Hawaiʻi: a Kingdom Crossing Oceans Exhibition @ British Museum, London - A dazzling celebration of the rich artistry of Hawaiian makers

Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans

British Museum, London

15 January – 25 May 2026

A bold new exhibition at the British Museum examines the compelling history of Hawaiʻi and its long-standing ties with the United Kingdom. Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans is a dazzling celebration of the rich artistry of Hawaiian makers, past present and future, the global journeys of Hawaiian royals and leaders, and the enduring resonance of their story in today's world.

kapa (barkcloth) 

© The Trustees of the British Museum

Kapa (barkcloth) is made from the inner bark (bast) of the paper mulberry and other plant fibres. As a medium, kapa is a connector between the land, the people and the gods. Different forms of kapa had many uses, from everyday life to ritual practice, including as chiefly garments, spatial dividers, blankets and wrappings for bones.

The exhibition commemorates 200 years since a series of events including the visit of Hawaiian King Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and Queen Kamāmalu to London with a royal delegation to seek alliance and protection from the Crown. This journey to the capital included a visit to the British Museum – the first record of Native Hawaiian aliʻi (chiefs and royals) at the Museum. Building from this moment, which marked a turning point in the shared history of the kingdoms of Hawaiʻi and the United Kingdom, the exhibition tells a compelling story of movement, allyship and cultural exchange.

Portrait of Kamehameha II and Portrait of Kamāmalu, 1824

Hand-coloured lithographs by John Hayter

© The Trustees of the British Museum

These portraits realised by British court artist John Hayter represent Hawaiian King Liholiho and Queen Kamāmalu. They were made in London while the king, the queen, and a Hawaiian royal delegation accompanying them awaited an audience with George IV.

Settled around AD 1000 by skilled Polynesian seafarers navigating by the stars and following the flight of migratory birds, the Hawaiian archipelago is often remembered in the UK as the place where Captain James Cook lost his life during a voyage of exploration in the islands in 1778–79. Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans acknowledges this moment while focusing on movements, stories and voyages initiated from Hawaiʻi itself. Shaped together with Native Hawaiian knowledge-bearers, the exhibition introduces audiences to a remarkable and seldom-seen collection of early Hawaiian treasures combined with striking contemporary works, tracing the journeys that brought these works to London and reflecting on their continued meaning for the people of Hawaiʻi today. 

ʻUmeke kiʻi (bowl with figure)

© The Trustees of the British Museum

This bowl likely represents a chiefly person in a serving position. Their high status is indicated by their headdress and loincloth.

The exhibition features around 150 extraordinary objects and artworks including many never seen in the UK. Among the highlights is a magnificent ʻahu ʻula (feathered cloak) sent in 1810 by the first king of unified Hawaiʻi, Kamehameha I, to King George III, the largest known example of its kind. Lent by His Majesty The King from the Royal Collection, the cloak will be on display for the first time in over 100 years, alongside the Hawaiian king's original letter requesting support and protection from the British Crown.

Kiʻi (image) of the god Kū

© The Trustees of the British Museum

This kiʻi (image) represents Kū, a Hawaiian god whose realm includes warfare and governance. This god figure probably originates from a religious site on the island of Hawaiʻi, the largest of the Hawaiian archipelago. It may have been brought to England about 200 years ago by Hawaiian king Liholiho (Kamehameha II), who came to London to seek alliance and protection from the British Crown. He stands here wearing a loincloth, which was made for him and fitted by Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners.

Opening the space and greeting the visitors on the stairs of the Great Court is a powerful, nine-foot kiʻi (image) of the god Kū, the god of warfare and governance, dressed with a contemporary loincloth and standing atop a pole rediscovered inside a historical plinth ahead of the exhibition. A finely carved drum accompanied by an ancient chant recounting early Polynesian migrations to Hawaiʻi pulls the visitors into the gallery. Inside, a stunning bowl with figure, recently returned from loan to Hawaiʻi's Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, embodies the continued movements of people and objects between the Pacific and the United Kingdom, while the Anglo-Franco proclamation of 1843, on loan from The National Archives, highlights the UK and France's formal recognition of Hawaiʻi's independence and emphasises diplomatic bonds between these nations. 

The making of Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans is grounded in a renewed curatorial approach developed with Native Hawaiian knowledge-bearers. A co-stewarded process, the creation of the exhibition involved community partners in a holistic manner, from the shaping of the narrative to the design of the gallery, the meticulous conservation of ancestral treasures and the inclusion of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) throughout the space. 

