assemble: a practice grounded in collaboration and continuity
 
Assemble has developed a practice that moves between architecture, design, and social engagement, working across scales to produce not only buildings but also the conditions that sustain them. Co-founder Anthony Engi Meacock, during his conversation with designboom editor-in-chief Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou (find designboom’s coverage here), describes an approach grounded in collaboration, making, and long-term thinking.
 
Founded in 2010 to undertake a single self-built project, the London-based collective emerged from a desire to act directly on the built environment. As Meacock explains, early work was driven by ‘trying to work together...

When photographer Frank Relle was nine years old, he remembers sneaking out of the house he grew up in in New Orleans just before daybreak to catch the sunrise—an event he found frustratingly difficult to explain to others, as much as he wished to share the experience. It was only years later that he discovered the camera, and he reflects on this time now through the lens of an excerpt from the essay “Between Yes and No” by Albert Camus: “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” Relle adds, “The swamp was that opening for me. I do not fully understand how. I went in...

The ceramic vessel is on view in a new exhibition at Gagosian in New York, alongside another returned to Drake’s descendants last year by the MFA Boston

After more than six years, a mystery woman captured in a portrait that was acquired by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in 2020 has been identified, Artnet reports. The painting, which the museum acquired at auction at Sotheby’s, was signed J. Schul and dates back to the eighteenth century. It depicts a young Black woman, bedecked with pearls and holding […]

Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.A Canceled Biennale Show Finds a New HomeGabrielle Goliath will independently present three new suites of her performance project Elegy, which mourns victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, during the forthcoming 61st Venice Biennale after her eponymous proposal for the South African Pavilion was notoriously axed. “Palestinian lives will be grieved,” declared a press release from the artist's team this week. Kudos to the venue that agreed to host the work — the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin in Castello, a historic church dating back to the seventh...

Tad Smith, chairman of Doodles and former CEO of Sotheby’s, has agreed to buy most of the assets of digital collectibles platform Candy Digital.He wrote on X that he’s “doubling down” on his “commitment to digital collectibles, adding that “when the transaction closes in a week or two, I will also serve as CEO.”The acquisition comes at a pivotal moment for Candy Digital, which launched in 2021 amid heightened interest in NFTs and blockchain-based collectibles. Backed by investors including Michael Rubin, Mike Novogratz, and Gary Vaynerchuk, the platform quickly secured partnerships with major entertainment and sports entities, including Major League Baseball, DC Comics, and Netflix. At its peak,...

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has elected to shut down the AI text-to-video generator Sora just months after its official app launch in September. Before Sora had even officially been disseminated to the public, in 2024, artists and creatives who were given access to the beta version were quick to reject the technology, penning an open letter in […]

When El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego arrived at the San Francisco Opera in 2023, one critic suggested that its staging, with its arresting tableaux blending imagery from the work of both Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, would be fit for a museum exhibition. Taking the cue, the Museum of Modern Art has mounted just such a show.Frida and Diego: The Last Dream, which opened this past weekend, coincides with a new production of the critically acclaimed opera scheduled for the Metropolitan Opera in May. It is billed as a “first-of-its-kind collaboration” between the two institutions, a modest, cross-disciplinary experiment of sorts for which MoMA invited renowned British stage and costume designer Jon Bausor to...

For Olaf Hajek, difference isn’t about opposition but rather about identifying connections. The Berlin-based illustrator renders dense, uncanny compositions that nod to Surrealist icons like Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. Nature and culture entwine, and magic and mystery veil each scene. These dreamlike moments of intrigue ask the viewer to suspend preconceived notions and instead, enjoy the allure of the ambiguous. Hajek is an avid traveler and cultural consumer, offering him a vast repository of images from a variety of sources and locales. Folklore, vernacular traditions, spiritual practices, and natural motifs blend into a distinguishable aesthetic. “What interests me is not so much their...

