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nicolas grospierre’s velvet heliograms are made by months of direct sun exposure

myrto katsikopoulou I designboom — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 21:01:58 +0000

Nicolas Grospierre renders sunlight visible in Heliograms

Polish-French artist Nicolas Grospierre presents Heliograms, a photography-adjacent series currently on show in the Salle de Salomon at the Royal Łazienki Palace in Warsaw, on view until August 30, 2026. The project, also presented at the Paris Photo Fair at Grand Palais, centers on a singular technique: images formed not by camera, lens, or chemical development, but through the direct, months-long exposure of velvet to sunlight. Created both in the countryside of northern Poland and, for this exhibition, directly on site at the historic palace, the works reveal how the sun itself becomes a recording instrument.

Heliograms in the Salle de Salomon, Royal Łazienki Palace, Warsaw, 2025 (exhibition view)

solar light shapes velvet into delicate images

At the core of the process is a deliberately minimal setup. Sheets of velvet are masked with constructed forms or architectural silhouettes and then placed outdoors for four to five months. Over time, ultraviolet radiation gradually bleaches the textile, allowing an image to emerge through slow chromatic change. While the Polish-French artist determines the orientation, mask, and duration of exposure, the outcome remains partly unpredictable. Light intensity, shifting weather, and micro-variations in the environment contribute to a result that is guided yet never fully controlled.

This interplay between precision and contingency gives Nicolas Grospierre’s Heliograms their ambiguous aesthetic, poised between photography and painting. They follow a photographic logic (images produced by exposure) yet sidestep its familiar apparatus. Instead of capturing a moment, each work grows into the fabric, its contours shaped by atmospheric conditions. The resulting forms often appear like soft halos, spectral silhouettes, or faint architectures, suggesting presence through absence.

Heliograms in the Salle de Salomon, Royal Łazienki Palace, Warsaw, 2025 (exhibition view)

A slow dialogue between light and fabric at Royal Łazienki Palace

Conceptually, the series foregrounds a direct material encounter with the sun, a force vast, distant, and immeasurable at the human scale. The works do not portray this star but index its physical contact, marking the passage of time and the exposure of a vulnerable surface to an overwhelming energy. The gesture becomes both scientific and poetic: an attempt to register something that far exceeds human control.

For the Royal Łazienki Palace, originally the Enlightenment-era summer residence of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, Grospierre created two new site-specific Heliograms, aligning the process with an architectural context historically shaped by ideas of light as clarity, order, and knowledge. Installed in the Salle de Salomon, the works enter into conversation with a space designed around the interplay of structure, landscape, and illumination.

Heliograms in the Salle de Salomon, Royal Łazienki Palace, Warsaw, 2025 (exhibition view)

Nicolas Grospierre and Heliograms in the Salle de Salomon, Royal Łazienki Palace, Warsaw, 2025 (exhibition view)

Nicolas Grospierre and Heliograms in Royal Łazienki Palace, Warsaw, 2025 (exhibition view)

Nicolas Grospierre, Heliogram (Cerulean Clouded Moon), 2025, Velvet, oak frame, 90 x 100 x 7 cm

Nicolas Grospierre, Heliogram (Red Planet), 2025, Velvet, oak frame, 90 x 100 x 7 cm

Nicolas Grospierre, Heliogram (Golden Sun Blade), 2025, Velvet, oak frame, 150 x 125 x 8 cm

Nicolas Grospierre, Heliogram (Crimson Twin Vanishing Gradient), 2025, Velvet, oak frame, 90 x 100 x 7 cm

Nicolas Grospierre, Heliogram (Harmonic Regression), 2023, Velvet, oak frame, 90 x 100 x 7 cm

Nicolas Grospierre, Heliogram (Haloed Nebula), 2023, Velvet, oak frame, 90 x 100 x

project info:

name: Heliograms
artist: Nicolas Grospierre | @ngrospierre
location: Royal Łazienki Palace, Warsaw

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noor riyadh sheds light on how public art can create a more livable, connected city

eirini ilia I designboom — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 07:59:29 +0000

designboom speaks with noor riyadh’s director, Nouf Almoneef

From 20 November to 6 December 2025, Noor Riyadh, the world’s largest light art festival, returned with over 60 installations by 59 artists from 24 countries, presented across six major sites including Qasr Al Hokm District, King Abdulaziz Historical Center, stc Metro Station, KAFD Metro Station, Al Faisaliah Tower, and JAX District. Curated by Mami Kataoka, Sara Almutlaq, and Li Zhenhua, the 2025 theme, ‘In the Blink of an Eye,’ reflected Riyadh’s rapid transformation and positions the festival as a platform for public participation and artistic experimentation. In an exclusive interview with designboom, Noor Riyadh’s director Nouf Almoneef, takes us into a journey of light and art, touching on the festival’s mission to bring art to the people by making it accessible in everyday life and creating meaningful, memorable moments for everyone who engages with it.

‘Noor Riyadh is now in its fifth edition, and what keeps it meaningful is how deeply it belongs to the people of this city. We built it as a platform for creativity – for artists and for audiences who wanted to see themselves reflected in the works. Every year we rethink the locations so that art becomes part of daily life, whether that means placing installations in historic courtyards, public gardens, or metro stations. Our mission is always to bring art closer to the people,’ begins Nouf Almoneef, Director of Noor Riyadh.

Between the lines by Abdelrahman Elshahed | image © designboom

‘making Riyadh one of the world’s most livable cities’

Noor Riyadh’s most defining quality is its accessibility. By distributing artworks across historic zones, cultural districts, and newly launched metro stations, the festival transforms Riyadh into an open-air gallery. The curatorial strategy ensured that encounters with light art happen not only in traditional art venues but within places of everyday movement, commuter corridors, public plazas, pedestrian routes, and family gathering areas. This approach aligns with Riyadh Art’s long-term mission to integrate creativity into the capital’s urban fabric and create ‘everyday moments of joy,’ a principle emphasized across the program’s strategic documents.

