From Agnès Varda to Giuseppe Penone, the strange passion of artists for potatoes deciphered in Aubenas

D’Agnès Varda à Giuseppe Penone, l’étrange passion des artistes pour les patates décryptée à Aubenas

The article explores the exhibition "Des patates" at Le Château – Centre d'Art Contemporain et du Patrimoine in Aubenas, France, which celebrates the humble potato as an artistic subject. It highlights how filmmaker and visual artist Agnès Varda turned potatoes into art with her 2003 Venice Biennale project "Patatutopia," dressing as a potato and scattering 700 kilos of tubers, inspired by her documentary *Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse*. The show also features works by Giuseppe Penone, Michel Blazy, Valérie Geissbühler Pacheco, and Lucas Chanoine, all using potatoes to explore themes of consumption, waste, colonialism, and the cycle of life.

Introduction to the Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

The article explores the conceptual origins of the internet, tracing its development to figures like Douglas Engelbart and Jacques Vallée, whose work blended computing with cosmic and paranormal inquiry. It argues that early internet pioneers were deeply influenced by ideas of remote viewing, extrasensory perception, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, framing the network as a project of cognitive augmentation and alien encounter.

An underground art park by Mike Hewson opens beneath the Art Gallery of NSW

New Zealand-born engineer-turned-artist Mike Hewson has opened 'The Key’s Under The Mat,' an interactive social sculpture inside the subterranean Nelson Packer Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. The free exhibition, running from October 4, 2025 through 2026, transforms a former WWII oil reservoir into an art park featuring dozens of usable sculptures—including a functioning sauna, steam room, laundromat, playground, and barbecue—all made from thousands of salvaged objects. Visitors are encouraged to dwell, play, create, and even do laundry, with the artist describing the work as a 'handmade utopia.'

Industrial Dreams of the GDR

Industrieträume der DDR

The exhibition "Robotron – Arbeiterklasse und Intelligenz" has opened at the Hartware Medienkunstverein (HMKV) in Dortmund, following its initial run in Leipzig. Centered on the history of the GDR’s largest computer manufacturer, the show features 20 artistic positions including photography, film, and sculpture, alongside a significant five-meter oil sketch by Socialist Realist painter Werner Tübke. The presentation bridges East and West German industrial histories by juxtaposing state-commissioned propaganda with progressive, unofficial works by artists like Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and A.R. Penck.

An artist told the incredible story of a Calabrian village that no longer exists. The interview

Un artista ha raccontato l’incredibile storia di un borgo della Calabria che non c’è più. L’intervista

Italian artist Martin Errichiello has created [campanamuta], a six-part audio work broadcast on RAI Radio 3's Zazà program in late 2025 and now available on RaiPlay Sound. The piece tells the story of Eranova, a farming community founded in 1896 near Reggio Calabria that was destroyed by 1980 after the Christian Democratic party planned—but never built—a steel center on its land, now the site of the Port of Gioia Tauro. Errichiello weaves together interviews with former residents and his own original texts, using non-linear narration to explore the village's utopian origins and forced disappearance.

The legendary film "Novecento" by Bertolucci in his Parma becomes a major exhibition

Il mitico film “Novecento” di Bertolucci nella sua Parma diventa una grande mostra

A major exhibition titled "Bernardo Bertolucci. Il Novecento" has opened at the Palazzo del Governatore in Parma, Italy, marking the 50th anniversary of Bertolucci's epic film "Novecento" (1976). The show is structured as a visual experience across 25 rooms and four sections, exploring the film's dialectic between collective history and intimate gaze. It features video, drawings, photographs, production materials, and artworks by artists such as Franco Angeli, Renato Guttuso, Taner Ceylan, and Mario Schifano, all drawn from private collections. The exhibition's first room sets the tone with a video juxtaposing the film's opening credits over Pellizza da Volpedo's painting "Il Quarto Stato" and a close-up of the young Olmo holding a frog, encapsulating the tension between political epic and sensory detail.

Naho Kawabe "Flos Filicis: Flower of the Fern" @ WAITINGROOM

川辺ナホ「Flos Filicis：羊歯の花」@ WAITINGROOM

The Tokyo gallery WAITINGROOM is hosting "Flos Filicis: Flower of the Fern," a solo exhibition by Naho Kawabe featuring new installations, photo collages, and drawings. The exhibition centers on the paradoxical concept of the "fern flower" to explore the relationship between fossil fuels, industrial infrastructure, and the myth of progress. Kawabe utilizes materials like charcoal and electrical components alongside research-based lithographs to examine the history of Japanese migrant coal miners in Germany and the broader ecological impact of energy consumption.

