Alonzo Davis, artist and advocate for Black art, dies at 82. https://ift.tt/GQhSBRn

Alonzo Davis, a champion of Black art in the United States, passed away on January 27th at 82. His death was confirmed by his representing gallery in Los Angeles, Parrasch Heijnen.

Often inspired by his travels worldwide, Davis created prints, paintings, and installations in his art practice. His pieces frequently addressed social justice and environmental issues. However, he is perhaps best known as the co-founder of Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles, one of the first major Black-owned contemporary art galleries in the United States.

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1942, Davis moved to L.A. with his mother and brother, the artist Dale Brockman Davis. There, Davis earned a BA from Pepperdine University in 1964 and an MFA in printmaking from Otis Art Institute in 1971. During this time, Davis’s experiences during the civil rights movement, particularly his participation in the James Meredith March in 1966, profoundly shaped his personal beliefs.

In 1967, he founded the Brockman Gallery with his brother, in a storefront in Leimert Park, then a cultural hub for the Black community in South Los Angeles. The gallery became an important platform for Black artists, providing critical exposure and support at a time when such opportunities were scarce. Artists like David Hammons, Suzanne Jackson, Betye Saar, and Kerry James Marshall were among those who had early exhibitions at Brockman Gallery.

Throughout his career, Davis was a strong advocate for public art. He contributed to a series of public murals for the 1984 Summer Olympics, including his own work, Eye on ’84 (1984). This mural was one of ten commissioned for the event, but it was painted over.

The scope of Brockman Gallery expanded over the years to include a nonprofit arm, Brockman Productions, which hosted an artist-in-residence program and an annual film festival. Davis stepped back from active gallery management in 1987 before the gallery closed in 1990.

In his later years, Davis remained committed to art education. Just before the gallery closed, Davis became the interim director of the public art program in Sacramento. He taught at the San Antonio Art Institute before becoming the dean of the Memphis College of Art from 1993 to 2002. In 1995, Davis was granted a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). At his initiative, the VCCA introduced the Alonzo Davis Fellowship in 2007.

Parrasch Heijnen hosted Davis’s first solo exhibition with the gallery in 2022, featuring the artist’s “Blanket Series,” made of woven, painted strips of paper and canvas. Davis’s work is featured in prestigious collections, including the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.

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1-54 Marrakech 2025 Highlights the Red City's Status as a Global Arts Hub https://ift.tt/oGc3P5e

The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair has three continuous iterations globally, but Marrakech is arguably its most unique. This is partly thanks to the allure of the Red City and the fair’s headquarters at the iconic La Mamounia, a lavish, century-old palace that melds Moroccan architecture with Art Deco stylings.

As the fair’s VIP preview got underway on Thursday, collectors and institutional guests hummed with energy. This year’s edition of the fair—its sixth in Marrakech—features more than 30 galleries from 15 countries, including 15 from the African continent. In Marrakech, one of Artsy’s art capitals to watch in 2025, the fair is also situated in the heart of a thriving arts community. As well as the main fair in La Mamounia, 1-54 is hosting eight emerging galleries at DaDa, a multilevel arts hub in the city’s medina. An array of special projects with local and international institutions also bolster its programming.

The fair’s mission has always been to raise visibility for artists from Africa and its global diaspora. Founding director Touria El Glaoui wanted to rectify the fact that, as recently as a decade ago, she saw little trace of the art from the African continent when she traveled abroad. The fair debuted at London’s Somerset House in 2013, added a sister event in New York in 2015, and expanded to Marrakech in 2018. Throughout its existence, it has helped to shift outmoded notions of African art while responding to each locality.

El Glaoui is also keen to emphasize the Marrakech fair’s international perspective. “This diversity of where the galleries are coming from is bringing a diversity of collectors,” she told Artsy. “Each gallery has a network of different people that they invite to come to Morocco, which brings a very exciting and energetic group of people coming to Marrakech.”

Indeed, among the debutants at this year’s event is Tokyo’s space Un, partaking in its first-ever art fair since opening in April 2024. In a shared presentation with Galerie Atiss Dakar, the gallery is showing a pair of works by Senegalese artist Aliou Diack, priced at around €13,000 ($13,491) and €23,000 ($23,869) apiece. The gallery’s Cameroonian French founder Edna Dumas studied in Japan in the ’90s and moved back to Japan seven years ago, where she launched the only Japanese gallery with a focus on contemporary African art. “Historically, culturally, there’s no strong connection—yet,” said gallery director Naoki Nakatani. “But we’d like to create it through contemporary art.…The voices are real.”

Also relatively far-flung is the Kalhath Foundation from Uttar Pradesh, India, returning for the second year with a showcase of Amina Benbouchta’s intricate embroidery pieces, elegantly embellished with cut beads and resham thread. The Moroccan artist established needlework as a form of cross-cultural vocabulary while collaborating with 20 Indian master embroiderers over four months. The most expensive piece, Archives Alice (2025), a linen canvas with acrylic and anchor threads, is priced at €15,300 ($15,879) and sold within the first hours of the VIP preview. “Any collaboration with any two parts of the world—especially with our country, India—is just phenomenal,” noted Kalhath Foundation trustee Konarak Salian.

