Winter Issue 2024/2025

Jane Holzer, Muse & Philanthropist

Simply One of a Kind

Nancy Magoon,

Simply One of a Kind

Pernilla Ammann, Animal Activist & Philanthropist

Simply One of a Kind

RUBAN SERIES

RUBAN SERIES

ALWAYS MORE DESIGN DINING

DECEMBER 2 - 8

MUSEUMS & GALLERIES

Winter 2024

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“COULD YOU WRITE WHAT YOU WRITE IF YOU WEREN’T SO TINY?”

In 2021, Lili Anolik discovered never-before-seen correspondence between Eve Babitz and Joan Didion. The epistolary trove is the subject of her gripping new book.

ANDRÉ HOLLAND DIGS IN

The actor reflects on the intensity of the process behind his latest film, Exhibiting Forgiveness, and his increasing involvement in the art world.

WITH NICKEL BOYS, RAMELL ROSS EXCAVATES SOUTHERN WOUNDS

The director adapted Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel into an experimental portrait of life in the Jim Crow South.

SIMON KIM’S BANNER YEAR

The mastermind behind Cote and Cocodaq lifts the curtain on his rambunctious hospitality brand’s inner workings.

CHARLES ATLAS MAPS HIS LIFE AND WORK

“About Time,” the title of the artist’s first career retrospective at the ICA Boston, is both a joke and completely serious.

SUNA FUJITA GOES DEEP

For their most otherworldly collaboration yet, Loewe and the Japanese studio plumbed the depths of sea and sky.

THE CROWD PLEASER

While his films break box office records, Shawn Levy is quietly laying the groundwork for a second passion: collecting.

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AN INSTANT CLASSIC Alessandro

100 FOR MIU MIU, ONE FILMMAKER WANDERS THE PAMPAS Laura Citarella joins an all-star list of filmmakers for Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales initiative.

Michele’s first Valentino Garavani collection marks the beginning of a new era.

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HEJI SHIN TAKES OFF For her first institutional solo exhibition in the U.S., the provocative photographer looked to the skies.

THE NEXT ART-WORLD WATERING HOLE OPENS ITS DOORS At Clemente Bar, a new space by painter Francesco Clemente and chef Daniel Humm, revelry is as important as craft.

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JUST KEEP PAINTING At 87, Loretta Dunkelman is embarking on the latest chapter of her career at Polina Berlin Gallery.

Isabelle Wenzel wearing Chanel Cruise 2024/25. Photography and performance by Wenzel. Styling by Studio&.

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GIORGIO ARMANI TRANSFORMS A MILANESE PALAZZO INTO A TEMPLE FOR GLOBAL DESIGN The designer’s latest furniture collection is a love letter to travel, craft, and film.

MARGUERITE HUMEAU’S AIRBORNE ERA

The artist is bringing a speculative slate of new work to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami—one that imagines an alternate evolution of humanity.

REMEMBERING GARY INDIANA—A BEGRUDGING ICON

Following the cult writer’s passing, our critic recalls his bitchy radicalism, wild prose, and uncensored takes on the art world.

THE BASS LOOKS AHEAD

As it turns 60, Miami Beach’s storied Bass Museum of Art gears up for yet another growth spurt.

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THE CROWN PRINCE OF CANAL STREET As he prepares to relaunch the legendary artist-run restaurant Food, Lucien Smith shares some of his culinary predilections.

A FIELD GUIDE TO DATING IN THE ART WORLD Industry veterans and newcomers share their rules of thumb for dating—and breaking up—in the art world.

JOAN SNYDER’S SECOND COMING

As the 84-year-old artist prepares for her first show with Thaddaeus Ropac in London this winter, she’s nowhere close to slowing down.

FROM BRUTALISM TO THE BAHAMAS

This collector’s Baker’s Bay home provides a stunning backdrop for her creative passions— many of which were sparked in childhood.

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU

Photographer Deon Hinton captures a crosssection of young creatives leaving their mark on the shape-shifting metropolis.

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THE MAKING OF A MEMORY

MACHINE Jaeger-LeCoultre tapped French perfumer Nicolas Bonneville to create three fragrances that embody the Swiss watchmaker’s legacy.

DESIGN. DEFINE. THEN DISAPPEAR. Lucifer Lighting has been illuminating culture for decades—lighting everything from history museums to Cartier’s glass vitrines.

Venus Williams wearing a top and skirt by Thom Browne at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Photography by Justin French. Styling by Georgia Medley.

Winter 2024

THE THINGS WE CARRY

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VENUS WILLIAMS AND TITUS KAPHAR RECTIFY A MISSED CONNECTION After a recent jaunt through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Venus Williams sits down with Titus Kaphar for a long-overdue conversation.

FOR NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY AND MALCOLM WASHINGTON, ART LIVES IN THE BONES The painter and filmmaker met to discuss what it takes to make a work of art that stops you in your tracks.

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JON BATISTE AND AMY SHERALD ENTER THEIR FLOW STATES The pair met for a conversation about their respective journeys to the concert hall and gallery floor.

YOUNG ARTISTS 2024 The 30 artists on CULTURED ’s ninth annual Young Artists list make work that is bursting with idiosyncrasy, curiosity, and gumption.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE Photographer and acrobat Isabelle Wenzel juxtaposes Chanel’s delicate silhouettes with her signature contortions.

GUCCI STARTS A HEAT WAVE

Photographer Clay Stephen Gardner captures the brand’s 2025 Cruise collection in all of its intensity, amidst the bucolic-yeturban landscapes of New York.

Some objects are ephemeral. Others last longer than their keepers. CULTURED offers an array of pieces primed for this extraordinary destiny.

IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW

A century into its story, Loro Piana’s brand of finely crafted, understated essentials is more timely than ever.

THINGS YOU WANT TO LIVE WITH, FOR THE LIFE YOU WANT TO LIVE

In design studio APPARATUS’s latest project, photographers Matthew Placek and Dina Litovsky found distinct inspiration on the same well-lit set.

THE ARTIST’S HAND

Four of Dior’s chosen creatives unpack what went into their take on a timeless accessory: the Lady Dior handbag.

A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

Actor Deepika Padukone, the face of Cartier’s Nature Sauvage, unpacks the heat and heart behind the collection’s modern heirlooms.

Paige K. B. in her New York studio. Photography by Joseph Robert Krauss.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Our last issue of the year was assembled during unusual times: following yet another “hottest summer on record,” we barrelled forward into an uncertain fall right alongside our readers. As we all know, it’s moments like these when the creatives amongst us are needed most—not just to offer an escape, but to craft a mirror of our moment, a historical record of what we’ve experienced together.

But the artists in our lives need support, too. Our Winter issue’s Young Artists list features 30 emerging talents who are chronicling our moment while navigating a culture that is often hostile to creativity. I began the annual list nine years ago, after spending countless hours visiting the studios of fledgling artists. I saw time and again how the forces of daily life both inspired these talents and prevented them from flourishing. This year, I was thrilled to announce that MZ Wallace will be providing one of the honorees in these pages with an unrestricted $30,000 grant. It will mark the second year that the list will provide not only recognition, but also meaningful financial support.

The issue also celebrates what we at CULTURED hope will be the rebirth of art criticism. More than a decade ago, critic Deborah Solomon estimated that there were fewer than 10 full-time art critics at major newspapers in the United States. Since then, that number seems to have dwindled further, but the number of artists making important work has not. That’s why, this fall, I launched the Critics’ Table—with co-chief art critics Johanna Fateman and John Vincler—a subscribers-only column that will offer a refuge for criticism and its most intrepid voices.

These pages are also home to the first installment of our cover-spanning Artists on Artists series, which invites luminaries across disciplines to sit down for conversations as diverse as their outputs. In one, the tennis

star, entrepreneur, and art collector Venus Williams joins artist and filmmaker Titus Kaphar to compare notes on venturing into new mediums. “People can put you in a box,” Williams says. “It’s so important to come at them with authenticity, really actually know what you’re doing, and just keep hauling away.” In another, filmmaker Malcolm Washington and artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby dissect one another’s work for clues to their personal histories. For our third cover story, painter Amy Sherald and musician Jon Batiste discuss their respective journeys to the gallery floor and concert stage. “I love it when things don’t work,” Sherald tells Batiste. “It leaves room for something else to happen next.”

Join us in supporting these trailblazing creatives.

Sarah G. Harrelson Founder and Editor-in-Chief @sarahgharrelson | @cultured_mag

Sarah Harrelson shot at R & Company in New York City by Jeremy Liebman. Ryan Decker, Sluggard Waker, 2023.

Venus Williams wears rings by Van Cleef & Arpels at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Photography by Justin French. Styling by Georgia Medley.

Malcolm Washington and Njideka Akunyili Crosby in Njideka’s studio in Los Angeles. Malcolm wears a full look by Fendi. Photography by Dana Scruggs. Styling for Malcolm by Von Ford.

VENUS WILLIAMS TITUS KAPHAR

Amy Sherald and Jon Batiste in Amy’s studio in New Jersey. Amy wears a dress by Gabriela Hearst, earrings by David Yurman, and bracelets and a ring by Van Cleef & Arpels. Jon wears a suit, shirt, and tie by Saint Laurent; ring by Cartier; and shoes by Christian Louboutin. Photography by Dana Scruggs. Styling for Amy by Carlo Prado. Styling for Jon by Jason Rembert.

CONTRIBUTORS

JUSTIN FRENCH Photographer

“Venus Williams has such refreshing vitality; it is encouraging and provides an opportunity to develop imagery that is emotive, honest, and exciting,” says Justin French, who photographed the multihyphenate powerhouse for one of the issue’s cover stories. “I enjoyed working with her on this project.” The two convened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a shoot that meandered through the institution’s legendary collections. Outside of his contributions to CULTURED, French has worked with the likes of Vogue, Netflix, and Nike to show a new side of our culture’s best-known figures through his highly saturated approach to portraiture. At the heart of his practice is a thirst to encapsulate the full range of human emotions in a single still.

“Venus Williams has such refreshing vitality.”

JESSICA WILLIS

Stylist

Jessica Willis’s on-set work doesn’t often include balloons and rabbits—but when it does, she rises to the occasion. “When we first discussed creative direction, Lucien said, ‘Let’s have fun’—and we really did!” she says, referring to the shoot with artist Lucien Smith featured in the pages of this issue. “We drew inspiration from the whimsy of Charlie Chaplin and the bold spirit of Gordon Matta-Clark. In response, I styled him in expressive looks from Marni, Marc Jacobs, Bottega Veneta, and Balenciaga.” Elsewhere, Willis has teamed up with photographers like Campbell Addy and Nadia Lee Cohen for editorials appearing in Vogue, The Cut, The Wall Street Journal, and more, as well as for brands like Tiffany & Co. and Jil Sander.

ESTHER ZUCKERMAN Writer

Most know Shawn Levy for his blockbuster hits, including this summer’s Deadpool & Wolverine. For this issue, writer Esther Zuckerman explored one of the decorated director’s lesser-known passions: art collecting. “Shawn’s enthusiasm for his work in film and his art collection was palpable as soon as I walked through the door of his Lower Manhattan apartment,” she recalls. “I tried to capture that in this piece.” Zuckerman’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and GQ, and she’s the author of three books: Falling in Love at the Movies, Beyond the Best Dressed, and A Field Guide to Internet Boyfriends.

“Shawn Levy’s enthusiasm for his work in film and his art collection was palpable as soon as I walked through the door of his Lower Manhattan apartment.”

—Esther Zuckerman

Justin French:

Photography by and courtesy of Justin French; Esther Zuckerman: Photography courtesy of Esther Zuckerman; Jessica Willis: Photography by Jody Rogac and courtesy of Jessica Willis

CONTRIBUTORS

RACHEL CORBETT Writer

“I’m always trying to understand how artists become who they become and make what they make,” says Rachel Corbett, who profiled 2024 Young Artists Emil Sands, Olivia Vigo, Qualeasha Wood, and Faye Wei Wei for this issue. “The Young Artists list is a fun reversal of that process, allowing us to observe the

TITUS KAPHAR Artist

After many a missed connection over the years, Titus Kaphar and Venus Williams were overdue to meet one another. So when CULTURED asked the pair to carve out time in their crazed schedules, it was a no-brainer for Kaphar. “It was such an honor to sit down and chat with Venus about art, design, and producing an autobiographical film,” says the painter. “It was surprising to discover that, despite our very different professions, we experienced similar challenges when it came to adding an entirely new medium to our repertoire.” The pair discussed their forays into film and design for the issue’s Artists on Artists series, which asks creatives across disciplines to discuss the drive at the core of their practices.

“It was surprising to discover that, despite our very different professions, Venus Williams and I experienced similar challenges when it came to adding an entirely new medium to our repertoire.”

—Titus Kaphar

creative process in its early stages and, hopefully, follow it for years to come.” Corbett has also written for New York magazine and The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin

DANA SCRUGGS Photographer

Shooting one great cover is a feat. For this issue, Dana Scruggs was asked to shoot two. For CULTURED’s Artists on Artists series, the photographer was tasked with capturing artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby and filmmaker Malcolm Washington, as well as Jon Batiste and Amy Sherald—two distinct sets of creatives whose budding connections flourished before her lens. Each pair spent an afternoon with Scruggs, during which the photographer’s meticulous posing and quiet, confident demeanor yielded some of the issue’s most enduring images.

Rachel Corbett: Photography courtesy of Rachel Corbett; Titus Kaphar: Photography by Mario Sorrenti, and courtesy of the artist and Gagosian; Dana Scruggs: Photography courtesy of Dana Scruggs

CONTRIBUTORS

JEREMY LIEBMAN Photographer

Jeremy Liebman has photographed figures from the worlds of art, politics, and design, ranging from Vladimir Putin to John Waters, for publications such as Apartamento, Pin-Up, and The New Yorker. His work has additionally been commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Apple, and Bottega Veneta. For this issue, CULTURED sent him to the Bahamas.

There, he delved into the art-filled home of collector Ivana Berendika. “The trip to Ivana’s home in Baker’s Bay required two flights, a car, a speedboat, and a golf cart,” he recollects. Once he landed in New York, the photographer headed to Chinatown (which only required one train) to shoot artist Lucien Smith—a whimsical romp featuring Charlie Chaplin–esque theatrics.

DEON HINTON

Photographer

On a rainy day in New York, Deon Hinton climbed onto a chair in a rooftop garden, film camera in hand, to capture a coterie of the city’s creatives. “Photographing artists who also belong to communities that drive New York culture and art truly was such a beautiful experience,” he says of the portfolio he shot for this issue. “To be an artist in New York does not look one specific way, but I believe a similar heart is shared amongst us all.” Outside of his editorial work, the 2023 CULTURED Young Photographers List alum has collaborated with the likes of Fendi, Gucci, and Calvin Klein while producing a slate of personal projects, documenting his community and himself in the tenderest of moments.

TRAVIS DIEHL

Writer

For CULTURED, Rabkin Prize–winning writer Travis Diehl has chased down the artistic collateral of anxiety, Peter and Sally Saul’s secrets to a lifelong creative practice, and Derek Fordjour’s historical dive into the world of Black magicians. Now, he’s turned his critical eye—which has been featured in The New York Times, The Baffler, and X-TRA—onto three emerging talents for the magazine’s annual Young Artists List: Louis Osmosis, Catalina Ouyang, and Paige K. B. “Stepping into an artist’s studio is like visiting their brain,” he muses. “You can talk about ideas but also process, materials, other artists. Whatever’s in the air.”

“Photographing artists who also belong to communities that drive New York culture and art truly was such a beautiful experience. To be an artist in New York does not look one specific way, but I believe a similar heart is shared amongst us all.”

—Deon Hinton

Jeremy Liebman: Photography courtesy of Jeremy Liebman; Deon Hinton: Photography courtesy of Deon Hinton; Travis Diehl: Photography by Matthew Porter and courtesy of Travis Diehl

Second Nature

Photography in the Age of the

On View Through Jan 05, 2025

SARAH G. HARRELSON Founder, Editor-in-Chief

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COSTA MESA,

“COULD

YOU WRITE WHAT YOU WRITE IF YOU

WEREN’T SO TINY?”

In 2021, Lili Anolik discovered the correspondence of two of Los Angeles’s literary titans: Eve Babitz and Joan Didion. The revelations they sparked are the subject of the writer’s gripping new book.

By Mara Veitch

“I’d already been at it with Eve Babitz for 10 years,” says writer Lili Anolik when asked about the origins of her latest book. “We’d spent hundreds of hours talking—literally hundreds.”

Anolik’s relationship with the late patron saint of 1970s Los Angeles began like many relationships between writers and their subjects: with a barrage of letters and calls, and Anolik hoping that Babitz would eventually bite. A profile ensued, and a book—Hollywood’s Eve—followed in 2019. Anolik’s biography of Babitz is credited in part with the resurgence of interest in the author’s wry, hedonistic oeuvre, giving her long-overdue flowers as a chronicler of Los Angeles’s unforgiving yet irresistible draw. Anolik didn’t think she’d write another one.

Yet after Babitz died in 2021, Anolik discovered that “Eve, who I thought I knew so well, I didn’t know at all.” While sifting through the detritus of Babitz’s life, Anolik discovered boxes full of journals, artworks, and letters—including several to Joan Didion, her fellow iconic literary Angeleno.

That trove became the subject of the writer’s latest book: Didion & Babitz. Of the countless revelations embedded in the letters—many of which offer a riveting glimpse behind the impenetrable saucer-sized sunglasses at a more vulnerable Didion—one scrawled line written in 1972 sticks in Anolik’s mind: “Could you write what you write if you weren’t so tiny, Joan?”

Anolik pored over the correspondence, plumbing the depths of the pair’s fraught relationship and profound rivalry. “It took my breath away,” the writer recalls. “Joan versus Eve is bigger than Joan and Eve—the conflict between them is universal.”

The book offers fresh insights into two of America’s most iconic wordsmiths, yes, but for Anolik, it’s almost a referendum on the creative life—one’s free-spirited, danger-courting joie de vivre clashing against the other’s icy, voluminous intellect. “I hope [readers] come away with the sense that they’ve just finished the nonfiction version of My Brilliant Friend,” Anolik jokes. “And also that all women are one or the other—a Joan or an Eve.”

Eve Babitz photography courtesy of Mirandi Babitz and the Huntington Library; Joan Didion photography by Julian Wasser and courtesy of Craig Krull Gallery

Joan Didion in her Corvette Stingray, 1968.

Eve Babitz and her coke mirror.

ANDRÉ HOLLAND DIGS IN

The decorated actor is no stranger to stepping into a character’s shoes. His latest turn—in artist Titus Kaphar’s debut feature Exhibiting Forgiveness—required an entirely new approach.

By Mara Veitch

In April of 2023, André Holland embarked on what would become a three-month-long routine: a daily commute from his home in New York to Titus Kaphar’s New Haven, Connecticut, studio to learn how to paint.

Even for Holland, a veteran performer who enters a period of deep research for every role he plays, this was a new level of immersion. Kaphar, a MacArthur “genius grant”–winning painter, was developing a feature film—his first—that would excavate the scar tissue of his relationship with his estranged father. Kaphar wanted Holland to play him, so he had to know how to paint.

“We would always talk about ‘the line,’” Holland recalls of those months of preparation. “Bad painting in movies is one of Titus’s pet peeves. He would tell me, ‘Choose a line and then make a confident stroke.’” While they worked, the pair dove deep: Kaphar unspooled memories of childhood and fatherhood, and reflected on his foray into a fickle art world. As they grew closer, the Bessemer, Alabama–born actor learned how to embody the weight of those experiences onscreen.

Holland and Kaphar poured all those months

in the studio into Exhibiting Forgiveness. The project, a true labor of love, has won and broken hearts across the film festival circuit. Here, Holland reflects on the intensity of the process and his increasing involvement in the art world.

How did you and Titus Kaphar build the rapport needed to bring this film to life? When we met, we spent a lot of time talking about art—more than the script or anything else. We ended up spending three months together painting, and that’s how we became friends. Of course, as we’re working, I’m asking him questions about his dad, about his family, and what it’s like to be a father.

Was the physical act of painting like a doorway to deeper conversation? Maybe it’s a bit of a gender thing. Growing up, the men in my neighborhood would spend a lot of time working on cars. Some of them hadn’t run in 20 years. You knew they never would again, but it was an activity that allowed them to talk to each other.

Were there things that you changed about this role along the way? It was clear in the script that my character was very angry. That anger towards his father was something Titus was open about. But as an actor, I’m always suspicious of anger. The question for me is, what’s fueling

it? There was a softness and a vulnerability that I wanted to find, and when you really dig into those hard moments, that’s what comes out.

This press tour isn’t just for the regular Hollywood crowd—you also have the whole art world involved. How did that feel?

Different. Y’all are a vibe, I gotta say. In the last few years, I’ve found myself in a lot of those spaces. I did a piece with Isaac Julien about a year and half ago [Once Again… (Statues Never Die), 2022]. Right now, I’m doing a thing with Arthur Jafa.

Is your feeling of the film’s impact aligning with the audience reactions you’re observing? Every person on this film put their back into it —it cost everyone a lot emotionally to get to that place and then live in that place. Sometimes when you do that, it’s a shame when people either don’t get to see it, or don’t feel it in the way you hope. That was not the case this time. Just today, a woman was like, “I saw it once, and I don’t know if I can ever bear to see it again. But I do know that I need to call my father.”

“AS AN ACTOR, I’M ALWAYS SUSPICIOUS OF ANGER. THE QUESTION FOR ME IS, WHAT’S FUELING IT?”

André Holland and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in Exhibiting Forgiveness, 2024.

Photography courtesy of Roadside

WITH NICKEL BOYS, RAMELL ROSS EXCAVATES SOUTHERN WOUNDS

THE DIRECTOR ADAPTED COLSON WHITEHEAD’S PULITZERWINNING NOVEL INTO AN EXPERIMENTAL PORTRAIT OF LIFE IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH.

By Sophie Lee

Colson Whitehead entrusted the adaptation of his Pulitzer-winning 2019 novel, The Nickel Boys, to first-time feature director RaMell Ross with just two words of emailed encouragement: “Good luck!”

Before Nickel Boys, Ross had just one directing credit to his name: 2018’s Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening. The lyrical snapshot of life as a Black American in Alabama earned the artist and filmmaker a meeting with the producers bringing Whitehead’s fictionalized account of atrocities documented at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the screen. The Florida reform school, which shuttered in 2011, was the subject of years of

investigation linked to the rampant abuse—and close to 100 unrecorded deaths—of its students.

The film—shot entirely in point-ofview—follows two Black teens through their efforts to survive the institution, interspersed with flash-forwards to its unraveling in the 2010s and archival documentation that reminds viewers of its real-life reverberations. Ahead of its December release, Ross unpacks the atmosphere and allegories behind the action.

THIS WAS YOUR FIRST FORAY INTO DRAMA. DID YOU FEEL PREPARED? I came with my pockets completely empty. It wasn’t a conceptual leap, but it was a practical leap. I had to learn how to say “action,” and other silly things.

Sometimes I would forget to say “cut” and I’d just be like, “Mhm, great guys.” Everyone would be like, “So, are we done?” I’d say, “I don’t know, you tell me.” They’re like, “No, you tell us.”

ANIMALS APPEAR THROUGHOUT THE FILM: AN ALLIGATOR ROAMING THE HALLS, LITTLE LIZARDS EVERYWHERE. It’s like, That’s an omen—but if you don’t recognize it as an omen, then is it? One thing about being a person of color is, Is everything racialized? Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s something. It’s always plural, right? The images in the film are intentionally symbolic and metaphorical, but also just experiential. The alligator has a really specific historic resonance—for a time, Black children in the South were used as alligator bait. I wanted to nod to that lost history. It was a metaphor for the system—how blind, violent, and uncompromising it can be. But also, it’s just Florida.

HOW DID YOUR EXPERIENCE

FILMING HALE COUNTY INFORM THE FEEL OF NICKEL BOYS? To me, Hale County was like an orchestral attempt at vision. The poetics of Black subjectivity, or the poetics of Black visuals, are just so under-explored and limited. Those tools haven’t been in the hands of Black folks. Thinking about how to continually add images that have the ambiguity necessary to further dilute the muddy waters of Blackness is the connection between the two films, and maybe an ultimate aim of mine in making images. What a fun thing to try.

Brandon Wilson in Nickel Boys, 2024.

RaMell Ross on the set of Nickel Boys

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The mastermind behind Cote and Coqodaq lifts the curtain on his rambunctious brand’s inner workings and shares the childhood hijinks that made him fall in love with food.

By Ella Martin-Gachot

Few restaurants have the sex appeal of Cote. With three locations—in New York, Miami, and Singapore—and a fourth in the works in Las Vegas, the Korean barbecue staple has established itself as a consummate crowd-pleaser—if you can snag a reservation. Behind it all is Simon Kim, a hospitality powerhouse who got his start at his parents’ restaurant in Tribeca before scaling up to Vegas and Manhattan fine dining in the aughts. This year, the Seoul native introduced Coqodaq, a new fried-chicken-forward eatery in Flatiron, and announced a monumental three-story dining nucleus on Madison Avenue. How does he do it all? Kim lets CULTURED in on a few of his secrets.