Kapulani Landgraf

ʻAuʻa, Portrait of Haunani-Kay Trask 

Photographic print

© Kapulani Landgraf 2025

ʻWe are not American’, declared Native Hawaiian political leader and scholar Haunani-Kay Trask (1949–2021). She was speaking on the hundredth anniversary of the 1893 coup that overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom. Trask is depicted here by the artist Kapulani Landgraf as part of a series of 108 photographic portraits of Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians). As well as Trask’s famous declaration, Landgraf has added ‘He hawaiʻi au mau a mau’ (‘I am Hawaiian forever and ever’), a continuing affirmation of Hawaiian identity.

Building from years of collaborations through the Benioff Oceania Programme (2020-2024), the show highlights a commitment to transforming and humanising museum practice – a dimension that is made palpable through a trail of content that 'breaks the fourth wall' to offer visitors a glimpse into this collective process. As objects, people and voices gather in the space, the gallery becomes a meeting ground, bringing agency and purpose into view and showing how the stories on display were shaped – stories as relevant today as they were two centuries ago.

Dr Alice Christophe, Curator and Head of Oceania at the British Museum said: 'This co-stewarded exhibition is a tribute to Native Hawaiian makers, past and present. At its core, it tells the story of the deep and layered relationship between Hawaiʻi and the United Kingdom, reflecting on care, sovereignty and the complexity of allyship. We hope this show will spark conversations and uplift people in the archipelago and beyond.'

Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the British Museum commented: 'Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans embodies the Museum's commitment to working with communities to tell shared histories in new ways. This extraordinary exhibition not only reveals the beauty and significance of Hawaiian culture, but also highlights the journeys of people, objects and stories across time and oceans, showing how these connections continue to resonate and inspire today.'

BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON

The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery

www.britishmuseum.org

Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia @ LACMA, Los Angeles

Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia

LACMA, Los Angeles

May 11, 2025 – July 12, 2026 

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia. International in scope, this exhibition examines key concepts of Buddhist thought and practice through sculptures, paintings, textiles, and ritual objects. Incorporating 180 masterpieces of pan-Asian Buddhist art, Realms of the Dharma begins with the religion’s origins in India in the 5th century BCE and follows its spread through Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, and East Asia. Drawn from LACMA’s permanent collection, with several significant loans from private collections, the exhibition explores the life of the Buddha, the role of the bodhisattva or Buddhist savior, Buddhist cosmology, and such key concepts as dharma, karma, nirvana, mantra, mudra, and mandala. The show will focus on art associated with such key phases of Buddhism as Theravada (early monastic Buddhism), Mahayana (the “Great Vehicle”), Vajrayana (the “Diamond Vehicle”—tantric or esoteric Buddhism), and Chan (Zen).

“Realms of the Dharma presents an exciting opportunity for visitors to learn about the Buddhist religion, cosmology, and practice through works of art,” said Stephen Little, Florence & Harry Sloan Curator and Department Head of Chinese & Korean and South & Southeast Asian Art. “The exhibition explores the key concepts underlying this religion’s historical development and the reasons for its widespread popularity across Asia.”

Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director said, "Following our recent exhibition Mapping the Infinite, which looked at cosmologies across cultures, Realms of the Dharma continues LACMA's commitment to presenting stories, perspectives, and ancestries that are deeply connected to the people of L.A. County. We've made that a cornerstone of the museum's approach to studying and sharing the collection with our vast public.” 

Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia is divided into two sections. The first section tells the story of Buddhism’s birth and growth in and around the Indian subcontinent. The second section follows Buddhism as it travels beyond India to Sri Lanka, Myanmar [Burma], Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kashmir, Nepal, Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan.

Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia - Highlights

Buddha Shakyamuni 

India Uttar Pradesh, late 6th century 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 

gift of the Michael J. Connell Foundation

Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

From the late 6th century, the north Indian image of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, with its serene countenance, embodies the style of the late Gupta dynasty (320–600), a balance of elegant form and inner spirituality. Although the Gupta rulers were Hindu, they actively patronized Buddhism. This Buddha embodies two ideals basic to Buddhism, the perfect yogi and the universal ruler. He possesses the yogi's supple body and contemplative gaze, and the ruler's strong shoulders, firm body, and webbed hands and feet. Time-honored traditions of portrayal connect the Buddha's human form with nature; his long eyes are shaped like fish, his curls like snail shells, and the profile of his left shoulder and arm like the trunk of an elephant. Following the invasion of northern India by Islamic rulers from Afghanistan in the 12th century, this sculpture was long preserved in a Tibetan monastery.