In a restitution ceremony held this week in New York, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office returned 17 stolen antiquities and rare books collectively valued at more than $1.5 million to Italy and the Vatican. According to a statement by D.A.’s office, the objects were recovered after “multiple investigations into antiquities trafficking networks.” The items include six rare Chinese-language books—largely on scientific subjects—written by Jesuit clerics in the 16th–17th centuries; they are among about 40 such books stolen from the Archives of the Society of Jesus in Vatican City sometime between 1999 and 2002. These books date from a period when Jesuit missionaries were at the forefront of the...

The New School plans to lay off 15% of the university’s full-time faculty and staff by mid-June, Provost Richard Kessler and Executive Vice President Fransico Pineda announced in a faculty-wide email on March 13, the Friday before the university’s spring break. Amid a projected $48 million deficit largely attributed to enrollment decline, the New School’s upcoming layoffs come as the newest development in the university’s sprawling workforce reduction saga, which the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) called the “largest attempted firing of faculty currently taking place in the nation.”In December, buyouts characterized as “voluntary separation packages” and “early...

Paying homage to a fellow trailblazer of modern architecture

Reflecting on an architect who reshaped the built world

On the blurred boundary between art and architecture

I went to Alexander Berggruen Gallery with the intention of reviewing Kevin McNamee-Tweed’s work, as I have been following him since I read his monograph in 2020. While I was there, I saw Tajh Rust’s debut New York exhibition, which is running concurrently, and decided that I would regret not writing about his work, too.Rust’s exhibition consists of six figurative paintings. Two of them are acrylic on silvered glass and stand apart from the four oil paintings on canvas, suggesting his openness to experimenting with different material combinations. Left: Tajh Rust, "How to Disappear I" (2026), acrylic on silvered glass (© the artist; photo Dario Lasagni, courtesy the artist and Alexander Berggruen,...

The museum, which has been closed since December 2024, will continue its programming in collaboration with other cultural institutions

The skeletal remains of the 17th-century French folk hero D’Artangnan—born: Charles de Batz de Castelmore—have perhaps been recovered after being buried under a church in the Netherlands for centuries. The floor of the church, St. Peter and Paul in Maastricht, suffered damage last month, and subsequent repair work revealed the remains. D’Artagnan, a French soldier who served under Louis XIV, rose through the ranks to eventually became a captain of the Musketeers of the Guard, an elite branch of the French military. Fans of French literature, know D’Artagnan from Alexandre Dumas’s beloved 1844 adventure novel Les Trois Mousquetaires. (If you were a child in the ‘90s, the live action Disney movie...

Array

A Paul Klee painting famously owned by the philosopher and cultural theorist Walter Benjamin is currently stuck in Israel as a result of the war waged by Israel and the United States in Iran. The work was to make its American debut earlier this month. As noted in a Hyperallergic review and then reported out by the New York Times, Klee’s Angelus Novus (1920) was supposed to appear in “Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds,” an exhibition that opened last week at the Jewish Museum in New York. Instead, the work is represented by an authorized facsimile and a note in the wall text that reads: “Due to current conditions affecting international transport, the shipment of the original artwork has been temporarily...

A replica of a monument toppled during protests in 2020 has been erected near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as Donald Trump frames the explorer as a national hero

Sore feet, lean pockets, sustainability woes—what’s a 21st-century art fair really good for, some might wonder? Surpassing the skepticism, this edition of Art Basel Hong Kong offered a compelling glimpse at the talent flourishing across Asia. Sure, Pace Gallery’s Modigliani made the early headlines—but by our reckoning, the fair belonged to Asia’s modern masters and its next generation of stars, some who sorely deserve their spotlight.   Bright spots abounded in the curated sectors, with especially strong showings from Discoveries and Insights, respectively dedicated to emerging artists and thematic presentations. With a simple sheet and smart lighting, Ho Chi Minh’s Vin Gallery staged a...

