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Vogue
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
How One Artist Is Transforming an Ancient Taiwanese Folk Craft
Alemani first encountered Zhang Xu's work last year while on an art-prize jury and was struck by his craftsmanship and detail. 'It seems quite simple, but it's actually incredibly sophisticated in the making,' she tells Vogue. 'What I loved was this balance between an almost fairy-tale atmosphere and something quite ritualistic and traditional that belongs very much to his family and country.' She found it a perfect match with MOIFA: 'There is something about folk art that feels very popular in a good way, in a way that is not too detached. I wanted that to translate in this installation—something that could be approached by kids and the usual visitors but also by contemporary-art-world people. Contemporary art can create new ways of seeing the amazing collection already there.' The boundaries between folk and contemporary art have long been fluid, from 1940s Art Brut; to feminist and conceptual artists reclaiming craft, ritual, and domestic traditions in the '60s and '70s; to the present, when museums and art fairs have fully embraced folk-informed contemporary practices. Today artists from Ai Weiwei and Nick Cave to El Anatsui, Kimsooja, and Jeffrey Gibson have drawn from or engaged with folk-art traditions. For Zhang Xu, however, 'Taiwanese ceremonial crafts were never considered art in my childhood—it was part of survival.' He admits to at times longing to escape the practice—though he's found freedom creating from his vision instead of fulfilling customer requests. Artist Zhang Xu Zhan as a child with his father and sister at their family's Taipei workshop Photos: Courtesy of the artist A large paper house and other effigies hang from the ceiling in Zhang Xu's family's kitchen. Funeral items are commonly prepared in advance so they can be sold the moment a client needs them. Photos: Courtesy of the artist 'What makes my relationship to these materials unique,' he observes, 'is that I don't treat them as fixed cultural symbols. They've been a part of my life for so long that I interact with them intuitively. I'm not looking at them from a distance but from lived experience.' For example, in Taiwan paper puppets are often displayed standing reverently at funerals. But in his home, where for storage they were tucked away in every available corner, 'they would often hang from the ceiling waiting to be sold, almost like bats. These everyday memories help me avoid cliché readings of tradition and instead find new ways of interpreting them.' Zhang Xu says that his father, who still works the family trade, doesn't quite understand his son's career—he criticizes his animals as not being realistic enough—but has heard friends mention his accolades. The artist has had several solo shows in Asia and participated in group exhibitions and film festivals there and in Europe; the High Line in New York screened his films earlier this year. He's also at work on a new film about water lanterns in different Asian traditions, from India to Vietnam, China, and Japan.
Forbes
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Top 4 Summer Art Exhibitions In London At Tate Modern, Hayward Gallery, National Portrait Gallery And Royal Academy Of Arts
Installation view of Yoshitomo Nara. Miss Margaret, 2016. Photo Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery. © Mark Blower 2025 Summer in London is synonymous with culture and I've selected four exhibitions that capture the dynamism and diversity of contemporary art. From the spiritual abstract landscapes of Emily Kam Kngwarray at Tate Modern to the emotionally resonant figures of Yoshitomo Nara at Hayward Gallery, the visceral brilliance of Jenny Saville at the National Portrait Gallery, and the glorious sprawl of the RA's Summer Exhibition, these are all unmissable exhibitions. Emily Kam Kngwarray at Tate Modern (until October 13th, 2025). Emily Kam Kngwarray installation view at Tate Modern 2025 © Emily Kam Kngwarray Copyright Agency. Licensed by DACS 2025. Photo © Tate (Kathleen Arundell) © Tate (Kathleen Arundell) Tate Modern's groundbreaking retrospective of Emily Kam Kngwarray marks the first major solo exhibition in Europe dedicated to this singular Australian artist. Kngwarray, a senior Anmatyerr woman born around 1914 in the remote Sandover region of the Northern Territory, did not begin painting until her seventies. Yet in the final decade of her life, she produced a formidable body of work that fuses cultural tradition, abstraction, and a deeply personal visual language. Her work stems from her ceremonial and spiritual relationship with her ancestral Country, Alhalker. These are not simply landscapes, but manifestations of knowledge systems, rituals, and ecological stewardship. Early batik works from the 1970s are featured