The Bodhisattva Maitreya 

India, Bihar, Gaya District, 11th century 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 

from the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, 

Museum Associates Purchase 

Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

In Buddhism, Maitreya first appears as a bodhisattva—a fully enlightened being who was prophesied to become the Buddha of the next cosmic eon, or kalpa, after the end of the current universe. Until that time it is thought that Maitreya exists as a bodhisattva, but will eventually descend to earth from the heaven where he currently resides, undergo his final rebirth, and become a Buddha. In the 11th century schist The Bodhisattva Maitreya, the figure can be identified as Maitreya by the presence of a miniature stupa (reliquary) in his headdress. Maitreya's name means “The Benevolent One."

The Cosmic Buddha Vairochana 

China, c. 1600 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 

gift of Richard and Ruth Dickes 

Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

The Cosmic Buddha Vairochana is a rare painting from China of the primordial Buddha Vairochana, a central figure of the Five Cosmic Buddhas of the Mahayana and Vajrayana pantheons. The veneration of Vairochana first flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618–906), and worship of this Cosmic Buddha soon spread to Korea and Japan. The historical Buddha Shakyamuni was believed to be a manifestation of Vairochana, who exists beyond time and space. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this work—in addition to its remarkable state of preservation—are the large numbers of smaller Buddhist and Daoist figures, among which are the guardians of the four cardinal directions and Dizang (Kshitigarbha or Earth Matrix), Bodhisattva of the Underworld.

The Buddhist Deities Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi 

Tibet, c. 15th century 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 

from the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, 

Museum Associates Purchase

Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

The vibrant The Buddhist Deities Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi depicts the embrace of the deities Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi, symbolizing the two essential elements of Buddhist belief and practice: compassion (male) and wisdom (female). Chakrasamvara is the central deity of the Chakrasamvara Tantra, a text composed in the late 8th or early 9th century in India, the main purpose of which is to provide a path to spiritual awakening and enlightenment through the meditation on the deity Heruka Chakrasamvara in union with Vajravarahi. The tantra outlines rituals, philosophies, and practices designed to cultivate enlightened states of mind by uniting the principles of bliss (right method) and emptiness (wisdom).

As part of the museum’s effort to share its permanent collection with audiences around the globe, a version of this exhibition was on view at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, in 2018, Las Huellas de Buda (The Footsteps of the Buddha). 

Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The exhibition is curated by Stephen Little, Florence & Harry Sloan Curator and Department Head of Chinese & Korean and South & Southeast Asian Art, and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essays by Stephen Little and Tushara Bindu Gude, LACMA’s former Associate Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art.

Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia

Edited with text by Stephen Little, Tushara Bindu Gude 

Foreword by Michael Govan

Published by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art / D.A.P.

Hardcover, 288 pages, 9 x 11 in., 254 color illustrations

ISBN: 9781942884781 -  Published 2025

LACMA - LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART 

5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90036 

lacma.org

Sky Hopinka: Fainting Spells @ Guggenheim Museum Bilbao - Video Exhibition Overview + Artist Biography

Sky Hopinka: Fainting Spells 

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

September 18, 2025 – January 18, 2026

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Sky Hopinka: Fainting Spells, an exhibition in its Film & Video program.

Fainting Spells (2018), a film by the artist Sky Hopinka (Ferndale, Washington, 1984), explores the creation mythology of Xąwįska, or Indian Pipe Plant, also known as “ghost flower” or “corpse plant.” This medicinal plant is traditionally used by the Ho-Chunk people of Wisconsin to revive those who have fainted. It is also emblematic of Indigenous identity, knowledge, and culture and can be linked to the cycles of life and death and the spiritual world. Despite his extensive research, Hopinka could not unearth an origin myth for the plant and instead created one to engage with and reclaim the practice of mythkeepers and mythmaking in his own Indigenous culture.

This three-channel video begins with a handwritten poem that moves across scenes showing expansive colorful landscapes accompanied by lyrical music. The poem, a printed version of which is also showcased at the exhibition, speaks directly to Xąwįska, who later appears personified as a cloaked figure and leads viewers on a walk through the spirit world in different states of consciousness. Filmed in Washington, Colorado, Wisconsin, Oregon, and New Mexico, the film creates a dreamlike visual narrative by collaging together music, poetry, image, sound, and color, inviting viewers into a unique immersive experience created specifically for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s Film & Video gallery.

