Art Books Photography Social Issues

Artist and Activist Zanele Muholi Grapples with Exposure in a New Monograph

Following their lauded 2018 monograph, South African artist and activist Zanele Muholi has released a second book collecting the most recent additions to their series Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness. Volume II features 80 self-portraits shot in Muholi’s signature saturated black and white along with writings by ten contributors and a long-form interview.

Often adorned in objects like cameras or aluminum can tops that are common to the locations they visit, the artist centers themself in each image and returns the gaze to the viewer, a radical act as a Black queer person. “My practice as a visual activist looks at Black resistance—existence as well as insistence,” they said about the series.

Edited by Renée Mussai and published by Aperture, Volume II reflects on how Muholi’s portraits subvert art historical traditions and respond to the current moment. The book largely contains works taken after the onset of COVID-19, and therefore, many portraits incorporate essential goods like masks and water jugs. Capturing a particularly traumatic time, the photos are a striking and poignant reminder that the human body is vulnerable and worth safeguarding.

Ideas about protection arise frequently, as in works like “Baveziwe I,” which means “exposed to” in Zulu and portrays them swathed in thick fabric, just their face visible. “Taking charge of my representation is one way of dealing with the inevitability of exposure. You think you are covered, but you are not. We are always exposed,” Muholi says in the book. The series “is my way of creating and activating a space of photographic shelter, a personal archive.”

Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness: Volume II is available on Bookshop.

 

Art Nature

Verdant Landscapes and Burgeoning Plants Crawl Across Walls in ONIRO’s Vibrant Anatomical Murals

Greenery abounds in the large-scale murals of Italian artist ONIRO, who often focuses on themes of interconnectedness and balance, especially between humans and the natural world. In “Coltivazione del Sé,” or “self-cultivation,” a human form emerges from the leaves and shadows of a burgeoning plant, while an opening of sky between branches reveals a facial silhouette in an untitled mural on an olive oil processing workshop.

In 2022, ONIRO completed an ambitious series that links three neighboring communities along the Via Aurelia, an ancient Roman artery in Italy constructed around 241 B.C.E. that remains a busy commercial thoroughfare today. “Each mural is a necessary part for the others, like organs that form an organism, and which as a whole has a greater value than the sum of the individual parts,” the artist says.

The three pieces in Organismo, or “body,” are composed in a loose, painterly style to depict Gaia—the ancient Greek goddess who personified the earth—an island shaped like the human heart, and a peninsula shaped like lungs with flowing, bronchial inlets. Explore more on Behance and Instagram.

 

Sponsor

IED Firenze Launches a New Master Course in Future Store Design

When you decide to buy something, there are many key factors involved. Customer experience has become one of the most relevant aspects to consider when designing a retail journey, whether physical, digital, or both. It’s time to define how retail spaces will evolve in the next years and to do so, Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) Firenze just launched a brand-new Master Course in Future Store Design. 

In an era marked by rapid change, the course imparts essential knowledge and the skills required to design effective retail spaces, recognizing the profound shifts in this domain. The dynamic interplay between physical and digital has become increasingly integral to our daily lives. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores now serve as focal points for hybrid experiences, seamlessly integrating online and offline elements through omnichannel services.

 

Delivered entirely in English, the Master Course features celebrated Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos as a Mentor. With more than three decades of experience and a diverse portfolio spanning monumental sculptures and immersive installations, she brings a wealth of expertise to the program. Having exhibited in several prestigious venues worldwide, including at the Uffizi Galleries and Pitti Palace in Florence, Vasconcelos’s international acclaim underscores the caliber of mentorship students can anticipate. Characterized by the recontextualization of everyday objects and a penchant for challenging societal norms with wit and irony, her distinctive perspective promises to enrich students’ educational journeys. 

Geared toward postgraduate students proficient in design elements with creative and visual skills, the Master Course in Future Store Design seeks to redefine the future of retail spaces. With an ambitious mission to equip a new generation of designers with a keen focus on future trends and the challenges posed by innovation, this program at IED Firenze cultivates ideas that resonate with market demands and caters to the evolving needs of brands and consumers. 

Mentors like Vasconcelos play a pivotal role in guiding students through the ever-evolving challenges of the industry. By sharing their expertise and insights, they prepare students for the competitive landscape awaiting them upon course completion. Coordinators Imma Matera and Tommaso Lucarini, founders of the design studio Tipstudio, ensure a seamless learning experience by leveraging their expertise and extensive network within the design industry.

 

With a specialized focus on the customer experience, students will gain an understanding of the importance of materials to generate sensorial exchange or immersive installations to create immediate connections. Now that the boundaries between functionality and aesthetics are blurred, technology and craftsmanship must join hands in these future spaces to respond to consumer expectations. As such, Florence is an ideal setting for this course, with Vasconcelos and Tipstudio Studio well-suited as its leaders.

The Master Course in Future Store Design at IED Firenze represents a new opportunity for aspiring designers to learn from industry luminaries and shape the future of retail environments. With a curriculum designed to foster creativity, innovation, and critical thinking, graduates will be well-equipped to make significant contributions to the ever-evolving realm of design.

For more information, visit ied.edu.