Exhibition at Mons Museum of Fine Arts explores Belgian art and the communist utopia

The Mons Museum of Fine Arts has launched "Plural Perspectives: Belgian Art and the Communist Utopia in the 20th Century," an exhibition running from April 11 to August 16. The showcase traces nearly a hundred years of Belgian artistic production influenced by the communist movement, featuring a diverse array of mediums including painting, sculpture, and monumental works by figures such as René Magritte and Frans Masereel.

Reaching for the stars: enduring symbols of Soviet science – in pictures

Photographer Eric Lusito documents Soviet-era scientific institutes across former USSR states in his book "Soviet Scientific Institutes," published by FUEL. The photo essay captures decaying facilities and enduring equipment at locations including the Institute of Radio Astronomy in Kharkiv, Ukraine; the Byurakan astrophysical observatory in Armenia; the Andronikashvili Institute of Physics in Tbilisi, Georgia; and the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute in Kazakhstan, among others.

At the Feast of the Revolution: A Film to Tell the Story of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Fiume Enterprise

Alla Festa della Rivoluzione. Un film per raccontare l’impresa a Fiume di Gabriele D’Annunzio

Director Arnaldo Catinari’s new film, *Alla Festa della Rivoluzione*, explores the 1919 occupation of Fiume led by the poet-soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio. Distributed by 01 Distribution and set for a mid-April release, the film depicts the city-state as a visionary laboratory where art served as a structural foundation and social hierarchies were temporarily dismantled. The narrative follows three fictional characters—a spy, a government official, and a deserter—whose lives intersect amidst the political and aesthetic fever of the D’Annunzio enterprise.

Che Onejoon: ‘The AfroAsia collective is now more important to me than my personal art’

Che Onejoon, a South Korean artist, has shifted his focus from documenting North Korea's Cold War-era monument-building in Africa to working directly with West African migrant communities in South Korea. His earlier projects, including the Mansudae Masterclass series and films like *Black Monument* (2017) and *My Utopia* (2018), explored the little-known history of North Korean-built statues and buildings across at least 20 African nations. More recently, he co-founded Space AfroAsia, the Afroasia Eco Museum, and the AfroAsia Artist Collective, and now lives and works in the Bosan-dong "Africa Town" near the Demilitarized Zone, creating multilingual music videos and even a K-pop girl group with a mixed Korean-African lineup.

Gallery showcases faculty art

The Allegheny Art Galleries opened a faculty art exhibition featuring works from three art department professors. Associate Professor Heather Brand presented three photographic series, including "Under Glass, Over Time," "Recursive Light," and "After Utopia," exploring themes of scale and contained worlds. Associate Professor Clare Kambhu displayed a series of oil paintings inspired by her time teaching in New York City public schools, focusing on imparting a human presence to impersonal educational spaces through her technique.

Under Water, We Who Are Deaf Are Freer

"Unter Wasser sind wir Gehörlosen freier"

Artists Bogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski have been selected to represent Poland at the upcoming Venice Biennale with their collaborative project, "Liquid Tongues." The exhibition features elaborate video works that draw parallels between the ancient, complex vocalizations of whales and the visual communication of sign language. By filming underwater, the duo explores an environment where the traditional sensory advantages of hearing people are neutralized, and the gestural fluency of the Deaf community becomes a primary mode of connection.

In a Piacenza church, the light of designer Davide Groppi becomes a whisper suspended in time

In una chiesa di Piacenza la luce del designer Davide Groppi diventa un sussurro sospeso nel tempo

Renowned lighting designer Davide Groppi has unveiled a major anthological exhibition titled "Un’ora di luce" (An Hour of Light) at Volumnia, a gallery housed within the deconsecrated Church of Sant’Agostino in Piacenza. Curated by Marco Sammicheli, the retrospective spans forty years of Groppi’s career, featuring iconic works like Sampei and Moon alongside new site-specific debuts. The exhibition is structured in two parts: a series of enclosed "utopias" that create intimate light environments, followed by a dialogue between his minimalist fixtures and the soaring, historic architecture of the church.

Call for Southeast Asian Artists to Join Solarpunk Exhibition and Residency

Kiripost has announced an open call for Southeast Asian artists to apply for a Solarpunk-themed exhibition and residency program. The initiative invites visual artists from the region to submit proposals that explore solarpunk aesthetics—a genre blending ecological sustainability, technology, and utopian futures—for a group exhibition and accompanying residency. The call is open to emerging and established artists working in various media, with selected participants receiving production support, exhibition space, and a stipend. The deadline and specific dates are not detailed in the article, but the program is organized by Kiripost in collaboration with local partners.