2024 has been a huge year for you. How do you keep your cool? The secret to keeping up is ignorance. I am such a sucker for creating. It’s not work, it’s not scary, it’s not bothersome. Over the years, we built enough infrastructure so that it’s not a candle flame; it’s a steam engine with a surplus of charcoal that we continuously feed, so the fire burns strongly and sustainably.

Almost a decade into the Cote story, what has been your biggest takeaway? I don’t have a banking background. I went from the dish pit to the boardroom, if you will. I always believed in hard work. We opened Cote New York with such fanfare: a Michelin star in four months, fully booked, making lots of money. We were scared that it might be a fad, but we believed in the

formula. It’s about true hospitality—and looking at it from a customer’s perspective. I wanted to create a restaurant where, if there’s a bell curve with one end being uber fine dining and the other end being McDonald’s, the majority would enjoy it. Same with Coqodaq, where NYU students and billionaires sit next to each other, having the best time of their lives in their own ways.

“I am such a sucker for creating. It’s not work, it’s not scary, it’s not bothersome.”

Tell us about the culinary environment you grew up in. I always grew up thinking my dad was like a secret Michelin inspector. We didn’t go play catch or hike or do the things that kids and fathers do. He would take us to fine-dining restaurants. My mother, who was an actress—she’s now acting again at 72!—was extremely passionate about food. She saw the dinner table as her time to shine. And I was the youngest of three, so I was kind of the maître d’. My older siblings and dad were like our customers.

You’re also a prolific collector. If you were to sit down for a meal with an artist right now, who would it be? I’d hang out with Andy Warhol. As a restaurateur, I balance commerce and artistry. He embraced that balance. So, I’d just want to hang out and vibe with Andy. Drink whatever he’s drinking—a lot of it—go to his studio, and talk.

Photography by Jason Varney for Rockwell Group and courtesy of Cocodaq

CHARLES ATLAS MAPS HIS LIFE AND WORK

By Helen Stoilas

“About Time,” the title of Charles Atlas’s first career retrospective at the ICA Boston, is both a joke and completely serious.

On the one hand, Charles Atlas’s work has always had a temporal focus, capturing the fleeting feeling of live performance, the immediacy of personal interactions, the perma-scroll of TikTok, and the free association of thought. On the other, recognition is long overdue for an artist who has been working for over five decades, basically invented the translation of contemporary performance onto screen, and has collaborated with the likes of Merce Cunningham and Marina Abramović.

For the past 10 years, Atlas has been working with his gallery, Luhring Augustine, to find a museum capable of handling the technical challenges that a retrospective of his work involves. “There’s not many museums that could do it,” Atlas says, adding that his ICA Boston exhibition, on view through March 2025, involves 31 channels of video across four gallery-filling installations. These in turn draw on clips from some 125 works Atlas has created over his career, which he has digitized and remixed.

Atlas’s interest in film and performance dates back to his childhood in St. Louis, where, he has said, “cinema was my escape outlet.” After dropping out of Swarthmore College, Atlas moved to New York in 1968 with the aim of seeing “every movie ever made.” A stage-managing gig at an off-Broadway theater led to a job as assistant manager for the legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham’s dance company. A 20-year-old Atlas taught himself to use a Super 8 camera on the job. The rest is art history.

Atlas’s ties to artists like Cunningham are a defining aspect of his career. Personalities, a new installation created for the ICA Boston, features video portraits of collaborators and friends such as Abramović, Leigh Bowery, and Johanna Constantine. The work is presented on 12 monitors arranged on pedestals in a gallery painted orange—Atlas’s signature hue, the color he dyes

his sideburns—with wallpaper drawn from his 2003 project Instant Fame!, in which Atlas created live video portraits of gallery visitors.

“Seeing all these pieces together, it kind of just hit me … it encompasses a lot of ideas,” Atlas says, adding later, “It’s a little overwhelming to see everything from 50 years gone by.”

Charles Atlas, Here she is . . . v1 (Film Still), 2015.

Charles Atlas, Butchers’ Vogue (Film Still), 1990.

Charles Atlas, “A Prune Twin” (Installation view), Luhring Augustine Chelsea, 2023.

All photography courtesy of the artist and LuhringAugustine

© Charles Atlas

Charles Atlas and Merce Cunningham, Channels/Inserts (Film Still), 1981.

Charles Atlas, Hail the New Puritan (Film Still), 1986.

Strachan, We Belong Here, 2018. Photography by Zaire Aranguren. Image courtesy of The Bass, Miami Beach.

SUNA FUJITA GOES DEEP

LOEWE FIRST CONTACTED THE KYOTO-BASED ARTIST DUO, KNOWN FOR THEIR WHIMSICAL AND DELICATE CERAMICS, ON FACEBOOK. IN THE SECOND YEAR OF THEIR CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP, THE SPANISH HOUSE AND JAPANESE STUDIO PLUMBED THE DEPTHS OF SEA AND SKY TO CRAFT THEIR MOST OTHERWORLDLY COLLABORATION YET.

By Katie Kern

“We do not have a particular relationship with fashion,” say Shohei Fujita and Chisato Yamano, the artistic duo behind Kyoto-based ceramic studio Suna Fujita. “Our work involves staying at home and working. We rarely meet people, so when choosing what to wear, we prioritize functionality.”

Though the artists’ wardrobes are built around more utilitarian aims, Suna Fujita’s latest collaboration with Loewe proves that their imaginations know no such constraints. The Spanish luxury house’s holiday collection transforms the Japanese ceramicist duo’s signature whimsical creatures—from space-dwelling

octopi to deep-sea hamsters—into a fantastical array of accessories, including a submarine-shaped bag that opens with a press of its chimney. The collaboration’s origin story is as unexpected as its results. Loewe discovered the artists some years ago through a simple DM. “We received an inquiry on Facebook about how to purchase our works. We informed them that we only sell during exhibitions,” the duo recalls.

What began as a casual social media exchange soon evolved into a multiyear creative alliance. Last holiday season, Loewe Creative Director Jonathan Anderson partnered with Suna Fujita for the first time—adapting motifs from their existing ceramics into new classics.

This time, Anderson challenged the pair to voyage into new territory. “Jonathan suggested focusing on the deep sea and space,” they explain. Building on their existing oceanic motifs, Fujita and Yamano plunged into research, crafting both digital and hand-drawn illustrations that would eventually populate Loewe’s signature silhouettes.

From delicate embroidery to intricate leather marquetry, each piece showcases the meticulous attention to detail and obsession with craftsmanship that define both the house’s artisans and the Suna Fujita universe. The limited-edition collection of bags, ready-to-wear, shoes, and accessories will be available in stores and online this November.

All photography courtesy of Loewe

John Procario, Freeform Horizontal Chandelier, 2024

John Procario, Sculpted Sofas, 2024

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Nyla Isaac / Untitled, 2020 / acrylic on canvas / courtesy of the Living Museum

THE CROWD PLEASER

BY ESTHER ZUCKERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAFAEL RIOS

SHAWN LEVY IS KNOWN FOR HIS CHART-TOPPING BLOCKBUSTERS.

BUT WHILE HIS FILMS ARE BREAKING BOX OFFICE RECORDS, THE FILMMAKER IS QUIETLY LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR A SECOND PASSION: COLLECTING.

“SHAWN LEVY MADE HIS NAME AS THE MAN BEHIND EARLY-AUGHTS, FOURQUADRANT FAMILY FARE LIKE CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN AND THE NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM FRANCHISE. HIS PROFILE HAS ONLY RISEN IN RECENT YEARS.”

Elizabeth Peyton, Nick, 2004/2012. Christopher Flach, Portrait of Otto Dix, 2016.

“WHEN HE

WAS STARTING OUT, IT WAS STEVE MARTIN—A LONG-TIME COLLABORATOR— WHO TOLD HIM TO SUBSCRIBE TO SOTHEBY’S CATALOGS AND BEGIN STUDYING.”

Julian Schnabel, Walt Whitman IV (Air), 2016.

Shawn Levy picks the works that adorn the walls of his Downtown Manhattan home in much the same way he chooses what films he’s going to direct. “I like art that feels singular and specific, but also built for visual joy,” he says, sitting barefoot and cross-legged on a plush couch in his den. “And I pick movies that inspire feeling, laughter, and joy.”

Levy is known for crowd-pleasers. He made his name as the man behind early-aughts, fourquadrant family fare like Cheaper by the Dozen and the Night at the Museum franchise. His profile has only risen in recent years—first as an executive producer of the massive Netflix hit Stranger Things, and this summer as the director of Deadpool & Wolverine, the record-breaking Marvel jaunt and Levy’s biggest box office success to date (pulling in over a billion dollars worldwide). The filmmaker’s home, which he shares with his wife, Serena, is filled with Pop and contemporary art that reflects the same playful spirit as his oeuvre. Their collection features work by the likes of Jonas Wood, Jasper Johns, and Julian Schnabel, the latter of which, Walt Whitman IV (Air), 2016, sits in Levy’s office across from the masks of the two superheroes with whom he has become so closely associated.

As soon as I arrive, Levy offers me a tour. In the entryway, there’s a Robert Rauschenberg etching, Solitaire, of a bird on a pier—the first work of art the Levys ever bought. It hangs near an Anna Weyant flower study, and opposite a pink

Warhol Sidewalk print of the pavement outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. A series of 10 Yoshitomo Naras hangs above the couple’s breakfast nook. “I always sit on the same side of the table,” he says, “because I love looking at those Naras twice a day.”

The story of Levy’s entrée into collecting isn’t a typical one. For one thing, he has a star-studded cast of advisors at his fingertips. When he was starting out, it was Steve Martin—a longtime collaborator who appeared in the Levydirected films Cheaper by the Dozen and The Pink Panther —who told him to subscribe to Sotheby’s catalogs and begin studying. Among Levy’s most treasured pieces is an Ed Ruscha emblazoned with the words “Lady Joy.” He acquired it with the help of yet another frequent co-conspirator: Owen Wilson, a mutual friend he shares with Ruscha. “The piece describes my everyday domestic life,” says Levy, who has been married for nearly 30 years and has four daughters. “I thought, I just need it.” Levy has worked with art consultant Cardiff Loy, but also seeks counsel from friends like Tobey Maguire, a dedicated collector himself, or advisor Sophia Cohen.

While the Levys will occasionally find themselves drawn to what they describe as “more provocative or troubling” works, they focus on pieces that imbue their home with warmth. “The works in our collection—whether it’s peaceful, meditative paintings like that Tony Lewis across the living room, or

something more audacious like the Sterling Ruby, with its use of color and texture—are built for viewer engagement,” the filmmaker tells me. “They are inviting, not repellant.”

This is not to say that his love of art is confined to the domestic realm. In fact, the climactic scene in Deadpool & Wolverine is inspired by a Lucian Freud triptych the filmmaker showed to his visual effects team and art department. “To this day, several colleagues from the movie make fun of me for that hifalutin allusion,” he says. “But watch that scene: Emma Corrin, Hugh Jackman, and Ryan Reynolds all move through this super fast, stuttery conniption. It all comes back to those paintings.”

Are there any Freuds in his collection? Not yet. “There are some artists I’m fascinated by who I either haven’t had an opportunity to acquire or couldn’t afford,” he continues. He’s still mourning a Barbara Kruger that got away— Jennifer Lopez has it in her office, in the same West Hollywood building as Levy’s company headquarters. “No matter how many times I knock on her door and ask to buy it, I cannot get my hands on it,” he says with a laugh.

Still, Levy is reluctant to think of himself as a collector in any “official” sense. Instead of sharing any grand ambitions for future acquisitions, he returns to the idea of joy. “I do know that living with art makes a home more lovely,” Levy tells me. “It’s very much a part of our life now.”

Ed Ruscha, Lady Joy, 2013.

AN INSTANT CLASSIC

When Alessandro Michele unveiled his first Valentino Garavani collection this past summer, the fashion world dropped everything to take it in.

Its densely packed prints, rivulets of pearls, and faux-fur trimmings made one thing crystal clear: A new era had begun.

Amongst the decadent array of offerings from Michele’s inaugural line are two accessories handpicked for Valentino devotees new and old: the showstopping Fleur Lumineuse necklace and impeccably bite-sized Vain bag. Winter’s doldrums may have settled in, but these pieces will enliven your uniform—any day of the year.

The Valentino Garavani Vain shoulder bag and Fleur Lumineuse necklace

.

Photography by

Hannah

Tacher

FOR MIU MIU, ONE FILMMAKER WANDERS THE PAMPAS

Argentine director and producer Laura Citarella has emerged as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary cinema. Now, she joins the all-star list of female filmmakers commissioned for Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales initiative.

BY MARÍA BELÉN ARCHETTO

Laura Citarella speaks fondly of the cultural education her parents gave her as a child in Argentina. Although she was born in La Plata, the capital of the country’s Buenos Aires Province, the memories she cherishes most are from the summers she spent in their hometown of Trenque Lauquen.

This small city in the Pampas region later became the backdrop for a number of the director’s films, including her celebrated 2022 feature Trenque Lauquen, which follows two men searching for the missing woman they love and earned Citarella a nomination for the Orizzonti Award for Best Film at that year’s Venice Film Festival. More recently, the country’s low grasslands served as the setting for El Affaire Miu Miu, a short commissioned by the cult Italian house as part of their ongoing Women’s Tales series. The film debuted in Venice this past August during the Giornate degli Autori, followed by a two-day talks program featuring brand ambassadors and actors Cailee Spaeny, Molly Gordon, and Valentina Romani.

El Affaire Miu Miu grew from Citarella’s interest in Hitchcockian mystery and female Sherlock Holmes figures who are on the hunt for “women that, for different reasons, run away.” The film begins, fittingly, with a fashion shoot starring an Italian model, set in the heart of the Argentine Pampas. After the shoot wraps, the model vanishes, and three of the town’s detectives—all women—embark on an investigation, piecing together clues hidden in cast-off Miu Miu garments and the surrounding landscape.

With the film’s release, Citarella is the latest creative to join the ranks of the Women’s Tales initiative, which since 2011 has invited visionary female directors to explore themes of vanity and femininity in commissioned short films. Previous participants include Ava DuVernay, Miranda July, Janicza Bravo, and Chui Mui Tan.

The fusion of fashion and landscape was partic-

“FROM THE BEGINNING, CLOTHES HAD TO BE LIKE ANOTHER PROTAGONIST WITH A NARRATIVE VALUE, A NARRATIVE WEIGHT.”

ularly compelling for Citarella. “I was interested in exploring how a woman wearing Miu Miu arrives, stands, and walks in the Pampas—to explore and see how this image is forged,” the director muses. “From the beginning, clothes had to be like another protagonist with a narrative value, a narrative weight. They didn’t have to be something that contributes to forging a character—they had to be a main character in the construction of the story.”

On the set of El Affaire Miu Miu, 2024.

All photography

by Sebastian Arpesella and courtesy of Miu Miu

HEJI SHIN TAKES OFF

“THE SHOW WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT AMERICA,” HEJI SHIN SAYS OVER ZOOM, “BUT IT TURNED OUT TO BE A BIT MORE METAPHORICAL.” FOR HER FIRST INSTITUTIONAL SOLO EXHIBITION IN THE UNITED STATES, ON VIEW AT THE ASPEN ART MUSEUM THROUGH MARCH 2025, THE CULT IMAGE-MAKER HAD PLANNED TO DRIVE ACROSS THE UNITED STATES. SHIN ENDED UP HOMING IN ON FLORIDA, TRAINING HER LENS ON NASA’S KENNEDY SPACE CENTER IN CAPE CANAVERAL AND THE STATE’S COASTLINE, WHICH WAS RECENTLY STRUCK BY TWO CONSECUTIVE HURRICANES. “I WAS LEFT WITH ROCKETS AND WAVES,” SHE SAYS WITH A LAUGH.

“I wanted to focus on rocket launches, not because they’re quintessentially American, but because they embody the extremes of American technological advances. I didn’t want to get embedded in the Cape Canaveral community—I just wanted to go there and photograph rockets.”

“I do think there’s a consensus that transgression is not very interesting at the moment. People feel like they want to just look at good stuff and go back to more classical things—maybe even to what art has traditionally been occupied with.”

ANYONE EVEN VAGUELY FAMILIAR WITH SHIN’S OUTPUT OVER THE PAST DECADE KNOWS A VEER INTO LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IS UNEXPECTED. THE KOREAN-GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHER HAS EMBRACED SHOCK FACTOR—COPS COPULATING, BABIES CLAMBERING THROUGH BIRTH CANALS, KANYE WEST MID-DOWNFALL— UNTIL NOW. IN THE DUAL SERIES ON VIEW IN ASPEN, SHIN STRIPS A POCKET OF AMERICA DOWN TO ITS ELEMENTS. THE OUTCOME IS, IN HER WORDS, “EPIC.” HERE, SHE UNPACKS THE STORY BEHIND ONE IMAGE IN THE SHOW, SHARED EXCLUSIVELY WITH CULTURED, AND WHY SHE’S LEAVING TRANSGRESSION BEHIND—FOR NOW.

Heji Shin, Untitled, 2024.

Olafur Eliasson OPEN

Image: Olafur Eliasson, Kaleidoscope for plural perspectives, 2024; Installation

view: Studio Olafur Eliasson, Berlin; Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson; Courtesy of the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles; neugerriemschneider, Berlin © 2024 Olafur Eliasson

Presented by

THE NEXT ARTWORLD WATERING HOLE OPENS ITS DOORS

BY ELLA MARTIN-GACHOT

AT CLEMENTE BAR, A NEW SPACE FROM PAINTER FRANCESCO CLEMENTE AND CHEF DANIEL HUMM, REVELRY IS AS IMPORTANT AS CRAFT.

WHEN HE WAS 10, Daniel Humm had a revelation in front of Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies.” There, in the lower level of Paris’s Musée de l’Orangerie, he burst into tears. “I didn’t know why,” Humm recalls. “Was I happy? Was I sad? From that moment on, I knew that I was deeply moved by art.”

Three decades later, Humm joined the ranks of one of Manhattan’s most vaunted eateries. Over his time at the three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park, the chef has transformed the institution into a destination for food—and art. Works by the likes of Olympia Scarry, Rita Ackermann, and Rashid Johnson—also some of Humm’s closest friends—adorn the restaurant’s sleek interior. This fall, the chef escalated this passion, opening Clemente Bar just a few stories below, alongside none other than Francesco Clemente, whose hand-painted frescoes envelop diners in the dreamlike world he’s become known for. Here, the chef reflects on the undertaking: a modern monument to the finer senses.

“THAT’S A GREAT LESSON FOR RESTAURANTS: WE SHOULD TAKE OUR WORK VERY SERIOUSLY, BUT NOT OURSELVES.”

YOU’VE EARNED ALMOST EVERY ACCOLADE A RESTAURANT OR CHEF CAN HOPE FOR. HOW DO YOU GET YOURSELF EXCITED ABOUT SOMETHING NEW? For Francesco and me, the word we focused on with Clemente Bar was “historic.” Nothing is permanent these days, but this is as close as it gets. We were inspired by Kronenhalle in Zürich. Diego Giacometti made the lighting, and it’s hung with Rauschenberg and Picasso paintings. There are not many places with that kind of permanence.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF FRANCESCO?

IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.

YOU’RE FRIENDS WITH SO MANY ARTISTS. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? I have like five people I’m very close to in my life, and they’re all artists. I feel understood by them. We put ourselves out there, which is vulnerable. Artists know that better than anyone. Art and beauty really move me... I’ve always been interested in moments in art history where artists did something really new, like with the beginning of abstract painting, or Duchamp, or Fontana, who took the canvas and sliced it.

WHAT CAN THE WORLDS OF FOOD AND ART LEARN FROM EACH OTHER? The beauty of Clemente Bar is that it’s not a gallery or a museum—when you lean back in your chair, your head can touch Francesco’s paintings. That’s a great lesson for restaurants: We should take our work very seriously, but not ourselves.

Photography by Jason Varney, and courtesy of Daniel Humm and Clemente Bar

Daniel Humm and Francesco Clemente at Clemente Bar.

JUST KEEP PAINTING

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER HER LAST NEW YORK SOLO SHOW, LORETTA DUNKELMAN IS EMBARKING ON THE LATEST CHAPTER OF HER CAREER AT POLINA BERLIN GALLERY.

“Does that seem like an awkward painting to you?”

Loretta Dunkelman was examining a foamcore model of New York’s Polina Berlin Gallery in her Lower Manhattan loft. Looking anything but “awkward,” even as a tiny printout, the painting in question was rimmed by lemon yellow, with blue and white passages resembling clouds. It would soon be prominently displayed at Polina Berlin.

The 87-year-old artist displays confidence— along with moments of doubt—in a practice that has long been out of the spotlight. Over her six-decade career, Dunkelman co-founded A.I.R. Gallery, the pioneering SoHo venue dedicated to female artists. Her work has entered the collections of the Whitney Museum of

By Brian Boucher

American Art and the Smithsonian Institution. But like so many female artists of her generation, Dunkelman has faded from the art world’s memory, even though she has been steadily working—drawing and painting precise, meditative pieces at her live-work space a few floors above Bowery and Canal Street—all this time.

The New Jersey native studied under the artist Tony Smith at New York’s Hunter College in the 1960s. After graduation, the trailblazing curator Marcia Tucker included her in the 1973 Whitney Biennial (“I’ve called to do some business with you,” Dunkelman remembers Tucker saying). The piece she showed, Ice-Sky, 1971–72, is a luminous five-panel drawing that moves through shades of blue, pink, and white. When Berlin saw it on the

floor during a recent studio visit, “It almost felt like a James Turrell. It emanates light, like a portal to the sky.”

But in the 1960s, the then-ascendant Minimalist artists disapproved of Dunkelman’s sensuous abstractions. “She was an outlier, even though on the face of it there seems to be so much common ground,” Berlin says. Plus, “she’s a woman. That’s not lost on me.”

Now, Dunkelman is enjoying a new generation’s perspective on her work—and gaining a fresh perspective of her own. She recently removed one of her large abstractions, Tintern Abbey, 1987, from storage. “I thought it was awful all this time, but only because the photos were bad,” she says. “When I pulled it out, I loved it!”

Photography by Lila Barth, and courtesy of the artist and Polina Berlin Gallery

GIORGIO ARMANI TRANSFORMS A MILANESE PALAZZO INTO A TEMPLE FOR GLOBAL DESIGN

The designer’s latest furniture collection is a love letter to travel, craft, and film.

BY PHOEBE ROBERTS

Giorgio Armani is taking Milan’s reputation as a global capital of fashion and design to a whole new level.

The Italian designer’s latest Armani/Casa collection transports shoppers to locations as far-flung as Japan, China, and the Middle East—all without leaving its historic headquarters. Aptly titled Echi dal Mondo, or “Echoes from the World,” the collection is inspired by Armani’s travels around the globe and draws on decades of careful research.

The initial inspiration for the project is rooted in a childhood dream of the designer, who grew up in the northern Italian town of Piacenza. “I would have liked to have been a director,” Armani said in a statement, “[so] I imagined a ‘cinematic’ journey to the countries that have always inspired me: places and cultures that spark highly personal reworkings.”

The result, which debuted at Salone del Mobile this past spring, is an evocative display at Palazzo Orsini, with each room in the 17th-century villa corresponding to a different geographical location. Visitors follow a golden ribbon through a series of rooms punctuated with fashion, furniture, and mementos from Armani’s personal travels, borrowed from his private home.

Those seeking to take part in Armani’s “cinematic” wanderings can view the pieces at Palazzo Orsini or simply shop the collection themselves, with designs including the Japanese samurai-armor-inspired Virtù cabinet—featuring a katana-like handle and tatami-effect interiors—and

All photography by Federica

Bottoli and courtesy of Armani

the Chinese-influenced Vivace table, a silverleaf-topped creation with legs that resemble bamboo stalks.

Other standouts include the “Arabian Nights”–inspired set, which includes a new edition of the Club bar cabinet with a blue leather interior and an upholstered grosgrain fabric screen. Influences from Berber culture can be glimpsed throughout, from the canaletto walnut wood and geometric-patterned velvet of the Morfeo bed to the tassel appliques that enhance the Esagono coffee tables’ upholstered fabric.

References to European culture also abound: The Trocadero table, featuring plexiglass legs and a platinum-lacquered, wave-textured top, could be snatched right out of a midcentury design book, as could the Riesling bar cabinet, with its sleek canneté plexiglass front calling to mind dinner parties of yore.

Like a canonical film, these pieces—and indeed the entire Echi dal Mondo collection—ignite the imagination and transport their owners to places they have never been—without even crossing their doorstep.

“I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE BEEN A DIRECTOR.”

—GIORGIO ARMANI

MARGUERITE HUMEAU’S AIRBORNE ERA

BY JULIA HALPERIN

THE ARTIST IS BRINGING A SPECULATIVE SLATE OF NEW WORK TO THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, MIAMI—ONE THAT IMAGINES AN ALTERNATE EVOLUTION OF HUMANITY.

Marguerite Humeau has the curiosity of a child, the sensitivity of a poet, and the technical precision of a surgeon. The London-based French sculptor is bringing this potent combination to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, where her first large-scale museum show in the United States will see the light this winter.