‘By choosing different locations each year – parks, heritage sites, gardens, metro stations – we create a network of public spaces that are connected through light; this is how we make the festival accessible. That sense of belonging is essential to our vision of making Riyadh one of the world’s most livable and creatively engaged cities,’ continues Nouf.

Liminal Space Air-Time by Shinji Ohmaki

the six locations create a geographic journey through riyadh

Beyond its large-scale installations, Noor Riyadh sustains a citywide public program that includes workshops, talks, performances, and family activities such as Printed Stories, Dancing Threads, and Stories from the Shadows—all designed to engage audiences of different ages and backgrounds. This community-driven programming complements Riyadh Art’s broader achievements, which include over 6,500 community engagement activities and 9.6 million visitors since launch. By inviting residents not only to observe but to participate, Noor Riyadh positions public art as a shared civic experience rather than a spectacle.

The 2025 theme, ‘In the Blink of an Eye,’ reflected Riyadh’s rapid evolution from heritage sites like Qasr Al Hokm to the sleek infrastructure of the newly launched metro network, showcased in festival documents as symbols of the city’s forward momentum. The artworks amplified this narrative: kinetic sculptures visualize movement, light projections reframe architectural history, and metro-based installations mirror the rhythms of urban life. Together, the festival’s six locations created a geographic journey through Riyadh’s past, present, and future.

‘We chose locations that reveal how the city is expanding – its heritage districts, its cultural centers, its futuristic metro lines. When visitors move between these sites, they experience the story of Riyadh itself: a place honoring its past while building bold new futures. For many people seeing these changes, the artworks help make sense of the transformation by offering moments of reflection within the movement.’

Sliced by Encor Studio | image © designboom

As part of Riyadh Art, one of the four original Vision 2030 mega projects, Noor Riyadh plays a pivotal role in shaping the cultural infrastructure of the capital. Permanent installations, educational programs, and public-realm activations continue to expand the city’s creative footprint. The festival’s long-term legacy lies not only in its scale or global recognition but in how it fosters civic pride, cultural exchange, and everyday access to creativity.

‘I think Noor Riyadh after 2025 has already been recognized internationally and locally, but recognition is not our only goal. What we want is to create meaningful, memorable moments for people, for visitors, for artists, for curators, for residents. As Riyadh continues to evolve, Noor Riyadh will grow with it, building stronger connections between communities and art. This is how we imagine the future: a city where creativity is a shared language, part of daily life, and part of who we are becoming,’ concludes Nouf Almoneef.

Light Float Down Like A Feather by Wang Yuyang

Atmospheric Seeing by Studio Above&Below

Between Light and Stone by Nebras AlJoaib

Center by Ivana Franke | image © designboom

Synthesis by László Zsolt Bordos-Christophe Berthonneau | image © designboom

Troppo Fiso! by Traumnovelle

Luna Somnium by Fuse | image © designboom

event info:

name: Noor Riyadh 2025 | @noorriyadhfestival

organization: Riyadh Art

curation: Mami Kataoka, Li Zhenhua, and Sara Almutlaq

dates: 20 November – 6 December, 2025

location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

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cloud-like white canopy of hanging vines emerges from abu dhabi’s arid landscape

Pamela Tan — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 19:01:19 +0000

Poh Sin Studio’s installation interprets the Garden of Eden

Eden – Abu Dhabi Edition is a large-scale installation by artist Pamela Tan of Poh Sin Studio that examines the relationship between constructed environments and natural forms. Drawing conceptual reference from the mythical Garden of Eden, the project presents an abstracted landscape composed of organic structures and controlled material language.

The pavilion is conceived as an immersive, all-white environment that emphasizes form, texture, and spatial sequence. Through the enlargement and repetition of natural motifs, the work encourages close observation of subtle details and alters conventional perceptions of scale. The restrained palette and sculptural composition create a calm spatial atmosphere, defined by continuity rather than enclosure.

image by Nada Alkarra

Eden airy installation emerges from the Desert Context

For its Abu Dhabi edition, Eden extends beyond an indoor exhibition context and is situated within the desert landscape. Positioned directly on sand, the installation introduces a contrasting spatial condition, where a garden-like structure emerges within an arid environment. The work appears as a temporary presence, shifting in perception between visibility and disappearance as lighting and atmospheric conditions change from night to day. This juxtaposition between a constructed landscape and its desert setting establishes a dialogue between abundance and scarcity, permanence and impermanence.

The installation by artist Pamela Tan of Poh Sin Studio is experienced outdoors under the open sky. At night, its white structural elements reflect artificial light, forming a luminous field against the surrounding darkness. Organic passages and vine-like arches guide movement through the space, while the overall composition maintains a low, horizontal profile that responds to the stillness of the desert context.

image by Poh Sin Studio

Suspended system constructs a Temporary open canopy

Structurally, Eden is defined by a suspended, cloud-like canopy composed of hanging vine elements. This canopy acts as both the primary architectural feature and the main structural system. The form originated through an intuitive design process and was later refined through engineering analysis, in which its curvature was translated into a truss-based framework. Computational simulations were used to ensure structural stability under desert conditions while maintaining visual lightness. The installation operates as a hybrid between sculpture and architecture, where form and structure are developed simultaneously. Hanging vines, arched elements, and dispersed glass spheres contribute to a spatial environment that responds to light, movement, and viewpoint, producing a variable sensory experience throughout the day and night.

