Translating Voice into a Vertical System of Light and Sound
 
Axis Mundi: Resonant Spire is a 12-meter interactive tower developed by Sergei Konchekov for the 2026 Burning Man Honoraria program. The project translates human voice into a vertical system of light and sound, addressing conditions of digital communication in which expression is constant but rarely converges into shared meaning.
 
Developed within ongoing research at Columbia GSAPP, the structure responds to the fragmentation of contemporary signal environments. In urban and digital contexts, vocal input is often filtered, normalized, and distributed without synthesis. Axis Mundi: Resonant Spire reconfigures this condition into a spatial...

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A contractor for the Department of Homeland Security destroyed a 1,000-year-old etching in the sand of the Sonoran Desert

At some point, I realized I didn’t want to choose between the past and the present. I was interested in allowing them to coexist,” says baroque-style painter Nieves González, who distorts trappings of traditional portraiture to exalt modern day women. Her recent portrait of British pop star Lily Allen, for example, places contemporary attitude—and fashion—within […]
The post Baroque-style Painter Nieves González distorts trappings of traditional portraiture to exalt modern-day women first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

As the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale opens for previews this week, cultural workers are planning a 24-hour strike this Friday, May 8, opposing Israel's inclusion in the event amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.In a statement shared with Hyperallergic, the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) described the action as “the first ever organized strike to occur within the Biennale.” Among the groups that will observe the strike are Biennaleocene, a coalition of local cultural workers formed in 2023 to mobilize against exploitation in Venice's arts sector; the independent art space Sale Docks; cultural heritage association Mi Riconosci; and the grassroots movement Vogliamo Tutt’altro. The Italian...

A spectacle of material waste, celebrity culture, and growing wealth inequality, the Met Gala is no stranger to protest and criticism. But this year's Jeff and Lauren Sánchez Bezos-sponsored soirée was a masterclass in ragebaiting the masses.The Met Gala's red carpet entrance is one of the most heavily scrutinized cultural moments online, and last night, the gloves were off when it came to evaluating the choptitude or servability of each look. It makes sense, doesn't it? If you're going to publicly align yourself with a billionaire-backed costume party because a luxury fashion house invited you to sit at the table they bought out, the least you can do is look good. And yet, so many...

This month, Los Angeles is brimming with overdue retrospectives of influential artists and illuminating showcases of previously unseen work. A Richard Mayhew survey at Karma highlights the subversive elements beneath the bucolic surfaces of his abstract landscapes. The Broad presents Yoko Ono’s first solo museum show in Southern California, and a two-venue presentation of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess’s ceramics and drawings proves that the 96-year-old artist is still very much at the height of her creative powers. Meanwhile, the California African American Museum explores the musical output of celebrated photographer, filmmaker, and writer Gordon Parks, and Chris Sharp unveils a recently rediscovered...

MINNEAPOLIS — On February 12, Trump-appointed “border czar” Tom Homan announced the “end” of Operation Metro Surge, during which more than 4,000 federal agents aggressively targeted immigrant communities in the Twin Cities, causing massive chaos throughout the area and killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti. It seemed meaningful that the same day as Homan’s announcement, Minnesota-based interdisciplinary artist Rosy Simas opened A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:' (i hope it will stir your mind) at the Walker Art Center. The contemplative installation slows the viewer down, inviting a soft sense of communion with objects such as salt bottles made from woven corn husks, each hung from a grid on...

When Amy Sherald hit the red carpet at the Costume Institute’s Met Gala on May 4, she appeared to have stepped directly out of her iconic 2013 painting Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance). Wearing a red hat and a black-and-white dress created by designer Thom Browne, Sherald channeled the work’s youthful subject, who stares coolly out […]

Anish Kapoor has decried US participation in the upcoming Sixty-First Venice Biennale, saying it should be excluded owing to its “abhorrent politics of hate and its incessant warmongering.” Speaking with The Guardian, Kapoor, who represented England in the 1990 Biennale, praised the five-person jury of this year’s iteration for resigning en masse after refusing to […]

The Dimitris Daskalopoulos-led Athens cultural institution NEON will be closing down after fourteen years, the organization said in a statement last week. Founded in 2012 by Daskalopoulos, a prominent art collector and the chairman of DAMMA Holdings SA, NEON was never confined to a single space, but rather acted upon, per their mission statement, “a multitude […]

Amy Sherald, Tschabalala Self and Jordan Roth turned heads at the annual benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute

THERE’S BEEN MUCH TALK about the fading importance of Berlin in the context of the European and global art markets. Some artist friends have attributed this shift, which is driving them to consider relocating, to the many egregious instances of government censorship that have afflicted the arts over the past few years, as well as […]

a Soft cactus Rethinks Desk Objects Through tactile design
 
TACTO is a cactus-inspired memo holder that rethinks how everyday desk objects can engage users beyond pure functionality. Rather than acting as a passive tool, the design encourages interaction through touch, form, and visual metaphor. The object draws inspiration from the structure and character of desert plants. Its soft foam body is wrapped in felt, creating a warm and approachable tactile surface, while pin-like elements referencing cactus thorns allow users to attach notes in an intuitive and flexible manner. At its base, a flowerpot-like form subtly integrates storage for rolled memo paper, combining practicality with a sculptural...

A new principal space for the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art, or SAMoCA, will be constructed as part of the government-funded Diriyah Company’s wildly ambitious Saudi Vision 2030 plans, according to new reports.   The institution will be financed by a $490 million grant from the Diriyah Company, which itself is owned by the Public […]

In 1964, Mohammad Omer Khalil made his first etching. He was initially dubious about its chemical process, hesitantly dipping his fingertip into the acid to test its safety. But this small print, cautiously rendered during his studies in Florence, Italy, marked the start of a decades-long trajectory toward becoming a master printmaker, working across continents. “Still life (Cafe Roma)” (1964) is now on view through May 31 at the Blackburn Study Center in Manhattan, the anchor site of Mohammad Omer Khalil: Common Ground, a multi-city retrospective celebrating the New York-based Sudanese artist in his 90th year.The expansive program came together over several years under the supervision of curators Amina...

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Though the Met Gala is held each year by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the glitzy event is known less for its engagement with art and more for tapping the fashion industry. That changed this year, in large part because the Met Gala made a concerted effort to show off connections between fashion and art. Taking place in tandem with the Costume Institute’s newly unveiled Met exhibition “Costume Art,” last night’s Met Gala carried the theme “Fashion Is Art,” a decidedly broad topic that allowed attendees to go in a variety of different directions. Some went far back in time, looking to ancient Greek and Roman statues. Others reached for more recent influences. The painter Amy Sherald, for example,...

Humor and happenstance take the front seat in Polish photographer Janusz Jurek’s wry images. Working as a graphic designer and commercial photographer by day, he finds the greatest creative freedom in the candid and incidental—the things he notices as he moves about town, travels, and attends festivals and other events. These are the places where he observes some of the most unique individuals and the quirkiest coincidences. “The less commercial and more bizarre, the better—people are more authentic then, less in control of what they’re doing,” he tells Colossal. Jurek is drawn to situations that happen outside of the mainstream, often turning his back on whatever the present attraction is in order...

Mexican cultural figures say the Olmec-inspired sculpture reprises a work that was previously rejected in Mexico City

CADIZ, SPAIN—El País reports that the so-called Delta II shipwreck uncovered during harbor infrastructure work in the Bay of Cadiz has now been identified as a vessel that sank during a famous 1587 raid by explorer and privateer Sir Francis Drake. The sixteenth-century wreck was recently determined to be the Genovese merchant ship San Giorgio e Sant’Elmo Buonaventura. It dates to a time when tensions between England and Spain were rapidly increasing, culminating in the defeat of the Spanish Armada off the English coast in 1588. A year prior to that, as the Spaniards were preparing their invasion, Drake caught the Spanish by surprise in Cadiz, sinking 30 to 35 ships belonging to them and their allies. The...

Cereal stems recovered from Roque Bentayga BENTAYGA, CANARY ISLANDS—Archaeologists uncovered the earliest known evidence of cereal harvesting in the Canary Islands, according to a report in La Brújula Verde. The discovery was made at the C008 cave complex at the Roque Bentayga rock formation on Gran Canaria. The site was likely used as a granary, for plant processing, and, later, as a burial ground by the ancient Canarians, a people of Amazigh, or Berber, origin, between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries. Excavations within the caves yielded over 200 lithic artifacts. Microscopic analyses of wear patterns on some of the objects, particularly a small basalt knife, determined that they were consistent...

The book on the late artist, who was imprisoned for her feminist and socialist beliefs, includes several essays and rarely seen images

From a ninth-century Chinese frontispiece to Marxist magazine covers, this rich tome explores the power of illustration and the ways in which we read such images

DRIFT’s floating light installation hovers over venice’s canals
 
Above the waters of the Grand Canal, Dutch studio Studio DRIFT unveils Shy Society, a site-specific kinetic light installation suspended from the facade of Palazzo Balbi during the Venice Biennale 2026. Installed between the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the historic Ponte dell’Accademia, the work transforms one of Venice’s most recognizable waterways into an immersive stage of synchronized light and movement on view until May 10th, 2026.
 