The 78th Issue of Hi-Fructose includes a cover a feature on Nieves Gonzalez, the art of Grip Face, The landscapes of Jennifer Nehrbass, the soft sculptures of Ela Fidalgo, the stitched urban landscapes of Laura Ortiz Vega, the art Jeffrey Gibson, Yu Jin Young’s once transparent figures, and the paintings of Fatima De Juan.  Plus […]
The post Hi-Fructose issue 78 is Coming! first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Art and Art Professions and 80WSE Gallery invite you to the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibitions in New York’s Greenwich Village. We are excited to present works created from the culmination of intensive research and production by our second-year MFA degree candidates.MFA Thesis Part I: HoodwinkedOpening Reception: Wednesday, April 1, 6–8 pm (ET)On view from Wednesday, April 1, through Saturday, April 18Participating Artists: Nicholas Koby, Richard Medina, Roselynn Sadaghiani, Mario Saponaro, and Brooke SchneiderMFA Thesis Part II: EggshellsOpening Reception: Wednesday, May 6, 6–8 pm (ET)On view from Wednesday, May 6, through Saturday, May 23Participating Artists: Ariel Barish,...

eeg device lize integrates neuro sensing into minimal form
 
LIZE is a conceptual wearable device designed to support mental health by responding to the user’s brain activity. Excessive exposure to digital content can cause cognitive fatigue and negative mental states. LIZE aims to reduce these effects through adaptive AR experiences. Electrodes placed on the forehead and behind the ears measure brain signals (EEG) in real time. Based on this data, the device adjusts AR visuals and algorithms, creating a calmer and more restorative environment for the user.
 
Developed as a neuro-responsive headset, the project explores how brain sensing can move beyond clinical equipment into a more accessible and...

Alcuni progetti non si lasciano riassumere in un elenco di attività e prodotti perché la loro logica è fondamentalmente processuale: ART.it – Art in Transition, ideato da Cristina Francucci, ex direttrice dell’Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, e sviluppato sotto la responsabilità scientifica di Maria Rita Bentini nell’arco di oltre un anno con il coinvolgimento di cinque istituzioni – le Accademie di Bologna, Catania e Ravenna, l’Alma Mater Studiorum e l’Università di Macerata – appartiene alla categoria dei progetti in cui il metodo di lavoro è anche, e forse soprattutto, il risultato. Finanziato nell’ambito del PNRR attraverso il MUR per le istituzioni AFAM, il progetto formativo si...

prewood: a compact timber insertion in tokyo
 
In Tokyo, VUILD completes prewood, a compact timber building that occupies a narrow urban gap with a precise, modular approach. Set within a dense streetscape, the project fits between neighboring structures with a quiet confidence, its vertical cedar facade introducing a distinct texture while maintaining the rhythm of the street.
 
The exterior reads as a stacked composition of wooden panels, articulated through subtle shifts in depth and angled cuts. Openings are placed with restraint, offering glimpses of activity inside while preserving privacy along the tight frontage. The material remains untreated, allowing the cedar to weather gradually, its surface...

Array

In communities throughout Switzerland’s Appenzell Hinterland and Midland regions, a unique tradition with enigmatic origins unfolds around the New Year. Known as Silvesterchlausen, the custom entails a group of boys and men who don remarkable, handmade costumes with masks and headdresses that represent rural, wild, and natural scenes. “Silvesterchlausen,” a dreamy short film by writer and director Andrew Norman Wilson, highlights this regional seasonal event, which occurs on December 31 and January 13. The first date marks the turn of the new year on the Gregorian calendar, while January 13 denotes the same on the Julian calendar. The ornately dressed mummers, in groups of six, polyphonically yodel and...

Museums are “remarkably unwilling to acknowledge their own status as democratic institutions, the bedrock of civic society and our most important public spaces”

Brendan Latimer hitches a ride with members of the "site-responsive opera" movement who are taking their shows out of the opera house — and out of the box.

Lisette Oropesa, Piotr Buszewski, and Luca Salsi feature in a rote revival of Michael Mayer's cloying production of La traviata.