All steel components are designed as a flat-pack system, allowing for efficient transportation, installation, dismantling, and reassembly in different locations. The modular construction employs interlocking joints, slip-lock connections, and bolt-and-nut assemblies, enabling precise on-site assembly while supporting flexibility and reuse. This approach addresses logistical constraints associated with remote sites and reinforces the project’s adaptability as a temporary spatial installation.

image by Nada Alkarra

image by Poh Sin Studio

image by Lancer Gerber, courtesy of Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi & Public Art Abu Dhabi

project info:

name: Eden – Abu Dhabi Edition (2025)
designer: Pamela Tan – Poh Sin Studio | @pohsin_studio

location: Abu Dhabi, UAE

photographer: Lancer Gerber, Nada Alkarra, Poh Sin Studio

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

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hand-drawn abstract figures dance along max cooper’s music in film by masanobu hiraoka

Neighbourhood — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 18:01:10 +0000

Masanobu Hiraoka’s hand-drawn film for Max Cooper’s ‘On Being’

Animator Masanobu Hiraoka presents a new hand-drawn animated film created in response to On Being, a track and album by electronic musician and creative Max Cooper. The album explores personal reflection, inner experience, and the shared nature of human thought. The film approaches these themes through an intimate visual language rooted in drawing, movement, and transformation, allowing sound and image to exist in quiet dialogue.

Masanobu Hiraoka: On Being | all images courtesy of © Masanobu Hiraoka, 2025

On Being: Exploring Perception Through Drawing and Sound

Masanobu Hiraoka is a Tokyo-based animator known for his hand-drawn films. Working primarily with pencil and frame-by-frame animation, his practice foregrounds the physical act of drawing and embraces imperfection as a record of time and thought. His work often moves between figuration and abstraction, using transformation as a way to reflect inner experience rather than narrative structure. The animation unfolds with pencil lines forming figures and abstract structures that shift gradually, as human gestures appear momentarily before dissolving into organic forms, while biological patterns echo bodily systems and natural processes. Throughout the film, the hand of the animator remains present, with visible lines and subtle imperfections reinforcing the physical act of drawing and the passage of time.

Max Cooper is a London-based electronic artist whose work sits at the intersection of music, science, and visual art. With a background in computational biology, his compositions often explore patterns, systems, and emotional states beyond language, frequently extending into collaborative visual projects. His practice treats sound as a tool for inquiry, using music to investigate perception, identity, and what it means to be human.

animator Masanobu Hiraoka presents a new hand-drawn animated film

Hiraoka and Cooper in exploring perception beyond language

Hiraoka’s process is grounded in frame-by-frame hand-drawn animation, favouring spontaneity and intuition over strict planning. Rather than mapping images directly to musical cues, the artist responds to the emotional tone of the composition, allowing imagery to surface from memory and internal sensation. This approach results in a visual rhythm that feels measured and reflective, closely aligned with the pacing of the music without attempting literal translation.

Personal experience plays a central role in the film’s imagery. Scenes suggest childhood, family, and human connection, while remaining intentionally open-ended. Contemplating personal interpretation, these moments are interwoven with abstract sequences that reference growth, decay, and regeneration, creating a visual continuum between individual memory and universal biological patterns. This collaboration reflects a shared interest between Hiraoka and Cooper in exploring perception beyond language. The music itself is rooted in collected human reflections on existence and emotion, while the animation responds through drawn movement rather than symbolic explanation. Together, sound and image operate as parallel investigations into what it means to experience memory and presence. The result is a quietly immersive work that presents being not as a defined state, but as something continuously unfolding.

the film responds to On Being, a track and album by Max Cooper

the film explores themes of reflection and inner experience

the animation is created using pencil and frame-by-frame techniques

figures emerge and dissolve through gradual transformation

the imagery responds to the emotional tone of the composition

biological patterns echo bodily systems and natural processes

human gestures appear briefly before shifting into organic forms

project info:

name: On Being: Masanobu Hiraoka translates memory into hand-drawn motion for Max Cooper
animator: Masanobu Hiraoka

musician: Max Cooper | @maxcoopermax

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

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TOP 10 exhibitions of 2025

myrto katsikopoulou I designboom — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 10:00:21 +0000

TOP 10 ART EXHIBITIONS THAT DEFINED 2025

2025 has been a busy and exciting year for art, with exhibitions ranging from immersive installations to large-scale retrospectives. At designboom, we experienced many of these shows, some in person and others virtually, and took note of the ones that stayed with us. As the year comes to a close, we look back at the top exhibitions that made the strongest impression and are likely to be remembered for years to come. In Melbourne, Yayoi Kusama unveiled a dazzling new infinity room at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). At Tate Modern, Do Ho Suh presented intricate fabric architectures and during Milan Design Week 2025, A.A. Murakami filled Museo della Permanente with floating, mist-filled bubbles , together offering a glimpse into the creativity that shaped art this year.

Throughout 2025, designboom’s monthly radar series spotlighted exhibitions worth visiting, providing a guide to some of the most compelling shows around the world. In this feature, we revisit some of those highlights and celebrate the exhibitions that defined the art landscape of 2025. Read on to see the full list!

DO HO SUH’S ‘WALK THE HOUSE’ SOLO EXHIBITION AT TATE MODERN

Do Ho Suh, Nest/s, 2024, polyester, stainless steel, 410.1 x 375.4 x 2148.7 cm | courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin New York, Seoul and London, image by Jeon Taeg Su © Do Ho Suh

Tate Modern’s The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House marked a major moment for the Korean artist, presenting his first solo show in London in more than two decades. Known for his translucent fabric installations that explore home, memory, and identity, Suh transforms architectural details into delicate, almost dreamlike reflections on belonging. The exhibition brought together sculpture, video, drawing, and large-scale installations, showcasing key works from the past three decades alongside new site-specific pieces created for Tate Modern. ‘The space I’m interested in is not only a physical one but also an intangible, metaphorical, and psychological one,’ Suh shares. ‘For me, ‘space’ is that which encompasses everything.’