Humeau is best known for collaborating with all manner of experts—anthropologists, ornithologists, even clairvoyants—to make art that conjures the ancient past or imagines the distant future. In one of her earliest works, she recreated the voice box of Lucy, the 3.2-million-yearold skeleton discovered in Ethiopia in the 1970s. Last year, she installed more than 80 kinetic sculptures across a 160-acre expanse of the San Luis Valley in Colorado. It was one of the largest land artworks ever created by a female artist.

The time Humeau spent in that drought-stricken Colorado landscape helped inspire the Miami exhibition “\*sk\*/ey-,” which opens Dec. 3. “It got me thinking about what forms of life can actually exist in this world,” Humeau says. Watching the wind push tumbleweeds across the desert and whip dust into roving clouds, the artist began imagining a speculative future where “we have to become creatures of the air.” This line of inquiry, she reasoned, would be especially relevant for a show in Florida, which is a key thoroughfare for migratory birds.

“I WANTED THE NEW SCULPTURES TO FEEL LIKE THEY ARE ALIVE, THAT THEY’VE GROWN FROM THE SOIL. THEY ARE IN A STATE OF BECOMING.”

Footage she shot in Colorado forms the basis for a new video that envisions what it might look like for life to leave an uninhabitable Earth behind and become airborne. (The score, by composer and clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid, is unsurprisingly heavy on the wind instruments.) In the next gallery, a trio of sculptures appears to emerge from the ground like forest zombies. Another group of sculptures, perched high on the wall, looks like winged creatures poised to take flight. Their surfaces resemble those of surreal creatures in a Leonora Carrington painting, rippled and otherworldly.

As part of her research, Humeau convened a group of textile designers for more than a month to experiment with treating felt and organza silk in ways that evoke mold and dead skin. “I wanted them to feel like they are alive, that they’ve grown from the soil,” Humeau says of her new sculptures. “They are in a state of becoming.”

Photography by Eoin Greally and courtesy of the artist

REMEMBERING GARY INDIANA— A BEGRUDGING ICON

By Johanna Fateman

Following the cult writer’s passing, our critic recalls his bitchy radicalism, wild prose, and uncensored takes on the art world.

The great novelist and art critic Gary Indiana, who passed away on Oct. 23 at age 74 and left a hole in the city’s literary firmament the size of his name state, isn’t generally remembered for his favorable reviews. Maybe it’s because even his positive assessments were not positive—not in tone. They emerged from a deep anticapitalist snobbery. A “rave” from Indiana, circa 1985–88, during his tenure as senior art critic for The Village Voice, might start with a scathing blind item or two about the vacuous or vulturous characters he encountered on the gallery beat. His caustic disdain for the commercial structures and depraved figures of the (art) world was justified, implicitly, on aesthetic as much as political grounds. Though in the universe of his writing— by the rules of his bitchy radicalism—no such distinction exists.

Yet Indiana did love, like, and approve of many things. I know that from the conversations I was lucky enough to have with him over the years, though I knew him only a little. In the ’90s, I was a studio assistant for two artists who were close to him. We would gossip when I answered the phone. More than a decade later, when Indiana and I were both writing for Artforum, we talked at parties. Not so long ago, I told him how great I thought Horse Crazy was (I had just reread his 1989 novel). He told me it was not great. I asked him, “What is a great novel, then?” He sighed and said very wistfully, “Wuthering Heights.”

Flipping sadly through Vile Days (which anthologizes his Voice columns) on the day I learned of his death, I found more things he admired. In his reviews—which tended, thrillingly, to push the

form beyond recognition—there is louche precision, grudging respect, and fleeting moments of wonder. As an art critic, I’d love to say he’s been an influence, but that implies something actually rubbed off. I can only claim inspiration.

At the Voice, he was charged with covering the Reagan-era art boom, during the Reagan era of mass death. As the new galleries of the East Village scene, often peddling the neo-Expressionist painting Indiana despised, ushered in a phase of rapid gentrification, the AIDS epidemic stole his friends away. He would not pretend it wasn’t happening; in his writing, he did not cordon it off. Though Indiana would hate to be a role model, I’m sure, his work offers some lessons for our own vile days. Sometimes, to write about what you love, you must start with what you hate.

Photography courtesy of Semiotext(e)

THE BASS LOOKS AHEAD

As it turns 60 years old, The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach’s storied institution, gears up for yet another growth spurt.

BY SOPHIE LEE

Each year, 50,000 people visit The Bass Museum of Art. “The Bass’s audience is diverse,” says Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiñá. “When our curators plan exhibitions, we make sure the art offers multiple cultural and intellectual touchpoints that are engaging to this wide audience.”

Since opening in 1964 to house the private collection of John and Johanna Bass, the museum has become a tentpole of the city’s creative ecosystem—

bolstered by seasonal influxes of visitors around events and fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach. In 2022, the institution was awarded $20 million as part of Miami Beach’s General Obligation Bonds, a $159 million sum that supported 16 city-owned cultural institutions. In addition to ringing in its 60th anniversary, the museum is now in the throes of its next period of expansion.

“We are looking to build a new, state-of-the-art gallery for temporary exhibitions as well as social spaces for public programs,” explains Karman Cubiñá. “Simply put, a new flexible gathering space where art and people meet.” This includes building enhancements, part of which will house new media works; public works, like the planned takeover of a rotunda in Collins Park; and support for the museum’s educational programming.

In the meantime, the exhibitions currently on view

at the museum embody its enduring mission, six decades on. “‘Rachel Feinstein: The Miami Years’ demonstrates the ongoing commitment to commissions with the presentation of [the artist’s] 30-foot painting of enamel on mirror,” says Chief Curator James Voorhies. “‘Performing Perspectives: A Collection in Dialogue’ looks both forward and back with a selection of historical works installed in relation to the contemporary collection.”

What might the next 60 years hold for the institution? Ultimately, says Karman Cubiñá, “With new communities of full- and part-time residents moving to the area, plus a generation of young adults raised alongside Art Basel Miami Beach, The Bass has become a place for people to get together and connect while seeing art.” The changes underway at the institution are a sign of commitment to that burgeoning, ever-shifting audience— as the city evolves, so too will The Bass.

The Bass Museum of Art, 1989.

Photography courtesy of the Bass Museum of Art

Miami Beach Convention Center

December 6 - 8, 2024

Calida Rawles, Thy Name We Praise 2023. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin. © Calida Rawles

WHAT’S THE DISH THAT MAKES YOU FEEL AT HOME WHEREVER YOU ARE IN THE WORLD? Rice and ketchup.

WHAT’S THE DISH THAT BEST REPRESENTS WHERE YOU’RE AT IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW? Spaghetti and ketchup.

Lucien Smith wears a jacket and pants by Bottega Veneta, hat from Alias Costumes Rental, and vintage glasses from Azyr Specs. Shoes and shirt are artist’s own.

THE CROWN PRINCE OF CANAL STREET

LUCIEN SMITH IS AN ART-WORLD SWISS ARMY KNIFE. THE LOS ANGELES NATIVE HAS SET AUCTION RECORDS—AND EXPERIENCED THE VOLATILITY OF A RUTHLESS MARKET. HE’S ALSO MODELED FOR SUPREME, LAUNCHED A CLOTHING BRAND WITH HIS MOTHER, AND ESTABLISHED A NONPROFITCUM-SUPPORT GROUP FOR CREATIVES ACROSS THE GLOBE. HIS LATEST VENTURE IS ONE FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS. THIS DECEMBER, SMITH WILL BRING BACK FOOD, THE ARTIST-RUN RESTAURANT THAT GORDON MATTA-CLARK, TINA GIROUARD, AND CAROL GOODDEN OPENED IN SOHO IN 1971. FIVE DECADES AFTER ITS CLOSURE, THE CULT CANTEEN EMBODIES AN ERA OF ARTISTIC POTENCY FILTERED THROUGH THE TASTE BUDS. SMITH’S ITERATION—FOR WHICH HE’S TAPPED COLLABORATORS LIKE CHEF MATHIEU CANET AND ARCHITECTS MICHAEL ABEL AND NILE GREENBERG—PROMISES TO BE NO LESS RAMBUNCTIOUS. AHEAD OF ITS OPENING, THE ARTIST LET CULTURED IN ON HIS CULINARY PREDILECTIONS.

By Ella Martin-Gachot

Photography by Jeremy Liebman Styling by Jessica Willis

WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU TO LEAVE A GOOGLE OR YELP REVIEW?

Gun to the head.

WHO DO YOU MOST LOVE TO COOK FOR? WHO DO YOU MOST LOVE TO COOK WITH?

Myself. My little brother.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON COOKBOOKS?

I’ve never used a cookbook.

Lucien wears a cape by Marni, and hat from Alias Costumes Rental.

WHAT’S THE MOST EXPENSIVE MEAL YOU’VE EVER HAD?

I ate raw horse once. I’m sure that was pricey.

GO-TO BODEGA ORDER?

A chopped cheese or Jamaican patty with hot sauce and a peach Snapple.

ONE MEAL THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE?

I ate a hot pepper as a kid in the Philippines on a dare. I had smoke coming out of my ears.

WERE YOU A PICKY EATER GROWING UP?

Not really. I did have to be forcefed, because I never wanted to eat.

Lucien wears a top and skirt by Marc Jacobs. Shoes are artist’s own.

Production by Dionne Cochrane Styling Assistance by Verity Azario, Chanti Walker, and Meena Jannah Production Assistance by Brittany Thompson

PHOTO BY CHRISTINA ARZA

Image credit: Joseph Beuys, Die Wärmezeitmaschine

JANUARY 23 - 26, 2025

FORT MASON CENTER fogfair.com

January 22, 2025 Preview Gala Benefiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

PIER 3

AGO Projects, Mexico City

Altman Siegel, San Francisco

Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

Anthony Meier, Mill Valley

Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco

Casemore Gallery, San Francisco

Crown Point Press, San Francisco

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

David Zwirner, Los Angeles

Fergus McCa rey, New York

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

Galerie Maria Wettergren, Paris

Gallery FUMI, London

FOG FOCUS

PIER 2

Charles Mo ett Gallery, New York

Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles

Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles

Crèvecœur, Paris

Fernberger, Los Angeles

François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

House of Seiko, San Francisco

Johansson Projects, Oakland

Jonathan Carver Moore, San Francisco

Municipal Bonds, San Francisco OCHI, Los Angeles

Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco

Superhouse, New York

Gallery Japonesque, San Francisco

Gladstone, New York

Haines, San Francisco

Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles

Herald St, London

Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Hostler Burrows, New York

Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco

Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

KARMA, West Hollywood

Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong

kurimanzutto, New York

LEBRETON, Monte Carlo

Lehmann Maupin, New York

Lisson Gallery, London

LUHRING AUGUSTINE, New York

Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills /

Gió Marconi Gallery, Milan

Marian Goodman Gallery, NewYork

Mendes Wood DM, New York

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York

Micki Meng, San Francisco

Night Gallery, Los Angeles

Nino Mier Gallery, New York

Peter Blum Gallery, New York

pt.2 Gallery, Oakland

Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London

SIDE GALLERY, Barcelona

Southern Guild, Los Angeles

Talwar Gallery, New York

Tina Kim Gallery, New York

Venus Over Manhattan, New York

A FIELD GUIDE TO DATING IN THE ART WORLD

BY ELLA MARTIN-GACHOT

DATING AT WORK IS FROWNED UPON. BUT IN THE ART WORLD, WHERE WORK AND LIFE ARE SO OFTEN INTERTWINED, THE TEMPTATION CAN BE STRONG. HERE, INDUSTRY VETERANS AND NEWCOMERS ALIKE SHARE THEIR RULES OF THUMB FOR DATING AND BREAKING UP IN THE INDUSTRY.

Nicole Eisenman, Sloppy Bar Room Kiss, 2011. Photography by Robert Wedemeyer, and courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth © Nicole Eisenman

FINDING LOVE MAY SEEM ANTITHETICAL TO NAVIGATING THE INS AND OUTS OF A FAST-PACED, FLAKEY, AND OFTEN FINANCIALLY DRIVEN ART WORLD. BUT SOME OF US LIKE A CHALLENGE, AND THE INDUSTRY’S ROMANTIC INHOSPITALITY MAY BE THE VERY THING THAT MAKES DATING WITHIN IT SO HARD TO RESIST. SOME ART-WORLD COUPLES HAVE WITHSTOOD THE TEST OF TIME (CARROLL AND LAURIE, ANYONE?); OTHERS HAVE SPIKED MANY AN ART PUBLICATION’S WEB TRAFFIC WITH THEIR TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS. BUT WE’RE NOT HERE TO JUDGE—AFTER ALL, THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A GOOD RUMOR, AN AWKWARD OPENING RUN-IN, OR A MEET-CUTE ON THE FAIR FLOOR.

TO FIND OUT HOW THE ART WORLD DATES, CULTURED ASKED DOZENS OF ITS DENIZENS FOR THE ROMANTIC RULES THEY LIVE BY—FROM BLANKING YOUR PARTNER AT THEIR OPENING TO THE RATIONALE FOR SLEEPING WITH THEIR GALLERIST.

WHOEVER SAID ROMANCE WAS DEAD?

If you like attention and love gossip (especially when it is about you), then you should go out with a really famous artist. Friends, enemies, and strangers alike will count the days until your relationship goes up in flames, and you will come out the other side with a couple of trinkets, a battered sense of self, and 100 new jokes!

ANA SOKOLOFF

HADI FALAPISHI ARTIST

DON’T GO TO THE STUDIO ON VALENTINE’S DAY.

BENJAMIN GODSILL ART

Never ever date in the art world. If it ends poorly you are going to end up running into your ex at openings, dinners, airport lounges, Swiss train stations, and the like for the rest of your days. Do you really want to have to air-kiss and make small talk with someone who did you dirty for the next 20-plus years?

Only date in the art world. Who else is going to understand why you need to take a call from “an important client” at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve; why you need to fly halfway across the world for a week to have lavish dinners with the same people you see all the time in London, New York, and Hong Kong; and why the painting you purchased for $20,000 from “the next big thing” is still on your wall 10 years later and worth less than the price of your Chinese takeaway order?

SARAH HOOVER

CULTURAL CRITIC AND CONSULTANT

At your partner’s art opening, pretend you don’t know him, get drunk with your friends, and wear something that shows your boobs—or whatever your version of that is. His opening is work for him, and what would be more annoying than having someone show up at your work and try to do it with you? (That being said, he needs to stay hydrated and will probably forget, so you should bring over water every now and then.)

CASEY FREMONT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE ART PRODUCTION FUND

A broad warning that the art world is very small. Trust me—your dating past and poor decisions will haunt you at every art fair you attend, so choose wisely! With that said, do have a frivolous makeout session on the beach with an artist if the opportunity presents itself. It will be a good story for years to come.

EBONY L. HAYNES

SENIOR DIRECTOR OF 52 WALKER

QUORI THEODOR

ARTIST

Love is itself a creative act. Fucking your collaborators is one thing, sure, but extending that curiosity is essential to keeping an art practice alive. It makes the experience of dating more integrated—and much more interesting.

JERRY SALTZ CRITIC

I would ask in a straight relationship that women understand one thing: Men often have fuck-nothing on their minds. We like to sit on the couch thinking about sex, our work, or abstract things like “I wonder if there will ever be time travel,” and we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about traffic. Allow for this.

OSCAR YI HOU ARTIST

STRAIGHTS CONSUMMATE AFTER THE OPENING. GAYS FUCK BEFOREHAND. LESBIANS DO A SECRET THIRD THING

(BACKGAMMON).

JACKSUN BEIN

ARTIST, WRITER, AND GALLERY ASSISTANT

Have sex with your partner’s gallerist. It would be “unprofessional” for them to, so it’s your responsibility. Then, pillow-talk about the gallerist’s genitals.

SARAH

THORNTON

SOCIOLOGIST AND AUTHOR

MAKE SURE TO HAVE A HOTEL ROOM NEAR THE FAIR.

DOMINIQUE CLAYTON WRITER AND CURATOR

There are only three types of art couples: those who hate each other but look good in pictures, those who love each other and hide from the public, and those who do whatever they want, whenever they want, without any regard for what anyone thinks. Decide early on which you want to be and make sure your partner is on board, or else one of you will always be pissed off.

LEE MARY MANNING

DEVELOP A SILENT CODE FOR WHEN TO BE SAVED OR WHEN TO EXIT THE OPENING.

JENNIFER ROCHLIN

ARTIST

Painters: Steer clear of them because they are already in a relationship with their paintings. Sculptors: excellent at assembling IKEA furniture. Video artists: Grab ’em if you can find them but be prepared to be in their work for life. Fiber artists: good for winter. Art handlers: good with their hands ;)

UNLESS YOU CRAVE PSYCHOSIS, PAINTERS SHOULD NEVER DATE POETS.

ANYONE WHO CAN GET YOU INTO THE GUGGENHEIM FOR FREE IS A KEEPER, ANYONE WHO CAN GET YOU INTO THE MET FOR FREE IS EVERYWHERE, AND ANYONE WHO CAN GET YOU INTO THE WHITNEY FOR FREE IS A LIAR.

JACKSUN BEIN, ARTIST, WRITER, AND GALLERY ASSISTANT

LAURA RAICOVICH

WRITER, CURATOR, CO-OWNER OF FRANCIS KITE CLUB, AND FORMER PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE QUEENS MUSEUM

Don’t expect the bubbly person you met at an opening to actually like going to openings, parties, or anything social. They are just as likely to be an introvert who would rather be at home.

THE

ART

DADDY

OF THE @THEARTDADDY_ INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT AND SUBSTACK

ESSENCE HARDEN

CURATOR AND WRITER

Museums are great dates for curators. However, be prepared for a 10-hour marathon of cross-town visits where the details of every exhibition—tombstones, layout, research, installation, and, of course, the art—are deeply contemplated. It’s fun! But your body will ache afterward.

DOMENICK AMMIRATI

WRITER AND EDITOR

Despite our field’s global pretensions, do not date long-distance or else your soon-to-be ex will start sleeping with some MassArt grad living in Allston whose “project” is dressing in handmade monochrome outfits.

MARTINE GUTIERREZ ARTIST

IF YOU’RE NOT A FAN OF EACH

OTHER’S WORK,

MASSIMILIANO GIONI

CURATOR AND EDLIS NEESON ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AT THE NEW MUSEUM

Very early on in my career I decided not to date artists, and it’s one principle I truly stuck to. I could say it was to avoid conflicts of interest or head and heart aches, but another way to put it is that

LIKE A SHRINK OR A DOCTOR, I WOULD NEVER LIKE TO BRING MY PATIENTS HOME.

I thought it would be healthier not to date within my own field, but then I met Cecilia [Alemani, director and chief curator of High Line Art] and the overlap actually turned out to be pretty special. Not sure if it makes for a better work-life balance, but so far so (very) good.

EMMA KOHLMANN ARTIST

We all like an artsy outfit, but you don’t always have to come dressed like art on view. Dress like yourself—that will grab someone’s attention.”

Studio time is sacred. Make sure the person you’re

JOAN SNYDER’S SECOND COMING

SIX DECADES INTO HER POLYCHROMATIC CAREER, JOAN SNYDER IS MORE SOUGHT-AFTER THAN EVER. HER FIRST SHOW WITH THADDAEUS ROPAC BRINGS HER HOMESPUN MAXIMALISM TO LONDON THIS WINTER— PROVING SHE’S NOWHERE CLOSE TO SLOWING DOWN.

By Ella Martin-Gachot

Joan Snyder is a morning person. Whether she’s in Brooklyn or Woodstock, the 84-year-old artist wakes up at 5 a.m.—“if not earlier”—on any given day. She makes tea, eats breakfast, hangs out with her partner Maggie, a retired judge, and does the crossword puzzle. Then she heads to the studio. Sitting in her Upstate atelier, Snyder admits hers is a hermetic life. “The pandemic was perfect for me,” she adds with a laugh. “I didn’t have to go anywhere or see anyone. I could just paint every day with absolutely no interruptions.”

Art has been a solace for six decades. Before her Whitney Biennial inclusions, before her Guggenheim Fellowship, before selling out solo shows, Snyder was an anxious sociology student at Douglass College. Then she discovered painting. “It was literally like speaking for the first time,” she recalls. “I could say what I wanted to say.” The studio and the canvas are still a refuge: “This is [where] I feel best. I love making paintings—I love it more than doing almost anything [else].”

There is one occasion for which Snyder will readily leave her ivory tower: music. She’s been a fan of Philip Glass’s forever. (“He was our plumber in the ’70s,” she deadpans, recalling the scantily equipped Mulberry Street loft she shared with her ex, the late photographer Larry Fink. “[Philip] was working with his family’s business while he was making Einstein on the Beach.”) She spent the year of 1992 listening to Mozart’s Great Mass while grieving her mother. And she makes regular pilgrimages to Woodstock’s Maverick Concert Hall for classical performances. It’s there, in “our Tanglewood,” that many of Snyder’s paintings begin. “Listening to live music inspires me more than going to a museum,” she says.

Every Joan Snyder work is a palimpsest of sorts. At concerts, sketchbook in hand, the artist

translates what she hears onto the page. The painter then returns to her concert sketches intermittently, annotating them with a new idea or motif each time. It can take years for one to make its way into a painting, and the finished product is rarely a mirror of the initial gesture. Snyder primes and stains her canvases before pasting a farrago of other materials: Paper towels, bits of fabric, twigs, dried flowers, and papier-mâché can all form the base for the alternatingly abstract and figurative shapes that populate her paintings. To this density, swaths of high-octane hues are added (she sees colors like notes of music). Often, words follow —a reflection of her stream of thoughts as she paints. When I point to one work, on which the letters “OMG” are scribbled, and ask where they came from, she says, “I just thought, Oh my god, because it was kind of a crazy painting.”

Over the years, the art world has closely followed Snyder’s evolution from the abstract “stroke” paintings that made her name in the early ’70s to her embrace of maximalism and upending of the landscape genre in the decades since. Her work is in the collection of every major American museum and has been the subject of over 60 solo exhibitions. This winter, European audiences will get a formal introduction to her practice, with her first show with Thaddaeus Ropac on view in London through February 2025. Most of the included pieces are leaving Snyder’s archive for the first time. “We borrowed maybe three paintings altogether,” she explains. “The rest are from my collection.” After months of working on the newest canvases in the show, the artist decided to make another “crazy painting.” Beholding it in her studio, before it too shipped across the ocean, Snyder was happy to have leaned into its excess. “It’s overdone, but to me it’s just perfect,” she confesses, before continuing, “No one is more surprised than I am that I’m still making these paintings. I mean who does that?”

Joan Snyder in the studio with <Love’s

Joan Snyder with The Stripper, 1973.

Photography courtesy of the artist

Photos comprised of stills from past Film Independent Spirit Awards events.

The Brutalist landmarks that dotted Ivana Berendika’s childhood in the former Yugoslavia inspired her appreciation for sculpture. Today, the collector’s Baker’s Bay home provides a backdrop for her creative passions.

From Brutalism

to the Bahamas

When Ivana Berendika made her first visit to a museum—to see an exhibition of World War II ephemera—she was confronted with artifacts that felt all too familiar for a child growing up in what was then Yugoslavia: bombs, guns, and tanks. “There was no space for art in that envi-

BY SOPHIE LEE

by JEREMY LIEBMAN

ronment; that was our reality,” she remembers. The Serbian jewelry designer and collector’s current surroundings are a far cry from those beginnings. After leaving the region at 18 and settling in Miami, Berendika now resides in New

York, Montana, and the Bahamas. Her home in Baker’s Bay, where she spends part of the year, is airy, verdant, and full of works from a formidable collection that includes a coterie of female artists like Jenny Holzer, Kelly Akashi, and Lauren Halsey. “One positive thing we had in Yugoslavia

Photography

Ivana Berendika at home in Baker’s Bay. Hanging sculpture: Anina Major, Majestic Harmony, 2020. On wall: Eliza Douglas, Untitled, 2022. Lef Page: Spun chairs by Thomas Heatherwick.

“EVERYTHING WE OWN IN LIFE IS JUST BORROWED. IT COULD ALL BE GONE TOMORROW, SO I TRY TO ENJOY IT WHILE I HAVE IT.”

Gabriel Rico, VII – Mural, from the series – Reducción objetiva orquestada (2016–2021), 2021.

Table by Yves Klein and brass stool by the Haas Brothers.

were these amazing Brutalist monuments,” she recalls. “Subconsciously, I think they developed my love for sculpture, which has always been my favorite medium.”

These days, Berendika divides her time between her roles as an arts patron, independent designer, and parent. Though so much has changed along the way, Berendika maintains a worldview shaped by her earliest experiences. “Everything we own in life is just borrowed,” she muses. “It could all be gone tomorrow, so I try to enjoy it while I have it.”

Here, the creative lets CULTURED into her Baker’s Bay home for a tour of the pieces currently driving that exuberance.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE WORK IN THE HOUSE? My favorite piece of art in this house is by the artist Gabriel Rico. I purchased it without really having a good wall for it, so it sat in storage

for the next couple of years until I called Gabriel and begged him to reconfigure it. He was very sweet and divided the work onto two walls even though it was never intended to be shown that way.

