Williams, reflect on how their Montauk home, Sea Ranch, has become the creative heart of their practice. Purchased in 2006 as a rustic mid-Atlantic Colonial cottage, the property has evolved from a weekend retreat into a laboratory for furniture prototypes, ceramic experiments, and design ideas that later appear in high-profile projects worldwide—from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s British Galleries to London’s Maison Estelle. The couple, who met on a film set in 1994, also run the SoHo shop Roman and Williams Guild and a furnishings collection, balancing the intensity of New York with the shaping and forming they do by the ocean.

The MAGA Theory of Art

The article examines the aesthetic dimensions of the MAGA movement, comparing and contrasting it with historical fascist regimes, particularly Nazi Germany. It argues that while both movements share a theatrical, media-savvy approach to politics and a resentment of cultural elites, MAGA lacks the disciplined, sophisticated aesthetic program and the cadre of high-profile artists and designers that characterized Nazi cultural production.

Meet the Writer Who Sees Every Single Show at the Venice Biennale

Jaeyong Park, a Seoul-based writer, translator, and interpreter, has attended every edition of the Venice Biennale since 2022—including both art and architecture cycles—and seen every single show, from the central exhibition and national pavilions to collateral and unofficial events. He documents his journeys in regular dispatches and has compiled a free bilingual guide to the biennial. Park organizes his trips with a group of fellow art workers, splitting accommodation costs and sharing reviews over dinner to ensure full coverage.

Miljohn Ruperto Rethinks Western Ideas of Time

The rise of the 'one-work exhibition' is transforming how audiences engage with art, shifting the focus from the rapid consumption of numerous objects to a singular, immersive spatial experience. By isolating a single masterpiece or installation, institutions are creating environments that demand 'slow looking' and provide a meditative counterpoint to the overwhelming speed of digital and contemporary visual culture.

Best-selling memoir about being a guard at the Metropolitan Museum takes the stage

Patrick Bringley, who worked as a guard at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art for over a decade, has turned his best-selling memoir *All the Beauty in the World* (2023) into a one-man Off-Broadway show of the same name. The 80-minute play, directed by Dominic Dromgoole, features Bringley performing as himself, sharing meditative tales about visitors, colleagues, and favorite artworks, with projections of Old Master paintings on three giant screens. The show weaves together his experiences as a guard, the death of his brother, his marriage, and the birth of his children.

Art and technology meet in the augmented reality of artist Lois He

Arte e tecnologia si incontrano nella realtà aumentata dell’artista Lois He

Lois He, a Chinese-born artist now based in New York, creates immersive XR installations that blend art and technology, transforming viewers into active participants. Her works, such as "Rising River," an AI-driven virtual reality experience, and "The Silent Carnival," a digital reinterpretation of Goethe's Faust, explore identity, emotion, and the impact of external agents like technology and culture. He also collaborates with institutions like the Museo Dalí and the NYU Neuroscience Institute, merging art with literature and science.

Learning is something aesthetic and emotional. Marco Dallari says so in his latest book (and in this interview)

L’apprendimento è qualcosa di estetico e di emotivo. Lo dice Marco Dallari nel suo ultimo libro (e in questa intervista)

Italian pedagogist Marco Dallari discusses his latest book, "La bellezza di Sophia" (2026), which explores the intrinsic human drive for knowledge as an aesthetic and emotional necessity rather than a pragmatic survival tool. Drawing on Freudian concepts and the work of Alessandra Risso, Dallari argues that the desire to learn is a primal impulse that should be nurtured through beauty and curiosity rather than stifled by rigid institutional structures.

literature darkology rhae lynn barnes blackface minstrelsy

Rhae Lynn Barnes, a scholar at Princeton, has published a new book titled "Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment," which examines the pervasive history of amateur minstrelsy in American life from the 19th through 20th centuries. Drawing on two decades of archival research, Barnes reveals how blackface performances were not confined to professional theaters but were common in living rooms, schools, USO shows, fraternal lodges, and even Japanese internment camps, involving figures like Shirley Temple, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby.

fashion dior lady art handbag

Dior has launched the 10th edition of its Lady Art initiative, inviting a new roster of artists to reimagine the iconic Lady Dior handbag. The project, which began nearly a decade ago, has previously featured artists like Judy Chicago, Jack Pierson, and Mickalene Thomas. This year's participants include Jessica Cannon and Ju Ting, who discuss their creative processes, material explorations, and the dialogue between their artistic practices and Dior's heritage. The handbags incorporate sculpted tulle, pleated silk, stones, glass beads, and pearlized elements, blending fine art with fashion.

A Short Film Joins In the Timeless Swiss Masked Tradition of Silvesterchlausen

A new short film titled 'Silvesterchlausen' by writer and director Andrew Norman Wilson documents the centuries-old Swiss New Year's tradition of the same name. The film captures groups of men and boys in the Appenzell regions who don elaborate, handmade masks and headdresses made from natural materials like pinecones and moss, forming groups to yodel, ring bells, and visit homes over 18-hour days to mark the turn of the year on both the Gregorian and Julian calendars.

Eating Challenges Are All the Rage. But When Was the Last Time You Saw Someone Eat a Mutton Shoulder Bone?