FIFTY YEARS OF LAND ART BY ANDY GOLDSWORTHY IN EDINBURGH

Andy Goldsworthy, Edges made by finding leaves the same size. Tearing one in two. Spitting underneath and pressing flat on to another. Brough, Cumbria. Cherry patch. 4 November 1984, 1984 Cibachrome photograph | image courtesy of the artist

At Tate Modern, Do Ho Suh transformed architectural details into delicate reflections on home, memory, and identity, inviting viewers to reconsider the spaces they inhabit. In Edinburgh, Andy Goldsworthy took a similarly immersive approach, but on a grand, natural scale. Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years transformed the Royal Scottish Academy into a sweeping landscape, his largest indoor exhibition to date. Spanning five decades of land art and over 200 works, the show turned the historic galleries into a continuous, site-specific installation of cracked clay walls, windfallen oak branches, suspended reeds, and stones collected from more than 100 graveyards in Dumfriesshire. Responding directly to the RSA’s architecture, Goldsworthy’s work used space, light, and materials as active elements, extending his long-term exploration of the ties and tensions between people, buildings, and the land.

STEVE MCQUEEN’S BASS AT SCHAULAGER BASEL

Steve McQueen, Bass, 2024, LED Light and Sound, courtesy the artist, co-commissioned work by Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel, and Dia Art Foundation, Schaulager® Münchenstein/Basel (Installation view) | all images courtesy of Schaulager Basel, photos by Pati Grabowicz, © Steve McQueen

While Andy Goldsworthy shapes space with natural materials, Steve McQueen transforms it through light and sound. At Schaulager Basel, the artist’s immersive color and sound installation Bass filled the museum with over a thousand LED light tubes spanning its five levels, including the soaring atrium, paired with deep, resonant bass frequencies that move through a suspended array of speakers. The colored lights shifted slowly from deep red to ultraviolet, enveloping the interior in a continuously changing spectrum, while the sound flowed alongside, creating a tangible sense of presence within the architecture.

One of McQueen’s most abstract works to date, Bass can be considered an exploration of how sound and light can occupy, define, and transform a space. ‘What I love about light and sound is that they are both created through movement and fluidity. They can be molded into any shape, like vapor or a scent; they can sneak into every nook and cranny,’ the British artist and filmmaker explains.

A.A. MURAKAMI’S BUBBLES AT MILAN DESIGN WEEK

Beyond the Horizon (2024) at Museo della Permanente | exhibition photos by DSL Studio, unless stated otherwise

As McQueen orchestrates light and sound to make space itself tangible, likewise, Murakami manipulates perception, using robotics and physics to conjure nature in unexpected forms. During Milan Design Week 2025, the collective presented two installations at Museo della Permanente for Opposites United: Eclipse of Perceptions. In The Cave, red backlighting illuminates replicated ancient bones rising from a pool of oil, lifted by robotic limbs that cast shifting shadows and haunting silhouettes. Beyond the Horizon offered a cool, contrasting space where giant bubbles drift overhead, releasing mist to form ephemeral clouds. Together, the works transformed the museum into a space where technology and nature meet in poetic dialogue.

YAYOI KUSAMA’S NEW INFINITY MIRROR AT NGV MELBOURNE

Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room–My Heart is Filled to the Brim with Sparkling Light, 2024, on display at the NGV International, Melbourne for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Yayoi Kusama exhibition from 15 December 2024 – 21 April 2025 © YAYOI KUSAMA | image by Sean Fennessy

From Murakami’s playful interplay of mist, motion, and robotics, the next highlight on our top exhibitions of 2025 is Yayoi Kusama’s mirrored cosmos. The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne presented the world premiere of Kusama’s new infinity room, My Heart is Filled to the Brim with Sparkling Light. Transforming the gallery into a seemingly endless celestial realm, the installation placed visitors at the center of the artist’s expansive universe. Through mirrored surfaces and choreographed points of light, the work created a shifting constellation of brightness and shadow, prompting viewers to consider their own presence within an infinite space.

The retrospective surveyed Kusama’s eight-decade practice with 200 works, including ten immersive installations. Beyond the main galleries, the NGV Great Hall featured Dots Obsession, an arrangement of massive inflated spheres, while more than 60 trees along St Kilda Road were wrapped in pink-and-white polka dots for Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees.

AI WEIWEI’S FIVE WORKING SPACES AT AEDES ARCHITECTURE FORUM

image courtesy of Aedes Architecture Forum and Ai Weiwei Studio

Where Kusama examines the cosmic and the boundless, Ai Weiwei grounds his exhibition in the spaces that define him, revealing how the studio itself becomes an extension of identity and resistance. At Berlin’s Aedes Architecture Forum, Five Working Spaces offers an intimate look into the artist’s studios across continents, each reflecting the political pressures, personal memories, and creative impulses that have shaped his career. A central focus of the show was Weiwei’s studio in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal, built using traditional Chinese woodworking methods.

‘My studio is an extension of my body and mental state,’ Ai Weiwei tells designboom. ‘Of course it’s political. Anyone who sees the exhibition can understand — it’s not that I want it to be political. It just is political.’