Visible from the Accademia Bridge and passing boats, the installation hovers above the canal, bringing DRIFT’s ongoing exploration of nature, rhythm, and technology into the public realm. The...

YORK, ENGLAND—According to a statement released by the University of York, researchers have identified rare traces of dyed purple textiles in two Roman infant burials. Known as Tyrian purple, the extremely costly colorant was manufactured by crushing thousands of murex marine sea snails and was typically reserved for use by emperors, royalty, and members of the aristocracy. However, experts were able to detect its presence on garments wrapped around two small children who died and were buried around 1,700 years ago. Their remains are held in the collections of the York Museums Trust. The dye was identifiable through chemical analysis because liquid gypsum had been poured over the shrouded young bodies in...

Hundreds of bottles of “what appeared to be urine” were found in the Met last night, according to the New York Post—which noted that the museum’s starry Met Gala was “soaked in controversy.” “The shocking stunt—tied to allegations that Amazon warehouse workers feel forced to pee in bottles, rather than take bathroom breaks—comes as backlash over the billionaire’s involvement in the glitzy fundraiser has reached a fever pitch across New York City,” the Post reported. Credit for the protest was claimed by Everybody Hates Elon, an anti-billionaire group that set its sights on an event that did not lack for billionaires. In a statement on Instagram, the UK-based group said it had left the...

When Adrienna Matzeg embarked on a trip to Kyoto, Tokyo, and Seoul in July 2025, she encountered intense midsummer heat and humidity, which led her to exploring some of the cities’ nooks and crannies in the dark, when it was cooler. Illuminated storefronts and signage characterize the artist’s late-night runs to convenience stores, markets, and other features of these hubs’ sprawling urban fabric. “In her textile embroidery work, however, the energy of the city falls away,” says a statement from Abbozzo Gallery, which presents her forthcoming solo exhibition, After Hours. “What remains are quiet scenes that left an imprint, tactile snapshots as a record of those summer nights.” “Late Night...

Komorebi Explores Filtered Light Through Luminous Sculptures
 
Komorebi by Aki+Arnaud Cooren (A+A Cooren) is a series of luminous sculptures that examines the interaction between light, material, and atmosphere. The project takes its name from the Japanese term describing sunlight filtered through leaves, using this concept as a basis for spatial and visual composition.
 
Presented at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, the exhibition extends the designers’ ongoing Ishigaki collection. The works are informed by observations from freediving near Ishigaki Island, where light appears as a concentrated, shifting source when viewed from underwater.
all images courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery, ©Benjamin...

By Lorraine Heitzman Erik Otsea's show, Clever Animals & Static at Alto Beta is a menagerie of a different sort. His tabletop ceramic sculptures are quirky but solemn hand-built industrial shapes that suggest machine parts found in abandoned factories or as models for obscure patent applications. They conjure Soviet-style brutalist architecture and futuristic inventions, all simple geometric forms that hint at a bygone time when we believed that life could be improved through industry. So...

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real bodies brought into focus at the Met
 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Art exhibition introduces a new set of fourteen mannequins shaped directly from real bodies, highlighting lived form at the center of its galleries. See here designboom’s wider coverage of the exhibition and gallery tour by architects Peterson Rich Office.
 
Developed for the show, these figures mark a shift in how fashion is presented within the museum. Instead of relying on standardized proportions, the Costume Institute worked with artists to build forms that begin with actual people, thus capturing specific physical conditions and translating them into sculptural structures for display.
 
Within the broader...

The Venice Biennale opened for its professional pre-opening on Tuesday, and artists participating in the exhibition wasted no time making their voices heard. At noon, around 60 artists and a few dozen other participants gathered for an action protesting Israel’s participation in the event and protested in support of Palestine. For the action, titled “Solidarity Drone Chorus,” the artists gathered at the entrance to the Giardini and hummed “Drone Song,” a viral song composed by Gazan composer and music teacher Ahmed “Muin” Abu Amsha, in order to “sonically occupy space,” according to press materials. They then moved in a procession to the Central Pavilion. “The sound of drones is so heavy...

fierce pussy, a collective of lesbian artists, said that its Venice Biennale contribution was censored by the Italian city ahead of the opening of the exhibition today. The collective designed posters for the Biennale that address queer people and trans people. The phrase “Welcome queers and trans people” appears in both English and Italian on one poster that features the beloved Lion of Venice sculpture, which the group rendered as a cat. Another poster features the words “we are queers and trans people” alongside a list of occupations, from “your mortician” to “your favorite newscaster.” The list culminates in the words “we are everyone.” Composed of the artists Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy...