Tish Murtha (1956 – 2013) was a teenager when she found an old camera in a derelict house. By this point, she’d already left school and had taken on variety of jobs, from selling hot dog to working in a petrol station. The discovery was a turning point in Murtha’s life, prompting her to first take a photography course at Bath Lane, Newcastle, before going on to study at the famous School of Documentary Photography at the University of Wales. After graduating, Murtha returned to Newcastle, where she documented the region’s marginalised communities from the inside. Her photographs capture the social impact of industrial decline with honesty, empathy and urgency, offering a powerful account of...

The Smithsonian’s Modern and contemporary art museum in Washington, DC revealed eight recent acquisitions that will be displayed in the garden when it reopens this autumn

Array

jeyifous rehearses the future through speculative utopias
 
For Olalekan Jeyifous, the future is not a distant horizon but a parallel condition: one that exists beside the present, waiting to be visualized. Trained as an architect but working fluidly across installation, illustration, and public art, the Brooklyn-based artist and designer has built a practice grounded less in solving problems than in reframing them. His work does not propose masterplans or fixed outcomes. Instead, it operates in the fertile terrain of speculation, where design becomes a narrative device and utopia a method of inquiry.
 
‘I think of a lot of these speculative projects as existing in the now, but in an alternate reality,’...

revistula net zero workplace redefines warsaw riverfront
 
ReVistula transforms an existing office building along Warsaw’s Vistula riverfront into a net-zero landmark workplace. Designed by MJZ with Łoskiewicz Studio for Syrena Real Estate, the project reimagines the structure through circular thinking, ecological strategies, and new construction technologies. Instead of demolition, the proposal embraces reuse as a forward looking model for sustainable urban development. Developed with a focus on long term environmental value, the project responds to international tenants seeking spaces aligned with ESG standards. Conceived as both a workplace and a prototype, it demonstrates how existing buildings can...

This performance was introduced to me by Norman Treigle’s granddaughter —very fine mezzo-soprano Emily Treigle; while I was preparing the role of Olin Blitch, and it completely changed my understanding of the character.

Array

We are really pleased to announce that DO YOU LIKE LOVE? is now available to order!
Do you like love? The question came from a conversation, recalled by a friend. Her elderly neighbour used to cry for ‘elp!’ and Jane’s husband Pip would rush to her aide. Sometimes she’d fallen, but rarely; although she was blind she had lived in that house for 60 years, she knew every inch of it. A house filled with memories of her husband, their life together, and her aloneness after his death. On this one day that she called out, she was found sitting with the television on, a black and white film playing out a romantic scene from the 1950s.
‘Do you like love, Pippy?’ she said, ‘I like love.’
Quiet...

Array

Līmĕn, sostantivo neutro terza declinazione latina: soglia, confine, limite estremo, frontiera. Ci soccorre la molteplicità di significati della parola latina per provare a illustrare il concetto chiave e i progetti fotografici dell’edizione 2026 della Biennale di Fotografia Femminile di Mantova, diretta da Alessia Locatelli e organizzata dall’Associazione La Papessa. “Liminal” è il titolo di questa quarta edizione che, non soltanto, propone lo sguardo femminile sulle dinamiche del mondo (e, in misura minoritaria, anche sulla fotografia artistica), ma soprattutto tenta di portare alla nostra attenzione, e con il fil rouge 2026 più che mai, storie provenienti da luoghi che, seppur marginali,...

From factories and barrel-roofed buildings to gabled churches and towers, Charles Young’s sprawling yet diminutive city of paper models continues to grow. Known for his miniature constructions and animations that often double as three-dimensional color studies, the sculptor and animator highlights a wide range of architectural styles with an emphasis on color pairings. Since 2020, Young has been making hundreds of miniature structures inspired by A Dictionary of Color Combinations by Japanese costume designer and painter Sanzo Wada (1883-1967). (There’s even a fun, interactive website based on the book.) So far, Young has completed 258 buildings from the first volume, which focuses on two-color...