alongside her breakthrough acrylic paintings from the late 1980s, including Emu Woman (1988), a seminal canvas that catapulted her to national recognition. The exhibition–curated in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia–showcases over 70 works, many never exhibited previously outside Australia. Installations of her large-scale batiks drape like banners of Country, while her paintings, such as Ntang Dreaming (1989) and Ankerr (Emu) (1989), use earthy ochres and rhythmic dot patterns to depict food sources, waterholes, and migratory paths. Emily Kame Kngwarreye's middle name, "Kame," is derived from the Anmatyerre word for the pencil yam, a plant particularly significant in her culture and art. Specifically, "Kam" refers to the seeds of the pencil yam (Anwerlarr). The Kam is not only a food source but also a central motif in her paintings, representing her connection to the land and her cultural heritage. At the exhibition's heart lies The Alhalker Suite (1993), a panoramic cycle of 22 canvases that offers a kaleidoscopic vision of her homeland. With hues ranging from pastel pinks to stormy blues, it's a dazzling evocation of seasonal change, flora, and the eternal life force known as Altyerr. Although Kngwarreye began making art as such an advanced age, and lived in a region so removed from the contemporary art world, her incredible talent for translating natural phenomenon into works of art evokes the ability of the Impressionists to capture nature and light on canvas. Observing Kngwarrey's paintings after watching footage of Alhalker, one can see how she has so cleverly conveyed the essence of the natural world in her homeland using natural pigments and an incredible sense of light and movement. Experiencing The Alhalker Suite could almost draw comparisons with seeing Monet's Water Lilies. Bridget Riley's abstract reimagining's of the sun-drenched fields of Provence in high summer also come to mind. Kngwarrey's paintings ping and vibrate with energy and movement, and the sheer volume of work she created is quite mind-blowing. Her late works–especially Untitled (Awely) (1994) and Yam Awely (1995)–show a bold shift to gestural abstraction, stripping her forms to a lyrical essence. This exhibition isn't just about an artist's career; it's about a worldview conveyed through pigment and pattern. It is a rare opportunity to experience an artist who painted not for the market or the academy, but to honour land, law, and legacy. Yoshitomo Nara at the Hayward Gallery (until August 31st, 2025). Installation view of Yoshitomo Nara. Photo Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery. Mark Blower Yoshitomo Nara's first UK public gallery solo show is long overdue, and the Hayward Gallery has delivered an emotionally charged retrospective that captures four decades of the Japanese artist's evolution. Known for his iconic depictions of wide-eyed, childlike figures who oscillate between vulnerability and defiance, Nara's work is much deeper than its deceptively simple style suggests. Organised thematically, the exhibition delves into Nara's formative influences–from his solitary childhood in Japan's Tōhoku region listening to American folk and protest songs, to his transformative years studying in Germany, where he absorbed the emotional immediacy of Neo-Expressionism. In the first, high-ceilinged room of the Hayward Gallery, the exhibition starts with a life-sized recreation of Nara's studio, situated in a handmade shed-like construction, a painting hanging on the exterior depicting a small child standing on verdant green grass against a blue sky, with the words Place Like Home painted in rainbow colours, indicating that the shed-studio is Nara's happy place. Visitors can peer through the windows to see the tools of the artist, pens, pencils, paper, and things that inspire him as he works–from kitsch toys to favourite music. On the wall beyond the shed is a vast display of vinyl, including records that have inspired and informed Nara's work over the years, from folk music to psychedelia to rock and punk. What unfolds as you journey through the galleries is a story of quiet resistance. Nara's figures, often rendered with minimalist brushwork and haunting stillness, become avatars of innocence, trauma, and rebellion. Works like Ships in Girl (1992) reject the saccharine tropes of kawaii culture, instead offering nuanced portraits of psychological unrest. Meanwhile, From the Bomb Shelter (2017), created in response to the 2011 Fukushima disaster, introduces a more sombre tone–a child emerging cautiously into an uncertain world. Sadly this image strongly resonates now, in an era when too many children are still at the mercy of war and conflict. Images such as No War, No Nukes and Stop The Bombs–which shows a child-like figure holding a placard with an anti-war mantra dating back to countercultural movements of the 1960s–are still