Kiki Smith Where the sea meets the sky
It all started with a drawing that American artist Kiki Smith made seven years ago of the long and wandering Hydra, the sea serpent in the sky, and its adjoining constellations Corvus (crow), Noctua (owl), Crater (chalice), Sextans (sextant) and Felis (cat). Smith turned all the celestial elements to symbols in Memory, the installation she conceived for Deste Foundation’s satellite project space, a former slaughterhouse on the Greek island of Hydra, “There are about four or five different groups of work in the show; whether or not they fit together, I can’t say,” says the artist. Read more
Bethan Laura Wood The alchemist
A collection of oval-shaped laminate marquetry ‘oysters’ is spread out on the London studio desk of designer Bethan Laura Wood, who casts herself in the role of magician or alchemist of surfaces by creating luxury pieces out of inexpensive material. “I just love that with marquetry technique you can make this kind of cross section of the laminate. You see, we go from a basic kind of matt navy, to this aggressive surface, then to this bonkers glittered, to this one that’s meant to be like a wood, to this standard Memphis black laminate.” Read more
Erwin Wurm Shedding Light on the Absurd
Presently covered by the sleeve of his winter jacket, the tattoo on Erwin Wurm’s arm, “One minute forever,” evokes the series of action-based performative sculptures he conceived 21 years ago. For a One Minute Sculpture Wurm offers a handwritten instruction and/or a suggestive drawing for the audience to follow. For example, a drawing that shows a person sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out accompanies Hold your breath and think of Spinoza. Read more
Imran Qureshi That Kind of Sensibility
For the Abu Dhabi Art program Beyond: Artist Commissions, Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi chose the historic Al Jahili Fort in Al Ain to unveil his site-specific installation Morning And Night Sang A Duet Together For A Long Moment. Read more
Joana Vasconcelos Portuguese Baroque
From her office on the top floor of a former cereal factory warehouse on the banks of the Tagus River in Lisbon, Joana Vasconcelos coordinates all her studio’s activities. Below her, on the ground floor, two lions covered in crochet lace, assisted by some of her tallest sculptures, guard the entrance, Read more
David Shrigley Thumbs up
British visual artist David Shrigley attempts to rock climb on the Greek island of Hydra and within minutes he draws an appreciative crowd. While he may be improvising for a photo shoot, performing isn’t new to him. Shrigley was an extra in the film Trainspotting. Read more
Laudomia Pucci Used to Colors
The Villa Granaiolo in Castelfiorentino, once a 13th-century fortress, is where the Marchese di Barsento Emilio Pucci and his wife, Cristina, used to host glamorous parties in the 1960s. Read more
Nicolas Party The Imaginary Traveler
“I look at art more than reality,” says Swiss artist Nicolas Party in his studio in Brussels. Party, who would rather go to a museum than on a hike, says that he is most often inspired by looking at images in books and in museums. Read more
Marina Karella From Time to Time
We all have a place we love to go. For the artist Marina Karella it is a studio in the Northern Dodecanese in Chora, a hillside village on the island of Patmos built around the fortified monastery of St. John the Theologian. Read more
Jean-Michel Othoniel The storyteller
A mysterious black and white photograph, the detail of an entrance gate to the Locus Solus villa, adorns the cover of a book on Jean-Michel Othoniel’s drawing table in the Marais district in Paris. Read more
Tony Cragg Master of Materials
Tony Cragg likes order. He likes to classify his sculptures, group them into families and think in terms of the relationships between those families. “I am very skeptical about throwing things at the wall and doing chance things, but art is full of this kind of sloppiness,” Read more
Ron Arad A straight line is also a curve
Ron Arad’s iPhone screen displays an image of a painting, an elongated male figure in earth-toned colors reminiscent of a Modigliani. It is the portrait of his father at 23 painted by his mother when she was 21, younger than Arad’s youngest daughter… Read more
Urs Fischer Natural order
In the luminous studio, nude women recline gracefully on couches. One of them, gleaming in the sun that streams through the skylight, looks as if she has been dipped in liquid gold like the woman in Goldfinger. Another, partly veiled in white oil paint, … Read more
Harold Koda The curator
He wears a perfectly tailored suit, round glasses and polished shoes. With neither pride nor pretension, he stands next to three dress forms and smiles with modest assurance. He is showing three examples of design suffused with Asian references: an ethereal Valentino dress … Read more
Cecilia Alemani Breathing Public Art
It’s 10 am on the High Line in New York City, and two women in red cocktail dresses walk down the old railway turned greenway one after the other, each holding a book to her chest. Curator and director of the public art program for the High Line, … Read more
Mary Katrantzou The outsider
Walking into Mary Katrantzou’s London office, I encounter a happy Cyclops, a figure with a wide-open eye and long voluptuous hair wearing a dress from her 2009 collection inspired by perfume bottles. The portrait by artist/illustrator Craig Redman, who uses the name Darcel, … Read more
Dakis Joannou 2859 words
In the brightly lit living room of his yacht Guilty, Dakis Joannou displays his new set of publications 2000 Words conceived by his good friend and curator of the 2013 Venice art biennale Massimiliano Gioni. “My relationship with Massimiliano goes way back. Read more
Nina Yashar Celestial map
Enter Nina Yashar’s home and you enter Nina Yashar’s eclectic universe where Italian Grazia Toderi’s aerial photo of the myriad twinkling lights of London’s night sky is the centrepiece of her collection. In the photograph, the brightest city lights trace luminous geometries … Read more
Jacques Grange Paris from my window
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette’s sparkling prose made her an international sensation. Although her fictional plots and characters are scandalous, her famous journal Paris from my Window is more subtle with its observations of nature and descriptions of the loyal tenants of the district of the Palais Royal. Read more