WHICH WORK IN YOUR HOME PROVOKES THE MOST CONVERSATION FROM VISITORS? The Jesus sculpture by Elizabeth Englander has sparked numerous conversations. Elizabeth created this sculpture during her residency in a Spanish nunnery, where she stumbled upon old swimsuits worn by the nuns and used them to craft this body of work.

WHICH ARTIST ARE YOU CURRENTLY MOST EXCITED ABOUT AND WHY? When it comes to the artists I’m interested in adding to the collection, it’s Maja Ruznic, whose last show at Karma blew me away, and Ambera Wellmann, whom I consider to be one of the best painters of her generation.

“ONE POSITIVE THING WE HAD IN YUGOSLAVIA WERE THESE AMAZING BRUTALIST MONUMENTS. SUBCONSCIOUSLY, I THINK THEY DEVELOPED MY LOVE FOR SCULPTURE, WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY FAVORITE MEDIUM.”

On back wall: Elizabeth Englander, Bikini Crucifixion no. 8, 2020.

Chair by the Campana Brothers.

Painting on wall by Ann Craven and painting on desk is family heirloom from Yugoslavia.

NEW YORK, YORK, I LOVE YOU

PHOTOGRAPHER DEON HINTON CAPTURES A CROSS-SECTION OF YOUNG CREATIVES LEAVING THEIR MARK ON THE SHAPE-SHIFTING METROPOLIS.

“New York, I love you, but you’re bringing me down.” With those 10 words, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy captured both the agonizing contradiction and perpetual allure of the five boroughs. Perhaps no city in the world means more to more people, but New York carries that gravitas with a shrug. Like any chimera, the metropolis eludes definition and defies the constraints of reality. Making a life, and a living, in such a nervejangling, shape-shifting locus is a challenge— one that millions of people take up daily with devotion, gritted teeth, and no small dose of delusional optimism. In the following pages, CULTURED convened a cross-section of individuals who embody the chaos, charisma, and creativity at the heart of New York—16 people quite literally shaping the spirit of the city. Some were born and raised here, others just recently started calling it home. You’ll stumble upon some of them in skate parks and art galleries, others behind DJ booths or phone screens. Maybe you follow their movements on Instagram, or you’ve overheard their name at a party—maybe you’re meeting them for the first time here. One thing is certain: They love their city. ELLA MARTIN-GACHOT

Top, left to right: Mackenzie Thomas, Isa Spector, Memphy, Miss Dylan, Raque Ford, and Meetka Otto.

Bottom, left to right: Monica Mirabile, Skype Williams, Sara Blazej, May Hong, Efron Danzig, Yannis Mastoros, and Coco Gordon Moore.

WHAT’S ONE LESSON YOU MUST LEARN TO LIVE IN THIS CITY?

“Groceries are so expensive that you might as well go out to dinner.”

— COCO GORDON MOORE, model and poet

“The Big Apple bites back!”

DANIEL

KAPP, gallerist

“You have to die several times in New York in order to live here.”

SARA BLAZEJ, gallerist

“You have to leave twice a year.”

SKYPE WILLIAMS, artist, DJ, and director at Bridget Donahue

“Spatial awareness.”

MONICA MIRABILE, artist, choreographer, and movement director

WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE NEW YORKER OF

ALL TIME?

“That dude that stands on the street near NYU with no shirt on and his dog by his side staring directly at the sun with a smile on his face. He knows something the rest of us don’t.”

AARON LEVINE, designer

“My server or bartender at any given restaurant on any given day.”

MISS DYLAN, casting director

“Elaine Benes.”

MAY HONG, artist and actor

Left to right: Hong, Sam Kapp, Dylan, Memphy, Spector, Williams, and Mastoros

WHAT

MAKES SOMEONE A REAL NEW YORKER?

“An innate ability to hustle and adapt to any situation you’re thrown into. Also living here for more than 10 years, obviously.”

—MEMPHY, DJ and model

“Depression.”

SAM KAPP, gallerist

“Knowing which subway exit to take strategically.”

DANIEL KAPP, gallerist

Left to right: Otto, Sam and Daniel Kapp, Aaron Levine, and Spector.

WILDEST SUBWAY MOMENT?

“A man tried to stab me on the G. It was the same day ‘Rush’ by Troye Sivan came out.”

MACKENZIE THOMAS, writer and artist

“I saw Keanu Reeves on the subway on my birthday.”

RAQUE FORD, artist

“When I was 14 I pissed between the train cars and got a little electrocuted.”

SKYPE WILLIAMS, artist, DJ, and director at Bridget Donahue

THE ITEM YOU PURCHASE MOST OFTEN IN NEW YORK?

“It’s a tie between bus tickets or cigarettes.”

MEETKA OTTO, musician and writer

“Water or cigarettes.”

EFRON DANZIG, model and skateboarder

“Clout when I need it.”

ISA SPECTOR, choreographer

Left to right: Mastoros, Levine, Sam, Williams, Danzig, Ford, Mirabile, Daniel, Blazej, Dylan, Memphy, Spector, Hong, Otto, Thomas, and Gordon Moore.

Levine and Hong.

THE MAKING OF A MEMORY MACHINE

By Mara Veitch

Jaeger-LeCoultre tapped French perfumer Nicolas Bonneville to create three custom fragrances that embody the Swiss watchmaker’s legacy.

Of the many ingredients in a master perfumer’s repertoire, few represent the craft better than orris. One of perfumery’s most luxurious ingredients, the substance is prized for its powdery, floral scent and laborious provenance: extracted from the pulverized bulbs of the iris flower, dried at 40 degrees Celsius over two years, then crushed into a fine powder and distilled by hand. The product of carefully orchestrated transmutation—one ton of iris bulbs produces about two kilograms of essential oil—orris is an exercise in patience.

“There is a specific link between matter and time,” observes Nicolas Bonneville of the craft of perfumery. “You cannot rush it. The process reveals the scent.” That reverence for time is a driving force behind the French perfumer’s work. Bonneville fell in love with the discipline as a teenager during a family holiday in Grasse, which he describes as “the cradle of perfumery in France.” After studying under masters including Jacques Maurel and Francis Kurkdjian, Bonneville ventured out on his own to create fragrances for brands such as Givenchy, Jo Malone, and Dries Van Noten. The perfumer’s love for sourcing and combining rare ingredients earned him an award in the Niche category from the Fragrance Foundation of France this year.

It’s also what brought him to the attention of

Jaeger-LeCoultre. This fall, the Swiss watchmaker tapped Bonneville to be the next face of its Made of Makers program. Launched in 2022, the initiative was born of what Matthieu Le Voyer, the maison’s Chief Marketing Officer, describes as a “desire to extend the dialogue between horology and art.”

Past collaborators have included not only visual artists and performers, but also a mixologist and a pastry chef. Each expert created something different inspired by the watchmaker’s reputation for precision and obsession with craft. But while previous partners developed works in response to the maison’s ethos—an original musical composition rooted in the Golden Ratio, for example, or a cocktail inspired by astronomical timekeeping —Bonneville may be the first to help define it.

“We probably gave Nicolas the hardest challenge we have ever given to one of these makers,” muses Le Voyer. “We asked him to create the olfactory identity of Jaeger-LeCoultre.”

The synergy between Jaeger-LeCoultre’s craftsmanship and Bonneville’s nose is evident: “Watchmakers are looking for accuracy—they want to be as close as possible to time,” says Bonneville. “I want honesty—to be as close as possible to my raw materials.”

After immersing himself in the brand’s ethos and history, Bonneville produced three distinct fragrances: Timeless Stories, Celestial Odyssey, and Precision Pioneer. Timeless Stories pays homage to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s iconic Reverso watch, a timepiece designed to withstand the tumult of a polo match. It opens with fresh violet leaves (evoking fresh-cut grass) before settling into deeper notes of orris and leather (stables and saddles). Celestial Odyssey—a warm, spicy fragrance threaded with patchouli, ambergris accords, and vanilla—conjures the astrological origins of timekeeping. Finally, Precision Pioneer encapsulates the nearly 200-year-old brand’s tireless pursuit of perfection by interweaving ancient essences of oud (an earthy scent derived from the heartwood of the Aquilaria tree after a years-long infection by a rare fungus) and cedar with cutting-edge “vibrant wood” accords to create something entirely novel.

“I WANT HONESTY— TO BE AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO MY RAW MATERIALS.”

—NICOLAS BONNEVILLE

DESIGN. DEFINE.

Lucifer Lighting has been illuminating culture for decades—lighting everything from history museums to Cartier’s glass vitrines. But for the family of collectors behind the brand, the best part of their work is the chance to celebrate fine art.

BY LEE CARTER

People typically don’t think about the lighting arrangement overhead when perusing the shiny baubles at Cartier, or communing with culture

at SFMOMA or the Shed in New York. The Mathews family of Lucifer Lighting would like to keep it that way.

“We have this expression: ‘Design. Define. Disappear,’” explains Gilbert Mathews, Lucifer’s founder and CEO, in the company’s impeccably shadowless Tribeca showroom. “The design element relates to the minimalism of the fixtures, in which advanced optics can shape light to perfectly define any object while disappearing into the ceiling, so all you see is the brilliance of the space.”

The San Antonio, Texas–based family—Gilbert; his art-specialist wife, Suzanne; and their daughters Alexandra and Roselyn, who both rank highly in the company—has cultivated an eclectic portfolio of clients over four decades in business. Projects range from the National History Museum in London to the Dior flagship in SoHo

“THINK ABOUT ROTHKO. THERE ARE SO MANY LAYERS IN HIS PAINTINGS. WHEN LIGHT SHINES ON THEM PROPERLY, YOU CAN SEE THE DEPTH, TEXTURE, AND DRAMA.”

—ROSELYN MATHEWS

(while we speak, Roselyn pulls out her phone to share a photo of designer Peter Marino, clad in his signature black leather uniform, admiring a Lucifer-dotted ceiling). But it’s in the illumination of fine art that Lucifer—which means

Jammie Holmes, Black Horse, 2023, installed at Lucifer Lighting’s Tribeca showroom in partnership with Marianne Boesky Gallery.

Photography by Casey Kelbaugh

THEN DISAPPEAR.

“bearer of light” in Latin—truly dazzles. “Think about Rothko,” muses Roselyn. “There are so many layers in his paintings. When light shines on them properly, you can see the depth, texture, and drama.” Roselyn once worked at Phillips auction house on its evening sales, where the most important lots go under the hammer. “One season,” she recalls, “we were selling Ai Weiwei’s 12 Zodiac Heads. They’re gold-plated bronze and extremely reflective, but the light was hitting them poorly and bouncing in everyone’s eyes. I brought in a lighting designer who’s a close family friend. Now Phillips uses him to light the art in all of their sales.”

Unsurprisingly, the Mathewses are art collectors. Gilbert and Suzanne, a former gallerist, have formed a deeply personal collection reflecting their interest in books, design, and fine art, which not only fills their homes, but Lucifer’s

“MY FATHER WAS CLOSE FRIENDS WITH ALDO GUCCI. IT’S INTERESTING HOW THINGS COME FULLCIRCLE. NOW, WE’RE LIGHTING GUCCI STORES.”

—GILBERT MATHEWS

San Antonio campus as well. Contemporary pieces are the crown jewels of the brand’s showrooms in San Francisco and Tribeca, where large-scale paintings by emerging Dallas-based artist Jammie Holmes currently hang as part of a loan organized by Marianne Boesky Gallery. “He

has the most incredible story,” says Suzanne. “He was an oil field worker until he picked up painting. He’s completely self-taught, but his brush is magical.”

The family’s passion for fastidious presentation can be traced back to Frost Bros., a luxury retail chain headquartered in San Antonio, under the direction of Irving Mathews, Gilbert’s father.

Before closing its doors in the late 1980s, Frost Bros. was the pinnacle of high-end shopping and personal service, the sort of place where European designers, ascendant in the postwar years, could mingle with wealthy Texas ranchers and oil tycoons. “My father was close friends with Aldo Gucci,” says Gilbert, noting that Frost Bros. once owned a Gucci boutique in Boston. “It’s interesting how things come full-circle. Now, we’re lighting Gucci stores.”

ARTISTS ARTISTS ON

VENUS WILLIAMS × TITUS KAPHAR

MALCOLM WASHINGTON × NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY

AMY SHERALD × JON BATISTE

VENUS WILLIAMS AND TITUS KAPHAR RECTIFY A MISSED CONNECTION

at THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART Creative Direction by MARCOS

For much of her life, Venus Williams was too busy winning tennis matches around the world to make time for museums. In recent years, however, the legendary multi-hyphenate has channeled her attention toward more creative pursuits—her interior design firm and prolific collecting practice among them—and has found more time to wander the world’s finest institutions. After a recent jaunt through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Venus Williams sits down with Titus Kaphar for a revealing conversation about their ever-expanding practices.

Photography by JUSTIN FRENCH

Styling by GEORGIA MEDLEY

Photographed

FECCHINO

Venus Williams wears a top and skirt by Thom Browne.

In the fall of 2009, Titus Kaphar recalls pacing the floor of his Los Angeles gallery anxiously awaiting Venus Williams’s arrival. It was his first solo exhibition in the city, and the team at Roberts & Tilton (now Roberts Projects) told him that the tennis star had recently spotted one of his paintings. “I kept thinking, She might come in today, she might come in tomorrow,” he recalls.

In addition to being a seven-time Grand Slam champion and film producer, Williams has collected art—sans advisor—since she was in her late 20s, championing artists like Simone Leigh and Adam Pendleton, and even guiding her sister Serena on her own acquisitions. Over the last two decades, she’s also channeled her creative energies into a design practice, V Starr, and penned two books. Her second, Strive: 8 Steps to Find Your Awesome, takes her exceptional career as a blueprint for optimizing her readers’ lives. Since Kaphar broke onto the scene in the late aughts, the artist has gone on to win a MacArthur “genius” grant, co-found the New Haven nonprofit NXTHVN, and gain international acclaim for paintings that reimagine the representation and erasure of Black figures in history. He began testing the waters of filmmaking in 2016 with a number of shorts and released his first feature-length film, Exhibiting Forgiveness, this year. Its exploration of a father-son relationship is not unlike 2021’s Oscar-winning King Richard , produced by the Williams sisters and highlighting their father’s contributions to their record-breaking careers.

Williams never made it to Kaphar’s show back in 2009, but 15 years after their missed connection, CULTURED brought the pair together for a long-awaited conversation about how each of them found their stride—and what it takes to maintain it.

Titus Kaphar: This is a really good time for us to be talking. You have done a lot outside of tennis, but a lot of people still know you for tennis. I’ve just made my first feature film, and people are like, “So, tell me about what it’s like to be a first-time filmmaker.” My path has not been typical, and I wouldn’t want somebody to think that this is how it works. You had this whole other life, but a lot of people still know you for tennis.

Venus Williams: They’re like, “Hey. It’s cool to see you, but you can’t possibly be able to do something else.” People can put you in a box. It’s so important to come at them with authenticity, really actually know what you’re doing, be passionate about it, and just keep hauling away.

Kaphar: The prior career just gets you in the room. Once you’re there, you still gotta do the work. Have you always been in that creative space? Obviously, tennis is a very creative sport.

Williams: Yeah, I’m glad you said that, because so many sports are quite creative. Tennis is like a chess match. You’re constantly trying to set yourself up and create angles and moments and strategies. That’s what makes it fun. Off the court, I’ve always been drawn to artistic things.

“I’m fascinated by the way that work made hundreds of years ago can still impact us. What the hell did Caravaggio know about me or my life experience?”

—Titus Kaphar

Kaphar: Did you go to museums a lot when you were young?

Williams: I didn’t go to many museums. I always called myself the worst tourist. We had this joke, too: If you became a tennis tourist, that was the worst thing that could happen, because it meant you had lost. You had time to go see stuff. You want to know nothing at all; you want to play the match and say proudly, “I never even saw the city.”

Kaphar: Sometimes the big museums are just so big, it feels really overwhelming. You can go to a smaller museum, and it’s just a few people in that space. That’s one of the things that I love about the Yale University Art Gallery. You can disappear in front of a painting or a photograph for as long as you want. Whenever I go, I always have my sketchbook with me.

I’m fascinated by the way work made hundreds of years ago can still impact us. What the hell did Caravaggio know about me or my life experience? I don’t know, but when I’m standing in front of one of those paintings, it drops me, man. It just knocks me to the ground. There’s something that’s transferable, that is hard for us to put into words. But it’s there, and you feel it when you’re in one of these museums, in front of these great pieces.

Williams: I’d love to hear more about your film, because you get to explore your relationship with your father and so many things.

Kaphar: This whole project started as writing before it was anything else. I was writing for the purpose of trying to help my sons understand a little bit more about how different my life is from theirs and why their father is the particular kind of crazy that their father is. Not that I am anywhere close to this, but it was more in line with [James] Baldwin writing these letters to his nephew. Initially, I was just trying to figure some stuff out, and I knew that forgiveness was going to be a fundamental part of this narrative. Some of the bitterness I harbored as a young man towards my father, I wanted to make sure that I was not passing that on to the next generation. It’s been a challenging experience. You did a

whole project on you and your sister’s relationship with tennis and your parents.

Williams: It’s so interesting because the film is about a 10-year-old me. I’m this whole other person, but I’m also still that person, you know? I could see the excitement that I had as a 10-year-old. I wanted to play this junior tournament so bad, and my dad wouldn’t let me play until I beat him. Then I beat him, and I still didn’t get to play until a year and a half later. Even Serena, he wouldn’t let her play, so she entered herself in a tournament. I got to relive those moments of pure joy, of not knowing anything except how to play a pure game. My parents didn’t even teach us to understand draws, because they didn’t want us looking at the draw. They wanted us to play tennis and not worry who you might play. Can you talk about how you found your artistic process? How did you perfect your technique?

Kaphar: When I got to undergrad, frankly, I ended up with the wrong teachers. The professor I took my beginning painting class with, he set up a still life in the middle of the class on the first day and said, “Express yourself.” He gave us no instructions. I’m just playing with the paint, trying to figure stuff out. When I asked him, “Man, are you gonna show us how to do this?” he’s like, “I don’t really paint anymore.” It was so weird, taking a class when the dude doesn’t even like to paint anymore. At that point, I just started going anywhere I could where I saw people painted, and kind of just peeking over their shoulder.

There was an art store where this woman taught a portrait painting class, and I couldn’t afford to take the class, so I would stand outside and watch her teach. After a few days of seeing me doing this, she came out and was like, “Hey, what are you doing here?” I was like, “I can’t afford the class, but I’m learning.” She says, “Do you want to model for the class?” The cool thing about that is, I’m sitting onstage while the whole class is drawing me, but I can see her palette. I’m watching her mix colors, and that was an absolutely extraordinary experience. I took a couple of classes in her garage. I could never afford to do it for any extended period of time, but I was piecing it together here and there. Museums, that’s where I learned the most about painting—going into those places, sitting in front of those paintings, and trying to decipher, How did you do that? I would imagine it’s the same thing as an athlete. You study their game. I imagine there’s somebody like that for you.

Williams: That person for me was definitely my dad. He created his way of how he thought tennis should be played. For example, we were not allowed to play defense. It didn’t matter if we got to this shot that normally someone would play a defensive shot on. You couldn’t hurt us. We would just play offense no matter what. He really changed the game, and we were his students in that sense.

Kaphar: You all perfected it. Now people are looking at your game and trying to decipher and take it apart.

Williams: Well, to be honest, I don’t think

“Maybe

they still think it was a fluke, Serena and I. Otherwise they would be copying every single thing.”

—Venus Williams

Venus wears a dress by Area and rings by Van Cleef & Arpels.

“People can put you in a box. It’s so important to come at them with authenticity, really actually know what you’re doing, be passionate about it, and just keep hauling away.”

—Venus Williams

Venus wears a jacket and skirt by Marc Jacobs and vest by Gabriela Hearst.

Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (Studio), 2014.

Venus wears a dress by Tory Burch, shoes by Marc Jacobs, and rings by Van Cleef & Arpels.

HAIR by Ro Morgan

MAKEUP by Karina Milan

NAILS by Mo Qin

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT by Jacob Gottlieb

DIGITAL TECH by Ryan Liu

PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANCE by Jack Belli

STYLING ASSISTANCE by Bridget Knowles

PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE by Abe Friedman and Paloma Baygual Nespatti

people ever took him seriously enough as a coach. Maybe they still think it was a fluke, Serena and I. Otherwise they would be copying every single thing. Lots of things did change, but there are certain concepts that they didn’t understand. Which is fine, because if your opponents aren’t taking that from you, then you’re the only one that has it. What inspired your moments of deconstructing your canvases, and creating space, and embracing positives and voids?

Kaphar: It was not a plan. I’ve always felt like it’s very important for me to be surprised in the studio. If I know exactly what I’m doing, then I can’t go beyond myself. The first time I cut a hole in a painting, I was sitting in the studio. I had worked on this double portrait. It was a man and a woman in the painting. I did all the things right, technically, but something, the energy, was wrong. I was cleaning my palette. I have a razor blade, and I was just shaving the paint off of it and looking at the painting. Without thinking about it, I walked over to the canvas, and I cut the woman out of the painting, and then went back to cleaning my palette. Then I went, Oh my God, what did I just do? I left the studio frustrated, and it wasn’t until I came back the next day that I looked at the painting and I realized what had happened.

The painting was about these two characters who were always in conflict. This woman was subservient to this man, and I had basically reinjured her by repainting that reality. Removing her from that space actually saved her, excised her from the trauma itself. I can talk about it intellectually now, because I see what the result was, but I was not planning that. I wish it was like, Oh, I sat down and strategized. But that’s not what happened.

I want to get into the design stuff. Tell me a little bit about V Starr, the work that y’all do.

Williams: We started out doing residential design. I wanted to do more, so we transitioned to commercial design. We do it all, whether it’s a hospitality project, apartment building complexes, or condominiums, and we’ve done some great projects in affordable housing, too.

Kaphar: I saw the designs online, and it looks dope.

Williams: Well, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the affordable and a lot of the other projects.

Kaphar: Wait, how? How are you doing that hocus-pocus?

Williams: You put just as much love and thought into the design, into the materials. Everyone needs a place that they’re proud of. The definition of “affordable” has changed so much over these years. If you’re a teacher and you’re living in a metropolitan area—let’s just say my area, West Palm Beach—it has become unaffordable. That’s definitely something that I’m focused on, and transitioning from design to development, because I love to design and build worlds. That’s my happy place.

“It’s very important for me to be surprised in the studio. If I know exactly what I’m doing, then I can’t go beyond myself.”

—Titus Kaphar

FOR NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY AND MALCOLM WASHINGTON, ART LIVES IN THE BONES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANA SCRUGGS STYLING BY VON FORD

FOR

CULTURED’S ARTISTS ON ARTISTS SERIES, THE PAINTER AND FILMMAKER MET IN LOS ANGELES TO DISCUSS WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A WORK OF ART THAT STOPS YOU IN YOUR TRACKS.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby begins every piece by identifying her viewer’s place within it. Are they peering at the scene as if through a window? Are they so close to her figures that they’re tempted to sit down beside them?

It’s this ability to conjure intimacy from all angles that makes the Nigerian artist’s collaged paintings so transfixing. Akunyili Crosby, now 41, was just a teenager when she left Lagos for the U.S. After completing an MFA at Yale and a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, she carved out a place for herself in the art world with works that filter the dense matter of geopolitics and diaspora through the prism of the quotidian. By assembling images plucked from Nigerian magazines, newspapers, and her own life, the artist depicts unguarded moments between people—sprawled on the living room floor or slouched at the kitchen table—as the full might of their sociocultural context roars around them.

Crosby’s works became crucial guideposts for Malcolm Washington when he began to envision a career in the director’s seat. His debut

feature, The Piano Lesson, revels in the same delicate encounters between the historical and the intimately personal that Crosby’s work so deftly alchemizes. Adapted from August Wilson’s play of the same name, the film—featuring Washington’s brother John David as the lead and his father Denzel as a producer—tells the story of generations of Black Americans grappling with displacement and connection, through the tender interactions of a single Depression-era family.

Despite their divergent fields, these two artists are connected by a shared hunger to create work infused with an unwavering sense of selfknowledge. It’s also what brought them together in Crosby’s Los Angeles studio this fall for CULTURED’s Artists on Artists series. Here, the pair discuss what it takes to make a work of art that imbues daily life with the echo of history.

Malcolm Washington: Njideka, I first became aware of your work in 2016 when I was living in New York. A good friend of mine was working at the Studio Museum [in Harlem], where you were an artist in residence. She kept bringing

up your name. To sit down with you now and see your growth—and to see your work in the world—has been really, really cool.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby: That’s kind to say. I hadn’t yet seen The Piano Lesson when I was invited to meet with you. Since I wasn’t familiar with your work, I went digging and saw some of the incredible interviews you did around the film’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. I got the feeling that we would get along well, so despite my introverted tendencies, this was an easy “yes” for me. I also found a short film of yours, Everything’s for Sale. Did you direct that yourself?

Washington: Wow, I can’t believe you found that. Two friends and I came together to make it.