deeply pertinent now. Nara first came across the anti-war movement during his childhood–when he lived among the US military bases from where soldiers were dispatched to fight in Vietnam–and he heard political folk music and protest songs on the radio. Nara's more recent paintings, such as Midnight Tears (2023), feature tender, fragmented brushwork that radiates introspection. Nara has an incredible ability to paint eyes that are like windows into the soul of his child-like figures, pools of introspection with reflections of pain inflicted on innocents by the outside world. For this painting–which is on loan to the Hayward Gallery exhibition from the Guggenheim Bilbao–Nara revisited the techniques he learned at art school in Dusseldorf of the German Neo-Expressionists, which involved the application of layers of wet-on-wet acrylic paint. The influence of music remains palpable throughout–punk, folk, and blues notes echo in his palettes and postures. While sculpture, collage, and works on paper provide a broader understanding of his practice, it is the paintings that hold viewers in their silent, resolute gaze. Curator Yung Ma calls Nara 'iconic,' and it's hard to disagree. This exhibition is not just a survey–it's a meditation on loneliness, memory, and the redemptive power of making art. Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting at the National Portrait Gallery (until September 7th, 2025). Jenny Saville, Drift, 2020–22. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery Few contemporary artists capture the brute force and fragility of the human body like Jenny Saville. In The Anatomy of Painting, the National Portrait Gallery presents a deeply personal and chronological journey through the work of one of the most influential painters of the past 30 years. From her audacious breakout piece Propped (1992) –a self-portrait that snarls at convention—to her recent abstract experiments, the show underscores Saville's ability to oscillate between flesh and feeling. Saville's confrontational large-scale paintings caught the attention of art collector Charles Saatchi, who purchased her work shortly after she graduated from Glasgow School of Art, and she became associated with the Young British Artists (YBAs), featuring in seminal exhibitions Young British Artists III (1994) and Sensation (1997). Her large-scale oil paintings are monumental, both in size and emotional depth. Bodies twist, sag, bleed, and assert themselves unapologetically. She paints not with delicacy, but with urgency–every brushstroke an excavation of vulnerability. Saville's practice is steeped in anatomical study. Her fascination with the body's structure has led her to observe surgeries and dissect medical texts, giving her portraits a topographical depth few others achieve. And yet, in later works, she turns inward, toward the anatomy of painting itself–gesture, tempo, layering. Her influences–including Tintoretto, Titian, Bacon, Freud, de Kooning, and Twombly–are evident, but Saville's voice remains utterly her own. The inclusion of charcoal drawings and intimate works on paper adds tenderness to the exhibition. A rainbow wash across a face; the suggestion of a skull beneath translucent skin–Saville invites us to inhabit these bodies as sites of transformation. Thoughtfully Curated by Sarah Howgate–NPG Senior Curator, Contemporary Collections– Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting brings together 45 works tracing the artist's prolific career, creating a landmark show that proves Saville isn't just painting bodies–she's capturing the essence of our psyche. Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (until August 17th). Sikelela Owen 'Knitting' Sikelela Owen Every summer, the Royal Academy's sprawling Summer Exhibition turns the neoclassical halls of Burlington House into a carnival of contemporary creativity–and the 257th edition is no exception. Co-ordinated this year by Royal Academician and architect Farshid Moussavi, the 2025 theme is Dialogues –a prompt that's opened the doors to artists and architects exploring intersections between humanity, nature, and society. This year, architecture is embedded throughout the show, forging visual and conceptual conversations with the art. Highlights include Alice Channer's soaring 6m sculpture of ostrich feathers and steel chain, and Antonio Tarsis' vast wall of reassembled matchboxes. Suspended works hang from the rafters–Tamara Kostianovsky's fabric carcasses among them–challenging our sense of scale and materiality. The exhibition remains proudly democratic, featuring submissions from unknown artists alongside Royal Academicians. Big names abound: Grayson Perry, Lubaina Himid, Cornelia Parker, and Yinka Shonibare all contribute, while Jenny Holzer and Marina Abramović appear for the first time as Honorary Academicians. The Royal Academy of Arts recently announced its 2025 prize winners, which