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka explores Indigenous culture, history, and traditional beliefs through themes like identity, memory, language, and myth. A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and a descendent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño people (California), the Pacific Northwest holds a special place in his artwork, especially as he delves into investigating notions of homeland, personhood, and landscape. His films reflect on the complexities of contemporary Indigenous life by blending non-narrative filmmaking and abstract imagery with an ethnopoetic approach—a response against the ethnographic gaze that has long objectified Indigenous cultures in moving image.

Ethnopoetic cinema examines themes of cultural identity, displacement, and the everyday experience through a combination of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques, thereby emphasizing the artistic and performative aspects of cultural expression. At the core of Hopinka’s work is a profound commitment to storytelling through his Indigenous perspective, a narrative that has long been marginalized within the Western canon. He explains, “Part of the desire I had to make films was to tell Indigenous stories that were unique to my own community and my own identity.”

Sky Hopinka (b. 1984, Ferndale, Washington)

Courtesy the artist

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka - Biography

Sky Hopinka was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington, and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, California; Portland, Oregon; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Portland, he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, and began to take an interest in documentary filmmaking. In Milwaukee, he enrolled in a graduate degree in experimental filmmaking and discovered unconventional ways of documentary filmmaking that enabled him to uniquely express his interest in Indigenous languages and Native American life today. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is an assistant professor in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge.

Sky Hopinka’s work has played at prestigious festivals including Sundance Film Festival, Utah; Toronto International Film Festival, Ontario; Courtisane Festival, Ghent; Festival Punto de Vista, Pamplona; and the New York Film Festival, New York. His work has also been recognized internationally in numerous solo exhibitions at institutions like the Center for Curatorial Studies–Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York (2020); Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis (2020); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2021); LUMA, Arles, France (2022); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2023); Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2024); and Kunsthalle Friart, Switzerland (2024). Moreover, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2023); and the Göteborg International Biennial, Sweden (2023).

Sky Hopinka’s films, videos, and photographs are in the collections of some of the most important museums in the world. Additionally, Hopinka was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Cambridge (2018–19); Sundance Art of Nonfiction Fellow, Sundance Institute, Los Angeles (2019); Guggenheim Fellow for Creative Arts (2020); Forge Project Fellow (2021); and a MacArthur Fellow (2022). His multiple awards include the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Film, & Video (2020); the Infinity Award in Art from the International Center of Photography (2022); and the Persistence of Vision Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival (2025).

Curator: Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães

Guggenheim Bilbao also presents, from October 16, 2025 through February 22, 2026, the exhibition Maria Helena Vieira da Silva: Anatomy of Space.

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO

www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus

Pop Brazil: Avant-garde and New Figuration, 1960-70 @ Pinacoteca de São Paulo - Brazilian Pop Art Exhibition

Pop Brazil: Avant-garde and New Figuration, 1960-70

Pinacoteca de São Paulo

Through October 5, 2025

Claudio Tozzi 

Astronautas [Astronauts] (1969)

Courtesy of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo

Pietrina Checcacci 

Dinheiro [Money] (detail), 

from the series O povo brasileiro [The Brazilian People] (1967) 

Credit: Jaime Aciolo 

Courtesy of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo

The Pinacoteca de São Paulo presents the exhibition Pop Brazil: Avant-garde and New Figuration, 1960-70, in the Grande Galeria of the Pina Contemporânea building. Featuring 250 works by more than 100 artists the show offers a broad perspective on the art of the period. Curated by Pollyana Quintella and Yuri Quevedo, the exhibition is divided into thematic sections that trace major events of the time, such as the rise of the cultural industry, the breakdown of democracy, and various social transformations. Works by Wanda Pimentel, Romanita Disconzi, Antonio Dias, among many others, are on view.

In a context of industrialization and political upheaval—including the Cold War and Brazil’s civil-military dictatorship—national artistic production responded to the mass culture, driven by television, mainstream media, and advertising, with both irreverence and resistance. From the 1960s onward, a series of international figurative trends entered national artistic debates. Among them was pop art, which originated in the United Kingdom but gained prominence in the United States through celebrated artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. While these artists worked on language within a developed, industrialized society marked by mass production, Brazilian artists operated in a context of underdevelopment and inequality, where they had to reckon with the trauma of a society oppressed by military rule.