Akunyili Crosby: It was beautiful! There were moments where I thought, Oh my god, this scene looks like a LaToya Ruby Frazier photo. Oh, this looks like a Deana Lawson picture. I could see those influences coming through. I love when the concrete details of an artist’s

Malcolm Washington wears a full look by Fendi. Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s full look is artist’s own.

“I’m super privileged to come from two parents who know who they are. It’s a big part of my identity—my blood is of that red dirt in North Carolina.”

—Malcolm Washington

Malcolm wears a jacket and shirt by Burberry, pants by Balenciaga, and shoes by Bottega Veneta.

“When you get together with your siblings or people you grew up with, there’s that magic moment where you all get linked. I came to see that our experiences are interesting enough to explore through art.”

—Njideka Akunyili Crosby

vision anchor me into a previously unfamiliar space. This happens when the artist intimately knows their subject. I felt that with Everything’s for Sale, and I felt it again with The Piano Lesson.

Washington: l love that that feeling carried through for you because it’s really a focus for me. With The Piano Lesson, I’m working within a larger lineage of artists that came before me, and I am super inspired by that. Earnestness isn’t always respected anymore; people don’t want to be seen trying. But with artists like Kahlil Joseph, Noah Davis—I saw myself in their work right away, and it gave me a certain kind of permission to try. Was there anybody that gave you permission to take a swing like that?

Akunyili Crosby: Yinka Shonibare [CBE RA], a Nigerian-British artist, did that for me. My initial experience seeing Yinka’s work was like what you’re describing—there’s an immediate understanding of it; you know the work. It was one of those moments when you remember getting goosebumps and your hair standing on end. His work reached into my soul, as saccharine as that sounds.

Another person I felt that with was Kerry James Marshall. I remember when I encountered one of his paintings for the first time at the Yale University Art Gallery; it just knocked me over. Kerry also made a subtle yet incredibly powerful piece [Heirlooms & Accessories, 2002] that I think about frequently—more often than almost any other artwork.

Washington: Now you’re in a position to try to give other people that feeling within your own work. How do you create that feeling for somebody?

Akunyili Crosby: It feels odd to say, but I don’t know. I can say that the most beautiful moment for me is when I’m next to somebody viewing the work, and they pick up on some reference in it. For example, I recently gave my eldest sister a print. A few weeks ago, she told me that, now that she has had more time than ever to consider one of my works, there’s a part of me she understands better. She said, “I didn’t know art could do this.”

Washington: Your work is dense—there’s a lot in there. It’s political; it’s geographical; it’s about migration, humanity. Yet it’s very personal. I’m curious how you developed your worldview. How did you learn to articulate it in your practice?

Akunyili Crosby: I’ve lived in distinct places and social stations and I try to mine my experiences in my work.

Washington: Are you conscious of that?

Akunyili Crosby: Yes. I have five siblings, and when we get together we laugh about all of the outrageous experiences from our childhoods— missing school because of botched coups, the neighbors stealing the catfish my mom

stocked our pond with, bartering our provisions in boarding school. You probably have these moments too, when you get together with your siblings or people you grew up with, and there’s that magic moment where you all get linked. I came to see that our experiences are unique, and interesting enough to explore and extrapolate from through art. How did it feel when your family watched The Piano Lesson?

Washington: The film is so personal to me. It’s my family’s stories funneled into this ghost story. So when it was finished, my metric for its success was how my family—the crew and actors too—felt about it. So, I did something crazy: I brought all the actors together, and my mom who I dedicated it to, and a bunch of the crew, and we screened it all together for the first time. When they saw themselves and their families on the screen, that was the ultimate barometer. How did you build the courage to turn your eye on yourself, your family, and your identity?

Akunyili Crosby: That happened in graduate school. I was making works about Nigerian politics, but during studio visits, we always ended up talking about my Nigerian fashion magazines—I had a lot of clippings from them on my studio wall. A single image could unravel complex histories. I distinctly remember a visit with [artist] Deborah Kass telling me, “Njideka, I think this should be in your work.” She encouraged me to turn the focus of my practice to the familiar and familial. Are you up for talking about Everything’s for Sale? The way you bring us into the space made everything feel familiar. I love the scene where the little kid comes in and the grandparents are sitting on the couch.

Washington: We shot it in a two-block radius in a really beautiful neighborhood on the west side of Compton. The woman who owned the house you’re describing was called Miss Betty. We met while I was there knocking on doors scouting, and she opened her door. Her home reminded me so much of my grandmother’s house—the tones and colors. We talk about the Great Migration, when these Black neighborhoods were establishing themselves. At that moment, everyone bought the same trinkets, furniture, and things, and those belongings really mark a moment in time.

Akunyili Crosby: I got the same feeling from The Piano Lesson. I felt like I was being led by somebody who knows this place in their bones.

Washington: In my bones!

Akunyili Crosby: That’s the feeling I want my work to offer. That’s what I gravitate towards. Even if you’re not from that space as a viewer, you know it when you see it.

Washington: I’m super privileged to come from two parents who know who they are. They have a strong cultural identity, as strong consciousness. It’s a big part of my identity—my blood is of that red dirt in North Carolina. That’s something I’ve tried to bring to all my work, even in The Piano Lesson. You know, when you close

your eyes, what your grandmother’s house smells like.

Akunyili Crosby: Every once in a while when I’m making work, I find myself thinking, Why do I always obsess about what’s on the table, or what type of table it is, or what’s on the floor? I read this book on contemporary African literature. The author, Brenda Cooper, had this beautiful line about how many African writers will spend a lot of time describing the things in a kitchen, or the objects on a shelf. History is rooted in the specificity of those little, tiny objects. They really carry the portrait of a place.

“The most beautiful moment for me is when I’m next to somebody viewing the work, and they pick up on some reference in it.”

—Njideka Akunyili Crosby

Washington: Do you watch movies? What other art forms outside of visual arts do you engage with?

Akunyili Crosby: Literature has influenced me the most, thanks largely to classes I took in grad school with Hazel Carby and Edwige Tamalet Talbayev. It’s not that film has not influenced me, I just don’t have the same framework to analyze it. One thing I’m very aware of is light. Your lighting was delicious!

Washington: We kept it mostly in the warm tones and coppers, keeping the reds in the skin. There’s so much consideration in each part of your work. Have you found the space to change your mind about stuff? Do you ever start over?

Akunyili Crosby: It can be hard to make changes once I get going. I do a lot of planning before I start a work, but I try to set it up in such a way that there’s also wiggle room. I wanted to ask you about point of view. For me, it’s so important. Do I want the viewer to feel like they’re looking through a window? Do I want them to feel they’re enveloped by what’s happening? I was very aware of that in The Piano Lesson. There were moments where I felt like you held my hand and took me through the house. Or where I felt like I was dancing around the table with everyone.

Washington: Yes! That feeling of being together in the moment was the biggest thing I was after.

Akunyili Crosby: I felt it! I was in there with you.

Malcolm wears a full look by Fendi

“EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE I FIND MYSELF THINKING,

WHY DO I ALWAYS OBSESS ABOUT WHAT’S ON THE TABLE, OR WHAT TYPE OF TABLE IT IS, OR WHAT’S ON THE FLOOR?

HISTORY IS ROOTED IN THE SPECIFICITY OF THOSE LITTLE, TINY OBJECTS. THEY REALLY CARRY THE PORTRAIT OF A PLACE.”

Malcolm wears a jacket and shirt by Burberry.

JON BATISTE AND AMY SHERALD ENTER THEIR FLOW STATES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANA SCRUGGS STYLING FOR AMY SHERALD BY CARLO PRADO STYLING FOR JON BATISTE BY JASON REMBERT

FOR CULTURED’S ARTISTS ON ARTISTS SERIES, THE DUO DISCUSSES THE PECULIARITIES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE PRACTICES.

When they step into their studios, Jon Batiste and Amy Sherald become vessels—channeling any number of inspirations, from Frida Kahlo and Beethoven to their own inner child. “When you’re in that flow state, sometimes you forget how you got to the end result,” says Batiste.

For the musician, this trance-like creative process has resulted in five Grammy awards, including Album of the Year for his 2021 project We Are. He’s also an Academy Award winner, thanks to his work on Pixar’s widely acclaimed Soul. Sherald, for her part, is revered for striking portraits—held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian—in which her subjects, often rendered in grayscale, seem almost to vibrate with self-possession and conviction.

The pair was first introduced by a mutual friend: one of Sherald’s most well-known subjects, to whom she refers simply as “Michelle.” Sherald’s portrait of the former first lady earned her the grand prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery—making her the first woman and first African American to do so—and its presence was partially credited with an annual increase of over 1 million visitors to the museum. This winter brings yet another accolade for the artist, with “American

Sublime,” a mid-career survey and her largest exhibition yet, on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art before it heads to New York and DC next year. Batiste met the Obamas when they executive produced American Symphony, a documentary about the musician’s composition of the same name, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2022. This year marks a return to classical music for Batiste, whose latest album, Beethoven Blues, presents modern renditions of the canonical composer’s time-honored works, and was released just a day before the opening of Sherald’s exhibition.

Both Sherald and Batiste have grown accustomed to the complex privileges of being welcomed into spaces of power—the White House among them. Such experiences spur both artists to challenge notions of how Black art is perceived and how it’s celebrated. But despite their sweeping impacts on contemporary culture, both Sherald and Batiste are careful to protect the delicate filament—that “pure thing”—at the heart of their work. Here, the duo discusses how they keep that spark safe, and the complexities that come with “shaping our perception of history.”

Jon Batiste: Amy, you’re a genius. Genius is one of those things where I know it when I see it, but I don’t always understand it in other mediums. When I see your work, I’m like, “This

is coming from somewhere deeper than just craft, technique, or conception.” There’s a level of divinity to it.

Amy Sherald: I felt the same when I watched you play. You never had to look down. Your eyes were closed, and it was coming from your body, your spirit, your soul.

Batiste: I feel like a vessel. I work hard to then be in the moment like a kid.

Sherald: Yeah, it’s like a trance. When I was younger, I used to have seances and invite Frida Kahlo because that’s who I felt like I was tapping into at the time. Then growing up, we couldn’t watch TV because of the church we attended, so we’d listen to jazz music. There’s this one song on [John] Coltrane’s A Love Supreme called “Pursuance.” When I heard that song, I knew how I wanted my work to be. It’s that psychic energy I try to transport into my portraits—what happens between me, the brush, the painting, and the model.

Batiste: That reciprocal emotional relationship is so deep, even with the audience. Their energy affects what I’m doing onstage. It’s almost like choosing the subject is part of the craft. How do you identify your subjects?

Sherald: It’s intuitive—I just rely on the universe. The ideas come, and I do what I’m told.

“How do you work on your humanity? Because that’s what ultimately makes the work.”

—Jon Batiste

Amy Sherald wears a dress by Gabriela Hearst, earrings by David Yurman, and bracelets and a ring by Van Cleef & Arpels. Jon Batiste wears a suit, shirt, and tie by Saint Laurent; ring by Cartier; and shoes by Christian Louboutin.

Additional jewelry is musician’s own.

Left: Amy Sherald, In the Garden of Herself, 2024.

Right: Amy Sherald, A Bucket Full of Treasures (Papa Gave Me Sunshine to Put in My Pocket), 2020.

Amy wears a jacket and shoes by Balenciaga, a shirt by Comme des Garçons Homme, earrings by David Yurman, a pendant and ring by Van Cleef & Arpels, and necklace by Cartier. Tights are stylist’s own.

Jon wears a suit, shirt, and tie by Saint Laurent; ring by Cartier; and shoes by Christian Louboutin. Additional jewelry is musician’s own.

Jon wears a coat by Givenchy. Amy wears a jacket by Bottega Veneta.

What’s your earliest memory of seeing something that helped you envision your future? For me, it was a painting by an artist from my hometown [in Georgia], who was white but painted himself as a Black man. I’d never seen a painting of a Black person, period. That painting created a world from which I could imagine.

Batiste: That’s what I felt when I first heard music, believe it or not, in video games. I grew up in New Orleans; I was soaking up this incredible cultural inheritance—all the sounds and rhythms of the city. But as a kid who was introverted and shy—not a performer—video games allowed me to go into the world of characters, to role-play. They awakened my creative instinct in a different sense, like, Wow, we can create things, we can mold the environment around us, and that then inspires others to do the same thing in their way. That opened up something that eventually led back to the music that I was soaking up in the classical world.

“I love it when things don’t work; it leaves room for something else that’s going to happen next.”

—Amy Sherald

Sherald: How did that shift for you when you became successful? I’m also an introvert, and there’s a different person that has to exist in the world than the Amy that wakes up at home. How do you protect your energy?

Batiste: It’s that inner child, the pure thing we have within us. That’s the creative instinct. If I can find a way to get back to that, I know that I’m okay. Sometimes that means taking six months off to journey back there. But whatever it takes, as long as I know that I can identify that place within, I know that I can make it manifest. It’s about cultivating a space where, every time you step into this studio or go to the top of this mountain, that sacred creative energy is there. Do you have a place like that?

Sherald: I want to say it’s my studio, but it changes as your career changes. I’m producing a lot more work now, so that feels different. These days, it’s more what I find in nature, and then I carry that feeling back to the studio. When I’m painting, my tentacles are so extended that I can feel too much, and that distracts me from working. I need to feel cocooned to work—like how dogs wear tight vests when they’re scared of thunder—to be in my body and to start the process. That’s hard to do if you’re collaborating with a group of people.

Batiste: It takes acute, direct communication. When you’re in dialogue with yourself, there’s so much shorthand. Translating that to someone else can disrupt it. I’ve learned that I have to have two me’s. I collaborate with a lot of folks, but I’m also trying to take something that nobody sees or hears and make it tangible. How do I transfer the feeling of this sound I want us to co-create together? There are no words

for it—it’s another language. Certain people you have chemistry with, and certain people will never understand the space you need to get into.

Sherald: The people around me have to be aligned. I need “glass half-full” people. The word “impossible” doesn’t exist for me. It’s like, This didn’t work today because something else is going to come that’s going to be even better tomorrow. I love it when things don’t work; it leaves room for something else that’s going to happen next. I live my whole life that way.

Batiste: It’s about living life where even the mundane becomes the muse. There’s a peace in that—it’s like constant meditation or prayer. You’re always seeking.

Sherald: So you and I met for the first time four months ago in Ojai. You were introducing our mutual friend Michelle [Obama].

Batiste: I loved what you did for that official portrait—you’re shaping our perception of history. It’s a lot to manage, being Black—first off, in terms of navigating creative output and representing something so important on many levels. We’re often the first or only ones in the room, and many times there’s no blueprint for that. How did you approach a project like that?

Sherald: I went about it like I do everything else. The formula is what got me here. I’ve learned to trust myself. The most important part of any artist’s practice is intuition: knowing when to listen to yourself and not overstepping yourself. At that point in my career, I thought, I’m just going to move through this like a white man But now I’d say, I’m moving through the world like a Black woman. I didn’t survive a heart transplant for me not to get this. When I left the White House, I was certain that this is mine, and I survived to get this opportunity.

Batiste: That reminds me of when I first played at the White House. I brought my whole family; that was a prerequisite. My grandfather was 92 or 93 at the time, and his perspective on what was happening was incredible. He was in the first wave to integrate the Navy, he participated in the sanitation strikes with Dr. King, he was the hotel workers’ congress president. I’m a part of that lineage, and I got to see that moment through his eyes. To play classical music in my own way, with him in the White House, was really something—and to see that for my nephew, who was 6, some things are commonplace.

Sherald: My niece grew up with Barack [Obama] as president, and to her, having a Black man serve as the president of the United States was no big deal. It changes how they move in the world. We came from a generation where it was more like, We’ve come this far, we don’t want to make any trouble

Batiste: And this generation is like, This is not enough. Where that will go culturally is exciting to watch.

Sherald: Well, they have so many examples.

Maybe if you were playing the piano when I was playing the piano, I would have thought to myself, I can do this. But I didn’t see a connection there the way I found in painting, or in photography. With this new album, you’re painting a portrait of Beethoven and marrying that with a portrait of yourself, which is thrilling to listen to. It’s such a natural transition. How did you decide where to start?

“That’s the purpose of music—not to be locked in amber in a history museum, but to be extended and refined.” —Jon Batiste

Batiste: The starting point was learning the score as if I were a classical pianist. But I’ve always heard it the way I play it now. It’s natural for me, given my lineage and lived experiences. Beethoven composed this music centuries ago, but now there’s so much diasporic genius that has emerged. We haven’t heard recordings of how he would play it now. That’s the purpose of music—not to be locked in amber in a history museum, but to be extended and refined. It’s like we’re in conversation.

Sherald: What’s a typical day like when you’re not working?

Batiste: I try to live a life in the embrace of peace.

Sherald: When I’m out of the studio, I don’t like to think about the studio. If I’m traveling, I may not even want to go into a museum. I want to do something else because it will give me something else.

Batiste: You have to let those downloads pull you back to the craft. How do we get more life? How do we work on the human being part? How do you work on your humanity? Because that’s what ultimately makes the work.

Sherald: Through giving. I’ve been a caregiver for multiple family members, and that always keeps me grounded. At one point, I taught art to inmates in Baltimore City jail. They had never been told to play, ever. Giving them the space to create, to express themselves, was new for them. It created vulnerabilities they weren’t used to. My dogs also keep me grounded. I just heard [the musician] Adele say, “I’m going to retire; you guys aren’t going to see me for a while because I need to go live the life I’ve built.” I feel that way a little bit. I’m not that far along in my career but the spiritual lift of it is a lot. Somewhere, you have to find a balance.

Batiste: After the survey you’re presenting…

Sherald: You might find me on an island somewhere!

Batiste: I’ll be right down there with you.

“It’s about living life where even the mundane becomes the muse. There’s a peace in that.”

—Jon Batiste

“When I’m painting, my tentacles are so extended that I can feel too much, and that distracts me from working.”

—Amy Sherald

Amy wears a dress and shirt by Bottega Veneta; and earrings, necklace, and bracelet by Cartier.

“I didn’t survive a heart transplant for me not to get this. When I left the White House, I was certain that this is mine, and I survived to get this opportunity.”

—Amy Sherald

HAIR BY MYSS MONIQUE FOR AMY SHERALD AND JENNA ROBINSON FOR JON BATISTE. MAKEUP BY LARAMIE WITH DAY ONE FOR SHERALD AND JESSE LINDHOLM FOR BATISTE. PRODUCTION BY DIONNE COCHRANE. STYLING ASSISTANCE BY CECILIA LIZARRAGA FOR SHERALD. STYLING ASSISTANCE BY KYLE NELSON, WILTON WHITE, AND RON JEFFRIES FOR BATISTE.PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE BY BRITTANY THOMPSON.

Jon wears a suit and shirt by Alexander McQueen by Seán McGirr, and shoes by Christian Louboutin Additional jewelry is musician’s own.

BAL HARBOUR SHOPS, 9700 COLLINS AVENUE MIAMI

ANA CLÁUDIA ALMEIDA

HANNAH BEERMAN

DRAKE CARR

PEGGY CHIANG

JUNE CANEDO DE SOUZA

LEYLA FAYE

COVEY GONG

CAMERON A. GRANGER

RAVEN HALFMOON

DAN HERSCHLEIN

MIKA HORIBUCHI

DAVID L. JOHNSON

PAIGE K. B.

LE’ANDRA LESEUR

CHARLES MASON III

ISABELLE FRANCES MCGUIRE

KATE MEISSNER

JEFFREY MERIS

SHALA MILLER

LOUIS OSMOSIS

CATALINA OUYANG

MALCOLM PEACOCK

RYAN PRECIADO

EMIL SANDS

BROOKLIN SOUMAHORO

MICHELLE UCKOTTER

OLIVIA VIGO

KRISTIN WALSH

FAYE WEI WEI

QUALEASHA WOOD

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing lately about how contemporary art has lost its edge. You may have heard that the field is in a state of aimlessness. It’s uninspired. It’s backward-looking.

The 30 artists on CULTURED’s ninth annual Young Artists list offer a powerful rejoinder to this idea. Their work is bursting with idiosyncrasy, curiosity, and gumption—all necessary ingredients for great art.

On the surface, this group has little in common beyond national affiliation (all live or work in the United States), age (all are 35 or under), and vocation. They work in media ranging from robotics to photography to textiles, and draw from sources of inspiration as disparate as video games, family heirlooms, and the New York subway system. They are based up and down the East and West Coast, as well as a few places in between (two of them live in Oklahoma).

Look a little closer, however, and you’ll find some telling convergences. A number of artists on this list

are interested in kindred themes, like the allure and trap of domesticity, the mind-expanding potential of science fiction, and the simplistic and sometimes distorted histories we are taught.

It is also notable that this class of Young Artists is, to some extent, a product of the pandemic. Many of them spent formative years—whether in art school or as freshly hatched professionals—in lockdown. At home in Chicago, Isabelle Frances McGuire taught themself to code and changed the trajectory of their work in the process; in Baltimore, Charles Mason III painted and drew his way through isolation, refining his artistic language along the way.

We have only just begun to consider how this chapter has and will continue to shape the rising generation of artists. But it is fair to say that, after the crucible of the past few years, they have come out the other side alert and even emboldened. Now, the ball is in the art world’s court to make space for them to thrive. —

JULIA HALPERIN

Le’Andrea LeSeur, There is no movement without rhythm, 2021.

CATALINA OUYANG

31 New York

By Travis Diehl

In 2017, Catalina Ouyang made a dire selfportrait in the form of an elongated Capitoline Wolf, lying on its side with two long rows of bulging teats and a human head. Called bitch bench, it served as a seat from which to view two monitors displaying concrete poetry based on a Title IX report: “the section that declares

my rapist is innocent,” the sculptor explains. Ouyang asked poets and artists to “appropriate” and reinterpret that text—nearly one hundred have so far—then recut their responses. “I am the Capitoline Wolf,” they continue, “bearing the weight of the history of men.”

Ouyang, who grew up in the suburbs of Illinois and New Jersey and got their MFA from Yale, often forces counterintuitive junctions—of materials, styles, and perspectives. The personal meets the world-historical; polymer clay abuts wood. “There’s a bit of transgression in the making,” they say. “Or an insistence on putting things together wrong.” But what they describe as an “almost fascist need to dominate a material” is juxtaposed with an “ethos of humility or anti-mastery. I’m always trying to work a little bit beyond my existing skill level or

“THERE’S A BIT OF TRANSGRESSION IN THE MAKING, OR AN INSISTENCE ON PUTTING THINGS TOGETHER WRONG.”

physical limit as a small, weak person.”

Their work can be devotional, if ambiguously so. Their “reliquaries,” a series of carved and encrusted wood figures based on a young girl Balthus used as a model, have small, hinged doors in their thighs or chests that house waxy, pinioned forms. They have no heads, like wooden fragments of icons. “The redaction of the identifying visage has been a strategy of protection,” they explain, “but also a marker of shame.” A suite of wall-mounted sculptures of abstracted fetal puppies, “pronoun of love,” curls away from the viewer but toward silvered or black mirrors. The dog is the wolf, they say, but “bred and raped and bastardized into something that literally can’t breathe or find food for itself.”

Photography by Jacob Holler

ANA CLÁUDIA ALMEIDA

30 New Haven

By Sara Roffino

It wasn’t until adulthood that Ana Cláudia Almeida, who grew up in Rio de Janeiro, realized how close she lived to a national park. “Rio is famous for its nature and beauty, but I lived in an area of the city that had the dirtiest rivers. My relationship with nature was very ambi-

guous,” she tells me from her studio in New Haven, where she will complete her MFA at Yale next spring.

Living in a country revered for its natural beauty while being isolated from it created a sense of duality that is now the focal point of Almeida’s work, which includes painting and installation. Currently, the artist is presenting in a two-person exhibition with her friend Tadáskía at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno. The pair met back in Rio, when Almeida was a member of Trovoa, a collective of artists of color formed in 2017 as a forum to share ideas and provide mutual support. “Community was a big part of my education as an artist,” explains Almeida.

Trovoa not only gave Almeida the chance to better understand her practice, but it also set the stage for her to contextualize her upbringing as the daughter of a pastor in contemporary Brazil. “I started to think about how growing up

in that way affected my relationship with sexuality,” she remembers. She also began to wonder how those same forces are imposed onto nature and the landscape. “It feels like the attempts to control the body are actually a rehearsal for controlling a space,” she adds.

Almeida approaches the material with a fluidity that comes through in broad swaths of color on canvas, which she often liberates from its traditional support structure in the spirit of Sam Gilliam. Her smaller works are dense abstractions that verge, bracingly, on representation without succumbing to it. “I like to work the surface so that you can trace the movement that I made there,” Almeida says. “I want to create this idea of the passage of time.”

Almeida’s deconstructed canvases make her point loud and clear: Lay bare the forces holding things up, and what remains will be just as powerful.

Photography by Bruno Leão

EMIL SANDS

26 New York

By Rachel Corbett

At 26, Emil Sands observes a stricter schedule than many type As twice his age. Each day, he wakes up at 6 a.m. and reads for half an hour before settling in to write until 11:30 a.m. Then, he exercises and eats lunch before heading to his painting studio to work for the second half of the day. At 8 p.m. he goes home, eats dinner, does a crossword puzzle, and falls asleep.