Untitled (A), 2024
Aliou Diack
space Un

Doll, 2010-2013
Alex Burke
Loeve&Co

As well as a strong crowd of collectors, institutional attention was notable on the VIP day. Among the highlights was an Amoako Boafo work purchased by the Tate from Accra- and London-based Gallery 1957. Parisian gallery Loeve&Co, meanwhile, noted that collectors visiting its stand had meaningful connections to museums including Musée du Quai Branly and MoMA. “For us, the strongest proof that we haven’t been mistaken [in our tastes] is when museums show interest in the artists we show,” said the gallery’s artistic director Stéphane Corréard. Loeve&Co specializes in a “contemporary rereading of historical artists who feel very current but haven’t achieved the notoriety they deserve,” Corréard noted. Non-Western artists inevitably fall into this category. The stand’s selection includes vivid paintings by Haitian artist Roland Dorcély; the largest work, shown for the first time, is an untitled 1957 painting priced at €110,000 ($114,166). Nearby are Congolese painter Marcel Gotène’s spirited forests as well as Martinique-born artist Alex Burke’s patchwork textile sculptures. All three will be included in the forthcoming group show “Paris Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance, 1950–2000,” opening at the Centre Pompidou in March. “It’s a sort of VIP preview,” joked Corréard.

As well as newcomers, stalwarts of 1-54 are prominent. Among them is Parisian gallery AFIKARIS, which has been participating in all three editions of 1-54 for the past five years. Curator and gallery director Michaela Hadji-Minaglou praised the fair for being at “human scale” and “qualitative, with a desire to educate—that’s why we keep coming back.” The gallery’s booth showcases works by Moroccan artists Mouhcine Rahaoui (whose pieces overtly reference the struggles of miners) and Omar Mahfoudi (who presents a series of colorful abstract landscapes), as well as Nigerian artist Ozioma Onuzulike’s tapestries, which consist of clay shapes referencing the pits from hearts of palm. Onuzulike’s work is the most expensive on the stand, priced at €40,000 ($41,515) each.

Ada’s Beaded Dress with Hansa Yellow Embroidery II, 2024
Ozioma Onuzulike
AFIKARIS

Mineurs, 2024
Mouhcine Rahaoui
AFIKARIS

Crossing the Atlantic from New York, Ross-Sutton Gallery is showcasing a selection of works by Joshua Michael Adokuru, Khari Turner, and Dina Nur Satti. Adokuru’s bright figuration has been very well-received at the fair—it sold out at the last New York edition of 1-54—and it translates especially well in person with its intricacies of strings, nails, and acrylic on board. Here, prices for the artist’s works range from $9,000–$15,000.

While international galleries abound, the fair’s core consists of ten Morocco-based galleries. Among them is Loft Art Gallery, which presents an all-Moroccan lineup of artists including Amina Agueznay, Samy Snoussi, Nassim Azarzar, and Bouchra Boudoua. Based for 15 years in Casablanca, the gallery opened a Marrakech space in 2023—partly as a result of realizing that “Marrakech was the bridge between Morocco and an international clientele,” said Hiba Tahri, the gallery’s director of operations. She noted that 1-54 was an influential factor in making this a reality. “Here, we’re on our home turf and we’re putting forth Moroccan artists and Moroccan artisanal techniques, whether it’s using bark from palm trees or ceramics,” Tahri emphasized. Prices for works at the booth range from €800–€15,000 ($830–$15,573).

Untitled, 2024
Nassim Azarzar
Loft Art Gallery

Untitled, 2025
Bouchra Boudoua
Loft Art Gallery

Meanwhile, at DaDa, a 20-minute walk away from La Mamounia, emerging art is the focus. At the entrance is Hunna Art from Kuwait City, which focuses primarily on artists from the Arab world and North Africa. The gallery is presenting a duo of young women artists, namely Moroccan artist Maissane Alibrahimi and Egyptian artist Amina Yahia, whose exploration of anti-patriarchal themes is expressed in groupings of works-on paper as well as oil paintings. Flanking the other side of the entrance is Tanger Print Club, a studio and independent publisher presenting affordably priced prints like figurative screen prints by Yasmine Hadni (priced at £300 ($372)) and Yto Barrada’s offset text work I AM NOT EXOTIC I AM EXHAUSTED (priced at £50 ($62)).

From its more emerging end to its longstanding galleries, 1-54 Marrakech is clearly flourishing thanks to its breadth of exhibitors, along with its international scope. “There’s definitely a broader recognition and a broader audience that is more engaged with contemporary African art,” El Glaoui affirmed. As Marrakech continues to thrive as an international arts destination, the fair’s mission to raise visibility for its artists is only set to grow.

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9 Must-See Mexico City Shows during Zona Maco 2025 https://ift.tt/Gq8IB4o

Marble Arch, 2022
Jo Dennis
JO-HS

Desde el oído interno (B), 2018
Magali Lara
Galería RGR

Over the past few years, Mexico City has become a powerhouse for contemporary art. In 2025, the art world’s love affair with the city shows no signs of slowing down. With the 21st edition of Zona Maco opening to the public on February 5th, the Mexican capital’s significance only grows stronger. As Latin America’s largest art fair, the annual event underscores Mexico City’s role as a global art capital, drawing collectors, curators, and artists from around the world.