THE MANY LIVES OF THE NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER AT MOMA

night time at the Nakagin Capsule Tower, with Mr. Takayuki Sekine seen through the window of capsule B1004, 2016. image © Jeremie Souteyrat

As Ai Weiwei’s studios highlighted the ways environments shape an artist’s identity, the next exhibition turned to a building that itself became a symbol of radical architectural thinking. MoMA in New York brought the Nakagin Capsule Tower back into public view, reframing its half-century story through a fully restored capsule and extensive archival material. The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower exhibition revisited the Tokyo landmark designed in 1972 and dismantled in 2022, long regarded as one of the clearest expressions of Metabolism in Japan. At the center of the exhibition was capsule A1305, returned to near-original condition with its modular furniture, audio controls, and Sony color TV that once defined its compact domestic life. More than 40 supplementary materials, models, brochures, film reels, and interviews, traced how the tower’s prefabricated units evolved far beyond their initial purpose.

CELEBRATING RYUICHI SAKAMOTO AT MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO

Nakaya Fujiko, London Fog, Fog Performance #03779, 2017, Installation view from “BMW Tate Live Exhibition: Ten Days Six Nights,” Tate Modern, London, UK Collaboration: Min Tanaka (Dance), Shiro Takatani (Lighting), Ryuichi Sakamoto (Music). Photo by Noriko Koshida

The next exhibition on the list looks beyond architecture to the world of sound, with a major retrospective dedicated to composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto. At the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Ryuichi Sakamoto | seeing sound, hearing time offered a comprehensive look at the late artist’s pioneering journey through music, technology, and visual expression. Bringing together celebrated works alongside installations conceived before his passing, the exhibition captured the breadth of a career defined by experimentation and cross-disciplinary curiosity. Tracing Sakamoto’s evolution from electronic innovation to environmental awareness, the show highlights how he expanded the possibilities of composition by integrating spatial, visual, and digital elements. Immersive rooms, archival recordings, and rarely seen materials reveal his deep engagement with the fragility of the natural world and the passage of time. The result was an intimate portrait of an artist whose influence continues to resonate across contemporary art and culture.

TATIANA TROUVÉ STRANGE LIFE OF THINGS BY TAT PALAZZO GRASSI

The Guardian, 2020 | photo by Florian Kleinefenn

Where Sakamoto shaped emotion through sound and space, Tatiana Trouvé builds atmospheres through objects, constellations, and drawn narratives across Palazzo Grassi. In The Strange Life of Things, the Pinault Collection presented a major solo exhibition of Trouvé’s sculptures and drawings, curated by Caroline Bourgeois and James Lingwood. The show traced the artist’s ongoing interest in journeys, both real and imagined, through chair sculptures, installations, and intricate drawings. These pieces form interconnected worlds that shift between past, present, and future, drawing viewers into landscapes where memory, imagination, and lived experience overlap.

PRECIOUS OKOYOMON’S PLUSH COMPANIONS AT KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ

Precious Okoyomon, ONE EITHER LOVES ONESELF OR KNOWS ONESELF, Exhibition view second floor Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2025, in the belly of the sun endless, 2025 | photo: Markus Tretter © Precious Okoyomon, Kunsthaus Bregenz courtesy of the artist and Kunsthaus Bregenz

An even more surreal world than Trouvé’s emerged at Kunsthaus Bregenz with Precious Okoyomon’s dreamlike environments. The artist and poet unveiled ONE EITHER LOVES ONESELF OR KNOWS ONESELF, an exhibition that reimagined the museum as a sequence of psychoanalytic chambers, dream habitats, and intimate interior worlds. Returning to the institution after debuting there as its youngest-ever exhibiting artist, Okoyomon filled the space with plush companions, lush garden enclosures, and installations that blurred the boundary between comfort and unease. Her poetry threaded through the galleries, shaping an experience that felt at once childlike and deeply introspective. Moving through these shifting environments, visitors were invited to confront the tender edges of self-perception, encountering a universe where transformation is constant and the subconscious becomes momentarily tangible.

2024 — 2023 — 2022 — 2021 — 2020 — 2019 — 2018 — 2017 — 2016 — 2015 — 2014 — 2013

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carsten höller’s pink mirrored carousel slows rotation to stretch time in the alps

thomai tsimpou I designboom — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:01:25 +0000

Carsten Höller’s reflective artwork reframes time experience

Carsten Höller installs Pink Mirror Carousel on the ice rink of the Kulm Hotel St. Moritz this winter, introducing a slowed, reflective amusement structure to the Alpine resort. Clad in pink mirrored panels and precisely calibrated to complete a full rotation every two minutes, the work takes a familiar fairground structure and transforms it into an immersive sculptural environment that folds time, movement, and spectatorship into a disorienting experience set against the Engadin landscape.

Installed outdoors on the hotel’s ice rink, Pink Mirror Carousel continues Höller’s long-standing engagement with amusement rides as what he calls ‘confusion machines.’ Rather than delivering speed or thrill, the carousel deliberately slows the body down. Its rotation becomes almost meditative, encouraging riders to register duration, repetition, and anticipation as material conditions. The structure is composed of twelve identical mirrored segments arranged as a dodecagon, reflecting skaters, riders, the surrounding mountains, and the carousel itself in shifting fragments.

all images courtesy of Kulm Hotel St. Moritz

Pink Mirror Carousel rotates on the Kulm Hotel ice rink

While earlier carousel works by Höller have required up to twenty-four hours for a single turn, the St. Moritz installation completes its cycle in exactly two minutes. This double minute references the carousel’s counter-rotating elements, with the top turning counter-clockwise and the middle section rotating clockwise. The result is a subtle but persistent sense of misalignment, where mechanical precision and bodily perception never fully sync. As Baldo Hauser, the Belgian artist’s alter ego, notes, the work functions as ‘a sculpture with people inside, animating the inanimate, the mechanical, the lifeless rotation with the realness of human bodies being transported through their own biological time.’

Music curated by the Kulm Hotel’s directeur d’ambiance, Arman Naféei, accompanies the skating rink, layering sound into the experience. Open to both hotel guests and the public, the installation operates as a shared, temporary situation.