“I’m a very ambitious person,” Sands reasons. He has to be: Scribner has contracted him to write a memoir about his experience growing up with cerebral palsy, and he’s simultaneously finishing a new body of work for an exhibition opening at Kasmin Gallery in January.

Art and writing are, for Sands, intimately connected. As his disability began to define his life—in ways he deeply resented—the artist developed a fascination with bodies, beauty, and the aesthetics of normality. He went on to study classics at Cambridge before earning a master’s degree in ancient art. All of these experiences are interwoven in the book.

“It’s kind of an extension of my personal story,” he says. The memoir explores his interest in “the idea of success and normality being really closely tied together, and a world that I was left out of. Then it’s punctuated with different looks at classical sculpture, the idea of the body beautiful, the idea of masculinity, marbles and muscle, all wrapped up into one.”

Sands, who didn’t formally study art until he moved to the U.S. from the U.K. three years ago on a postgrad fellowship at Yale, is now at work on paintings that consider bodies in space. With these figures, it’s “all about the curves, the way the hand hits your hip, the way that lifts up a bit of skin,” he says, “and what the light does to the shadows and the curves.”

“THESE PAINTINGS ARE ALL ABOUT THE CURVES, THE WAY THE HAND HITS YOUR HIP, THE WAY THAT LIFTS UP A BIT OF SKIN, AND WHAT THE LIGHT DOES TO THE SHADOWS AND THE CURVES.”

Photography by Joseph Robert Krauss

JUNE CANEDO DE SOUZA

35 New York

By Isabel Flower

The work of June Canedo de Souza deals in the evidence of embodied experience, from the routines and rituals that form the scaffoldings of day-to-day domesticity to the cumulative degradation of life that is perpetrated by bureaucracy. Such interrogations—which have occupied the New York–based multidisciplinary

artist’s practice across several decades and mediums (in the 2010s she worked as a professional photographer, and in the 2020s she completed an MFA with a focus on painting)— return again and again to the often-overlooked toils of women, especially what she calls “the performative aspects of domestic labor and care work.” Canedo de Souza’s art, even when dealing in the seemingly mundane, exposes the lasting imprints of the politics of gender, class, and ethnonationalism on our bodies and in our memories.

Dessert Table, 2024, a painting on canvas and cheesecloth that she made this past summer while in residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, conjures the feel of the fabrics, particularly crocheted and imitation lace, that the women in her family “draped over sofas, tables, windows, and walls” to mark celebrations. The suite of new paintings it belongs to, wrought in oil, acrylic, pastel, char-

coal, and clay, scrutinizes the aspirational ostentatiousness of American birthday parties and the elusive promise of assimilation through consumption. Another series from last year, exhibited as her thesis at Bard and titled “All the Ways I Hold My Baby,” processes the intuitive embraces of early postpartum, which the artist works through in paintings like Night Feed, 2023, whose soft motion lines rock back and forth.

It is these gestures, carried through generations and across borders, that she seeks out in materials and on surfaces, asking where embodied experience leaves its trace. But a surface is only the outermost layer. Canedo de Souza’s work seems also to wonder, wistfully, how we might contend with the impossibility of expressing the wholeness of experience, the eternal partialness of memory.

Photography by Daniel Santos

KRISTIN WALSH

35 New York

By Max Lakin

Kristin Walsh’s sculptures exist somewhere between sleek fantasy and a bad trip. They take the shape of industrial apparatuses extruded through a fever dream—gears, engines, carburetors, street lamps—their contours smoothed into clean ambiguity. They often appear turned on their head or installed on the wrong side, as if experiencing a psychic breakdown.

Walsh fabricates everything in her Yonkers studio, which you might be surprised by given their perfect finishes—any trace of the artist’s

“I’VE ALWAYS MADE OBJECTS. I’M LESS INTERESTED IN ART THAN I AM IN THINGS.”

hand is buffed away, aligning each work with the dehumanized reality of modern mass production while also subverting it. Walsh cuts, welds, and polishes her enigmatic sculptures from sheet and tube metal—a grueling, laborintensive process that simultaneously refers to and ignores the entire history of industrialized efficiency—making it both beautiful and dysfunctional. By yanking public infrastructure from its daily context, Walsh is making visible the

barely hidden systems that govern our movements, laying bare the outsize agency we allow gleaming scrap to exert on our lives.

Walsh’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Helena Anrather, Lisson, and other taste-making Manhattan galleries. Her solo debut came this September at Petzel’s Uptown space: a curdled paean to the city’s hostile subway architecture—turnstile gates, defensive grab poles, toxic fume–belching gas engines, and other mechanical nightmares.

A native of Emerald Isle, North Carolina, Walsh isn’t self-taught—but in many ways, her practice is closer to vocational trade than fine art production, more machinist than Modigliani. “I’ve always made objects,” she says. “I’m less interested in art than I am in things.” She spends a lot of time trawling “car guy” forums. “You figure out a way to get there, but maybe it’s not the easiest way. I would love to have a union guy come by the studio one day and show me some tricks.”

Kristin Walsh, “The working end” (Installation View), Petzel, 2024.

Photography by Sebastian Bach, and courtesy of the artist and Petzel

LOUIS OSMOSIS

28 New York

By Travis Diehl

If Louis Osmosis didn’t exist, he would invent himself. As his chosen name implies, the artist, born and raised in New York, seems to absorb our rich, concentrated world with glee, reformulating high and low culture alike as streetwise assemblies of arch art history and sidewalk trash. When I visit his basement studio in Chinatown, which he shares with a fellow Cooper Union alum, he’s wearing a T-shirt designed by Pope.L and Supreme, depicting one of the late artist’s “crawls” across New York.

“Redundancy is the thing I tend to go back to,” Osmosis tells me, especially “the Warholian flavor of it.” Through spritely wordplay and citation, his work tries to “compound inertness onto a thing so much that it starts to implode.”

Nearby stands part of his gruesome take on the nuclear (and “nuked”) family: a quartet of mannequins pasted with stringy red viscera like the notorious plastinated corpses of “Body Worlds.” “The prompt I gave myself was, What if Alibaba manufactured mannequins where the colorways were ‘rot,’ ‘decay,’ and ‘cadaver’? ” It’s Charles Ray’s postmodern classicism, a rancid homage.

Osmosis’s vibe is, if not the starving artist, then the subsisting one. Dangling from the low ceiling is one of the spiraling assemblages he calls “Centrifugal Pickles,” oversized flypaper channeling Isa Genzken’s magpie taste for the shiny and lenticular. The sculpture appeared recently in Kapp Kapp’s Armory Show booth, surrounded by the artist’s paintings on drywall slabs depicting wriggling cartoon maggots and flies speaking in carrion puns. Splotchy auroras of drink rings, rendered in rainbow hues, cover the backgrounds. “The prompt I gave myself was, What if black mold decided to go pop? ” You’d get the musty walls and boozy uninhibitedness of Osmosis’s studio.

“THE PROMPT I GAVE MYSELF WAS, WHAT IF ALIBABA MANUFACTURED MANNEQUINS WHERE THE COLORWAYS WERE ‘ROT,’ ‘DECAY,’ AND ‘CADAVER’? ”

Portrait photography by Devlin Claro; Artwork photography

Louis Osmosis, Cadavatars, 2023.

Louis Osmosis, deCan’t Painting (phlegmory), 2024.

MIKA HORIBUCHI

33 Chicago

By Max Lakin

“When I was younger, I learned to draw by copying images—essentially without even realizing it,” Mika Horibuchi tells me from her Chicago studio. “That’s a pretty universal starting point. The inclination to imitate is natural.”

Horibuchi’s paintings extend the biological imperative for mimicry toward its conceptual

limit. Her delicate watercolors of pretty landscapes and flower still lifes are, in truth, oil reproductions of photographs of delicate watercolors of pretty landscapes and flower still lifes, painted by her grandmother. Horibuchi’s versions pan out to reveal the trick, including the linen backing. “There’s a blunt and transparent approach to it all,” the artist says. “My intention is to put artifice onto the surface. To reveal the deception. To create space for new meaning.”

Like Vija Celmins and Rudolf Stingel, whose artistic outputs involve faithful facsimiles of images degrees-removed from their origins, Horibuchi is interested in the act of seeing. But her practice also considers Magritte’s warning of The Treachery of Images, an exegesis into the knotty realm of perception and subjective reality—being able to trust our eyes when they

tell us we’re looking at a pipe, or a watercolor still life of cherry blossoms. Horibuchi’s compositions make plain the suspension of disbelief all art asks us to exercise—what she calls “the willingness toward magical thinking.” Her work attempts to pinpoint where a fiction begins, and where it falters.

“Copying to me is a form of translation,” the artist says. “Even simply looking at something, there’s always distance there. With copying, I’m interested in the multiple stages of translation, sometimes mistranslation of a source, and how representations of representations can become originals.” Her investigations look toward the goal of creating a reactive spiral—something that begins to copy or reference itself. As for imitating her grandmother’s watercolors? “They don’t really get easier for me,” she says, “which I think is a good thing.”

by Drake Sweeney

Photography

SHALA MILLER

30 New York

By Danielle Jackson

Shala Miller just wants to get a handle on it. Through video, photographs, sculpture, and poetry, Miller attempts to understand their big feelings, primal drives, and shocking interpersonal experiences. Take, for example, the photograph Likeness Unidentified, 2022, a broken bust in which the artist’s naked torso holds an inscrutable pose—either self-pleasure or self-protection. Or video works like Mrs. Lovely and Mourning Chorus, both 2021, where fictitious characters played by Miller, or the artist as themself, sing of devastating hurts.

As a painfully shy child in Cleveland, Ohio, who sang in two local youth choirs, Miller secretly dreamed of a career as a performer but lacked the confidence to audition for solo spots. When their mother received a digital video camera as a retirement gift, Miller discovered a tool that would finally help them open up. At 13, they began making self-portraits and obsessively compiling an archive of their parents’

lives. Soon, with guidance from their older sister, they downloaded a simple photo-editing software and began experimenting with placing text on top of images. Inspired by a community of other kids who shared pictures from their lives on Blogspot and Flickr, Miller saw image-making as their way to perform.

For the artist, who also sings original compositions under the name Freddie June, voice is the purest form of expression. “I didn’t know you could shape a voice as if it was a material,” they say. Their resulting monologues are rooted less in the confessional culture of social media than in the vulnerable testimonials of jazz singer Betty Carter or playwright and filmmaker Kathleen Collins.

A recent project, Obsidian —a collection of lithographs, double-exposed photographs, and palm-sized 3D-printed sculptures based on the artist’s crew of alter egos—offers Miller a more tangible way to examine the limits of self-portraiture and self-exposure.  “I like having something in my hands,” they say, “literally or metaphorically.”

“I LIKE HAVING SOMETHING IN MY HANDS— LITERALLY OR METAPHORICALLY.”

Photography by Shala Miller

DAN HERSCHLEIN

35 Los Angeles

By Jasmine Weber

“Suburbia is a space of theater in my mind,” muses Dan Herschlein from their Los Angeles studio. “You walk down a street at night, and all the streetlights look like stage lights.”

The artist, who grew up in Bayville—a 1.5square-mile “time warp of a town” on Long Island’s North Shore—is skilled at capturing a sense of yearning and ambient unease, and the sterile artifice of suburban life has proven particularly fruitful subject matter. They grew up working on a clam-digging boat with their dad, who also built furniture. His influence “has really informed the way that I make art,”

Herschlein observes. “It’s important to me that the thing is made by my hands. Anyone can relate to a thing that’s made by somebody’s hands.” Perhaps to honor the trace of Herschlein’s own hand, their work—eldritch reliefs or sculptures rendered in plaster or epoxy putty— undulates. The 35-year-old, who remembers finding comfort in horror films as a child, often returns to haunting motifs of “threshold spaces” like eggs, windows, doors, fences, and beds— fragile boundaries that shield tender things. Last year, a selection of the artist’s eerie tableaux were featured in the Hammer Museum’s “Made in L.A.” biennial. Their

corporeal figures appear to be peering or warping, while walls and curtains seem to ripple and stretch, conjuring the discomfiting sensation of membranes shifting.

The context in which their work is shown is top of mind for Herschlein, who holds some reservations about the “alienating and unwelcoming” aspect of gallery spaces and seeks to exhibit in ways that allow for casual public engagement. In 2018, their installation in the window of the New Museum offered passersby a glance at a haunting scene of disjointed body parts—a headless, slumped figure reaching toward a missing limb suspended in the air, which in turn reaches for its long-lost body. “The space where you see the work is not just a room in which I put the work,” reasons Herschlein. “I want it to be something else—like a little burrow to think in.”

Photography by Jojo Korsh

FAYE WEI WEI

30 New Haven

By Rachel Corbett

It’s hard to tell by looking at Faye Wei Wei’s intricately gestural, almost tangled paintings that they often spring from simple objects or images, like a seashell, a tortoiseshell pillbox, or a hyacinth garden in a T.S. Eliot poem. The artist surrounds herself with odds and ends that intuitively draw her in, and sooner or later, they surface in her work.

“It’s like absorbing all the things around me and then pushing them back out,” she says. “I like it to be a sort of ritualistic flowing of the paint, [where] you’re making these gestures and reacting to each one. It’s really difficult and disobedient how the paint reacts.”

She’s had this impulse for sublimation since childhood, when she began collecting acorns and covering them with gold leaf. After attending the Slade School of Fine Art, Wei Wei began exhibiting at galleries, including New York’s Situations and Galerie Kandlhofer in Vienna. Now 30, Wei Wei is preparing to spend the next 18 months drawing from very different surroundings. The London native recently moved to the U.S. to attend Yale’s MFA program. Living in the comparatively small town of New Haven has been a culture shock. “Being here feels like you’re in a simulation,” she says. “The only places to go are the studio or my dorm room, or there’s like one student bar.”

On the plus side, she’s been doing nothing but painting. For inspiration, she goes to the university’s famous Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where she pores over illuminated manuscripts, diagrams of trees, and 15th-century books about fireworks. But don’t expect to see the results of this research anytime soon. The artist is strictly “incubating” while in school, “and hopefully coming out with a body of work that’s really, really amazing.”

“I LIKE IT TO BE A SORT OF RITUALISTIC FLOWING OF THE PAINT, WHERE YOU’RE MAKING THESE GESTURES AND REACTING TO EACH ONE.”

JEFFREY MERIS

33 New York

By Danielle Jackson

For Jeffrey Meris, anything can be sculpture. The multidisciplinary artist’s materials of choice are everyday objects aggregated en masse— say, a bucket’s worth of Coca-Cola or a pile of shoes belonging to migrants. He considers the medium “a place of infinite possibility … rather than a constant, fixed place in the world.”

Meris, born in Haiti and raised in the Bahamas, first developed his artistic capacities as a cos-

tume maker for Junkanoo, an annual festival of masquerade, drumming, and dance celebrated throughout the Bahamas since the 17th century. As a child, he met the esteemed Bahamian painter and architect Jackson Burnside through Junkanoo circles, and later encountered conceptual artist Tavares Strachan, who famously shipped a four-and-a-half-ton ice block to Nassau. Meris soon made his way into the world of contemporary art, and then to America and the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, from which he graduated in 2015 before completing an MFA at Columbia.

By 2022, he was an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. As a part of that year’s cohort, Meris made To the Rising Sun, a 12-foot, round burst of crutches affixed to a double-sided geodesic dome. He found himself thinking of “a solar body, but also about a microbial virus.” It’s one of a number of works that illustrates his fascination with repetition

at every scale. Many of Meris’s steel works are both intricate and majestic, a sensibility he learned from the spectacular pageants of Junkanoo. These include “Catch a Stick of Fire,” started in 2021, a series of arboresque metal chandeliers bearing live flowers; and Mouth to Mouth, 2019, a canopy of jugs and tubes placed on lounge chair frames.

Today, Meris’s practice is focused on healing. For his newest project, which opened at Prospect New Orleans in early November, he worked with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Bahamas for over a year to create Our Moon Shines, For All the World to See, two monumental beacons of light that will flash Morse code in New Orleans and Nassau. The exchange, taken from a Christian song Meris sang daily in school and serving as something of a mantra for the artist, reads, “I am a promise / I am a possibility.”

Photography by Will Pippin

QUALEASHA WOOD

28 Philadelphia By Rachel Corbett

Qualeasha Wood says she approaches life like the arcade game Frogger, jumping impulsively from perch to perch and hoping for the best. Given the vertiginous career she’s traced before the age of 30, that’s hard to believe.

The artist’s work—including her signature jacquard tapestries that fuse religious and Internet iconography—has made headlines, appeared across the art-fair circuit, and been acquired by the likes of the Met, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s Dean Collection.

Frog or not, it’s a good thing she follows her instincts. As a teenager, Wood opted to forgo the military in favor of art school. Later, she switched majors on the advice of one of her heroes, the late painter Faith Ringgold. Wood met her in the midst of an “identity crisis” during her undergraduate studies at RISD. She admitted to Ringgold that she wasn’t enjoying drawing (she was an illustration major at the time) and wished she’d gone into printmaking. Ringgold “stressed the importance of self-de-

termination,” particularly for Black women, Wood recalls. The next day, Wood received an inscribed copy of Ringgold’s Tar Beach. “Dear Qualeasha,” it read, “you can fly and be a printmaker.”

“I switched my major immediately. I think it was the same day,” Wood remembers. Recently, the artist took another creative leap of faith, departing from her typical medium. For a collaboration with the tech company OpenAI, she fed selfies and other images of herself into a large language model. The process produced what she describes as “a weird cybernetic future version of myself that I named Q2, who embarks on this Matrix-themed journey. It’s all set to Lana Del Rey.”

Intrigued? Then don’t miss Wood’s next project: an installation opening at Philadelphia International Airport in May 2025. While details are still under wraps, she says it will involve a 39-foot-long glass case and “a giant error screen.”

“FAITH RINGGOLD STRESSED THE IMPORTANCE OF SELFDETERMINATION. I SWITCHED MY MAJOR IMMEDIATELY. I THINK IT WAS THE SAME DAY.”

RYAN PRECIADO

35 Los Angeles

By Jasmine Weber

At first glance, one might not recognize Ryan Preciado’s artworks as portraiture—but his painstakingly crafted sculptures are imbued with the presence of many collaborators, family members, and friends he has accumulated over a lifetime. Raised in Nipomo, just south of San Luis Obispo, and now living and working in Los Angeles, his brightly lacquered objects often take inspiration from West Coast lowrider culture, or nod to his Chumash and MexicanAmerican lineage.

When Preciado and I met in October, he mentioned a chance encounter with a young Boyle Heights bike-shop owner just before his work was included in the Hammer Museum’s 2023 “Made in L.A.” biennial. The two spoke about various tools and their sculptural qualities, ultimately inspiring Preciado’s Bird in Boyle Heights, 2024, which made it into his recent fall show, “Portraits,” at New York’s Karma gallery. An oversized fastener is cast in shiny, polished bronze and set atop a green pedestal, underlining the grandeur of what would otherwise be a nondescript utilitarian instrument. “I call it a portrait because it’s a vision of him,” Preciado says, referring to the shop owner, “and the conversation we had together.”

On view simultaneously at Karma was “4 x 4,” an exhibition curated by Preciado consisting strictly of four-by-four-inch works from 48 members of his community—including his grandmother, artists like rafa esparza and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, and collaborators

like Ryan Conder and Peter Shire, both mentors of the artist’s who have been “generous with their knowledge.”

A decade into his career, which began with a stint as a carpenter’s apprentice, Preciado is opening his first solo museum exhibition, “So Near, So Far,” on view at the Palm Springs Art Museum through spring 2025. The show puts Preciado’s practice in dialogue with that of Manuel Sandoval, a Nicaraguan-American woodworker whose collaborations with architectural giants like Frank Lloyd Wright are underrecognized and scantily documented. In researching the carpenter’s work, Preciado was inspired to recreate a dining set originally designed by Sandoval. Like his oeuvre as a whole, the piece is a material representation of community and lineage—an homage to one of the many people who shaped him.

Photography by Carlos Jaramillo

PEGGY CHIANG

35 New York

By Janelle Zara

Peggy Chiang practices a surreal form of stagecraft, transforming the most mundane objects into uncanny works of art. Her creations inhabit strange and mysterious places: For Halcyon Lunch (No. 2), 2018, Chiang constructed a tiny, luminous bamboo forest inside a Coca-Cola can. A ceiling fan in the woods, a motorized piece made during a 2022 Skowhegan residency, spun slowly while suspended among the trees that populate the legendary school’s campus.

Contrary to the safer preferences of the art market, Chiang makes beguiling, sometimes ephemeral, and often conceptually opaque sculpture—a practice that was nurtured by formative years spent in Baltimore’s experimental arts community. But she moved to New York this summer following her first solo show with dealer Laurel Gitlen, who found a ceiling fan in the woods “poetic, but tough.” Chiang presented just one sculpture in the gallery’s Lower East Side space: Toss in the asphalt, 2023, a garbage truck’s rusty maw accompanied by the sounds of clamoring machinery, muffled shouting, and the slightest hint of classical music.

“The way Peggy animates her work—with movement, sound, evaporation, reflection—is a psychic indicator of time and impermanence,” adds Gitlen. The show also included a bundle of incense, marking time with its slow trickle of ash and smoke, burning within a cigarette

propped among the brown, crunchy leaves scattered across the gallery floor.

Recently, Chiang made Forming, 2024, a constellation of takeout boxes perched on stained tablecloths, with lids made to look perpetually fogged with steam. The boxes conjure a phantom restaurant that exists only inside the artist’s mind. But rather than elucidate the intention behind her works with detailed explanations, the artist prefers to leave room for mystery. “I would rather present little crumbs of information,” she says.

Viewers will have to rely on their own imaginations to fill in the rest.

“I WOULD RATHER PRESENT LITTLE CRUMBS OF INFORMATION.”

RAVEN HALFMOON

33 Norman, Oklahoma

By Johanna Fateman

Leaning against a nine-foot, bronze-cast double figure, Raven Halfmoon tells me, “I have drawings of this space, of my work here, from four years ago.”

That was long before her Salon 94 solo debut, which opened in September, was even on the horizon. We’re standing in the New York gallery’s Stone Room, the sun-flooded crown jewel of the renovated Beaux-Arts mansion, which does indeed seem like a dream site for Halfmoon’s art. With its marble floor and arched casement windows, it’s a gleaming foil to the pair of roughly hand-modeled works she’s placed here—including The Guardians, 2024, whose stitched-together femme beings stand watch, immovable on their formidable pillar-legs. Inspired by installation photos from previous exhibitions at the gallery, which have featured towering, deity-like sculptures by Niki

de Saint Phalle and Huma Bhabha, Halfmoon imagined scaling up her own earthenware figures to occupy this imposing room too.

The Caddo Nation artist, who lives in Oklahoma, uses traditional Indigenous pottery techniques while updating and customizing ancient forms, marking her pieces with graffiti-style tags and incorporating pop culture imagery. Her pieces have political and personal gravitas—she favors stacked faces and doubled forms that represent, she says, “myself, my mom, the powerful women who raised me, and my ancestors”—but her sculptures are not without humor.

In the tabletop bust Bucked Off Again, 2024, for example, a woman stenciled with lightning bolts wears a cowboy hat and flips off the world with a red-manicured middle finger.

“MY PIECES REPRESENT MYSELF, MY MOM, THE POWERFUL WOMEN WHO RAISED ME, AND MY ANCESTORS.”

While Halfmoon doesn’t depict specific individuals, this work feels like her unstoppable avatar. Officially on a career hot streak, the artist also has a traveling exhibition that originated at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and will make its final stop at the Contemporary Austin in early 2025. When I ask what’s next for her, she muses over how to find a kiln big enough for her hulking clay figures. There’s no question that she has imminent plans—both culturally speaking and quite literally—to break even more molds.

CAMERON A. GRANGER

31 New York/Columbus, Ohio

By Jasmine Weber

When we meet in early fall over Zoom, Cameron A. Granger stresses the collaboration at the heart of his multimedia practice. “Me and the homies, we’ve been making work for almost a decade together,” he says. The artist is fresh out of the inaugural In Situ Artist Fellowship at the Queens Museum of Art, which culminated in the solo exhibition “9999”—an experience he describes as “the most fun I’ve ever had making a show.” The resulting presentation, on view through January 2025, is an exercise in world-building. Inspired by the role-playing video games he loves, Granger carefully weaves nostalgia with futurism, examining legacies of structural racism through themes of science fiction, spirituality, and cultural memory.

Granger was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, but spent most of his 20s in Columbus. Bad City, the fictional town at the heart of several of his short films, is “almost one-to-one with Columbus,” he says, but can evoke any “post-industrial town with a Black community that’s been sucked dry by urban development.” The most recent addition to this collection is Here & there along the echo, a 27-minute pseudo-documentary about a neighborhood plagued by black holes that emerge like “wounds in space-time.” It’s clever, surreal, and experimental, bringing to mind triumphs like Random Acts of Flyness and Neon Genesis Evangelion

“I think a lot about sampling music ... I think of it like a signal, kind of, to history, to communities,” says Granger, who sees his own work as a sampling tactic, too. “I use a lot of songs or parts of songs that have certain histories attached to them. And I’m hoping that that’s a way of calling out to people that I want to engage with the work—and hopefully, they hear it.”