In 2025, Zona Maco returns to Centro Citibanamex with 200 galleries from 29 countries across four continents, serving as the epicenter of a week filled with contemporary art. But the energy extends far beyond its halls. Outside the fair, galleries and museums across the city are rolling out some of their most significant shows of the year.

These are the nine must-see shows during Mexico City Art Week.

Teresa Solar Abboud, “Tu sombra sustituida”

Travesía Cuatro

Feb. 4–Apr. 25

Simbionte, 2024
Teresa Solar
Travesia Cuatro

At Travesía Cuatro, “Tu sombra sustituida” marks Teresa Solar Abboud’s third solo show with the gallery, drawing its title from the verse of a poem by artist and poet Lucía C. Pino. Just as the poem describes a shadow morphing, Solar Abboud’s sculptures shift with the viewer, becoming something more than static objects.

Working with high-temperature clay, resin, and metal, the artist constructs forms that evoke tunnels, conduits, and passageways—symbols of movement, transformation, and resistance. Despite their monumental scale, her works invite an intuitive, physical engagement, enveloping and disrupting space.

Fresh off retrospectives at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona and Madrid’s Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Solar Abboud continues her exploration of material and perception. At once organic and mechanical, her sculptures remind us that art, like identity, is never fixed—it evolves with those who encounter it.

Jo Dennis, “A Glass of Absinthe”

JO-HS

Feb. 4–Mar. 29

Parasol, 2024
Jo Dennis
JO-HS

During Zona Maco, Mexico City tastemaker JO-HS presents “A Glass of Absinthe,” a solo exhibition by British artist Jo Dennis, curated by Elisa Carola. The show features paintings on salvaged military tent fabric, where layers of pigment, marks, and found materials accumulate like traces of memory.

Dennis’s work investigates the intersection of material culture and human experience, drawing on the Cubist and Dadaist tradition of integrating everyday objects into art. Her compositions carry the physical residue of past events—stains, imprints, and textures that speak to themes of ruination, time, and impermanence. The exhibition’s title references Pablo Picasso’s Glass of Absinthe (1914), a work that, like Dennis’s, blurs the line between object and image. Here, painting becomes an archaeological act, unearthing histories embedded in surface and structure, and transforming remnants of the past into layered, tactile meditations on presence and loss.

Pedro Friedeberg, “simetrías y puntos de fuga—70 años de creación”

Saenger Galería

Through Mar. 29

Saenger Galería kicks off the week with “simetrías y puntos de fuga — 70 años de creación,” a sweeping solo exhibition dedicated to Italian Mexican artist Pedro Friedeberg. Curated by Michel Blancsubé, the show marks seven decades of the artist’s mind-bending, meticulously detailed work, which fuses Surrealism, architecture, and obsessive patterning into a visual language entirely his own.

Friedeberg’s world is one of dizzying symmetry and impossible perspectives, where hands and feet double as ornamental structures and labyrinthine compositions invite viewers to lose themselves in the details. The exhibition showcases paintings, drawings, and sculptures like his iconic Hand Chair (ca. 1965) that exemplify his singular approach—playful yet deeply erudite, maximalist yet precise.

Presented in collaboration with Galería Casa Diana, Friedeberg’s long-standing representing gallery in the nearby city of San Miguel de Allende, the exhibition serves as both a retrospective and a testament to his enduring influence.

“Visual Echoes”

Proyecto H

Feb. 4–28

Silky summer skin, 2024
Daniel Adolfo
Proyecto H / Galería Hispánica

Sticky Summer Skin, 2024
Daniel Adolfo
Proyecto H / Galería Hispánica

Proyecto H brings together four artists from its residency program for “Visual Echoes,” a group show exploring the intersections of abstraction, materiality, and perception. Featuring works by Daniel Adolfo, Álvaro Borobio, Marta Moreno, and Javier Sánchez, the exhibition highlights the dialogue between distinct artistic practices while revealing unexpected common threads.

Each artist approaches abstraction through a unique lens—whether through gestural brushwork, structural compositions, or textural experimentation. Yet their works resonate in conversation, forming a layered, dynamic exchange. More than just a showcase, “Visual Echoes” reflects the evolution of Proyecto H’s residency program, offering a glimpse into the creative processes shaped within its walls.

Yngve Holen

Galerie Nordenhake

Feb. 4–Mar. 15

Yngve Holen has long been preoccupied with the sleek surfaces of modern life—the parts of machines we rarely consider, but rely on daily. In his latest exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake’s Roma Norte space, the Berlin-based artist continues his practice of dismantling and reconfiguring industrial objects. His works turn headlights, medical-grade plastics, and anodized aluminum into something strangely sentient.

These sculptures don’t just reference technology; they embody it, reflecting the ways human identity is increasingly entangled with design. A car’s headlight, removed from its original context, becomes something anthropomorphic—a seeing object rather than a functional one. Elsewhere, sculptural forms suggest the clinical sterility of airports, hospitals, or assembly lines, where bodies and machines operate under the same logic.

On view from February 4th to March 15th, Holen’s work doesn’t critique technology so much as expose its quiet omnipresence, asking what happens when the objects built to serve us begin to define us instead.

