#contemporary-art

#contemporary-art

Beautiful And Detailed Paintings In Resin By Feif Dong The Illustrator Has Created a Dreamy World that She Travels Through with Her Boyfriend Elspeth McLean Creates Beautiful Hand-Painted Stones This Artist Creates Beautifully Bizarre Backpacks That Look Like Octopus, Spiders, And Beetles Amazing Surreal And Tribal Backpacks By Konstantin Kofta Saddened By The Empty Streets Of Budapest During Lockdown, This Artist Filled The City With People From Classical Paintings UK Artist Unveils COVID-19 Glass Sculpture, One Million Times The Size Of The Virus

Nigerian American photographer Mikael Owunna's life-size, shimmering images of ancient deities in outer space set the tone for "UNBOUND: Art, Blackness and the Universe," MoAD's stellar exploration of the African diaspora in the eternal and the infinite. "UNBOUND," which runs through Aug. 16, 2026, is MoAD curatorial chief Key Jo Lee's most ambitious exhibition to date. Over three floors, she presents an African diaspora that is "unbound" from earthly and chronological conceptions of diaspora.

And at Santa Clara's Triton Museum of Art, there's not one but four exhibits opening in January, ranging from slashed-and-bleached abstractions to uncanny paintings of suburbia that hearken to Edward Hopper and David Lynch. That latter show, opening Jan. 10, comes from South Bay artist Jonathan Crow who grew to fame with drawings of U.S. vice presidents wearing octopuses on their heads.

Blue became my favorite color as soon as I laid eyes upon that most reproduced of artworks: Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," a framed poster of which still hangs in my grandmother's room. Maybe you grew up with a print of this piece somewhere in your home, too. Over the last 12 months though, as blue as they've been, I find myself drawn more and more to the green that hooks my eye: the brushstrokes behind enthralled ballet dancers in British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's " Harp-Strum" (2016), the shifting fabric in Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka's 1931 "Young Woman in Green" and the candy paint of the Bugatti in her 1929 self-portrait, the phthalo green skin of Byron Kim's '90s Belly Painting series.

As the year winds to an end, we cannot move forward without remembering who we've lost. David Lynch, a filmmaker so revolutionary that his style became a new standard. Frank Gehry, the sculptor of skylines. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, the multi-hyphenate force of Indigenous aesthetics. Alonzo Davis, who was one of the first Black gallerists in this country and didn't stop there. Koyo Kouoh, who would have been the first African woman to direct the Venice Biennale. And so many more.

"Anchoring" to me means grounding myself in the true, the felt, the tangible. The art world prizes in-person communion - the irreplaceable experience of seeing a work in person - yet increasingly trades in digital surrogates: press releases, Instagram posts, installation views. Coupled with the rise of AI, we're in danger of losing touch with what's embodied, what's real. The city's the exact kind of place that interrupts that

Rachel Rose, an artist known for her video essays dealing with climate change and space travel, had her first solo exhibition ever at the gallery in 2014. She went on to mount acclaimed shows at the Serpentine Galleries in London and the Whitney Museum in New York the next year. Matt Copson, an artist known for his light sculptures, had one of his first solo shows at High Art in 2017. He is now directing a feature film, with Mubi set to distribute it.

While Robert Musil's century-old adage that "there is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument" still rings true in some ways, many monuments today feel more visible than ever. Statues of Cecil Rhodes and Robert E. Lee have collapsed under the pressures of public protest, exposing monuments for what they really are: flashpoints where histories are negotiated and mythologies are formed.

"They're going to be within that collection, but right next to them, you'll have amazing contemporary artists that maybe, unfortunately, the vast public don't know much about," said Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, promising that the new institution would be "a lot more than a museum," per a report in the National. "It's really a civic space. It's a place that brings people together with music, food, dance and, of course, contemporary art."

This 15th-century inn is a balancing act of old bones and contemporary attitude. Sloping floors, exposed beams and stone fireplaces meet clean modern lines, warm lighting and an outrageous art collection. You turn a corner and find a Basquiat staring across at a Warhol; a quick detour and there's Dali, Bacon, Hirst and many, many more. It's curated yet still feels comfortable and homely.