Before his time at the Queens Museum, Granger was a 2022 artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and his short film Before I Let Go was awarded Best Experimental Film and an audience choice award at the 2023 BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia. Next up is a solo show at Kate Werble Gallery, opening in January 2025. He’s also working on a prospective addition to the Bad City universe and continuing to make zines, a longstanding part of his practice. His work is iterative, he tells me, growing out of previous editions, recalling and remixing the sights and sounds encountered along the way.

Photography by Sean Donnola

CHARLES MASON III

34 Baltimore

By Julia Halperin

Charles Mason III applied for one of the country’s more competitive graduate art programs without ever taking a painting class. After studying graphic design at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, he “compiled anything fine-art related” from his undergraduate career into an application to the Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York. He got in.

Mason didn’t stay long—he dropped out after a few months in 2014 to return to Baltimore, where the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining steam. “I wanted to be on the ground back home and protest,” he says. But even a few months was long enough to make an impact. He met artists like former New School instructor Steffani Jemison and, for the first time, saw “Black and Brown artists who were successful, teaching, and showing.” In the 10

years since, Mason has returned to New York to show at esteemed spaces including the Studio Museum in Harlem, Venus Over Manhattan, and Simone Subal Gallery.

He began to find his own voice as an artist in 2017, when he resumed his formal studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (He graduated with his MFA in 2019.) One of his teachers suggested he look at the work of Anselm Kiefer. “It took me the whole semester to finally watch this video— What is this white German going to tell me? ” Mason recalls thinking. Soon after clicking play, however, he was struck by Kiefer’s use of sunflowers to explore themes of trauma, rebirth, and endurance.

The encounter sparked Mason’s own interest in the flower as a recurring motif in his paintings and collages. His interpretation is childlike and graphic, sometimes appearing front and center, and other times poking out from behind a swirl of abstract lines or layers of rope, fabric, and paper. Mason sees the flower as a rich symbol that ties him to his father and grandfather. “There’s the phrase, ‘Give people their flowers while they are with us,’” he muses. “How do I celebrate people while thinking about what they endure? What are the conditions for someone to love the Black body? What are the conditions for someone to love me?”

“HOW DO I CELEBRATE PEOPLE WHILE THINKING ABOUT WHAT THEY ENDURE? WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS FOR SOMEONE TO LOVE THE BLACK BODY? WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS FOR SOMEONE TO LOVE ME?”

Photography by Glenford Nunez

ISABELLE FRANCES MCGUIRE

30 Chicago

By Julia Halperin

Most of us intended to spend the pandemic learning a foreign language or reading War and Peace, but ended up bingeing The Queen’s Gambit instead. Isabelle Frances McGuire actually followed through with their pandemic goal: teaching themselves coding and robotics on YouTube. “I spent the day with a little

worksheet writing notes, doing essentially a fake college class,” they recall.

In the process, their art practice transformed. McGuire, who studied film, video, and new media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, began incorporating haunting robots and animatronic figures into their work, creating mashed-together sculptures from cast-off toys, mannequins, found objects, and 3D-printed elements. (Imagine a gentler, nerdier, and less cynical Jordan Wolfson.) “I started to see my work as basically like a coding process,” McGuire says.

The art world took notice in 2023, when McGuire debuted a solo show at King’s Leap in New York that ingeniously remixed symbols and sounds from famous video games. McGuire approached the two floors of the gallery like levels of a game. Each had two sculptures that served the role of guardians protecting a

warrior child (downstairs, the child figure was Baby Yoda, programmed to frantically scan the room). The legendary curator Bob Nickas deemed the show one of the best of 2023 in his year-end review.

Since then, the Chicago-based artist has stood out in group shows at Artists Space in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In December, they will present a new body of work at Chicago’s Renaissance Society, inspired by a different kind of American cultural phenomenon: Abraham Lincoln. McGuire plans to build a one-to-one facsimile of the Kentucky cabin that was historically marketed as Lincoln’s birthplace (it is, in fact, a reconstruction). While the project might seem like a departure, McGuire sees it as a continuation of their interest in the line between truth and fiction. Plus, any game worth its salt begins with a complex origin story for its hero.

OLIVIA VIGO

26 New York

By Rachel Corbett

Olivia Vigo grew up going to 4-H and helping out her beekeeper father in their Northern California agricultural community. She learned to weld at a young age, developing what she describes as a “mentality of doing everything yourself.” It makes sense that she went on to study industrial design and found her passion in utilitarian objects: shelving, storage containers, old car parts.

But Vigo, now 26 and based in Brooklyn, sees these things in both practical and deeply personal terms. Having moved around a lot as a teenager, she’s particularly attuned to the emotional roles functional objects can play in the home. For example, a dresser, wardrobe, or crate may contain “things that are being saved,” she says. Perhaps they are “things we keep through heartbreak and the history of it.”

In 2021, she made a conceptual turn. The notion of a wardrobe had been preoccupying her. “You would think of it as a cumbersome wooden piece,” she says, “but I wanted to make it out of what you typically house in there,” like jackets and wool coats. So she met with shepherds, sheared sheep, cleaned the fibers, and ultimately hand-felted an entire wardrobe, which she went on to show at the (now-closed) New York gallery Larrie.

“I feel stuck in this weird design box, where I am thinking about the domestic sphere,” she says. “The things I gravitate toward making are the parts that don’t feel traditionally female … like the welded, the formed, the rendered, the sterile-type items. But in the end, I always have this drive to add a domestic motif.”

Take a mechanic’s stool that Vigo cast in lace, or a vase she made out of steel, car door handles, and Bondo, then painted bubblegum pink. The vase, another kind of container, “is the most ancient domestic item for a multitude of functions,” she says. The question she asked herself while making it is one that’s now central to her practice: How can I redo this form using materials that wouldn’t typically enter the interior space?

Vigo’s latest answer—a series of lamps that vaguely resemble television sets—will appear in a two-person show with Giangiacomo Rossetti at American Art Catalogues in mid-December.

“THE THINGS I GRAVITATE TOWARD MAKING ARE THE PARTS THAT DON’T FEEL TRADITIONALLY FEMALE ... BUT IN THE END, I ALWAYS HAVE THIS DRIVE TO ADD A DOMESTIC MOTIF.”

by

Photography

Lucas Creighton

Olivia Vigo, Scrap for parts, 2024.

by Joseph Robert Krauss

PAIGE K. B.

35 New York

By Travis Diehl

Paige K. B. is an artist and a writer, but conspiracy is her medium of choice. Like paintings or sculptures, or fantasy realms, you can make them from scratch. In a memorable kinetic work, shown around the first anniversary of Jan. 6, she reprised the green-on-yellow Gadsden Flag flown by libertarians and far-right wingnuts (“Don’t tread on me!”) using a swimming plastic frog in a shallow pan of urine-yellow liquid. “I’m interested in the form, not the content,” K. B. tells me from her studio, which she moved to the Whitney ISP this fall. “There is no content.” She points out that QAnon started as a joke, but made itself a movement.

Conspiracy is a container and its contents could be anything.

Accordingly, K. B.’s exhibitions can be bewildering to the uninitiated. Connections leap among varied paintings, drawings, and installation elements. Her recent booth at the Armory Show, with Blade Study, featured a thick, realistic painting of an iPhone case, an enlarged painting of her business card from her days as an editor at Artforum, and an ambiguous mixedmedia painting flecked with cherry blossoms and fragments of backwards text. The work is highly personal, says K. B., but “personal material is always someone else’s found material. So you have to treat the personal as if you’re holding it at a distance, like it’s an object and you’re examining it and thinking, How do you use this? ”

Pantone’s quirky “color of the year” has become another of K. B.’s assets. One wall of a 2023

show raged Tangerine Tango, a shade of aggressive mud, which nods obliquely to the year of its reign, 2012. “It’s important to bring in things that are totally impersonal and totally outside of me,” K. B. says. “Something like, you know, a trend.” She describes the way the absurd declaration of an annual color serves as a “bat signal” for companies to tint their products. The gimmick becomes true, and the form follows.

“I’M INTERESTED IN THE FORM, NOT THE CONTENT. THERE IS NO CONTENT.”

Photography

DAVID L. JOHNSON

30 New York

By Ella Martin-Gachot

The fall of 2011 was a watershed moment for David L. Johnson. A few weeks into his first year at Cooper Union, the Occupy Wall Street movement took root in Zuccotti Park, just two miles away from the school’s East Village campus. Less than two months later, Cooper announced it would no longer offer free tuition, which it had done since 1859. Months of student protests ensued.

Gates, 2012–13, the earliest work the now30-year-old artist has documented on his website, was made in the aftermath of this period—a moment when art’s relevance to activism was being tested in real time. One evening, Johnson arrived at Tompkins Square Park to find it shuttered, part of a wave of premature closures the NYPD and Parks Department unleashed on public spaces post-Occupy. He began rearranging the sectional fences blocking access to the park into a series of absurd positions—a ballet of misbehaving barricades.

Obstructions of all sizes—from planters preventing access to what could be shelter to property-line plaques that void “squatter’s rights”—have proven fruitful material for the native New Yorker ever since. In his best-known series, “Loiter,” Johnson extracts the spikes fixed onto standpipes to preclude their use as

seats. Divorced from their destiny, these fragments of hostile architecture get afterlives in environments like the Palais de Tokyo or Frieze London, where they become enmeshed in a no-less-fraught web of aestheticization and monetization. But for the artist, it’s their absence that looms larger. “If someone uses the standpipe as a place to sit,” Johnson says, “that’s the artwork doing its thing.”

An upcoming show at Fanta in Milan will see Johnson circling back to the socio-spatial collateral of Occupy Wall Street. The artist sees each of his interventions as ongoing, a reflection of a lifetime spent observing his hometown and its long tradition of subverting imposed frameworks. “I’m also interested in pointing to all of the other people who are involved in these types of actions,” he concludes. “It’s part of a larger series of gestures—and a larger history of refusal.”

Photography by Sean Donnola

HANNAH BEERMAN

32 New York

By Sara Roffino

Hannah Beerman may technically be a young artist, but there’s something in the painter and her work that far surpasses her age. It could be the profound sensitivity and intensity with which she approaches her practice—living and working in the same space, moving between canvases in the early morning’s solitude.

It could also be that Beerman has spent her entire life deeply immersed in art. Her childhood home in Nyack, New York, was also the childhood home of American assemblage legend Joseph Cornell. Beerman’s father is a painter and her maternal grandmother is a printmaker, both of whom worked from that same house. Growing up, Beerman would sneak into their shared studio and make sculptures out of scraps fished from the recycling bin. “I didn’t realize

I was making art,” she says. “It was just a way of existing. I didn’t know that being a painter or an artist was separate from being a person.”

Beerman works from the floor of her studio, rotating between canvases and naps. The artist incorporates materials as diverse as a stuffed dog toy or dried flowers to create works that are three-dimensional, but which she sees as neither sculpture nor collage. Though her canvases are comparatively small in scale, there’s a rawness to them—almost as if going any larger would be more than one could bear.

For a time, Beerman wanted to be a writer, and still holds poetry close. There’s certainly something lyrical in her paintings, which could easily disassemble into disparate objects, but cohere instead. After completing undergraduate studies at Bard—where she met and befriended her late mentor Carolee Schneemann—Beerman moved to the East Village, where she got to know performance artist Karen Finley and the poet Eileen Myles. “This is seriously dangerous work ripping open painting to see what it can hold,” Myles wrote after meeting the artist. “Hannah Beerman owns the world.”

No argument here.

“I DIDN’T KNOW THAT BEING A PAINTER OR AN ARTIST WAS SEPARATE FROM BEING A PERSON.”

Photography by Sarah

MALCOLM PEACOCK

30 New York

By Ella Martin-Gachot

A hulking tree trunk will spend the winter in one of MoMA PS1’s galleries this year. Measuring eight feet tall and assembled out of foam, cement, wood, and over 3,000 braids of synthetic hair, the sculpted relic constitutes Malcolm Peacock’s latest exercise in endurance. Punctuated by a sonic tapestry of recordings that immerse visitors in moments of “Black convening,” the installation is not a static sanctuary, but a continually evolving act of presence.

When we met ahead of its unveiling this fall, Peacock was already calling Five of them were

hers and she carved shelters with windows into the backs of their skulls a milestone piece. The Raleigh, North Carolina–born, Baltimoreraised artist began work on the installation last January, a few months into a Studio Museum in Harlem residency that the PS1 showing concludes, pulling from research on redwoods he’d initiated after two summers spent in the Pacific Northwest. It is the only artwork he will have made in 2024.

Peacock is well aware that most young artists would be warned against dedicating close to a year to a single piece. “Not when you’re 30,” he tells me with a laugh. But that one-track mindset has paid off thus far. “I have made six things in the last five or six years and they’ve all been the standout thing of every group exhibition that I’ve been in,” Peacock reasons. The Studio Museum residency is just the latest in a round of institutional attention—including the 58th Carnegie International Fine Prize and a duo show with fellow Young Artist Shala Miller at Artists Space—that the interdisciplinary artist has garnered since earning his MFA at Rutgers University in 2019.

“I WOULD RATHER HAVE A DIFFERENT CAREER BEFORE I SETTLE.”

When asked where he thinks the next five years will take him, Peacock doesn’t blink an eye. “I just want to keep moving like this,” he says. “I would rather have a different career before I settle.” Refusing to settle, or to settle down— that daily dissent grounds Peacock’s practice. Whether he’s braiding, leading breathing exercises, or running while reciting an inner monologue, the artist is interested in making the experience of effort—and the (often invisible) barriers to accessing rest and recreation— manifest. What comes after? A long exhale.

Photography by Courtney Sofiah Yates

Photography by Hiroshi Clark

KATE MEISSNER

29 Los Angeles

By Katie White

For Kate Meissner, painting is about mind games.

In the artist’s canvases, women (or fragments of them) are positioned within claustrophobic structures, hunching or contorting themselves to fit. Highly saturated and theatrically lit, her scenes are realms where the commercial and corporeal intersect—calling to mind peep show stages, for example, or storefront windows filled with mannequins. Meissner, who often uses herself as the model for her figures, is drawn to “any place where the body is on display”—where it is “examined or probed.”

They’re on display, yes—but Meissner’s femme figures remain elusive. Their faces are never visible, and “there’s a lot of slippage between what is flesh and what appears to be plastic,” the artist muses. In the past, Meissner based

her tableaux on small dioramas—miniature architectural spaces that she constructed and filled with small handmade figurines. For the exhibition “Tableaux Rosa” at Lyles & King earlier this year, Meissner dreamed bigger. “I made a human-sized version,” she explains. “I built out a four-by-eight-foot plexiglass box with hanging curtains and all these different latex materials.” The artist staged photographs of herself within the confines of this seedy theater, her body partially obscured by the curtains (a recurring motif for the artist, which she describes as a “divider between reality and fantasy”).

Meissner, who has lived in Los Angeles since completing her MFA at Yale in 2021, draws heavily from the visual lexicon of film. The psychological unease and surrealism evoked by directors like David Cronenberg, David Lynch, and Todd Haynes are sources of inspiration when it comes to making work that conjures a creeping sense of unease. “I’m looking for this moment of anxiety when the familiar suddenly appears strange. How can that be manifested in the construction of the body?”

In addition to Lyles & King, Meissner has also shown at New York’s 1969 Gallery, and in January will open her first institutional exhibition—the largest showing of her paintings to date—with the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts in Birmingham,

Alabama. What message does she want visitors to come away with? “I want there to be an openness [in my work], an ambiguity where you’re not quite sure if something is living or fake—the combination of anxiety and curiosity that creates.”

“I’M LOOKING FOR THIS MOMENT OF ANXIETY WHEN THE FAMILIAR SUDDENLY APPEARS STRANGE. HOW CAN THAT BE MANIFESTED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BODY?”

LE’ANDRA LESEUR

35 —Tulsa

By Katie White

For artist Le’Andra LeSeur, history is an embodied experience. Her multimedia practice grapples with the weight of the past on people navigating the present. For her New York institutional debut, “Monument Eternal,” on view at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works through Dec. 15, LeSeur decided to dig into a history close to home.

“When I moved from the Bronx to Georgia at age 11, my family would visit Stone Mountain Park,” the artist recalls. “Then I started digging into that site’s history.” The 3,200-acre

park—the state’s most popular recreational destination—is the infamous home of the Confederate Memorial Carving, a massive, 190-foot-wide high-relief sculpture of three Confederate leaders. “Stone Mountain is where the modern KKK was rebirthed,” explains LeSeur. Completed in 1972, the monument— which is larger than Mount Rushmore—is protected from removal or alteration by Georgia state law.

“Monument Eternal,” which borrows its title from Alice Coltrane’s biography, is anchored by a seven-minute film that stitches together footage of LeSeur in slow-motion free fall from the mountain’s peak. The film is narrated by the artist, in the form of spoken word poetry. “How could I consider my own Black queer body as a monument that I could honor in this place?” asks LeSeur. “Collapse becomes a space, an opening, allowing for an experience of transcendence.”

LeSeur, now a Tulsa Artist Fellow, played college basketball at Bucknell University before finding her way to art when she enrolled in a

“IN MY WORK, THERE IS A SPIRITUAL ELEMENT THAT ALLOWS ME TO PUSH PAST THE PHYSICAL TO WHATEVER’S BEYOND.”

class on a whim. Perhaps as a result of this early athletic career, the body—its limitations and its triumphs—figures consistently in her practice. In “Monument Eternal,” LeSeur debuts a series of glassworks, which interested her as a means of capturing her breath. “I have an understanding of my body’s physical presence, a sense of control physically in terms of what I can endure,” says LeSeur. “In my work, there is a spiritual element that allows me to push past the physical to whatever’s beyond.”

Photography by Melissa Lukenbaugh and courtesy of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship

BROOKLIN SOUMAHORO

34 Los Angeles

By Sarah Nechamkin

There’s a pervading myth that art and math are diametrically opposed. For Brooklin Soumahoro, however, expression and order are happily in sync. “I have a very mathematical brain,” the Los Angeles–based painter tells me, calling from his native Paris. “Lines, grids, color, composition, textured surfaces—that’s always been my thing.”

That predilection is evident in each step of Soumahoro’s process. Before beginning a painting, he produces countless graphs of chromatic relationships, preliminary pattern documentation, and writings on color theory, recording each formal detail of a given work in a large binder. “When I start my painting, I know exactly when it’s going to be finished,” Soumahoro explains. “I like to come to the studio prepared and leave knowing what tomorrow’s job will be.”

In the studio, the artist listens to music with sonic frequencies that match his color patterns; when a song works, regardless of genre, he’ll listen to it on repeat for weeks. (In 2023, he was among the top 1 percent of Spotify’s U.S.

“WHEN I START MY PAINTING, I KNOW EXACTLY WHEN IT’S GOING TO BE FINISHED. I LIKE TO COME TO THE STUDIO PREPARED AND LEAVE KNOWING WHAT TOMORROW’S JOB WILL BE.”

listeners.) That same year also saw him make standout appearances in group shows across Europe—garnering the attention of François Ghebaly, who gave him a solo in Los Angeles this fall.

It’s no surprise that Soumahoro’s profile is rising across the globe. Having lived everywhere from Philadelphia to São Paulo, the self-taught

artist is a polyglot for whom the canvas is a means to “digest” a world of influences. But it’s the particular romance of the South of France that’s consistently captured his soul. “The Open Window,” Soumahoro’s François Ghebaly show, drew inspiration from Henri Matisse’s painting of the same name, which depicts a sunny Riviera scene. Soumahoro’s color palette— fluorescent greens, sunset pinks, apricots— reflects that of the French master’s 1905 work, but the strict abstraction that informs his canvases more closely echoes the lesser-known, moody proto-Rothko that Matisse completed nine years later, after the start of World War II, Porte-fenêtre à Collioure. According to Soumahoro, it’s a prime example of the emotive power of minimalism: “No bullshit, straight to the core. They say every road leads to Rome, but what’s the easiest path?”

LEYLA FAYE

30 New York

By Sara Roffino

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a crayon in my hand,” Leyla Faye tells me. The child of a mime-inspired method actor and a jazz musician, the painter grew up going to a local art center in her hometown of Minneapolis. She remembers looking forward to its annual May Day Parade, for which the community assembled large-scale papier-mâché puppets

that would dance down the streets. “The roads would be lined with people,” Faye recalls, “and the puppets would interact directly with the crowd.”

The awe and energy Faye felt back then is at the core of her artistic inquiry today. In works that have made a splash at the likes of Frieze New York and Karma International in Zürich, the artist pays homage to her colorful upbringing—often relying on swaths of papier-mâché to give a sense of dimension and texture to her canvases. “Childhood is a carnivalesque time,” she muses. “Your relationship to the world is still so porous, and there’s less distinction between your body and a bird’s body. … Painting slips me back into that mode.”

Another space from her youth looms large in the painter’s vernacular. Faye’s mother served

at a diner, where the artist also worked as a teen before moving to Rhode Island to start a BFA at RISD. Killing time in the restaurant, she would study the regular diners, who became characters of sorts for the nascent artist.

“Viewing [them] had a huge influence on me in terms of how I think of persona and identity and the stage—how it all melds into the everyday world,” she says. That exploration plays out in real time in Faye’s canvases, which depict oversized and almost cartoonish figures, often splayed in acrobatic positions. Composites of fairy tale archetypes, the artist’s memories, and self-portraiture, the bodies on display shapeshift through a theater of emotions, from astonishment to malaise. The work leaves a discomfiting sensation in its wake—a trace of a more innocent age.

Photography Joseph Robert Krauss

DRAKE CARR

31 New York

By Evan Nicole Brown

When Happyfun Hideaway wanted to commission a vibrant work to adorn its dance floor, the Flint, Michigan, native—who also tended bar at the watering hole—delivered. The 31-year-old multimedia artist adorned the space with raunchy, life-sized figures inspired by peers and friends that would later become his signature. “Gum would get stuck to them and sweaty people would press up against them,” the artist remembers. “It’s really satisfying to see these things that I labored over get lived on.”

The distinctly cosmopolitan nature of Carr’s work has drawn the attention of numerous gallerists with an eye for the off-kilter: The artist has shown at Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles along with New York hot spots like Fierman, Situations, and Ethan James Green’s New York Life Gallery. For the latter, Carr held one of his “walkins”—live portrait-drawing sessions in which he whips up stylized fashion sketches that illustrate the whimsy of his New York contemporaries.

“I find myself drawn to art that feels collaborative in some way,” Carr reasons. For the artist, there’s a difference between his private sketchbooks, which he fills with drawings born out of “compulsion,” and the work he creates with an audience in mind. “A lot of the people I’m drawing are in these very graphic, dramatic poses that come from the poses that I’m in myself as I work,” Carr continues. “It’s sort of like dancing—often I’ll end up actually dancing and then getting back to drawing.”

Next year will be a busy one for Carr, who has a solo show at Megan Mulrooney Gallery in Los Angeles in April and another one slated for the fall with Kapp Kapp in New York. In the meantime, his nightlife roots remain an essential part of his artistic identity. “When I imagine a museum survey of my work … my mind goes to creating installations of some of the places where my art has lived,” Carr muses. This personal connection draws out the emotions of each of his subjects—and renders a snapshot of a community that’s constantly reinventing itself.

“I FIND MYSELF DRAWN TO ART THAT FEELS COLLABORATIVE IN SOME WAY.”

Drake Carr made his first foray into the art world on the walls of a Bushwick dive bar.

COVEY GONG

30 New York

By Evan Nicole Brown

Giacomo Puccini’s 1924 opera Turandot may seem like unlikely source material for a 30year-old artist. For Covey Gong, the opera—set in a mythical Peking laden with all manner of gilded chinoiserie and featuring characters with nonsensical “Chinese” names—has proven to be fruitful, if unsettling, terrain. “The set objects were ‘Chinese-looking,’ but they don’t have an actual reference. It’s just an Orientalist construction,” the Hunan-born, New York–based sculptor tells me.

Earlier this year, Gong exhibited a suite of works inspired by the opera, as part of a solo show at New York’s SculptureCenter. The artist took

familiar motifs—a fan, a sloping roof, a tiered stage—and translated them into delicate, skeletal forms, interrogating and reconstituting their authenticity in the process. “I think of theater sets as objects that project a certain fantasy of a place or a narrative,” he says. “Sculpture has a similar effect; it embodies something outside of itself.”

Gong grew up during an era of great change in his home country. “Government policy was relatively open in the ’90s,” he explains. “Everyone was very hopeful—all of my family members planted their hope in me in some ways.” The cultural transformation that blossomed during Gong’s youth also saw China turn away from the symbolic and aesthetic vestiges of its imperial legacy—one that he attempts to conjure through the use of materials like linen, brass, bronze, copper, tin, and powdered charcoal.

Gong says the SculptureCenter pieces were designed to be “like Legos”—easily broken down into individual pieces, transported, and assembled on-site. This choice was in part an economic one: Gong doesn’t have a studio, per

se. Instead, he rents a shared workspace for $280 a month. “It’s hard for me to make a lot of work there,” he says. “But since I don’t have a studio, I don’t have to commit myself to a certain medium or way of making.”