Yann Gerstberger, “2 Feet in 1 Bucket of Ice”

OMR

Feb. 4–Apr. 5

At OMR, Yann Gerstberger’s “2 Feet in 1 Bucket of Ice” unfolds like a fever dream—vivid, textured, and pulsating with movement. Known for his unconventional use of textile, the French-born, Mexico City–based artist builds his compositions by layering hand-dyed cotton fibers onto canvas, creating surfaces that are as tactile as they are painterly. The works nod to a range of influences, from pre-Columbian motifs to street art, psychedelic landscapes, and the erratic beauty of nature itself.

Gerstberger’s figures, animals, and abstracted forms emerge through color-saturated fields, where repetition and improvisation collide. The works suggest a folkloric narrative without ever settling into one, hovering between memory, myth, and playful absurdity. With “2 Feet in 1 Bucket of Ice,” the artist continues his exploration of craft and materiality, transforming traditional techniques into something utterly of the present.

Magali Lara, “Robar lo que me pertenece”

Galería RGR

Feb. 5–29

En silencio golpeado para cubrirme, 2024
Magali Lara
Galería RGR

Magali Lara’s “Robar lo que me pertenece” at Galería RGR brings together paintings, artist books, and an installation that, together, interrogate the construction of feminine intimacy. A key figure in Mexican contemporary art since the 1970s, Lara has long used language and imagery in her work to challenge the constraints imposed on female desire and self-expression. This exhibition expands on that approach, pushing beyond the personal to explore broader questions of agency, perception, and power.

Central to the show is an installation centered on the glacial landscape—a fragile, endangered space that serves as both a physical subject and a conceptual anchor. Ice, constantly shifting and disappearing, parallels the vulnerability of memory, the erosion of identity, and the instability of structures that attempt to contain feminine experience. By incorporating books as part of the exhibition, Lara invites a more interactive engagement, reinforcing the idea that narratives—both personal and collective—are never fixed, but continually rewritten.

Naomi Rincón Gallardo, “Their Silhouettes Bristled with Razors”

PEANA

Feb. 3–Mar. 29

Mechatronic Butterfly, 2024-2025
Naomi Rincón Gallardo
PEANA

Experimental space PEANA presents ““Their Silhouettes Bristled with Razors”,” a solo exhibition by internationally acclaimed artist Naomi Rincón Gallardo that brings her provocative, politically charged video work Eclipse (2023) to Mexico for the first time. The show immerses viewers in a mythological, multisensory universe where Indigenous futurism, queer narratives, and speculative fiction collide.

Rincón Gallardo’s practice is rooted in performance and critical theory, involving alternative histories that challenge colonial and patriarchal narratives. Eclipse unfolds through surreal, fragmented storytelling, highlighting themes of ritual, resistance, and transformation. Through saturated color, layered sound, and dreamlike imagery, the work reimagines power structures and centers voices historically pushed to the margins. Also on view is a series of graphite and watercolor works on paper that explore similar themes.

This exhibition marks a rare opportunity to experience Rincón Gallardo’s distinct visual language in Mexico City, situating her within a broader dialogue on art as a tool for cultural and political reinvention.

“MASA x Luhring Augustine Vol. 2”

MASA Galeria

Feb. 5–Mar. 29

MASA and New York gallery Luhring Augustine continue their cross-continental dialogue with “MASA x Luhring Augustine Vol. 2,” a thoughtful pairing of contemporary art and collectible design inside MASA’s historic Mexico City space. This latest collaboration, following a similar exhibition in 2024, brings together works by Luhring Augustine artists—Eva LeWitt, Pipilotti Rist, and Diego Singh—alongside sculpture and design talents from MASA’s roster, including Alma Allen, Héctor Esrawe, and Renata Petersen.

The exhibition unfolds as a conversation between material and concept, structure and spontaneity. LeWitt’s geometric abstract sculptures resonate alongside Esrawe’s minimalist forms, while Rist’s playful visual language meets Petersen’s tactile, ceramic storytelling. Through these juxtapositions in artists’ works, “Vol. 2” becomes a study in contrasts and connections.

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Moroccan Photographer Mous Lamrabat’s Vibrant Images Bridge East and West https://ift.tt/CIhTXdY

Colorista, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

Rouge et vert, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

“Marrakech is one of these places where you don’t have to look for inspiration. It’s always there, it always reaches you,” said Mous Lamrabat in an interview with Artsy. The Moroccan-born, Belgian-raised photographer is known for his sleek, fashion-inspired photographs that channel Morocco’s rich cultural tapestry into iconic visual narratives. In his forthcoming solo show “Homesick,” on view at Loft Art Gallery’s Marrakech space during this year’s edition of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Lamrabat delves into his longing to preserve a connection to his native country.

With its bustling medina, skilled artisans, and historic buildings, Marrakech has plenty to recommend it to visitors. Additionally, in the past year, the city has established itself as a growing art hub, fueled by an expanding gallery scene and 1-54, which runs through February 2nd. In his Loft Art Gallery show, the East-meets-West underpinning of Lamrabat’s work mirrors the broader ambition of the city to showcase contemporary African art on a global stage.