Henrik Aarrestad Uldalen captures people in oils with all the precision and clarity of a camera. He then places these incredibly lifelike images in impossible scenes. Uldalen’s models float in blank spaces. They precariously climb staircases that spiral upside down. They fall from buildings that tilt at odd angles. The Oslo-based artist’s work isn’t so […]
The post Weightless: The Paintings of Henrik Uldalen first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Studio Loan wants to connect LA artists with the space they need — for free By Kristine Schomaker 60% of artists in Los Angeles don't have a studio outside their home. Or one at all. I think about that number a lot. Because space — or the lack of it — shapes everything. What you can make. How you can show it. Whether you can even invite someone in to see the work. Studio visits matter. Not in some abstract networking way, but in the real, tangible way where someone comes to your space, stands...

Baldernock is a small parish located in the hills just north of Scotland’s largest city. It’s only seven miles between the village and Glasgow city center, but its atmospheric moorland and rolling fields, dotted with sheep, feel a world away. For photographer Camille Lemoine, who currently lives in Glasgow and grew up in Bladernock, the familiar rhythms of small town life, agriculture, and the country’s legendarily mercurial weather lend themselves to a series called Down Tower Road. Intimate images capture steel gray clouds, gnarled trees, elegant grasses, and clusters of purple heather. Lemoine also emphasizes the presence of the female body, whether communing with the earth in a narrow track through a...

With Gustavo Dudamel in the spotlight at Parterre Box this week, Grand Tier Grab Bag foreshadows one of the New York Philharmonic's upcoming operatic engagements.

El último sueño de Frida y Diego at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is a visual and sonic wonder, but a weak libretto dampens its effect.

Riding a bike. Singing. Going to a football match. These are everyday activities for most people, but not for Iranian women. Instead, they are part of a wealth of experiences that have been restricted for women and girls since the 1979 Revolution. In the decades before the Revolution, the women’s movement in Iran had made important strides. The right to vote and to take their rightful place in various contexts was improved, and more and more doors opened in society. But since, a series of laws once again limited women’s rights in the public arena and laid the foundations for a gender-segregated reality. Creative duo Atoosa Farahmand and Oscar Hagberg depict the lives of women and girls in Iran, marked by...

Kristina Tzekova  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Kristina Tzekova’s Website
Kristina Tzekova on Instagram

A Milano la quindicesima edizione della fiera italiana dedicata alla fotografia si è presentata come luogo di incontro e influenza delle più interessanti ricerche nell’ambito dell’immagine. Tramite uno sguardo mirato alla rappresentazione della complessità del contemporaneo, la direttrice Francesca Malgara, ha delineato il tema della Metamorfosi come ambito che interpreta al meglio i cambiamenti repentini tipici della realtà del nostro tempo, mettendolo in collegamento con i profondi cambiamenti avvenuti all’interno del linguaggio fotografico e aprendo il dialogo all’universo di riflessioni sulla realtà che questa tematica suscita.
MIA Photo Fair BNP Paribas 2026, ph. Zima Studio, courtesy MIA...

Experimentation, modernism and the shifting boundary between art and commerce define Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond, a compelling new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawing on a transformative gift from the artist’s estate, the presentation reframes fashion photography as a site of radical visual inquiry rather than mere commercial output. Across more than 60 works, the exhibition reveals a practice grounded in process, materiality and reinvention. Here, the magazine page becomes an arena for aesthetic risk, where gesture and atmosphere displace clarity and precision. The show foregrounds the tension between control and spontaneity, tracing how Bassman’s work resists fixity. As Max...

In Tales from Fractured Minds la memoria personale e identitaria di sette giovani artisti viene analizzata e dissezionata. In un tempo in cui il corpo è terreno politico e l’identità appare costantemente ridefinita e distorta dal ‘fuori’ il ricordo assume una propria dignità e autonomia, trasformandosi in un organismo vivo e puro sentimento umano.
AA.VV., “Tales from Fractured Minds”, 2026, installation view, works by Tatjana Danneberg and Hanna Antonsson, courtesy of the artists and The Address, ph. Alberto Favara
Ad accogliere il nostro sguardo all’entrata di The Address c’è Weekends and beginnings dell’austriaca Tatjana Danneberg, che costruisce, attraverso la raccolta di scatti e...

