“I like when strands of life and art experiences weave together. Powerful experiences of art are not just the work itself but everything that happens around it,” artist Yoona Hur told me a few weeks back from her New York studio. The architect turned artist is the latest in the Studio Nicholson WOMAN series. Hur’s practise is deeply informed by her Korean heritage - its focus on the Korean Moonjar (dalhangari) and hanji (Korean mulberry paper) are pivotal to her ceramics and painting. I loved talking to Yoona whose passion for her work, creative journey and Korean roots are deeply inspiring and a great reminder that sometimes you have to take forks in the road. Thank you Yoona.
Photographs by the impeccable Clement Pascal. Orchestrated by the excellent Jesse Sheen. Clothing designed by the mighty Nick Wakeman 🥚🤎
On Monday morning, crack of dawn, I found myself alone in front of Vermeer’s ‘The Art of Painting’ at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. It hangs on a wall the perfect shade of brown, and which until recently it shared with two other paintings. Jennifer Sliwka, the museum’s brilliant, new-ish director has recently rehung it, so it sits resplendent and alone. It’s absolutely what this painting deserves. I’m so glad I got to have it in all its beauty to myself for a few silent minutes 🤎
Grace Weaver show at Max Hetzler on Dover Street is fab. The show is called Plaids. This one, like several others, is called Untitled (Plaid with Head) 💛
I took some photos of Mamma Andersson and her wonderful studio on film when I was in Stockholm interviewing her for Wallpaper* last month. I kind of wanted to move in!
Last month in Stockholm, I interviewed artist Mamma Andersson at her studio for @wallpapermag ahead of a new show of works on paper which just opened at @davidzwirner Paris. I’m completely fascinated by her work and had a brilliant time talking to her about her creative life. Thanks to the team at DZ, Sofia and @_hannahsilver_ for commissioning. It’s online now 🖤
On a sunny afternoon last month, @paul_gore and I spent a dreamy afternoon in Paris with gallerist and scenographer Gladys Chenel of Galerie Chenel and filmmaker, photographer and writer Isabelle Dupuy Chavanat. As Paul made this beautiful film at Gladys’ apartment, the three of us gassed about their friendship, their very creative lives and what they are both working on now.
I particularly loved this snapshot of chat:
Isabelle: Art is a kind of medicine.
Gladys: Objects must give you an emotion. That’s art, in fact. It’s why art is so important in my life at least. It does not just bring me joy it’s…
Isabelle: It’s therapy.
You can read their whole exchange - which is part of Pairs, a conversation series between two creatives - at the Le Monde Béryl online library now.
The work of Wayne McGregor - from +/- Human to the Dante Project and Woolf Works etc etc etc - has long made my legs tremble, my eyes swoon and my brain feel like its on the point of some kind of explosion. Last night, his triple bill ‘Alchemies’ at the Royal Opera House was a game of goosebumps and more Wayne awe. Oh my god the dancing! I know it’s the best of the best but even so, this was top notch with top notch on top; every one of them was so in it! I could also see the orchestra pit. Harps! Singers!
Both ‘Untitled, 2023’ and ‘Yugen’ were a brilliant pairing, exemplifying what many of us love about McGregor’s range - his ability to marry contemporary and classical while delivering something you’ve never seen before, and possibly collaborating with amazing people like Edmund de Waal, Carmen Herrera or Max Richter.
His new piece ‘Quantum Souls’ - well, basically my review is this: I just need to see it again. Immediately. If not sooner.
Set on a yellow stage - which reminded me of a Raf Simons show from 2020 that was part inspired by Van Gogh - the back half of which was raised to reveal a smorgasbord of musical instruments, with Tony Hougham on double bass and the mesmerising Beibei Wang darting about playing every imaginable percussion situation known to man with 100% committed aplomb. The costumes designed by Saul Nash were fantastic. A slash of sci-fi, excellent use of mesh, just the right side of sexy, complex and wondrous in colour. The lighting by Lucy Carter is used beautifully, bringing the audience on McGregor’s latest absorbing journey. And the movement! Well, I had to perpetually remind myself to stop wondering how on earth anyone came up with this, and just let these dancers take me entirely for 40 minutes. Which feels like 4. I came home completely high. Thank you to every single one of the people at team WM + ROH + RB who made this evening so incredible and a special thank you to @melissa.metier and @freemans_land for hosting - I’m not sure if you can tell but I had a good time.
Total fashion side note. In ‘Yugen’ I particularly loved the square neckline tops - very Prada next season - on the male dancers. Very beautiful ❤️
At the weekend I was completely transfixed by this gorgeous painting - Portrait of Lazzaro Zen, by Francesco Guardi - and it’s showy fashions. It hangs in Palazzo Ducale in Venice. Far too much of a story to summarise, so I’m literally pasting the intel below from the gallery label below.
Known primarily as a painter of views, Francesco Guardi (Venice, 1712-1793) occasionally experimented with portraiture. The Portrait of Lazzaro Zen stands out among the rare known examples of this genre by the artist, a precious testimony to the phenomenon of religious conversions in eighteenth-century Venice. The young man was baptized on 27 November 1770, at the age of 18, changing his name from Ali to Lazzaro Zen, in honour of the family who welcomed him into their home and probably commissioned the painting. Originally from the west coast of Africa, Ali escaped slavery by travelling from Algiers to Tunis, and finally to Smyrna, where he met the captain of a Venetian ship that took him to the Serenissima territories. Upon arriving in Venice, he was accompanied to the Pious House of Catechumens, an institution founded in 1557 to impart the teachings of Catholic doctrine. In the presence of the Patriarch, he was baptized during a solemn ceremony in the Church of San Zaccaria. The portrait by Francesco Guardi commemorates this event in the inscription at the top left, while the elegant headdress features the coat of arms of the Zen family from Riva di Biasio. The blue velvet tailcoat is enriched by a voluminous white fur and decorated with showy tassels and abundant gold braid. The lively and vibrant brushstrokes, typical of Guardi’s landscape painting, give way to a more formal, precise, and measured style, attentive to portraying the mirror image of reality. Depicted with subtle intensity, Ali’s absorbed gaze seems to capture the psychological tension conveyed to the viewer by a young man who, having cast aside the sufferings of the past, was embarking on a new life.