Carsten Höller installs Pink Mirror Carousel on the ice rink of the Kulm Hotel St. Moritz

Pink Mirror Carousel continues Höller’s long-standing engagement with amusement rides

its rotation becomes almost meditative, encouraging riders to register duration

composed of twelve identical mirrored segments

reflecting skaters, riders, the surrounding mountains

Carsten Höller at the Kulm Hotel St. Moritz, Switzerland

project info:

name: Pink Mirror Carousel

artist: Carsten Höller | @carsten.holler

location: Kulm Hotel St. Moritz | @kulmhotel, St. Moritz, Switzerland

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wes anderson rebuilds joseph cornell’s legendary studio inside gagosian paris

thomai tsimpou I designboom — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:30:11 +0000

WES ANDERSON recreates joseph CORNELL’S studio in gagosian paris

The House on Utopia Parkway: Joseph Cornell’s Studio Re-Created by Wes Anderson transforms Gagosian Paris into a reconstruction of the artist’s Queens basement workspace. Conceived by curator Jasper Sharp in collaboration with the American filmmaker, the exhibition, which runs until March 14th, 2026, marks Cornell’s first solo presentation in Paris in more than forty years, translating his private world of boxes, fragments, and found materials into a life-size environment that sits somewhere between installation, archive, and cinematic set.

Rather than presenting Cornell’s work through a conventional gallery display, the exhibition begins with the space itself. Anderson, working with several longtime collaborators and exhibition designer Cécile Degos, reimagines the modest studio Cornell maintained in his family home on Utopia Parkway, Queens. Shelves of whitewashed boxes, tins, and drawers are filled with more than three hundred objects drawn from the artist’s own collection, including prints, feathers, marbles, maps, toys, shells, and paper scraps, what Cornell once called his ‘spare parts department.’

all images courtesy of Gagosian Paris

COLLECTING, SORTING, AND IMAGINATION TAKE SPATIAL FORM

Joseph Cornell (1903–1972) is often described through negation, as he did not draw, paint, or sculpt and had no formal art education. Yet working almost entirely from this basement studio, and never traveling beyond the United States, he produced one of the most influential bodies of work of the twentieth century. Paris, in particular, occupied a central place in his imagination, accessed through postcards, guidebooks, and conversations with Marcel Duchamp. Dozens of his works reference French poets, architecture, and historical figures, forming a mental geography built from images rather than experience.

Within the reconstructed studio in Gagosian Paris, several of Cornell’s shadow boxes anchor the exhibition. Pharmacy (1943), modeled after an antique apothecary cabinet and once owned by Teeny and Marcel Duchamp, brings together glass bottles filled with paper cuttings, pigments, and found materials. Untitled (Pinturicchio Boy) (c. 1950), from the Medici series, layers reproductions of a Renaissance portrait behind amber-tinted glass alongside maps and wooden toys, while A Dressing Room for Gille (1939) references Watteau’s Pierrot, held just blocks away at the Louvre. Blériot II (c. 1956) looks to early aviation, honoring the French inventor who first crossed the English Channel by plane. Together, these works read less as isolated objects and more as nodes within a wider system of references, obsessions, and quiet rituals.

a reconstruction of the artist’s Queens basement workspace

THE HOUSE ON UTOPIA PARKWAY and the act of assembly

The House on Utopia Parkway also includes loans from the Joseph Cornell Study Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among them unfinished boxes that expose the artist’s working method. These partial works disrupt the sense of preciousness often associated with Cornell, emphasizing instead trial, rearrangement, and contingency. Seen within the recreated studio, they underline how his practice relied as much on patient sorting and revisiting as on moments of poetic resolution.

Visible through the street-facing window of the gallery, the installation turns Gagosian’s storefront into a life-size Cornell box, softly lit from within. The display recalls the hours Cornell spent working late into the night, alone with his materials, while also echoing Anderson’s own interest in constructed worlds and carefully framed interiors.

Cornell’s first solo presentation in Paris in more than forty years

a life-size environment that sits somewhere between installation, archive, and cinematic set

the exhibition begins with the space itself

Joseph Cornell’s studio in the basement of his family home in Queens, New York, 1971 | image © Harry Roseman

Joseph Cornell Pharmacy, 1943 Glass-paned wood cabinet, marbled paper, mirror, glass shelves, and twenty glass bottles containing various paper cuttings (crêpe, tissue, printed engravings, and maps), colored sand, pigment, colored aluminum foil, feathers, paper butterfly wing, dried leaf, glass marble, fibers, driftwood, wood marbles, glass rods, beads, seashells, crystals, stone, wood shavings, sawdust, sulfate, copper, wire, fruit pits, paint, water, and cork, 15 ¼ × 12 × 3⅛ inches (38.7 x 30.5 × 7.9 cm) © 2025 The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Dominique Uldry

Joseph Cornell A Dressing Room for Gille, 1939 Paint, printed paper, mirror, cork, cotton thread, textiles, ribbon tape, wire mesh, and glass-paned wood box construction, 15 × 8¾ × 6 % inches (38.1 × 22.2 × 16.8 cm) © 2025 The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Owen Conway

Joseph Cornell Untitled (Medici Series, Pinturicchio Boy), c. 1950 Wood, glass, metal, printed paper, and ink in wood and printed paper box construction, 15 ¾ × 12 × 4 inches (40x cm) © 2025 The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Owen Conway

Chambre Gothique Moutarde Dijon Pour Aloysius Bertrand ‘Sulphide’, 1950

Joseph Cornell, Flemish Princess, c. 1950, Wood, printed paper, wood balls, cork, and tinted glass-paned wood box construction, 17 3/8 x 10 1/4 x 2 5/8 inches (44.1 x 26 x 6.7 cm), © 2025 The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy Michael Rosenfeld Gallery and Gagosian

drawers are filled with more than three hundred objects drawn from the artist’s own collection

