todd von ammon grids galleries fairs column

Todd von Ammon, a young gallerist, critiques the contemporary art market's over-reliance on art fairs and the homogenization of gallery spaces into a sterile, grid-like system. He contrasts this with the lost charm of discovering hidden, architecturally unique galleries in labyrinthine neighborhoods, which he argues fosters a sense of urban belonging and agency for collectors and art workers. The article traces the shift from the rabbit warrens of SoHo to the dense Chelsea gallery district and the rise of the modern art fair, epitomized by Art Basel's expansion to Miami Beach in 2002, which he likens to a pyramid scheme that burdens young galleries with high costs for minimal returns.

Manifesto for a Radical Femininity for An Other Cinema

The article presents the 1977 "Manifesto for a Radical Femininity for an Other Cinema" by artists Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki. The manifesto, published in connection with a rare screening of their films at e-flux Screening Room, calls for a feminist rupture with dominant cinematic language and images, advocating for a "cinema of the body" that challenges patriarchal hierarchies in both sexuality and authorship.

Mexico City: El Desagüe by Luis Ortega Govela

Francis Alÿs’s 1997 performance piece, *Paradox of Praxis I*, serves as a starting point for an exploration of Mexico City’s violent hydrological transformation. By pushing a block of ice through the streets until it evaporates, Alÿs retraces the vanished canals of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital that was systematically drained by Spanish colonizers to establish a terrestrial, European-style urban grid.

7 new art and culture books in bookstores. Maps of the present: between art, work, memory and forms of perception

7 nuovi libri d’arte e cultura in libreria. Mappe del presente: tra arte, lavoro, memoria e forme della percezione

This article from Artribune presents a curated selection of seven new art and culture books recently released in Italy. The featured titles range from a theoretical lexicon for 21st-century arts edited by Nicolas Martino, which redefines key terms like 'author,' 'AI,' and 'care,' to a poetic pop-up book by Japanese designer Katsumi Komagata titled 'Piccolo Albero,' which uses paper engineering to narrate the cycle of life. Other works explore themes of labor, memory, domestic space (Giorgio Morandi), inner labyrinths (Andrea Bocconi), and direct testimony from Gaza, all aiming to provide new frameworks for understanding a fractured present.

architecture stephen alesch garden design

Stephen Alesch, co-founder of the design firm Roman and Williams, shares hand-drawn plans and sketches of his Hamptons orchard, called “the fruit loop,” in CULTURED magazine’s latest Hamptons issue. The orchard, located at the Montauk home he shares with his wife and business partner Robin Standefer, features rings of fruit trees inspired by classical labyrinth gardens and historic botanical drawings, including a 21st-century interpretation of an apple diagram.

The gardens are beautiful but we have stopped designing them. Analysis by architect Gabriele Mulè

I giardini sono bellissimi ma abbiamo smesso di progettarli. L’analisi dell’architetto Gabriele Mulè

Architect Gabriele Mulè analyzes the garden of Bruce Ginsberg in Hampshire, England, describing it as a masterful blend of Eastern and Western traditions. The garden, cultivated for over thirty years, features fluid curves, geometric hedges, a Tibetan stupa, and a labyrinth, embodying the concept of sharawadgi—planting without apparent order—while integrating elements from ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and Buddhist philosophy.