The shapes of Maxwell Mustardo’s ceramic works evoke ancient amphorae, kraters, and, most recently, kylix—a wide Greek cup with handles—although their surfaces feel distinctly organic. Textured growths cloak the vessels with fungal or lichen-esque forms, albeit in color palettes that are bold and otherworldly. Fluorescent oranges, pinks, and greens appear to glow in even the most mundane settings, firmly planting the pieces at the intersection of historic craft, nature, and the uncanny. “I am always tweaking chemistry and application methods to push certain surface effects that I like, that feel organic and grown,” Mustardo tells Colossal. “More recent series of work have tried to blur the...

Curtis Opera and a charming cast of young singers cast a spell with their beguiling production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

Artist Anish Kapoor called for the United States to be banned from the 2026 edition of the Venice Biennale while also applauding the jury’s recent decision to resign en masse. In an interview with the Guardian, Kapoor called the jury’s decision “courageous” and further criticized the US. “I would hope that [the jury] might have also excluded the United States for its abhorrent politics of hate and its incessant warmongering,” he said. While the jury did not explicitly say it had done so due to the inclusion of Israel and Russia in the exhibition, it had previously released a statement saying it would not consider for awards any national pavilions by countries who currently charged with crimes...

“Young people aren’t interesting these days.” It was this sentiment, heard over again from older groups, that artist Pieter Henket cites as the inspiration for his latest project. Birds of Mexico City is a collection of portraits focusing on young Mexicans who are redefining contemporary expressions of gender, identity, tradition and spirituality. The book is a love letter to the next generation – their fearlessness, self-expression and refusal to compromise. As Henket writes in the introduction: “I thought: how incredible that these kids love and respect themselves enough to step into the world exactly as they are, without worrying what anyone might say. It brought me back to my own youth. I was a...

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Anna Tomowa-Sintow, "Ernani Involami," from the MET Centenial Gala, 1983.

A restaurant meal on a road trip. A billboard off a highway. A dusty side street in a Texas town. Stephen Shore (b. 1947) captures the seemingly banal moments of life. His photographs of small-town North America captured a society in transition. The mid-20th century works are emblematic of the rapid transformation of the era, both for culture and politics, and photography as an artform. His shots, according to 303 Gallery, “became a bible for young photographers seeking to work in colour, because, along with that of William Eggleston, his work exemplified that the medium could be considered art.” Most celebrated is Uncommon Places (1973 – 1981) series, which were taken over the course of a decade and...

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There are few figures in the canon of 20th century image-making who require less introduction than Cecil Beaton. A polymath of rare fluency, Beaton moved effortlessly between photography, costume design and stagecraft, shaping the visual language of modern celebrity with a precision that still reverberates today. His lens did not simply capture – it constructed, elevating its subjects into carefully composed myths of glamour and identity. His work defined an era in which appearance became inseparable from performance, and portraiture from spectacle. To encounter Beaton is to encounter the architecture of fame itself. Beaton’s accolades are well rehearsed, yet no less striking for their familiarity. A...

A muscular Englishman in a khaki kilt and black beret hops atop the edge of an old well clad in traditional Spanish tile, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows in what can only be called an act of bravery.  High winds and rain pelt a group of visitors from all directions, and yet, this charismatic performer stands tall above the cobblestone to announce that he’s been living on this vacant island for nearly two centuries. He’s here to give us a tour. “This has been my home for 174 years,” the man says, introducing himself as Captain Horatio Hollingwood. “I arrived in command of a well-known British merchant ship, responsible for transporting goods of every sort. But alongside grain, wool, and oil,...

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Statue of Ganesha looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh, India NEW YORK, NEW YORK—According to a report in The Telegraph, the United States repatriated 657 artifacts to India in a ceremony held at the Consulate General of India in New York. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that the objects were recovered in multiple investigations of antiquities trafficking. “The scale of the trafficking networks that targeted cultural heritage in India is massive, as demonstrated by the return of more than 600 pieces today,” Bragg explained. “There is unfortunately more work to be done to return stolen artifacts back to India,” he added. The objects returned in the ceremony include a bronze figure of...