Joseph Cornell (1903–1972) is often described through negation

conceived by curator Jasper Sharp in collaboration with Wes Anderson

project info:

name: The House on Utopia Parkway: Joseph Cornell’s Studio Re-Created by Wes Anderson

location: Gagosian Paris | @gagosian, 9 rue de Castiglione, Paris

dates: December 16th, 2025 – March 14th, 2026

designer: Wes Anderson

artist: Joseph Cornell

curator: Jasper Sharp

exhibition design: Cécile Degos

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artist david spriggs suspends ‘astra’ installation as an ephemeral cloud of transparent planes

kat barandy I designboom — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 07:45:04 +0000

astra: an indoor cloud floats in kansas

Vancouver-based artist David Spriggs completes his latest public artwork, Astra, within the atrium of the State Docking Building in Kansas. Suspended high above the public floor, the work takes shape as a spatial installation to be experienced from below, around, and through movement.

From a distance, Astra reads as a loose atmospheric mass gathered beneath the ceiling plane. As viewers approach, its structure becomes legible through a sequence of layered acrylic sheets, each UV printed and suspended in alignment. The installation floats within the space lightly and forms a volume defined by depth and spacing rather than solid mass. Sightlines through the atrium shift continuously as the layers compress and separate in perspective.

images courtesy the artist

david spriggs’ shifting artwork to be viewed gradually

David Spriggs constructs Astra through stacked transparent planes that carry fragments of image and color. Individually, each sheet appears partial and insubstantial. Together, they generate a volumetric presence that feels architectural in scale yet dependent on position and movement. The acrylic surfaces catch ambient light from the atrium while integrated LED lighting sharpens edges and intensifies chromatic transitions.

Mirrored stainless steel panels installed above extend the visual field vertically, multiplying the perceived height of the installation and folding the atrium back into itself. This reflection doubles the depth of the work and reinforces its suspension between ceiling and floor. Steel beams and hanging hardware remain precise and restrained, as the layered field reads as a continuous — yet ephemeral — whole.

The artist creates this work to reward slow circulation. Viewed from one angle, the form appears to dissolve into thin lines and gaps. From another, density returns and the volume coheres. This constant recalibration places the body in an active role, with perception shaped by pace and position. This way, the atrium becomes a space for pause and observation rather than passage alone.

Astra hangs within the atrium of the State Docking Building in Kansas

the installation occupies the atrium of the civic building

layered acrylic sheets form a spatial image through depth and alignment

the work changes appearance as viewers move through the atrium

mirrored surfaces extend the perceived height of the space

movement shapes how the form gathers and disperses in view

project info:

project title: Astra

artist: David Spriggs | @david_spriggs

location: State Docking Building Kansas, USA
completion: 2025

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shaikha al mazrou creates light art from crystallized seawater at manar abu dhabi

kat barandy I designboom — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 16:45:56 +0000

the contingent object glows in abu dhabi

Emirati artist Shaikha Al Mazrou presents The Contingent Object at Manar Abu Dhabi 2025, a public light art exhibition unfolding within a coastal landscape shaped by mangroves and tidal air.

Sited close to water, the luminous work takes the form of a circular salt field measuring roughly thirty meters across. The installation registers time through material change. Seawater settles into a shallow plane, and as heat and wind take hold, evaporation thickens the surface. Color intensifies, crystals begin to assemble, and a pale crust develops along the edges. What begins as a calm liquid state gradually compacts into a dense, reflective plane, carrying the imprint of climate and duration.

Shaikha Al Mazrou, Contingent Object, 2025. Manar Abu Dhabi 2025. image courtesy Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi & Public Art Abu Dhabi. photo by Lance Gerber

Shaikha Al Mazrou uses Material as Process

Creating the Contingent Object, artist Shaikha Al Mazrou, employs salt as both medium and indicator. The material’s responsiveness to environment gives the piece a living quality, shaped daily by light levels, humidity, and shifting temperatures. The ground plane remains precise in geometry, yet its surface resists exact repetition. Fine variations accrue across the circle, producing subtle tonal gradients and textures that register up close before resolving at scale.

After dusk, a restrained lighting system activates along the perimeter and beneath the salt plane. The illumination stays low and even, allowing the circle to hover visually above the ground. Approached on foot, the work reveals itself gradually. The surrounding darkness compresses attention toward the illuminated edge, creating a measured spatial rhythm that encourages slow movement and extended viewing.

Shaikha Al Mazrou, Contingent Object, 2025. Manar Abu Dhabi 2025. image courtesy Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi & Public Art Abu Dhabi. photo by Lance Gerber

Light, Landscape, and Duration

Within the broader context of Manar Abu Dhabi, The Contingent Object participates in a city-scale conversation about light, site, and public access. The biennial brings together installations that engage outdoor settings through restraint and technical precision. Our recent coverage of DRIFT’s installation for Manar Abu Dhabi, which translated motion and aerial choreography into a shared nocturnal experience, offers a point of comparison rooted in light as a spatial tool rather than an effect-driven gesture.

Shaikha Al Mazrou’s approach remains grounded in physical transformation. Light plays a supporting role, tracing the boundary of the work rather than overtaking it. The glow frames the salt field and reveals the incremental shifts in its surface, reinforcing the idea of duration as a central design parameter.