“The exhibition explores a moment in Brazilian history that still resonates in our daily lives. Looking at this production is key to understand the emergence of contemporary art in Brazil, as well as the foundational issues in many debates we face today. And, through the gathering of these works, we can grasp the collective strength of a generation of artists who worked to denounce, protest, and dream of a new society,” say the curators.

The artists’ interest in the street—driven by a desire to occupy more diverse and less institutionalized spaces—marked a series of events in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Among them was the Happening das Bandeiras [Flag Happening], held in 1968 at General Osório Square in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro. It brought together artists such as Nelson Leirner, Flávio Motta, Hélio Oiticica, Carmela Gross, and Anna Maria Maiolino. On that occasion, they displayed silkscreened flags in the square, promoting a collective occupation of public space, in pursuit of broader and more democratic access to the visual arts. The set of original flags opens the exhibition in the Grande Galeria.

Subsequent sections present works that reflect Brazil’s emerging cultural industry, showing stars of Brazilian popular music—whose fame grew thanks to television festivals—amid the fever of the space race, which turned astronauts into “pop icons” and broadcast to the world the historical milestone that was the humankind’s landing to the Moon. Prominent names from the period are showcased, like Nelson Leirner with his altar to the “king” Roberto Carlos, in the work Adoração [Adoration] (1966); Claudia Andujar, with a photograph of Chico Buarque taken in 1968; Flávio Império, who portrayed Caetano Veloso in Lua de São Jorge (1976); the popular artist Waldomiro de Deus, with his characteristic rockets; and Claudio Tozzi, with works such as Bob Dylan (1969) and Guevara (1967), in addition to his astronauts that helped define the iconography of Brazilian pop art. 

The restrictions imposed by the civil-military dictatorship were reflected in artistic production through diverse formal, poetic, and political strategies. The exhibition includes caricatures of generals, featured in the works by Humberto Espíndola, Antonio Dias, and Cybele Varela; political prisoners’ drawings from the Alípio Freire Collection, belonging to the Memorial da Resistência; photographic records that Evandro Teixeira made in the emblematic March of the One Hundred Thousand, as well as works that sought to intervene directly in the political context, such as the CocaCola bottles by Cildo Meireles, which make up the work Inserções em circuitos ideológicos [Insertions into Ideological Circuits] (1970), and the Trouxas ensanguentadas [Bloody Bundles] (1969) by Artur Barrio. The theme of crime also permeated the art of the period. Faced with the oppressive state, figures of marginality were evoked as a subversive strategy, challenging morality and laws. Among them, we highlight a crime scene painted by Paulo Pedro Leal in the early 1960s, the film Natureza [Nature] (1973), by Luiz Alphonsus, and the classic work A bela Lindonéia [The Beautiful Lindonéia] (1967), by Rubens Gerchman.

Pop gestures also appropriated the urban imagery through visual codes and signage. This is the case of works such as Marlboro (1976), in which Geraldo de Barros transforms billboard scraps into paintings, and the structured surfaces with acrylic and brass remains by Judith Lauand (Untitled, 1972). In the central area of the gallery, works express the dispute for public space. Arrows, traffic lights, festivities, and collective projects gain centrality in the works. Buum (1966), by Marcello Nitsche, Totém de interpretação [Interpretation Totem] (1969), by Romanita Disconzi, Lateral de ônibus [Side of Bus] (1969), by Raymundo Colares, and the iconic parangolés by Hélio Oiticica, first shown 60 years ago in the Opinião 65 exhibition, held at MAM Rio, can be seen by the public. In the case of Hélio Oiticica, the visitor can literally try on the parangolés, wearing them in the exhibition space. 

The 1960s also served as a stage for a sexual revolution, sparked by historical events such as May 68 in France and the hippie movement in the United States. At the core of the section dedicated to desire and sexuality are works by artists who reflected on the shifting status of sexuality in Brazil, also influenced by mass culture. This is the case of Wanda Pimentel, with her Envolvimento [Involvement] series (1968), Teresinha Soares with A caixa de fazer amor [Lovemaking Box] (1967), and Antonio Dias in Teu corpo [Your Body] (1967), as well as pieces by Maria Auxiliadora, Lygia Pape, and Vilma Pasqualini.

