Rediscovering Yva
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The name Elsa Neuländer-Simon (1900–1942), or Yva, her photographic pseudonym, is more often than not a footnote in the career of her famed apprentice, Helmut Newton. With little information and a...
Smiljan Radić’s Serpentine Pavilion opens in Kensington Gardens
Despite the UK's longest day flitting by this weekend, we can rejoice that summertime in London is still on our side, and certainly in our favour as the Serpentine Pavilion – which for the past 14 years has enc...
Plus points
Hong Kong adopts the phrase “Asia’s World City” as its official slogan. With its incredibly free market and proximity to China’s booming economy, the metropolis has certainly lived up to its status as a bus...
Chic becomes Dublin
The born-again, post-austerity Dublin – small but perfectly formed – is a cornucopia of elegant places to be, from stylish hotels to quality restaurants and lovely, lovely things to buy – plus lots to gaz...
Pucci Goes Large
Pucci has made its mark on its hometown’s landmark Baptistery, and over this past week if you happen to have been anywhere near Florence’s Battistero di San Giovann, one of the city’s oldest intact buildings, y...
V&A and China Merchants Group announce first major museum of design in China
This past week the state-owned corporation, China Merchants Group, and the worlds largest museum of decorative arts and design, the Victoria and Albert Museum, signed, sealed and are set to deliver th...
Art Basel 2014: Domenico Gnoli Beds
Domenico Gnoli’s life could be summarised as the classic story of an underappreciated painter who gains notoriety late in life.
Gnoli was born in 1933 to a family of art lovers. His father was an art historian...
The art of travel
Following from the success of their Carnets de Voyage, in which four contemporary artists were invited to illustrate cities they visited for the first time, Louis Vuitton will be launching two new travel titl...
Ai Weiwei’s Forever Bicycles installed at Venice Architecture Biennale
For the last week Venice has been flooded with global architects, designers and artists as its’ International Architecture Biennale – curated by Rem Koolhaas – has opened up for its 14th year. As part of the cr...
Requiem for Ophelia
Embodied by model Sui He, Shakespeare’s Ophelia appears like a distant memory in an experimental film by director Daniya Scheulova. Daniya Scheulova is a Russian filmmaker sharing her life and work between ...
The universal language of music explored at Plisskën Festival 2014, Athens
Music is therapeutic in itself – it’s an explosive expression of emotions, and no matter what culture we are from, music does bring people together. This is precisely what happened over two nights on Plisskën F...
The colour of black and white
“Inspiration comes from Iran’s society and also from the women around me,” says Afshin Pirhashemi, which seems a perfect and succinct way to describe the subject matter in his array of dramatic blac...
Reflections on PSYCHEDELIA, at CAN gallery, Athens
Based upon a much more minimalistic visual language, Reflections on PSYCHEDELIA at CAN Christina Androulidaki Gallery, Athens, explores issues of symbolism and spirituality such as faith, mythology, individual ...
Michael Craig-Martin at Gagosian Hong Kong
Gagosian Hong Kong will present recent paintings by acclaimed British conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin. Known for his “pictorial readymades”, Craig-Martin explores the perceptual tension between object, r...
512 Hours with Marina Abramović, Serpentine Gallery, London
Marina Abramović seduces everyone she meets. This is something one can tell even if one had never met her. Yesterday morning she presented her new performance piece at the Serpentine Gallery in London and she s...
Tom Bianchi Fire Island Pines: Polaroids 1975 – 1983
The Fahey/Klein Gallery will present the first exhibition from photographer Tom Bianchi’s newly released publication, Fire Island Pines: Polaroids 1975-1983 (Damiani, 2013). Bianchi’s Polaroid images capture th...
Gem talk with jewellery historian Amanda Triossi on Bulgari’s 130th anniversary
“The only word Elizabeth knows in Italian is ‘Bulgari,” said Richard Burton. If that comment wasn’t a precursor to turgid consumer culture and the messy squandered line between cultural capital and economic cap...
Glass reviews Richard Avedon, Gagosian, Athens
Richard Avedon said, “Portraiture is performance. You can’t get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface (…) All that you can do is manipulate that surface-gesture, cost...
A journey through cinema history – Twixt Two Worlds at Whitechapel Gallery, London
Pioneers of early cinema alongside leading contemporary artists are shown in a forthcoming show, the Twixt Two Worlds, at Whitechapel Gallery, this month.
Willia...
China on my mind
Contemporary Chinese artists track the growing contradictions and conflicts between old and new China, testing the perimeters between traditional and contemporary art, whilst all the time explorin...
A new dimension
I don’t think there is anything quite as inspiring as the great outdoors, particularly when its multifaceted appeal isn’t just limited to the organic forms of the environment itself but also its h...