include Sikelela Owen who won the £34,000 Charles Wollaston Award for her beautifully contemplative painting, 'Knitting', based on a photo of her mother. Other prizes included The AXA Art Prize (£10,000) for 'an outstanding work of figurative art', awarded to Miho Sato for her painting Windy Day 2, and the Jack Goldhill Award for Sculpture (£10,000), which was awarded to Zatorski + Zatorski for their sculpture created from 101 white rat pelts filled with 24-carat gold. New architectural commissions by 6a architects, JA Projects, and 51 Architecture–whose 6m-high wildlife roost graces the courtyard–reflect the RA's commitment to sustainability and social engagement. But the Summer Exhibition is also about joy, discovery, and tradition. Ryan Gander RA's inflatable balls, inscribed with childlike absurdities, welcome visitors with a spirit of play and curiosity. Sales from the show support the Royal Academy Schools, the UK's only free postgraduate art program. It's chaotic. It's crowded. It's brilliant. And it remains one of the most vital celebrations of art in the country. Final Thoughts Whether you're tracing ancestral stories across the desert canvas, locking eyes with a punk-infused child-ghost, peeling back layers of pigment and flesh, or wandering through a riotous gallery of ideas, London's summer exhibitions invite you to see, feel, and reflect. Each show is not just a display of art–but a conversation: between cultures, between disciplines, and between past and present.
South China Morning Post
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Thierry Noir, French artist first to paint on the Berlin Wall, now showing in Hong Kong
French artist Thierry Noir's paintings pop with the colourful cartoonish characters that have come to define him. The characters – featuring big heads, elongated faces, bulging lips – exude a sense of fun, which is ironic considering the inspiration for the imagery was born almost half a century ago in Berlin at a time when the divided city was at the heart of the Cold War. Noir is credited as being the first artist to paint on the Berlin Wall , which stretched 155km (96 miles) to divide communist East Germany and the democratic West. 'Painting the colourful long faces and big heads was a sort of physical reaction against the pressure of daily life near the Berlin Wall,' says Noir, who between 1984 and 1989 covered about 5km of the wall with his art. Noir in front of one of his paintings on the Berlin Wall in 1986. Photo: Thierry Noir Studio At the time, he had no idea of the mark he would leave, not just on the wall but on the global contemporary art scene. Today, he is considered a pioneer of the street art movement. 'We called street art graffiti back then,' he says.
Forbes
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Artist Heman Chong Finds Meaning In The Unfinished
Heman Chong, The Library of Unread Books, 2016-Present. Installation view of Serpentine Pavilion 2024, Archipelagic Void, designed by Minsuk Cho, Mass Studies Photo Heman Chong Singaporean artist Heman Chong has built a compelling, unconventional practice that spans painting, writing, performance, installation and what he calls 'situations'. Known for his sharp wit, conceptual rigor and fascination with systems of language, politics and infrastructure, his work often explores the gaps between information and interpretation, presence and absence. He represented Singapore at the 2003 Venice Biennale and recently exhibited 'The Library of Unread Books', a roving public reference library composed entirely of unread books donated by individuals that reflects the surplus of knowledge in contemporary life, at the Serpentine Pavilion in London in 2024. With his first major survey show, 'This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness', now on view at the Singapore Art Museum until August 17, 2025, he reflects on over two decades of restless experimentation and invites us to embrace the incomplete, the overlooked and the unresolved. Your Singapore Art Museum exhibition title 'This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness' is taken from Wikipedia's terms and conditions. What about the impermanence and incompleteness of digital information resonates with your practice? The title of this survey is itself an artwork. I borrowed the phrase from Wikipedia, where it appears on list pages. I feel a connection to it because many of the objects that interest me seem to constantly shift in meaning. Whether we like to accept it or not, the fact is everything around us is constantly changing on an atomic level. Every moment is different from the next. We can never recreate a moment in time because it is just physically impossible. I think we like to think about stability and consistency and how we all like to feel safe in that cocoon of fiction, but unfortunately, life is often made up of all these different things thrown at