Mary Iverson paints bucolic, sweeping landscapes reminiscent of the late nine-teenth century that look as if were discovered in the dusty corners of an underrated thrift store. At first look, I assume the canvases are found objects, painted over and re-imagined as something quite different than the original painter intended. This is only partially true. […]
The post Worlds Collide: The Art of Mary Iverson first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Sami Farra is this artist we selected for this year’s Capture Photography Festival! Sami is an architect and photographer based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Combining image and object, his work questions the photographic medium in its representation of reality, offering a unique vision of our shared environment. Sami’s interest in images developed during his architecture studies which led him to explore the links between photography and architecture in greater depth at CEPV (Centre d’enseignement professionnel de Vevey).
As the winner of our open call Sami’s work will be installed at the Olympic Village Canada Line Station in Vancouver. The images on display are part of a project involving accidental...

Movement, memory and the infrastructures that quietly shape daily life underpin Phoebe Boswell’s latest commission for London’s Underground, where escalators become both conduit and canvas. Water threads through the work as a conceptual and historical force, linking subterranean rivers with human passage above them. The project situates transit as a site of reflection, where repetition and routine open onto questions of belonging and visibility. Beneath the surface of the city, layered geographies and suppressed ecologies echo the lived experiences of those who move through its spaces. Boswell’s intervention reframes the Underground as a place where histories converge, diverge and resurface in unexpected...

La premessa da cui muove la pratica dell’artista olandese Anneke Eussen (Kerkrade, 1978, vive a Vaals), di cui è in corso la prima mostra personale in Italia alla Galleria Studio G7 di Bologna, è l’intuizione della consistenza materica del tempo. La prima conseguenza è l’idea che i materiali (quelli da lei più frequentati sono il vetro, il marmo e il metallo) siano depositari di durate, stratificazioni e momenti vissuti che persistono nella materia anche quando la funzione originaria è venuta meno. In base a questi presupposti, ogni successiva scelta tecnica e compositiva si configura come un gesto di ascolto verso ciò il tempo ha depositato sulla superficie dei materiali infiltrandosi in...

Exploration and absence form the twin axes of Sophie Calle’s (b. 1953) compelling body of work. From the delicate interplay of text and image to her investigations into the seen and unseen, her art occupies a space between intimacy and universality, curiosity and revelation. Themes of love, memory, longing, beauty, and mortality pulse throughout her practice, inviting viewers to reconsider the boundaries of perception. In her latest exhibition, Something Missing?, opening 26 March at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Calle presents seven major series alongside additional works spanning nearly four decades. Totalling more than 300 individual pieces of photographs, texts and videos, the exhibition...

Cezar Berje  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Cezar Berje’s Website
Cezar Berje on Instagram

 
Who doesn’t love a good photo book? To flick through the pages, be enlightened, educated, distracted and absorbed into another world through another’s eyes? Totally fantastic!
We’re here to share our Photobook Favourites – a selection of our favourite photography books recommended by the Shutter Hub community, an archive of titles we’ve enjoyed, and a reference point for you to explore. Las Pelilargas, Irina Werning, GOST
For 18 years photographer Irina Werning travelled across Latin America to seek out those with long hair to uncover and understand its cultural significance. Her book Las Pelilargas (the long-haired ones) brings together this body of work in an exploration and celebration of...

ABOVE: Gaza Cinderella, Northern Gaza Strip, 2012“Although her drawing is filled with soldiers, helicopters, and tanks, “Amara” only spoke about her intense fear of missile strikes. When a building or other structure is targeted in Gaza, it is often hit with a barrage of several missiles to ensure its complete destruction. The sound of successive […]
The post WAR TOYS: Photographer Brian McCarty Travels to War Zones & Refugee Camps To Communicate Children’s Stories When Words Fail first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.