Postcards From Heaven, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

Waterbenders, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

Since his first solo exhibition in 2019, Lamrabat has cemented his status as a first-rate image maker and storyteller. Drawing inspiration from the pride he observes in his countrymen, his images reconcile and celebrate his mixed heritage, intertwining cultural roots with a broader narrative of identity and belonging. Having spent the past decade building a successful commercial profile in Europe by shooting fashion editorials in GQ and Vogue, Lamrabat considers this latest collection of images––shot over a three-week period in the vast, moonlike plateaus of Agafay, just south of Marrakech––a homecoming of sorts.

“Half of my brain is Western creative thinking and the other half is African, but it’s not necessarily split down the middle,” he told Artsy. “It’s more like a labyrinth of tastes and thinking patterns that flow through one another. It’s a big messy place but the only one that needs to find structure in it is me.”

Listen to your heart, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

United States of Amazigh, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

Fascinated with iconography and material culture, Lamrabat dissolves and reinvents cultural codes by mixing them with elements of pop culture. The photograph The United States of Amazigh (2023), for example, is a striking cultural composite. Lamrabat’s subject, dressed in a traditional kandora dress, fez, and novelty glasses, assumes the position of the Statue of Liberty. Against a desert landscape, he lifts a large piece of Berber jewellery—known as a fibula, representing home or family—to the sky.

Western cultural cues often make appearances across Lamrabat’s work. In National Treasure (2024), also included in the show, a model bathed in cobalt hues stares down the lens while wearing a necklace of Laughing Cow cheese triangles. “Growing up in Europe, it felt like a logo represented a certain status, but we were too broke to have anything that was branded,” the photographer said. “Later, I realized that was the best thing that could have happened to me because it meant we had to get creative at a very young age.” Even something as seemingly artless as small, branded triangles of cheese hold profound symbolism, serving as what Lamrabat describes as cross-cultural “touchstones.”

Pretty Pippen, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

When the moon sets, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

In Morocco, he said, this specific cheese has a cultural cachet. “Moroccans put this stuff on everything,” he laughed. “In the morning, they’ll have a traditional breakfast of eggs and olive oil but with a piece of Laughing Cow cheese.…Beautiful things happen when we celebrate the things that bring us together and make us different.”

During regular visits to Marrakech’s souks, seeking new imagery to adopt into his visuals, Lamrabat is guided by an internal compass that draws him to specific objects. “They call out to me, as if suddenly illuminated by spotlights,” he told Artsy. “This sensation extends beyond the souks to the streets, the landscapes, and even the artisans at work. It feels almost magical. Certain objects, places, or movements seem imbued with genius and I become obsessed by this genius, which opens up a conversation between what’s around me and what sparks something within me.”

The star on the Moroccan flag, for example, a powerful national symbol, returns as a recurring motif throughout this series of images. It’s a sacred “logo” of sorts, serving as a bridge between nostalgia and hope, between the concept of elsewhere and the grounding notion of home.

Star-Struck, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

Futurama, 2024, 2024
Mous Lamrabat
Loft Art Gallery

Beyond this emblem, Lamrabat’s images are unified by a compositional framing and elemental harmony borrowed from the Berber flag. “Generally, I really like symmetry,” Lamrabat explained. “But with these works specifically, I was inspired by the three horizontal lines of the flag and their colors, which represent the sand, the mountains, and the sky. The central symbol, representing a body or person, occupies all three of these territories.” In the flag, the figure’s head remains in the top third of the composition, a positioning Lamrabat mirrors in his own photographs, where his subjects’ heads are shown against the sky.

“With this body of work, I was guided by curiosity and wanting to rediscover a sense of freedom,” the artist said. “What would happen if I took some time back for myself? Would the images still work? Where am I at creatively? Would I have lost it?”

As his latest show proves, he certainly hasn’t lost it. The photographs comprising “Homesick”embody a resolutely contemporary vision at once deeply personal yet universal. In these brilliant, surreal compositions, where tradition meets modernity and religion meets consumerism, Lamrabat gives shape to the complexity of origin and richness of the diasporic experience.

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Rashaad Newsome and Caroline Kent among 50 recipients of 2025 USA Fellowship. https://ift.tt/Lyr9MGQ

United States Artists (USA) has announced its list of 2025 USA Fellows, comprising 50 artists that hail from 21 states. Each recipient will be awarded a $50,000 unrestricted cash prize. The fellows are categorized into 10 creative disciplines: visual arts, architecture & design, writing, dance, film, media, music, theater & performance, traditional arts, and craft.

The fellowship recipients are chosen through a year-long peer-led selection process. This year, six visual artists were selected, including Caroline Kent, Gala Porras-Kim, Kahlil Robert Irving, Karyn Olivier, Sadie Barnette, and Sherrill Roland. Meanwhile, among the artists in the media category is American multidisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome, known for his experimental work that leverages technology to uplift Black and queer voices.

“As we approach our 20th anniversary, the USA Fellowship takes an increasingly significant role in how we view the arts funding landscape, ” said Ed Henry, United States Artists board chair in a statement. “In addition to being an exceptional group of artists and practitioners, this year’s cohort of Fellows manifest the many ways in which USA, and the broader art world, consider the support of artists—at all stages of their career, in all areas of their lives, and during all moments in our shared cultural history. ”

In addition to financial support, the Fellows will gain access to financial planning services and grant writing assistance throughout the coming year. This initiative reflects United States Artists’s commitment to supporting the evolving needs of artists, facilitating both immediate and long-term artistic development.