Shaikha Al Mazrou, Contingent Object, 2025. Manar Abu Dhabi 2025. image courtesy Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi & Public Art Abu Dhabi

Shaikha Al Mazrou, Contingent Object, 2025. Manar Abu Dhabi 2025. image courtesy Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi & Public Art Abu Dhabi. photo by Lance Gerber

Shaikha Al Mazrou, Contingent Object, 2025. Manar Abu Dhabi 2025. image courtesy Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi & Public Art Abu Dhabi

project info:

name: Contingent Object

artist: Shaikha Al Mazrou | @shaikha.almazrou

location: Abu Dhabi, UAE

festival: Manar Abu Dhabi 2025 | @publicartabudhabi

theme: The Light Compass

dates: November 15th, 2025 – January 4th, 2026

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mirroring pillowed walls filled with reed grass compose sensory installation in montpellier

COAT — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 18:01:56 +0000

Chaume Sublimé Transforms Reed Grass into Sensory Architecture

Chaume Sublimé is an ephemeral installation by COAT – conditions atmosphériques d’espaces, created for the Festival des Architectures Vives 2025 in Montpellier, France. The project investigates the spatial and sensory potential of reed grass, using the material to form an atmosphere-driven architectural intervention that examines craftsmanship, sustainability, and the transformation of everyday resources.

The installation is composed of two opposing walls placed within the courtyard of the Hôtel des Trésoriers de la Bourse. Each wall presents two contrasting sides, interpreting both the external street-facing facade and the internal courtyard facade. This duality parallels the relationship between plate and food in contemporary haute cuisine, where the support and the content form a unified composition. The exterior faces form a minimal, monochrome envelope, while the interior faces carry the textural and sensory expression. The arrangement defines an intermediate zone that becomes a focal exploration space for visitors.

Reed grass forms the primary material. It is deployed in distinct configurations to articulate the contrast between exterior and interior. A regular grid of thatch-filled pillows establishes a controlled facade, punctuated by circular openings that offer partial views toward the interior and encourage interaction. Stacked sheaves of thatch introduce varied textures and colors. Natural dyes, such as coffee grounds, turmeric, and root-based pigments, add chromatic shifts and subtle olfactory qualities that extend into the surrounding street. The lightweight bundles respond to air movement and visitor passage, producing temporary sensory effects. Recognizable architectural elements from the courtyard context are incorporated subtly into this inner surface, establishing a direct connection between installation and site.

all images by Paul Kozlowski – photoarchitecture unless stated otherwise

Two opposing walls frame the reed-based installation by COAT

The design facilitates an open-ended exploration of smell, touch, and visual variation. Openings in the exterior layer frame initial glimpses, while the interior’s flexible thatch components allow for close engagement. Movement through the installation results in slight displacement of the reed bundles, generating short, individualized spatial moments. Children in particular may engage with the structure intuitively, exploring textures, scents, and views. Reed is sourced from the Camargue region near Montpellier and from Lake Neusiedl near Vienna, where the installation was developed. The material’s ecological qualities, compostability, renewability, and local availability, frame the project’s environmental approach.

Two self-supporting walls form the structural system, designed by studio COAT – conditions atmosphériques d’espaces. The wooden framework uses standard beam lengths to minimize waste and relies on mechanical joints for disassembly and reuse. Scaffolding feet allow adaptation to various site conditions, facilitating potential reinstallation at future events. The stacked reed sheaves are held within a 13.5 cm-deep frame and stabilized by vertical metal cables, while shredded reed offcuts are repurposed as infill for the exterior pillows.

the installation’s exterior face articulates itself as a monochrome grid of thatch-filled pillows

material duality shaped by culinary and architectural sequences

Responding to the festival’s theme of gourmandize, the pleasure of tasting, interpreted through the lens of haute cuisine, the installation explores how an ordinary ecological material can be reworked and presented to reveal new tactile and atmospheric properties. The structure introduces two contrasting conditions: a restrained, uniform exterior and a textured, sensory interior. This duality encourages passers-by to enter, observe, and experience the material at close range. Compostable and reusable components support circularity and material awareness within architectural practice. The project draws parallels between the sequential experience of tasting in haute cuisine, presentation, anticipation, and tasting, and a spatial journey through architectural space. Reed grass becomes a parallel to a culinary ingredient that is transformed through technique to expose latent characteristics.

This conceptual structure is paired with a reinterpretation of courtyard typology. The courtyard, positioned between public street and private interior, traditionally provides a gradual transition and a moment of sensory shift. The installation adopts this principle, offering glimpses from the outside and a full experience only once inside. Its internal surface references the architectural language of the Hôtel des Trésoriers de la Bourse, whose courtyard facades display the layered contributions of architects Gallières, Sartre, Daviler, and Bonnier. These references are integrated into the installation’s inner face, encouraging close visual inspection of details.

the installation’s sober exterior contrasts with an intriguing, tactile, and sensory interior

playful exploration leads children and adults alike to intuitively interact with the installation | image by COAT

the installation’s configuration invites everyone to engage in a sensory exploration | image by COAT

the circular perforations offer glimpses of the interior, sparking curiosity and the desire to discover

the exterior face is punctuated by circular openings

thatch-filled pillows form a regular grid across the exterior facade

children search for smells, textures, and views, being physically immersed in the soft thatch

as visitors move through the installation‘s interior, the thatch envelopes them and creates intimate moments of interaction

the installation creates an olfactory atmosphere extending beyond the courtyard into the nearby street

the stacked sheaves of thatch are partly colored with natural dyes such as coffee grounds and turmeric

the installation’s interior is a sensual expression of texture, color, and materiality

recognizable elements of the courtyard are subtly integrated into the design | image by COAT

project info:

name: Chaume Sublimé
designer: COAT – conditions atmosphériques d’espaces | @studio_coat

event: Festival des Architectures Vives 2025 | @festivaldesarchitecturesvives

location: Montpellier, France

photographer: Paul Kozlowski – photoarchitecture | @photoarchitecture.co, COAT

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

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