 

Art

In ‘Zoophites,’ Les Lalanne Hybridize Beasts and Botany into Functional Sculptures

Now obsolete, the term zoophytes once referred to organisms that exhibited both animal and plant characteristics. It’s also an apt title for a poetic exhibition of sculptures blending beastly and botanical forms by the late Claude (1925-2019) and François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008).

On view at Kasmin in New York, Zoophites brings together dozens of surrealist works from the French artists, known together as Les Lalanne, that bridge the divide between kingdoms. Included are iconic pieces like François-Xavier’s “Grand Chat polymorph,” a ten-foot cat with a tail fin and wings that open up to reveal a fully functional bar cart, and a similarly multi-purpose bull whose bronze belly flips open like a small desk. Having worked as a guard in the Egyptian and Assyrian galleries of the Louvre, the artist often referenced ancient mythology and hybridity in his figures.

While François-Xavier gravitated toward the animal, Claude was drawn to the plant world. Oversized ginkgo leaves line “Les Berces adossées,” an elegant bench with four fan-shaped seats. The pair lived together but tended to work separately, and their rare collaborations maintain both of their natural affinities. “Gorille consolé,” for example, features a seated primate by François-Xavier that grasps branches by Claude.

As its name suggests, that glass-top piece is made to hold objects, and some curators and critics struggled to classify the duo’s works because of such functionality. “It was difficult to be accepted in the art world,” Claude said. “We used to have a lot of trouble because we made useful things and made them ourselves. This is automatically considered as so called ‘decorative arts,’ a lesser, secondary art.”

Zoophites borrows its title from a 1964 show in Paris that was the first the pair presented together and is on view through May 9. For more about Les Lalanne, visit Kasmin.

 

Art Craft

Through the Work of More than 60 Artists, ‘The Golden Thread’ Traces the Rise of Textiles in Contemporary Art

In the historic South Street Seaport area of Manhattan, a former 18th-century mercantile warehouse sets the scene for a monumental exhibition of contemporary textile art. The Golden Thread: A Fiber Art Show, presented by BravinLee, gathers more than 100 artworks by 61 artists into the cavernous space, including ten site-specific installations that riff on the building’s history, character, and original machinery.

Metaphorically, the golden thread is a feature or concept that is present in all parts of something, holding everything together and imbuing it with value. This notion provides the framework for an ambitious presentation of dozens of pieces by artists who utilize or incorporate fiber into their work, formed around questions like, “How are textiles enmeshed with power?” or, “How can the medium’s previously outcast status at once be challenged and reclaimed?”

Tracing its roots back tens of thousands of years, fiber has played an intrinsic role in human society, used in everything from garments to homewares to industrial equipment. Historically defined as a craft, trade, or hobby, fiber encompasses a vast range of practices, from knitting and embroidery to weaving, quilting, and carpet design. During the past century, textiles and their processes have increasingly found their way into fine art, tying contemporary practices to timeless traditions.

If you’re a regular reader of Colossal, you’ll recognize works by Melissa Webb, April Bey, Jean Shin, Wangechi Mutu, Sarah Zapata, and more. The Golden Thread continues through May 19, with variable hours. If you’re in New York, visit BravinLee’s website for more information and opening times.

 

Art

Nicolas V. Sanchez Captures Ancestral Stories and Memories in Meticulously Detailed Equine Portraits

When Nicolas V. Sanchez’s dad was young, he was partially raised by his grandfather in Mexico while his own father established roots in Michigan. “My great grandfather bred show horses for festivals and performances, and my dad told me about a specific horse in particular that did not meet my great grandfather’s ‘standard’ for showing,” Sanchez tells Colossal. “He gave that horse to my dad as a childhood pet.”

This particular equine was a skinny, scraggly white horse that was blind in one eye, and Sanchez’s father named him Ojo de Vidrio, or “glass eye.” The artist (previously) was struck by this story and the connection to his relatives and ancestral traditions. He says:

When I decided to include Ojo de Vidrio in my work, my intention was not to paint a breathing, living horse. I don’t know this horse firsthand. The texture of the horse are like the textured, colorful walls in Mexico ,with bright colors peeking through. Not fur. This horse is an emblem, serving as a vessel that carries with it my family history from a different place and time.

Sanchez has long been fascinated by stories and memories of his heritage in Mexico, and in an ongoing series of sketchbooks titled Herencia, or “inheritance,” he calls on memories and narratives that connect his past to the present. Meticulously detailed, realistic renderings emerge from ballpoint pen, and recently he has scaled up considerably to translate some horse portraits into life-size oil paintings.

Ojo de Vidrio’s story led Sanchez into the realm of equine culture and the nuances of traditional portraiture. Paralleling the standards for which horses are bred, the artist became more and more interested in visually capturing the subtleties of how the animals stands, its muscle movement, the degree to which it holds up its head, or the way it faces the viewer— “all details and considerations that go into the composition of a life-size, fully depicted horse painting,” he says.

Sanchez was recently part of a two-person exhibition at Galerie Mokum, which featured his ballpoint pen drawings alongside friend and fellow artist Dina Brodsky. This September, he will present a solo booth of new work at Art on Paper in New York City, and his next major exhibition in the U.S. will be with Trimper Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut. See more on his website, and follow updates on Instagram.