The 2025 cohort is a diverse list, including four Native Hawaiian and 12 Indigenous artists and collectives. The group includes artists at various stages of their careers, from seasoned professionals over the ages of 50 to young emerging talents in their twenties.

Established in 2006, the USA Fellowship program has distributed more than $38.5 million to over 750 artists from around the United States. In 2024, the fellowship was awarded to six visual artists and collectives, including Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Trisha Baga, EJ Hill, New Red Order (comprising Adam Khalil, Jackson Polys, and Zack Khalil), and María Magdalena Campos-Pons. For the full list of 2025 USA Fellows, follow this link.

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In Napa Valley, a Winery Is Becoming a Work of Art https://ift.tt/9aQs7ke

Nestled in Napa Valley’s radiant vineyards, the Louis M. Martini Winery in St. Helena, California, has long been renowned for its Cabernet Sauvignon and 90-plus years of winemaking tradition. But lately, it’s quietly emerging as a destination for cutting-edge contemporary art.

Last Friday, during the FOG Design+Art fair and San Francisco Art Week, esteemed multidisciplinary artist Abraham Cruzvillegas unveiled Two Abstract Maps (An Alchemical Self Portrait) (2024), a pair of murals installed at the winery. Cruzvillegas follows Rosa Barba, the conceptual artist known for sculptures that engage with filmmaking (and who will have a show at the Museum of Modern Art this spring). It’s only the beginning for the winery’s ambitious art program, which invites contemporary artists to create permanent, site-specific works exploring the interplay of art, winemaking, and Napa’s rich history.

Cruzvillegas is known for site-specific installations and his works can be found in the collections of major museums across the world, including the Centre Pompidou, Colección Jumex, LACMA, MoMA, SFMOMA, and the Tate. At the winery, Two Abstract Maps unfolds across the main building, a sleek space combining 1930s-era terra-cotta walls with dark wood and glass from a 2019 renovation, housing tasting areas, a cellar, and many rows of wine barrels.

Inside the tasting room, the mural Culture-map uses salvaged terra-cotta tiles, cut and painted pale green, to form a relief map of Napa Valley. Octagonal nodes mark Indigenous heritage sites and winemaking landmarks, with thick lines tracing the valley’s contours. Outside, the Nature-map is carved into the building’s façade, representing local flora like native grasses and manzanita shrubs, as well as the migratory paths of snakes, gophers, and coyotes. “It’s kind of an addition/subtraction dynamic,” Cruzvillegas explained, “and it’s meant to question, ‘What happens in between?’ This is similar to the experience of tasting wine.”

Before creating the installation, Cruzvillegas took the opportunity to learn about the winery and winemaking. “I spoke with the winemakers, we went to the vineyards, I spoke with people taking care of the plants and the soil and the whole environment that surrounds the vines,” he recalled. “It took me to history and learning about the local species and local people.” The resulting works aren’t direct representations of Napa, its Indigenous peoples and plants, or its winemaking traditions, but are instead intended to evoke feelings and provoke personal interpretations. “You should construct your own meaning, your own experience and sensations,” Cruzvillegas said.

The artworks’ materials themselves tell a story. Cruzvillegas found stacks of terra-cotta tiles—left over from the winery’s original structure after the 2019 renovation—during a site visit. “I asked if I could use them—I didn’t know what for yet. It was kind of a blind date,” he said. The tiles became a bridge between past and present in the Culture-map. Outside, the Nature-map is incised in the same tiles, with soft green lines blending subtly into the façade as though they had always been there.

Louis M. Martini’s art program, curated by Georgia Horn, focuses on deep thematic connections between art and wine. “The art is not decoration; it’s not ornament. It’s not superficial in literal or conceptual ways,” Horn explained. “It’s physically integrated into the architecture and conceptually connected to the craft, care, nuance, and complexity of winemaking.”

Horn sought out artists with histories of creating site-responsive work. “I was really looking for artists interested in concepts like time, memory, subjectivity, perception, the way light interacts with color, and the way we interact with space,” she said.

This was evident from the start with Barba’s Open Field Poem (2023), a kinetic installation at the main building’s entryway outdoors, just past rows of 100-year-old olive trees. Using heliostats (devices that track the sun and reflect its light on a specific target) and colored glass, the piece casts shifting red and orange light onto engraved stanzas in paving stones. “She designed an incredible orchestral performance conducted by the sun,” Horn said. “Atmospheric conditions dictate how you interact with the work, making it a beautiful way to engage with concepts fundamental to winemaking, like ecosystems, time, and place.”

Horn had previously seen Cruzvillegas’s abstract maps at kurimanzutto, the Mexico City–based gallery that represents him. “I thought, ‘what a beautiful way to tell the story of this valley, to create another subjective experience that will activate people’s sensory experience when they walk in,’” she said.

Louis M. Martini joins other wineries that have embraced contemporary art, including Castello di Ama in Tuscany, Italy, and the Donum Estate in Sonoma, just a valley away from Napa. But Horn emphasizes what sets Martini apart: “I want to tell a more universal story, tied to this place and its history, while also looking toward the future.”

Accessibility is central to the program, which aims to strip away the intimidation that often surrounds both art and wine, while encouraging subjective experiences.

