Jean-Michel Othoniel has a fascination with flowers. Long before the French artist became known for his joyful, gold-plated fountain in the gardens of Versailles and his cascading wave of Indian glass bricks, he was already exploring floral motifs, explaining, 'My first works played with anemones buried in sulphur, cut and dissected pomegranates,...

Lee Mingwei is known for his participatory projects, which often engage audiences as collaborators, be it in a personal, one-to-one type of experience or via an open invitation to a general public. These exchanges are documented and then carefully represented in specific environments to create another set of encounters for different viewers around...

In author Ursula K. Le Guin's 1986 essay, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Le Guin cites writer and editor Elizabeth Fisher's "carrier bag theory," which posits that the earliest tool was in fact a vessel for gathering and not a weapon—as is favored in male-centric historical narratives—pointing to the biases ingrained in...

On a lazy Sunday earlier this month, I visited a selfie space. Snark Park, a project of Daniel Arsham, Alex Mustonen, and Ben Porto's design group, Snarkitecture, opened last month inside the new mall at Hudson Yards. Featuring a temporary installation of Instagram-friendly backdrops, New York City's latest tourist destination designed for taking...

Takashi Murakami in Wonderland was Murakami's first solo show in mainland China and Perrotin's second exhibition in its posh 1,200-square-meter Shanghai space. According to Perrotin's press release, it was also the artist's largest gallery show in Asia to date, featuring recent and new works specially created for the occasion.At the gallery's...

In November 2018, Perrotin debuted its fourth gallery in Asia in the heart of Shanghai. The space was inaugurated with the exhibition Takashi Murakami in Wonderland, on view through January 5.Just after the opening, Whitewall caught up with the woman behind the new location, Etsuko Nakajima.

Scandinavian art duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset have become masters of the architectural installation over the past 13 years, picking up critical acclaim and international gallery shows as they go. Their work is characterised by presenting a familiar space in a different context.

Before the Beginning and After the End at Pearl Lam Galleries is a culmination of what Jin Meyerson describes as his "greatest hits and misses", comparable to a rock star compiling their chart toppers alongside little-known B-sides. Spanning seven years, they contain hints at his accumulated perspective and the defining experiences of his...

Looking at Jin Meyerson's work from a distance, words 'complex', 'psychedelic', and 'warped' come to mind. Get a little closer and you begin to comprehend the sheer talent, discipline and patience one may only slowly acquire through a life of upheavals. Working primarily with oil on canvas, Meyerson constantly works on multiple pieces at once, with...

Artists see the world differently from everyone else. And the Scandinavian duo known as Elmgreen & Dragset have a particularly distinctive and skewed take on what the public sphere should look like.

With its cast of big-eyed, childlike "kawaii" characters, Mr.'s art may appear playful and carefree—but there's a darkness that lurks behind the 49-year-old Japanese artist's paintings.

Artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are mischief-makers with international clout. They may not be household names yet, but over the past decade the Scandinavian duo have been making a mark with public art that is at once witty, poignant and potent. Theirs, for instance, was the golden boy on a rocking horse on Trafalgar Square's Fourth...

Artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset (Danish Michael Elmgreen and Norweigan Ingar Dragset) exhibit widely across the globe, and have shows lined up in Portugal, France, the UK and the USA this year and next.

Between Wimbledon and the FIFA World Cup, there's been plenty of distractions from London's unusually Mediterranean weather of late.

In 1980, when the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami was 17 years old, he saw the anime movie Galaxy Express 999, about a boy finding his way as an astral traveler. 'It was like my spirit was flown away into outer space,' he remembered. 'This was around the time that Japan went into a bubble economy—there was a festive mood, but as an...

A towering surge of black glass bricks is about to hit central France. The Big Wave (2018) is the centerpiece of Jean-Michel Othoniel's major retrospective, Facing Obscurity (26 May–16 September). Organised for the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Etienne's 30th anniversary, the exhibition is also a homecoming for the artist, who was born...

To juxtapose the work of Katharina Grosse and Tatiana Trouvé, artists whose directions are different but not altogether contrary in background, influences, and means, triggers new visual short circuits, frictions, and attractions at the Villa Medici, Rome. In their respective practices they share a fundamental interest in architecture. At the Villa...

If a 21st birthday "coming of age" observance can be applied to cultural events, 2018 marks the launch into adulthood of the Biennale of Sydney. In some ways Sydney's biennale was a precocious child, turning its back during infancy on mainstream Eurocentric art in favour of exploring its local geographic region, early on including...

Beaded spirals pirouette through the air at Galerie Perrotin's freshly renovated space in the landmark Beckenstein building at 130 Orchard Street in New York, once a fabric factory and now converted into five floors for programming directed by Peggy Leboeuf and Emmanuel Perrotin. Suspended as the artworks are, their stilled movement reminds you of...

Jean-Michel Othoniel invites AD into his Paris studio to discuss his expansive—and striking—new show on the eve of its debutThese past few years have been hectic for French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel. From completing a major installation for the Angouleme Cathedral Treasury to solo shows in Korea and the South of France, the artist...

It seems that Vancouver has been rather superflattened by the arrival of Takashi Murakami – or at the very least supercharged. The Japanese international art world star arrived in town to open his retrospective exhibition The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg, on the eve of his 56th birthday, to a palpable civic buzz. He was even presented with a special...

German-French abstract painter Hans Hartung is getting his first major New York exhibition since 1975, when the artist was given a retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was panned by critics, notably The New York Times' Hilton Kramer who asked: 'Why Hartung?'A selection of the late artist's work is currently on display in...

Last month in Paris, I met Emmanuel Perrotin - renowned Parisian Art dealer - at his Parisian gallery in Le Marais. Self made man and hard worker, he explained me his success story in the Art world while I was admiring JR 's giant photographies, Xavier Veilhan's sculptures and Chen Fei's pieces to name a few. En route with Emmanuel for an art...

In the months leading up to the 15th edition of the Istanbul Biennial, posters — hung in windows alongside 'For Rent' signs and pasted next to broadsides advertising concerts began asking the city's residents some very personal questions:Is a good neighbor someone you rarely see? Is a good neighbor richer or poorer than you? Is a good...