us and I've always felt, quoting a beautiful title from a book by Joan Didion, to 'play it as it lays'. Installation view of Heman Chong's Monument to the people we've conveniently forgotten (I hate you), 2008, as part of the exhibition "This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness" at Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark Photo courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Your exhibition is framed around nine thematic rooms. How did you decide on these themes, and what kind of journey do you hope visitors will experience as they move through the space? The nine parts of this exhibition form a constellation of a large part of myself, so in fact, the exhibition layout is somewhat autobiographical. The parts are: Words, Whispers, Ghosts, Journeys, Futures, Findings, Infrastructures, Surfaces and Endings. To be honest, I've never expected anything from the audience and they are free to experience whatever they would when they encounter my work. For your six new commissions in this exhibition, what was the starting point for them? Were they conceptually linked to your earlier projects or did they represent a new departure? Everything that I've ever made has a formal or sometimes emotional relationship to each other. One project spills into the other. Everything is a mess and I like this messy way of working. It is difficult to think of imaginary beginnings or ends for each of my works because, as the title of the exhibition would suggest, I am very invested in open-endedness and incomplete things. Installation view of Heman Chong's Calendars (2020-2096), 2004-2010, as part of the exhibition "This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness" at Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark Photo courtesy of Singapore Art Museum What do you feel is the role of the artist in society? What do you hope to achieve or what message do you hope to convey through your art at the end of the day? I view my role as an artist as a privileged individual whose job is to, hopefully, think differently from the norm. By offering alternative perspectives, I hope to create more open and meaningful spaces in our society to engage with complex topics such as inequality, identity, esthetics, existential questions and community. After this survey exhibition, what new projects or exhibitions are you working on? Are there new directions or themes you're eager to explore next? I am working on many projects at the moment. The first is a book that will be published by the wonderful Ivory Press in Madrid. The second is a new temporary sculpture for the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp that will be installed for a year in their beautiful outdoor gardens. I am also the artist in residence this summer at the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, where I will dedicate my time to thinking about a show curated by Hou Hanru at Tai Kwun Contemporary about my favorite artist, On Kawara. I am also working on a long-term publishing project with a bookshop called Page Not Found in The Hague that will become a dispersed exhibition in The Netherlands. Finally, my work is included in the 30th anniversary show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo this autumn. I am working on many other solo shows, but I am not allowed to discuss any details about them right now, so stay tuned!
BBC News
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Outdoor art festival returns to Folkestone
A prestigious outdoor contemporary art festival is returning to a Kent town after being delayed for a sixth edition of the internationally renowned Folkestone Triennial starts on Saturday and runs until 19 year's event was delayed after local officials secured £20m Upton, chief executive of Creative Folkestone, said: "Over the last two decades, the Folkestone Triennial has been instrumental in reimagining the town as a hub for artistic innovation." This year's Triennial will see 18 artists from 15 countries create "ambitious new commissions that will transform Folkestone's urban and coastal landscapes", organisers said. The commissions will take over some of the town's most striking and unusual locations, including a church built for the fishing community, a former customs house, a Martello Tower, a lookout point across the Channel, and a disused railway bridge. Sorcha Carey, the exhibition's curator, said: "All the artworks are created and presented in response to the specific context and landscape of Folkestone. "But the questions they explore are universal." Organisers say the outdoor exhibition has brought in £100m to the local area over the years. Previous exhibitions have included new works by Tracey Emin, Mark Wallinger and Yoko 2014 a Banksy mural appeared on a park wall during the most recent Folkestone Triennial, in 2021, welcomed more than 220,000 visitors, according to its organisers.