“Most people assume taste and smell are the primary senses when they approach wine,” Horn said. “But in reality, all of our senses—sound, touch, vision—contribute to the experience. Engaging people through something unexpected, like art, enhances how they perceive the experience here.” She hopes to spark curiosity around wine and art alike. “It’s surprising how much ambient sensory experiences—what we hear, see, and feel—shape how wine feels to us. Art amplifies that.”

With plans for a new art commission each year, the program will invite artists to respond to their predecessors. Over time, as each new work speaks to the last, the winery itself will transform into a sort of collaborative artwork—a living testament to the resonances between art and wine, steeped in sensory experience.

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Dior couture show stars paintings by Rithika Merchant. https://ift.tt/x0AJz3M

On Monday, Dior unveiled its spring/summer 2025 haute couture collection in a presentation that featured artwork by Indian artist Rithika Merchant, an alum of The Artsy Vanguard. Titled “The Flowers We Grew,” the installation was presented in a structure set up in the sculpture garden of Paris’s Musée Rodin for the occasion. Installed inside were nine large-scale embroidered textile panels based on watercolor paintings by Merchant. The textiles, which were fabricated by the artisans of the Indian atelier Chanakya International and students of the Chanakya School of Craft, will be on view to the public at the Museé Rodin through February 2nd.

The site-specific installation was commissioned by Dior under the direction of fashion designer Maria Grazia Chiuri. She has previously commissioned women artists, including Mickalene Thomas and Judy Chicago, to create works as backdrops for her runway shows. Last January, Isabella Ducrot created the backdrop for Dior’s presentation of its spring/summer 2024 haute couture collection.

The nine paintings that make up “The Flowers We Grew” bring together “stories of womanhood across generations,” according to a press statement from Dior. In particular, the installation draws from stories originating in Kerala, India and passed down to Merchant on her mother’s side. The works feature a rich tapestry of anthropomorphic figures, celestial symbols, and natural elements. The creation of the hand-stitched textiles took 306 artisans approximately 144,000 hours to complete, as reported by Wallpaper.

Chiuri made a splash on the opening day of Paris Haute Couture Week, with rumors circulating it could be the designer’s final show. Her spring/summer 2025 haute couture collection features skirts edged with lace and coats that echo the iconic “Trapeze” silhouette created by Yves Saint Laurent for Dior in 1958. According to Chiuri, the collection’s dreamlike qualities are inspired by the work of Dorothea Tanning. The designer posted two of Tanning’s paintings, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (1943) and Birthday (1942), on Instagram, noting the artist’s“unique ability to portray the challenges of transformation and maturity, creating a disorienting atmosphere similar to that of [Lewis] Carroll’s Alice.”

“I have forever been inspired by Dorothea Tanning’s artworks,” Chiuri wrote. “These artworks combine elements of fantasy and reality. I have always felt drawn to the imagined universe through the deep gaze of the women portrayed and an enigmatic composition.”

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How London Tastemaker Public Gallery Became a Launchpad for Emerging Artists https://ift.tt/IojYBDd

Alex Harrison and Harry Dougall met when they both craved more from their creative careers. Harrison, then a seasoned designer, and Dougall, then a postgrad employee at Phillips auction house, were introduced in 2018 after mutual friends noticed their aligned ambitions. What started as a friendship soon evolved into a collaborative project and, in 2020, a physical gallery space in London’s East End.

In the short time since it opened, Public Gallery has made a splash in and beyond the London art scene. Its rigorous program of international art fairs and remarkable knack for showcasing artists on the cusp of widespread recognition has quickly earned it a reputation as a sharp and tireless tastemaker.

“I think our mission can be divided into two parts: Our priority is always going to be our artists, and the second part is very much in our name—[being] a public exhibition space and a forum for creative discourse,” said director Nicole Estilo Kaiser, who joined the gallery in 2023 after stints at Casey Kaplan and Kasmin in New York.

This mission feels especially relevant as Public Gallery embarks on a new chapter, expanding its current space to include a two-story former textile shop next door. The additional space nearly doubles the gallery’s size, allowing the team to stage exhibitions across five floors in two buildings.

Its current trio of exhibitions highlights this expanded scope. Across the space, it is showing “00:00:01,” a group exhibition featuring 18 artists—including Artsy Vanguard alum Melissa Joseph and Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley—which runs until February 15th. Also on view is “groundwork,” a solo show by American artist Greg Carideo. The gallery’s juggling act continues as it hosts Athens-based gallery The Breeder and São Paulo- and Brussels-based Martins & Montero as part of the shared gallery initiative Condo London.

With the expanded space comes a new phase for the trio of Harrison, Dougall, and Estilo Kaiser, who remain steadfast in their founding mission. “We’re broadening our community but not dividing our focus,” said Estilo Kaiser.

Harrison and Dougall cut their teeth as gallerists in July 2018 with a modest studio in Hackney. There, they mounted exhibitions by names such as Czech artist Vojtěch Kovařík, British artist Charlotte Edey, and American artist Elizabeth Glaessner. “It was a mixture of residences, different projects, and exhibitions, with an eye to giving international artists opportunities in London,” Dougall recalled. But as their artists’ careers began to reach new heights, so did the gallerists’ need for space. In 2020, Public Gallery opened in East London’s Middlesex Street Estate.