English farmer Nicholas Wood, known as the "Great Eater of Kent," was famed in the 17th century for consuming staggering quantities of food, including a mutton shoulder—bones and all. The article highlights other historic eating feats, from Nathan's Famous first hot dog contest in 1972 to extravagant 19th-century "Fat Men's Clubs" and a massive ice cream sundae competition in 1976.

The Berlin art legend who found his calling in sneaking into other artists’ shows

Patrick Jambon, a 58-year-old French performance artist living in Berlin, has spent the past 25 years attending gallery openings as a continuous performance piece he calls his 'gallery project.' Dressed in a bright red T-shirt, cartoonish metal-framed glasses, and carrying a yellow bike helmet, he visits dozens of galleries daily, compiling opening lists from websites and social media. His project has become so embedded in the city's art scene that his handwritten lists are now exhibited in spaces like Berlin-Weekly, and artists such as Ae Hee Lee note that 'you aren't a real Berlin artist if you don't know him.'

The Art of Performing Maintenance

This article explores the work of artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who in 1969 wrote her "Manifesto for Maintenance Art" after experiencing a crisis of meaning following the birth of her first child. She proposed that routine maintenance tasks—like cleaning, cooking, and laundry—could be redefined as art when performed in public, particularly in museums. The article traces her early exhibitions at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, where she swept and mopped as performance, and her later projects interviewing passersby on New York City sidewalks and embedding herself in a Manhattan office building, where she invited workers to declare their maintenance tasks art.

Beyond The Mini-Bar: How Hotels Are Reimagining The Modern Art Gallery

Hotels are increasingly transforming their spaces into dynamic platforms for contemporary art, moving beyond generic decor to embed curation into their operational core. The article highlights 21c Museum Hotels, which operates nearly 80,000 square feet of free exhibition space across seven U.S. locations, featuring works by artists such as Xenobia Bailey, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Natia Lemay, and Xavier Daniels. Chief Curator Alice Gray Stites emphasizes radical accessibility, removing barriers like ticket prices and elitism, and fostering partnerships with institutions like Artadia to support local artists.

Artribune Podcast: l’artista Vincenzo Schillaci parla nel suo Monologhi al Telefono

The latest episode of the Artribune Podcast features artist Vincenzo Schillaci (born 1984 in Palermo), recorded via telephone. Schillaci discusses his evolving artistic practice, where painting is an ongoing process of layering and erasure. His work spans painted surfaces, works on paper, and bronze interventions, forming an open system in which the artwork continuously transforms, challenging the boundaries between gesture, material, and form. The episode highlights his recent series inspired by Aristotle's concept of phantasma, and his exploration of materials like electrodeposited copper and bronze to capture different states of the image.

fashion fall winter isabelle wenzel

German acrobat-turned-photographer Isabelle Wenzel photographed Fall/Winter 2025 looks from Balenciaga, Loewe, Miu Miu, Alaïa, and other fashion houses for CULTURED's Art + Fashion issue. Her images capture models in sculptural garments—voluminous fabrics, reflective leather, silky fringe—as they tumble, leap, and contort, blending precision with play. The shoot features models Anneliek Heuvel and Akti Konstaninou wearing pieces by Vaquera, Acne Studios, Issey Miyake, Prada, Valentino, Gucci, Chanel, Givenchy, Saint Laurent, and more, with creative direction by Studio&.

In my Auntieversum, everyone is free, there are no rules

"In meinem Auntieversum sind alle frei, es gibt keine Regeln"

Wenhui Lim, a Singapore-raised artist and former architecture designer, creates AI-generated images and videos featuring older Asian women she calls 'Aunties.' Her surreal 'Auntieversum' depicts these figures bathing in oversized ramen bowls, playing with pastel jellyfish, and driving sushi cars—a fantastical parallel universe where they are free from societal and familial expectations. Lim began the project in early 2023 as a personal exploration to reconcile her own feelings toward the aunties in her life, who often made blunt comments about her appearance while also plying her with food.

‘The happiness on their faces pulled me back to my own childhood’: Mark Linel Padecio’s best phone picture

Photographer Mark Linel Padecio captured his 10-year-old daughter, Xianthee, and her five-year-old cousin, Zack, playing joyfully in the mud of a riverbed on the family farm in Dapdap, Philippines. The moment occurred after a brief rainfall ended a severe drought, transforming a landscape of hardship into one of relief. Padecio, initially surprised by his usually serious city-dwelling daughter's abandon, was moved by the children's authentic happiness to document the scene with his phone instead of stopping them.

Mending Ceramics and Slowing Time With the Japanese Art of Kintsugi

The article explores the Japanese art of kintsugi, the practice of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. This technique does not hide the damage but highlights it, transforming fractures into visible, celebrated features of the object's history.

On a Majorcan Estate, a Collage Made Over Hundreds of Summer Holidays

A descendant of one of Majorca's oldest families has preserved and now showcases a unique, sprawling collage within her 18th-century family estate. The artwork was created over hundreds of summer holidays by her mother and aunt, who meticulously assembled it using materials like magazine clippings, postcards, and fabric.

An Artist Embraces the Metaphorical Cracks of Matzah

Artist Emily Drew Miller has created a series of collograph prints titled "Matzot" by running sheets of matzah through a printing press. The resulting black-and-white impressions capture the intricate textures and cracks of the unleavened bread, transforming the traditional Passover food into a medium for her grid-based painting practice. The series began as a personal ritual around the holiday and has evolved into a decade-long exploration.