Archival aerial photograph of Las Playas Intaglio, Arizona AJO, ARIZONA—According to a Washington Post report, an intaglio that looks like a fish has been damaged in southwestern Arizona by construction crews building a second wall on the border with Mexico parallel to the first. Waivers issued by the Department of Homeland Security exempted border wall construction crews from laws requiring the protection of Indigenous archaeological sites and the environment. Located inside Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, the Las Playas intaglio, which is estimated to be more than 1,000 years old and measured about 200 feet long when intact, was recorded by archaeologists Richard Martynec and Sandra Martynec in...

In the late 12th century, a nobleman named Count Gerard van Loon commissioned an abbey to serve as his final resting place. Over the next few decades, amid plenty of political tumult, Herkenrode Abbey in Hasselt, Belgium, was converted to the first Cistercian convent for women. It was a site of pilgrimage from the 13th to the 15th centuries, and despite regional wars and economic uncertainty, it stayed the course. During the 16th century, it experienced its heyday thanks to the patronage of a figure named Prince Bishop Evrard van der Marck, seeing the addition of a Gothic church that brimmed with beautiful stained glass windows, textiles, paintings, and more. The Eighty Years’ War paused Herkenrode’s...

The countertenors conquer the day in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Like probably all of us, there are so many different things I could have submitted for a favorite Verdi performance.

Michael Spyres talks to Kevin Ng about his winding path as a baritenor, which composer he wants to conquer next, and how he makes Wagner work in his voice — and in his native Ozarks.

Renature, presented at Bildhalle Zürich, explores the shifting relationship between nature, perception and materiality in contemporary lens-based art. Bringing together the work of Adam Jeppesen, Douglas Mandry, Inka & Niclas and Joost Vandebrug, the exhibition questions how the organic world is framed through technology and visual culture, whilst foregrounding the physical materials that shape photography. Together, these artists open a dialogue around nature as something seen, shaped and felt. They are not merely documented, but transformed. Their works reject permanence and perfection, instead embracing fragility, artifice and transformation as essential elements of a contemporary visual language. ...

By William Moreno The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. Susan Sontag, “On Photography” William Camargo’s current exhibit of twenty-four plus works, dated 2019 through 2025, reads as a mini survey, with photographic images and installations thematically placed throughout the modest gallery. It’s his largest showing of works to date. Early in his career, the Anaheim native considered fashion and product photography, photojournalism and conflict reportage, finding the latter...

This May, exhibitions on display around the world harness photography and installation to interrogate pressing themes, from the importance of proper representation to the future of our natural spaces. They ask questions like: what happens after sea levels rise? What does the world look like 50 years from now? How do we preserve our cultures, traditions and communities in the face of massive uncertainty? They’re some of the most important issues facing our current moment. Each exhibition, hosted at the National Portrait Gallery, VB Photographic Center, ARKEN, Biennale of Sydney and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, explores them with depth and nuance. They do not provide easy solutions, but ask the audiences to hold...

Blake Masi  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
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Join us on Sunday 07 June from 1.30pm to celebrate the launch of INTO THE TREES by photographer Jo Stapleton, curated by Karen Harvey and published by Shutter Hub Editions.
INTO THE TREES is an expressionist photographic account of Jo’s interactions with trees and woodland, later remembered and reimagined in the darkroom using a range of alternative processes and techniques.
Drinks and canapés will be served from 1.30pm before the formal launch event at 2pm, including a book signing and interview discussion between Karen and Jo about the making of the book and the role photography has to play in helping to protect our wildlife and green spaces.
To celebrate the launch of the book, Jo has produced a...

Sylvia Trotter Ewens  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
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By Nancy Spiller Alec Egan's painting "Dawn House," in his show "Groundskeeper" at Vielmetter Los Angeles, is tender, serene, and calm — a lavender and peach sky sheltering the triangular top of a house flanked by two palm trees and the tip of a cypress. In its companion painting, "Night House," the sky takes a sinister turn with layers of dark blue, sunset orange, and a roiling strip indicative of flames mixed with what might be smoke. It hints at something of what Egan, his wife, and two...

Matthew Walton is an emerging artist based in Toronto. He holds a B.A.A. (Hons.) in Animation from Sheridan College. His mixed-media practice combines drawing and painting, often merging the human form with a distinct graphic sensibility. The result is figurative compositions that strike a distinct textural contrast between softness and hardness. Embracing gestures and mannerisms once repressed, his work is also a celebration of authentic self-expression.
Froot Loops features Matthew’s mixed-media-work-on-paper series highlighting the quiet charm of everyday queerness. Each piece reimagines a separate mundane moment, transformed by Matthew’s bold, graphic approach to figuration and his vibrant technicolor...

Kelsey Shwetz  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
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