Working across drawing, painting and ceramics, the Japanese-Swiss artist Leiko Ikemura continues to seek adventure in her art, she says, as a major exhibition opens at the Kunstmuseum Basel.The exhibition in Basel has the subtitle 'Toward New Seas' – taken from the poem 'Nach neuen Meeren' by Nietzsche. What inspires you about that phrase?Years...

On Art, a new collection of essays by Ilya Kabakov, recently translated and edited into English by Matthew Jesse Jackson, begs a closer look at the life of an artist in permanent flux.One reason Ilya Kabakov's decades-long career is so interesting is that it maps with cartographic intensity life under a broken Soviet system, later transformed by...

Yasumasa Morimura's practice is about blurring boundaries. His intricate tableaus hover in the interstitial space between painting and photography and are admired for their inquiry into the construction of gender and identity. Two exhibitions, In the Room of Art History at Luhring Augustine Bushwick and Ego Obscura at the Japan Society, make clear...

'In the end, what is history? And what is historical truth? These are questions that do not have ready answers,' Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura asks in egó sympósion', the preface he pens in the catalogue for Ego Obscura, a 30-year retrospective of photographic work in which he transforms iconic works of art and pop culture into self-portraits.

Three decades after Andy Warhol's death, he remains one of America's most provocative artists. His influence on popular culture is so pervasive that each emerging art movement after him has had to grapple with Warhol's focus on surface perfections and his singular celebrity. Despite their complicated feelings, many contemporary artists say they...

I FIRST STARTED making self-portraits in 1985, using prosthetics, cosmetics, and sets to assume the roles of figures who signify more than themselves—individuals or works that have become archetypes, including old masters' paintings, Albrecht Dürer's Self-Portrait, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Édouard Manet's Olympia, Andy Warhol, Marilyn...

Many of the art spaces in early '90s Berlin were located in vacant, abandoned, often ruined buildings that artists had taken over. Artists were running studio collectives and co-ops, outfitting surprising storefronts, and creating nightclubs and music programs. One very influential artist for me was Daniel Pflumm, who was organizing the...

On May 21, Taiwanese artist and filmmaker Chen Chieh-jen received the prestigious Artist of the Year honor at the Award of Art China (AAC) ceremony in Beijing. In its 12th year, AAC is an annual award founded by Chinese art media group Artron, recognizing the best of contemporary art within Greater China. Chen was presented with a trophy for his...

In 1989, British author JG Ballard published The Enormous Space, a short story about Gerald Ballantyne, a man who withdraws from the world and fortifies himself in his abode, not due to agoraphobia but to 'experiment' with reducing his immediate environment to nothing but his house, committing what is in effect a slow suicide. OCAT Shenzhen's...

The Kathmandu Triennale is an event developed on the back of past success of the Kathmandu International Art Festival, held in 2009 and 2012. The inaugural edition of Kathmandu Triennale (KT 2017) takes ‘The City’ as a thematic starting point – a catalyst to explore the many socio-cultural and political issues embedded in urban settings. Francis...

The world-renowned Biennale of Sydney is back next year to celebrate its 45th anniversary exhibition. Set to maintain its status as the largest and best-attended contemporary arts event in Australia, the 21st Biennale of Sydney is anticipated to once again bring an impressive and diverse range of contemporary artists and artworks to the...

Rarely before have we seen such a long and varied list of contributors, as we do in Marian Goodman Gallery's group show Animality. The 'cast of creatures' ranges from dogs, camels, fish to octopi, and charts a history from George Orwell to Gabriel Orozco by way of Marcel Broodthaers. Curator Jens Hoffmann, never one to turn down a...

“Who sees me naked, and who spends time alone with me in the bathroom? Johnson & Johnson. Nivea.” This is how Lee Kit, Hong Kong’s representative at the 2013 Venice Biennale, discusses the personal hygiene product logos in the paintings that unassumingly populated his Walker exhibition, Hold your breath, dance slowly: as...

MINNEAPOLIS — A kind of dance happens as you walk through Lee Kit’s exhibition at the Walker Art Center, appropriately titled Hold your breath, dance slowly. As you enter, there’s no sign that dictates whether you should walk right or left, but most people walk right, out of convention, and don’t see the ready–made...

Lee Kit is a Hong Kong–born, Taipei-based multimedia artist who represented Hong Kong at the 2013 Venice Biennale. His first solo museum exhibition in the US, Hold your breath, dance slowly, is currently showing at the Walker Art Center and features a selection of recent works. Here, Lee discusses his three-week residency in Minneapolis,...

As photographer Yasumasa Morimura has predominantly made his name since 1985 in eccentric self-portraiture involving impersonations of famous people, his current exhibition is conceptually and structurally all autobiography. It is a tale serially told through chapters with a beginning, middle-stage developments and a seemingly violent climax...

Carsten Höller has been travelling to the Democratic Republic of Congo, undeterred by its long history of conflict, for many years. It remains one of his favourite places on earth. The artist’s love of Congolese rumba — a body-shaking and often politically charged musical style — has permeated several of his works, from the Double...

Is it a slide... is it a work of art? Or is it a lucrative rescue mission for London’s very expensive Olympic artistic legacy?'I really like the dirtiness of it and the confusion it creates,' says Carsten Höller, 'that you don’t really know what it is, but that it truly creates a unique experience.'The artist is...

German artist Carsten Höller has a twisted sense of humour if his new exhibition in Milan is anything to go by. Doubt divides the darkened space of Pirelli HangarBicocca into a parallel duet of artworks, and it is here that ringmaster Höller coaxes, corrals and cajoles visitors into a complex and oft-dizzying array of interactive...

This November with an auction of over 80 works of art generously donated by local and international artists and galleries. In partnership with Christie’s, the artworks will be available to preview from 10–13 November at The Space. The accompanying dinner and live auction will be hosted on 14 November at the iconic floating restaurant...

Take Me (I’m Yours) at the Monnaie de Paris revives and expands a 1995 exhibition curated by Christian Boltanski and Hans-Ulrich Obrist at London’s Serpentine Gallery, in which all the art is designed to be touched and taken away. Chiara Parisi, director of cultural programs at the French institution, joins the duo in curating the 2015...

I once solved a New York Times crossword puzzle where one of the clues was: “but is it___?” (horizontal, three letters). Not a hard guess: art (must have been a Monday!). Looking up the origin of the question, I was surprised to see that it appeared in the popular imagination only in the 1990s. “Yes…But Is It Art?”...

On 17 June 2015, Japan’s Nissan Art Award announced its 2015 finalists. The seven artists represent a diverse group of emerging Japanese artists – from the animation of painter and film artist Takashi Ishida, to the sewn maps of Sayaka Akiyama and the sculptural works of Takahiro Iwasaki.The seven artists will be producing new work...

The Hong Kong-born photographer Liu Heung Shing has long been known for documenting China and pursuing media ventures from a perch in Beijing. For many years, he lived in a restored courtyard home near the Forbidden City and the leadership enclave of Zhongnanhai.Then last summer, he and his partner, Karen Smith, an art historian and curator,...