The artist’s lack of studio space also reflects the level of transience in his own life. “I don’t really have roots in America; there’s no family there,” Gong shares over the phone from Beijing. Indeed, 2025 will see Gong traveling to and from East Asia—first for a presentation at Empty Gallery’s Room of Spirit and Time in Hong Kong, and later for a solo exhibition with Antenna Space’s new project space, Antenna-tenna, in Shanghai. “It’s kind of strange, to go back and forth,” he says. “I think that experience informs these objects.”

“SINCE I DON’T HAVE A STUDIO, I DON’T HAVE TO COMMIT MYSELF TO A CERTAIN MEDIUM OR WAY OF MAKING.”

Photography

MICHELLE UCKOTTER

32 New York

By Evan Nicole Brown

“The horror genre kind of operates as a readymade,” says Michelle Uckotter. “I get into [my work] by playing with those signifiers. It’s fun to salvage or cannibalize elements of cinematography.”

The 32-year-old artist’s oil pastels do just that. Uckotter cites slashers like The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby as inspiration for her haunting tableaux, which vibrate with anticipation and ambiguity—like film stills plucked from a moment of peak suspense. “Film is the modern education of the masses that took off where painting stopped,” Uckotter says. “As ways of communicating, the [two art forms] are joined at the hip.”

Blocking a shot is not unlike establishing the composition of a painting, and it is this shared

process of filling space—in Uckotter’s case, mostly decrepit and abandoned domestic settings—with people that guides much of the Cincinnati-born, New York–based artist’s work. Uckotter’s figures, often ghostly women, seem either to lure the viewer deeper into the scene or to be lost in it themselves, creating what she calls a “subtle, simmering hint of sex and violence” that adds an electric charge to her eerie dollhouse-esque environments. A single question looms: Is anyone there?

“There’s something disturbing—a detachment from identity—that I’m chasing,” muses Uckotter, who notes that she is less concerned with the visual result than she is with capturing a complex “strangeness.” This series is something of a departure for the artist, who first developed an assemblage practice—which

involved wandering Baltimore’s alleyways and “collecting little odds and ends”—while getting her BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. “Oil pastels allow me to have this dusty quality … the waxiness gives them a grunginess that I really enjoy.”

In February, Uckotter will take her signature brand of uncanniness to the screen in a solo show with Matthew Brown Gallery in New York. The artist will debut her first film work, which is currently untitled and still in the editing process. “The film is processed through the paintings, but at the same time it’s this [new] avenue,” she concludes. “It’s expanding the vocabulary of what I make and what my concerns are.”

“FILM IS THE MODERN EDUCATION OF THE MASSES THAT TOOK OFF WHERE PAINTING STOPPED.”

Photography by Valentina von Klencke

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

WHEN MODELS CANTERED DOWN THE CHANEL CRUISE 2024/25 RUNWAY IN MARSEILLE LAST MAY, THEY DID SO WITH THE GRAVITAS BEFITTING THE HOUSE’S WELL-HEELED CLIENTELE AND STORIED LEGACY.

IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES, PHOTOGRAPHER ISABELLE WENZEL REFASHIONS THE COLLECTION INTO SOMETHING MORE—TURNING THE LENS ON HERSELF AND JUXTAPOSING THE CLOTHES’ DELICATE SILHOUETTES WITH HER TUMBLING POSTURES AND SIGNATURE CONTORTIONS. THE INTERMINGLING OF CONTROL AND WHIMSY COMES NATURALLY TO THE GERMAN ACROBAT, WHO HAS EXHIBITED HER SELF-TIMED PHOTOGRAPHS ACROSS THE WORLD. FOR CULTURED, WENZEL TURNS CHANEL UPSIDE DOWN.

Photography and Performance by Isabelle Wenzel

Styling and Creative Direction by Studio&

All clothing and accessories by Chanel Cruise 2024/25

Collaborative Photography by Michel Wenzel Production by un-produced

PStyling Assistance by Chloe Kerins and Sofia Allegue Piriz

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CLAY STEPHEN GARDNER

STYLING BY MAC HUELSTER

CREATIVE DIRECTION BY MARCOS FECCHINO

ALL CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES BY GUCCI CRUISE

The Tate Modern, in all of its concrete-laden austerity, may be one of the hardest places to heat in rainy London. But last May, Sabato De Sarno turned the temperature up for Gucci’s 2025 Cruise show. Between tangles of tropical foliage, searing ballads like Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “The Power of Love,” and a piping-hot front row that included Dua Lipa, Little Simz, and Arca, the Italian house’s creative director raised the stakes for the annual rendezvous. And the clothes! Outerwear in toasty shades of caramel, delectably translucent twin sets, and pussy bows in every hue conjured up a shimmering oasis of chic. In the following pages, photographer Clay Stephen Gardner captures the collection in all of its intensity, amidst the bucolic and strikingly urban landscapes of New York.

MODELING BY KRISTEN COFFEY AND LINA DROMASHKO. HAIR BY SHINYA NAKAGAWA. MAKEUP BY REI TAJIMA. NAILS BY ELINA OGAWA. PRODUCTION BY MF STUDIO. COORDINATION BY DOMINIC NADAL. PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANCE BY MATTHEW PERINO. DIGITAL TECH BY MATTHEW CYLINDER. STYLING ASSISTANCE BY SOFIA AMARAL.

THE THINGS WE CARRY

Some objects are ephemeral—cast aside as quickly as they were made. Others last longer than their keepers. Handed down from generation to generation, they become reminders of lives past and future, without losing their capacity to enchant in the present. There’s no living heirloom more natural than a timepiece or treasured jewel. Whether worn close to the heart or peeking out from a sleeve, these tokens are imbued with the spirit of their wearers and invested with all the care that went into their meticulous construction. In the following pages, CULTURED offers a glittering array of collectibles primed for this extraordinary destiny.

Set Design by Caz Slattery

Photography by Sergiy Barchuk

Left side: Graff White Oval and Baguette Diamond Circular Earrings in White Gold

Right side:

Lugano Cushion Cut Diamond Necklace in white and yellow diamonds set in gold with ceramic accent, Pink Diamond Ebony Necklace in pink and white diamonds with ebony and rose gold, and Orange Diamond and Ebony Wood Toi Et Moi Ring with fancy orange and yellow diamonds

Van Cleef & Arpels Bouton d’or necklace and ring in yellow gold with chrysoprase, onyx, and diamonds and Rose de Noël earrings in white gold with onyx and diamonds

Right: Graff White Round Diamond Flower Necklace in white gold and White Round Diamond Earrings in Titanium

Left: Tiffany & Co. HardWear Link necklace, bracelet, and ring and watch in yellow gold with diamonds

Left Page: Montblanc Iced Sea Automatic

Date Grey

Panerai Luminor GMT Power Reserve Ceramica

Right: Vacheron Constantin Patrimony Moon Phase Retrograde Date

Sabyasachi Multi Gemstone and Gold Bangles

Buccellati Hawaii Necklace in yellow and white gold set with diamonds

Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso

One Duetto

Production by Taylor James

Photo Assistance by Nigel Jones

Reza Revolution Earrings in yellow and white gold with emeralds and diamonds and Filigree Necklace in yellow gold with orange coral

IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW

A century into its story, Loro Piana’s brand of finely crafted, understated essentials is more timely than ever.

BY LAURA NEILSON

of Loro Piana

As the Internet’s infatuation with “quiet luxury” reached a not-so-quiet crescendo last year, more than a few long-time Loro Piana devotees raised an eyebrow. The Italian house—best known for its cashmere and wool raiment—has luxuriated in its “if you know, you know” status for decades, even using the catchphrase as a campaign slogan last year. That spirit—aloof, but never smug— has proven a lasting formula for Loro Piana,

which celebrates its centennial this year. A new book from Assouline, Loro Piana: Master of Fibres, charts the rich history behind the heritage label’s understated aesthetic, which today finds itself more widely coveted than ever.

The recent vigor around the maison is far from a marketing dividend, however. It’s the happy byproduct of an emphasis on the brand’s core

facets: the rigor of its craft and the (literally) unparalleled quality of its materials.

A bit of family history, first. In 1924, Pietro Loro Piana opened a wool mill in the Piedmont’s Valsesia valley, building on his family’s established reputation in the textile trade. By the 1940s, the business thrived in suiting fabrics when Franco Loro Piana stepped on board. Pietro’s nephew

heightened the label’s reputation by sourcing exotic fibers—alpaca, cashmere, and vicuña— coveted by prestigious Parisian ateliers.

The next generation, brothers Sergio and Pier Luigi, took the brand global in the 1980s. Sergio led sales and marketing while Pier Luigi focused on the material end of things, introducing finished pieces for the first time— starting with the iconic Grande Unita scarf

and eventually broaching outerwear by outfitting the Italian equestrian team at the 1992 Olympics. Today’s Loro Piana customer might look to the brand when assembling a wardrobe that’s meant to last. The maison—which maintains third-generation family involvement in addition to its LVMH ownership—instills in its clientele the understanding that its pieces are nascent heirlooms to be passed down again and again.

That doesn’t mean the brand—or its devotees—haven’t evolved. Over the years, exacting style standards have been matched by an upsurge in environmental awareness. Loro Piana’s sustainability efforts have been reinforced by its long-standing relationships with farm partners and investments to protect rare sheep breeds. There’s also a fixation on innovation—the annual Loro Piana Record Bale award is bestowed on the farm partner in Australia

“THE MAISON INSTILLS IN ITS CLIENTELE THE UNDERSTANDING THAT ITS PIECES ARE NASCENT HEIRLOOMS TO BE PASSED DOWN AGAIN AND AGAIN.”

and New Zealand who manages to produce the finest merino wool fibers, to consistently astounding results. The 2023 winner presented a record-breaking fiber of only 10.2 microns (for comparison, a human hair measures 80 microns), an improvement of more than 30 percent over the competition’s early winners in the ’90s.

This rich history and unrelenting dedication is at the core of Master of Fibres. Across nearly 200 pages filled with lush archival imagery and family lore, the tome unspools the lives and prescient instincts of six generations of Loro Pianas. But how to sum up a century of style? One detail says it all: The book’s covering is made from Tela Sergio, a signature cotton and linen blend, and

a beloved textile of the brother it is named after. Sergio’s sartorial proclivities were the inspiration for the house’s anniversary collection, which paid homage to his taste in tailoring and his preferred color of luscious kummel. Of course, the rich backstory of the book’s cover may not register to everyone. If you know, you know.

Justin Vivian Bond photographed by Matthew Placek.

FOR THE LIFE WANT TO LIVE

THINGS YOU YOU WANT TO LIVE WITH,

APPARATUS has made a name for itself as a purveyor of objects that will enchant any lifestyle. In the design studio’s latest project, SUBJECTS: BIOGRAPHIES IN LIGHT, photographers Matthew Placek and Dina Litovsky found radically different inspiration on the same well-lit set. Here, with Artistic Director Gabriel Hendifar, they unspool the story behind the stills.

BY SOPHIE LEE

“APPARATUS was born out of necessity,” the design studio’s artistic director, Gabriel Hendifar, remembers. Like many a connoisseur, Hendifar was disappointed by the home decor options on the market when he was shopping for his new Los Angeles apartment just over a decade ago. Unlike his frustrated peers, however, he took it upon himself to start a company that would rectify the problem.

APPARATUS came onto the scene in 2012 with a selection of tasteful and moody lighting—still the backbone of its offerings—before expanding into furniture and objects of a similar tenor. Most recently, the studio released an expanded modular

line of its popular Cylinder lights. Instead of functioning as “the jewelry of the room,” as Hendifar characterizes his other statement pieces, the Cylinder serves to draw the eye to a desired focal point. In Hendifar’s home, the beacon is currently pointed on a few statues, but his focus frequently shifts.

“I’ve always been a tinkerer,” he says casually of his foray into the world of home design. Instead of formal training, Hendifar’s preparation came from studying costume design at UCLA and working for womenswear designers like Raquel Allegra, as well as from being raised by a machinist and entrepreneur father. The question, he reasons, was always, “How do I turn this idea into a thing?”

The solution, as Hendifar sees it, is in the individuals you surround yourself with. As such, APPARATUS has enlisted a coterie of 19 frequent collaborators and friends of the studio over the years, many of whom appear in the company’s new Cylinder project. The sleek, talent-heavy shoot was a departure for the brand: “Rather than doing what we traditionally do, which is to lean into fantasy world-building … we said, ‘Let’s strip all of those things away and focus on the people,’” he explains.

The same set and cast, lit from above by a constellation of Cylinders, were shot to extraordinarily different effect by two photographers, Matthew

“THE TERM ‘PHOTOGRAPHY’ LITERALLY MEANS ‘TO DRAW WITH LIGHT.’ MY CRAFT, WHETHER THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY OR FILM, IS TO BEND AND CAPTURE LIGHT, WEAVING NARRATIVES IN ITS GLOW. WITHOUT LIGHT, WE ARE LEFT UNABLE TO TELL A VISUAL TALE; THE EYE—HUMAN OR OTHERWISE— WOULD LOSE ITS PURPOSE.”

Jacob Larsen photographed by Placek.

Bond photographed by Dina Litovsky.

“PORTRAITS START GETTING INTERESTING WHEN THEY ASK MORE QUESTIONS THAN THEY ANSWER, WHEN THEY HINT AT A STORY RATHER THAN REVEAL IT.”

—DINA LITOVSKY

Debra Shaw photographed by Litovsky.

“COLLABORATING WITH THOSE YOU HOLD IN HIGH REGARD INSPIRES A DEEPER COMMITMENT. IT’S A PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE FOR EXCELLENCE’S SAKE.”

—MATTHEW PLACEK

Placek and Dina Litovsky—living proof of the power of perspective. Among the stars are Metropolitan Opera conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who uses APPARATUS to light his Steinway; model Debra Shaw, of whom Hendifar has been a lifelong fan; and cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond, who has performed at a number of the company’s events, as well as writer Camille Okhio, nightlife star Dianne Brill, and design dealers Joel and Bianca Chen.

“My hope is that people see this [project] as a celebration of humanity and of vulnerability, particularly in a moment where it feels like the world at large is rolling in a direction that is terrifying,” says Hendifar. “The things I cling to are the community around me and a certain responsibility to be the custodian of beauty. I hope that, by connection, people see that as the goal of the studio. Ultimately, we make things that we hope people want to live with.”

“I WANTED TO EXPLOIT THE MALLEABILITY OF LIGHT HERE, PUSHING THE AESTHETIC LIMITS TO CREATE PORTRAITS THAT WERE BEAUTIFUL AS WELL AS DISORIENTING AND STRANGE. LIGHT HELPED ME TO DECONTEXTUALIZE THE SCENE, DISPLACING SUBJECTS FROM THEIR PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT WHILE KEEPING SOME ELEMENTS TO GROUND THE VIEWER. LIGHT BECAME A PAINTBRUSH FOR A COLORFUL FEVER DREAM THAT I WANTED THESE PHOTOS TO BE.”

Yannick Nézet-Séguin photographed by Placek.

Since 2016, Dior has invited a group of artists to transform its iconic Lady Dior bag into a canvas. Here, four of this year’s chosen creatives unpack what went into their take on the timeless accessory.

ARTIST’S HAND THE

Art and fashion have been bedfellows for centuries. One look at Paul Cézanne’s early painting The Conversation, modeled off a fashion plate from the popular pamphlet La Mode Illustrée, reveals muted shades and cinched silhouettes that have been hallmarks of Western style for generations— perpetually reimagined in the petri dish of a maison’s atelier before being adopted (and adapted) on the streets.

Few designers can claim as prominent a place in this long history as Christian Dior. His debut collection—which pioneered the “New Look”— marked an insistent departure from the uniform utility of the 1940s, ringing in an era of timeless femininity. With nipped waists and bustling

skirts flowing to mid-calf, Dior established the postwar era as synonymous with meticulous glamour, crystallizing the house’s association with unparalleled savoir faire and well-heeled women everywhere.

Only a few decades later, Lady Diana cemented Dior’s reputation in the new millennium, sporting her namesake Lady Dior bag to a Cézanne retrospective at the Grand Palais in 1995. Shortly after, she was spotted with the handbag swinging from her wrist as she stepped off a plane in Buenos Aires. A reflection of Di in its simplicity and elegance, the bag quickly became part of her signature look—she is even said to have requested a navy version, to match her eyes.

This aura of effortless versatility has accompanied the Lady Dior bag ever since. Beginning in 2016, the house began to pay homage to this legacy by welcoming an annual coterie of renowned artists—from Jeffrey Gibson and Mickalene Thomas to Sara Cwynar and Ghada Amer—to put their own spin on the iconic piece. Working hand in hand with Dior’s craftspeople, myriad creatives have left their mark on the handbag as part of the maison’s Lady Dior Art Project, now in its ninth edition. In the following pages, 4 of this year’s 11 artists reveal the stories and symbols that inform their interpretations of the time-honored accessory.

GRACE WAICHLER

Photography by Joe Perri;

Photography by Joe Perri

“I COULD TELL IN MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE DIOR ARTISANS THAT THEY HAD CAPTURED ALL THESE INTIMATE ELEMENTS THAT I DIDN’T EVEN SEE IN MY OWN PAINTINGS.”

DANIELLE MCKINNEY

“People use clothes and fashion to tell a story of who they are. When you put a blue garment on Brown skin, it becomes like heaven. I could tell in my first meeting with the Dior artisans that they had captured all these intimate elements that I didn’t even see in my own paintings. I will

never forget looking through all the wonderful samples of materials and colors that would eventually make up this bag. It was completely overwhelming to see them translate a painting I love and treasure into a wholly new medium. I felt their respect for my artistic vision and for

the painting—be it in the reproduction of the colors or the details that matter most to me, like the butterfly. This collaboration symbolizes the idea of the butterfly itself: transformation. Dior took something so intimate and transformed it into something that could be experienced by all.”

“I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THE IDEA THAT I HAD ALREADY BEGUN MY DESIGN SKETCHES BY THE TIME I RECEIVED AN OFFICIAL INVITE.”

ANNA WEYANT

“The story of my Dior Lady Art handbag began in Paris over dinner with Delphine Arnault. She sort of casually mentioned the project and wondered aloud if I might participate.

I was so excited about the idea that I had

already begun my design sketches by the time I received an official invite. Working with the team of artisans at Dior was a pleasure. They are so talented and thoughtful and made my job easy. We met many times during the collaboration to discuss design development

and review material samples and hardware finishes. I hope my handbag brings joy to those who interact with it. All of the past Dior Lady Art handbags are so special, but I particularly adore the designs—and work in general—of Ludovic Nkoth and Hilary Pecis.”

DIOR LADY ART LIMITED EDITION IN COLLABORATION WITH ANNA WEYANT PRICE UPON REQUEST. AVAILABLE AT SELECT DIOR BOUTIQUES NATIONWIDE 1 800 929 DIOR

by

Photography

Joe Perri

by Joe Perri

Photography

“IF PRINTS ARE OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORKS OF ART TO BE MORE DEMOCRATIC, THEN I WANTED THESE BAGS TO FOLLOW SUIT.”

VAUGHN SPANN

“I wasn’t sure how much authority I’d need to relinquish in order to achieve the result with this collaboration, but I knew I wanted to take a risk in order to translate a few series I’ve become recognized for. If prints are opportunities for works of art to be more democratic, then I wanted these bags to follow suit.

We explored different ways to make sure the materials chosen not only translated my paintings but also spoke to the language of fashion—for example, using various beading processes such as trompe l’oeil to enhance areas that might otherwise fall flat if recognized as painting. We also debuted a traditional-style briefcase

handle onto a Lady Dior bag for the first time, with a contemporary twist. I want the person who carries my bag to feel like they are taking a piece of me on each journey, and I wanted the bags to feel as close to living with an original painting of mine as possible.”

DIOR LADY ART LIMITED EDITION IN COLLABORATION WITH VAUGHN SPANN PRICE UPON REQUEST. AVAILABLE AT SELECT DIOR BOUTIQUES NATIONWIDE 1 800 929 DIOR

“I WANT IT TO RESONATE WITH EVERYONE IN A WAY THAT’S DEEPLY PERSONAL AND HARD TO PUT INTO WORDS.”

WOO KUKWON

“This was a unique opportunity to experience up close what it takes to bring an artist’s work to life in a product. Our greatest achievement was to find the materials that would most appropriately and vividly express each motif and pictorial element of the different works. I think I’ve achieved

a satisfactory result by reinterpreting the work as a ‘wearable’ three-dimensional sculpture, rather than a simple print. I want it to resonate with everyone in a way that’s deeply personal and hard to put into words. When viewing my work, one might embrace it without hesitation as some-

thing familiar, or focus on the ‘hand-drawn’ text that’s hard to make out at first. Or sometimes, by chance, one finds that somewhere on the canvas, a single element paradoxically represents the whole. My objective was to present the work in an unadulterated form, allowing it to speak for itself.

DIOR LADY ART LIMITED EDITION IN COLLABORATION WITH WOO KUKWON PRICE UPON REQUEST. AVAILABLE AT SELECT DIOR BOUTIQUES NATIONWIDE 1 800 929 DIOR

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Photography

Jungwoo Park

A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

BY SARA ROFFINO

ACTOR AND PHILANTHROPIST DEEPIKA PADUKONE, THE FACE OF CARTIER’S NATURE SAUVAGE, UNPACKS THE HEAT AND HEART BEHIND THE COLLECTION’S MODERN HEIRLOOMS.

CARTIER NATURE SAUVAGE KOAGA HIGH JEWELRY NECKLACE

18K white gold, rubellite, diamonds, onyx

DESCRIBED BY NONE OTHER THAN VIN DIESEL AS “THE BEST EARTH HAS TO OFFER,” DEEPIKA PADUKONE HAS THE SORT OF GRACE THAT ALLOWS HER TO MOVE SEAMLESSLY BETWEEN BOLLYWOOD ACTION FILMS AND A CARTIER BRAND AMBASSADORSHIP. PADUKONE MAY BE KNOWN BY MANY AS INDIA’S HIGHEST-PAID FEMALE FILM STAR, BUT SHE’S ALSO CEMENTED HERSELF AS A GLOBAL VISIONARY THROUGHOUT HER YEARS IN THE

LIMELIGHT. HER LIVE LOVE LAUGH FOUNDATION BUILDS AWARENESS AROUND MENTAL HEALTH IN INDIA AND HAS GARNERED HER MANY AN ACCOLADE, INCLUDING THE TIME100 IMPACT AWARD AND THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM’S CRYSTAL AWARD, GIVEN ANNUALLY TO ARTISTS FOR THEIR IMPACT ON SOCIETY.

THIS YEAR, PADUKONE’S APPOINTMENT AS THE FACE OF

PANTHÈRE JAILLISSANT EBRACELET / RING White gold, emerald, sapphire spots, onyx nose, emerald eyes, diamonds

NATURE SAUVAGE—CARTIER’S LATEST HAUTE JOAILLERIE COLLECTION—GAVE HER THE OPPORTUNITY TO REFLECT ON YET ANOTHER INTERSECTION: THE DEEP TIES BETWEEN HER CULTURAL HERITAGE AND THE CRAFT ITSELF. “WOMEN, AND ESPECIALLY INDIAN WOMEN, RELATE A LOT TO JEWELRY,” SHE SHARES. “OUR RELATIONSHIP TO JEWELRY STARTS YOUNG— FROM SEEING OUR MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS

WEARING JEWELRY. IT IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF OUR TRADITION.”

A LEGACY CAN BE A HEAVY LOAD TO BEAR, BUT THE NATURE SAUVAGE LINE IMBUES THAT HEFT WITH A DOSE OF LEVITY. “I WAS SURPRISED TO DISCOVER FLAMINGOS AND CROCODILES [IN THE COLLECTION],” REMARKS PADUKONE. “DID YOU NOTICE THAT ONE OF THE

CELESTUN NECKLACE

Platinum, aquamarines, emeralds, rose gold and black lacquer beak, yellow diamond eye, diamond

NECKLACE PENDANTS CAN BE TRANSFORMED INTO A TURTLE BROOCH?” INDEED, DESPITE THEIR EMPHASIS ON UNPARALLELED SAVOIR FAIRE, THE FRENCH HOUSE ENSURED THAT ITS STATEMENT PIECES ARE ANYTHING BUT TAME.

PADUKONE HAS A PERSONAL FONDNESS FOR THE KOAGA NECKLACE, A ZEBRA IN WHITE GOLD THAT

SKIMS THE DÉCOLLETAGE, WITH ROWS OF DIAMONDS AND ONYX REVEALING THE SKIN BELOW. AN EMERALD-CUT DIAMOND AND A 6.25-CARAT PEAR-SHAPED RUBELLITE DANGLE FROM THE ANIMAL’S MOUTH, SWAYING IN SYNC WITH THE WEARER’S MOVEMENTS. THIS PERFECT STORM OF POISE AND PLAY IS WHAT MAKES NATURE SAUVAGE, IN PADUKONE’S WORDS, A “THEATER OF APPARITIONS.”

MOCHELYS NECKLACE / BROOCH Rose gold, rubellites, diamonds