“Having both grown up nearby, East London has always represented a spirit of experimentation and artistic energy for us,” the two gallerists told Artsy. “We were drawn to its creative history and the ethos of the existing galleries and institutions here.”

Untitled (palm dot ash), 2024
Harminder Judge
Public Gallery

I WON'T FOLLOW YOU, 2025
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley
Public Gallery

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Harrison and Dougall had just finalized the lease for the space when lockdowns ceased construction and temporarily delayed their plans. When restrictions were lifted in the summer, they debuted with two exhibitions: a solo exhibition by German artist Mevlana Lipp and a group exhibition curated by two London-based artists, Saelia Aparicio and Harminder Judge (an Artsy Vanguard 2023–24 alum).

“[The first group exhibition] was curated by two London-based artists,” said Dougall. “We were looking to create a community around the gallery, and that led us to collaborate with Harminder and Saelia—inviting artists we admire to lead the way.”

Untitled , 2014
Huma Bhabha
Public Gallery

Untitled, ca. 1970
Gulam Rasool Santosh
Public Gallery

This group show, featuring 15 artists including Huma Bhabha and Anousha Payne, set the tone for the curatorial approach that both Harrison and Dougall continue to embrace: centering the artists’ voices.

“It seems obvious, but really listening is the first step—often, the most ambitious ideas emerge from an unexpected comment or tangential conversation in the studio,” said Harrison. “We approach every collaboration with an open mind and try to identify concepts that push an artist’s practice forward, rather than starting with fixed expectations from earlier projects we might have seen.”

Since its founding, Public Gallery has consistently showcased some of the most exciting artists and emerging talents working today, including Artsy Vanguard honorees Gray Wielebinski, Li Hei Di, and Michaela Yearwood-Dan, as well as rising stars such as Amanda Baldwin and Nils Alix-Tabeling.

ALL ABOUT SURVIVAL (THE A406 ORBITAL CLASS MIX), 2023
Adam Farah‑Saad
Public Gallery

By 2023, the gallery’s curatorial vision was gaining attention beyond East London, thanks to the rising profile of its artists as well as standout appearances at art fairs such as NADA and The Armory Show in New York. The crowning achievement for the gallery that year, however, was winning the Frieze London Focus Stand Prize for its solo booth of London artist Adam Farah-Saad. Farah-Saad’s work was also acquired by the Frieze Tate Fund, a fund with which the Tate acquires works at Frieze London and Frieze Masters. These achievements cemented Public’s status as one of Artsy’s breakout galleries of 2023.

“We were glowing for days, weeks—we’re still riding that high,” said Estilo Kaiser of the gallery’s banner year. “The best thing was telling Adam and seeing him in disbelief and going from that to seeing the work on view at Tate Britain. You realize that you’re doing something that goes beyond one person… It becomes a permanent part of our collective history.”

The Fortune You Seek Is In Another Cookie, 2024
Steph Huang
Public Gallery

Far from resting on its laurels, the gallery continues to ask the one question that Dougall says guides its ethos: “How can we best serve our artists?” This question has led to its participation in international art fairs such as Basel Social Club and Art Basel Hong Kong and its efforts to build relationships with galleries abroad. For instance, Estilo Kaiser introduced artist Artsy Vanguard alum Taylor Simmons to New York gallerist Helena Anrather, who mounted the artist’s first solo show in the city last year.

The gallery also fosters connections between its artists. Even before the expansion, its three-story gallery was designed to host simultaneous exhibitions that encourage dialogues between works and artists. For instance, in October 2024, the gallery hosted concurrent solo exhibitions by American painter Alex Gibson and Chinese sculptor Meitao Qu, deliberately staged for visitors to draw connections.

“It’s a huge luxury,” said Estilo Kaiser. “We have so much room to collaborate and create dialogues between artists. Even when they’re two technically separate shows, the experience our audience has when they come into the space is to see one [exhibition] through the other.”

The gallery’s expansion feels like a natural progression rather than an afterthought. “There’s that whole thing about expansion for expansion’s sake,” said Dougall. “It’s something we were conscious to avoid. This decision felt organic. Most importantly, it will further serve the artists we work with and the ambitions of the program—having these two adjacent spaces with very different contexts will hopefully inspire varying types of exhibition making.”

And for now, London remains home. Compared to markets like New York, London offers more room for bold, experimental choices, the founders believe.

La déesse de Montbouy, 2024
Nils Alix-Tabeling
Public Gallery

NOP, 2024
Greg Carideo
Public Gallery

“Maybe London galleries run a little bit leaner than they do elsewhere,” said Harrison. “In that sense, that’s sheltered them slightly. There’s been fewer closures here than in New York, I think partly due to the overheads being much lower. So, thankfully, I think it’s easier for us to be a bit more experimental....Maybe we have a bit more creative freedom.”

And East London remains central to their identity. While the area may not have the density of gallery districts like Soho, Fitzrovia, and Mayfair, Public Gallery is in good company. Nearby names such as Raven Row, the Gilbert & George Centre, and Hales, along with recent openings like Emalin and NıCOLETTı, create a vibrant arts community. “As an arts community, it feels like we’re not only weathering the storm together but also helping to promote one another where possible,” said Estilo Kaiser. As Public Gallery steps into what may be its most pivotal year yet, collaboration and community remain at its core.

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