Curators: Pollyana Quintella and Yuri Quevedo

PINACOTECA DE SÃO PAULO

Pina Contemporânea Building | Grande Galeria

Av. Tiradentes, 273, São Paulo 

pinacoteca.org.br

Pop Brazil: Avant-garde and New Figuration, 1960-70

Pinacoteca de São Paulo, May 31 – October 5, 2025

HIP HOP – Living a Dream @ Saatchi Gallery, London - An exhibition of photographs by Jamel Shabazz, Joseph Rodriguez, Gregory Bojorquez

HIP HOP – Living a Dream

Jamel Shabazz, Joseph Rodriguez, Gregory Bojorquez

Saatchi Gallery, London

31 July – 11 September 2025

JAMEL SHABAZZ 

THE DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN CREW, 

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NYC, 1985

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ 

PUBLIC ENEMY CONCERT, 

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, 1990

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

GREGORY BOJORQUEZ 

CHELSEA - 4TH STREET BRIDGE, 

LOS ANGELES, CA, 1998

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

Saatchi Gallery presents HIP HOP – Living a Dream, an exhibition showcasing the work of renowned photographers JAMEL SHABAZZ  (b. 1960), GREGORY BOJORQUEZ (b. 1951), and GREGORY BOJORQUEZ (b. 1972). From the early 1980s on, each of these three American chroniclers provides distinct insights into the rise and global impact of American Hip Hop culture. HIP HOP – Living a Dream delves into the lifestyle that, in combination with music, graffiti, breakdancing, and fashion, evolved into a worldwide phenomenon – from the streets of 1980s New York to Los Angeles, the Southern United States, Europe, and beyond, persisting into the present day.

JAMEL SHABAZZ 

REPRESENTING, BROOKLYN, NYC, 1988

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

JAMEL SHABAZZ 

THE DISCO ENFORCERS, NY

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

Jamel Shabazz’s work from the 1980s serves as both a personal visual diary and a historical document, capturing the birth of the Hip Hop movement in the vibrant metropolis of New York City. Shabazz’s portraits embody the zeitgeist of New York, illustrating a pivotal era of music, fashion, and art. Jamel was stationed in the US Army in Germany when he heard one of the first major Hip Hop groups, Positive Force, debut their 1979 hit song “We Got the Funk”. His love for the genre is manifested in the images he would produce over the decades. The first of many Hip Hop artists he photographed were LL Cool J, and Public Enemy. Today, his portraits are synonymous with the movement itself.

JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ 

MASTER P IN HIS OFFICE ON THE PHONE MAKING MOVES, 

NEW ORLEANS, LA, 1997

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

In his series East Side Stories – Gang Life in East L.A., Brooklyn-born photographer Joseph Rodriguez provides a documentary-style look at gang culture during the 1990s. His work portrays the lived experiences, nuances, and harsh realities of gang life. According to Joseph Rodriguez, “My interest in going to L.A. began in early 1992. I was strongly influenced by the Hip Hop coming out of the streets of Los Angeles and other cities across the country. These youth were rapping about the very important issues in their communities. Their music were like the newspapers of the streets.” In addition to his documentation of American Hip Hop on both the West and East Coast, Rodriguez’s portraits of groups in Sweden point to the many facets of international forms of Hip Hop and its prevalence in cities beyond New York, such as Los Angeles and New Orleans, where Joseph Rodriguez documented notable figures Master P and the No Limit Crew.

GREGORY BOJORQUEZ 

ANDRE 3000 AND BIG BOI, ATLANTA, GA, 2002

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

GREGORY BOJORQUEZ 

MISSY ELLIOTT, ADVENTURA, FL, 2003

Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery and Galerie Bene Taschen

Los Angeles native Gregory Bojorquez has been documenting the Hip Hop scene since the 1990s: “Before I started photographing it, I was a fan of L.A. Hip Hop. The first things I photographed in Hip Hop were underground Hip Hop shows. Some were promoted by Orlando and Bigga B. Those shows were called Unity. Some artists they featured were Wu Tang affiliated artists, Goodie Mob, Big Pun. Sway & Tech had the Wake up Shows reunions. Some acts were OutKast, Gang Star, Pharoahe Monch and the legendary freestyle battle between Supernatural & Juice.” His works also feature Snoop Dogg & Tha Dogg Pound (DPG), 50 Cent, Eminem, DMX, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Mos Def, Swizz Beatz, and Ice Cube.

Like Hip Hop itself, the three photographers Shabazz, Rodriguez, and Bojorquez have garnered international acclaim, reaching audiences far beyond the United States. Jamel Shabazz’s photographs are part of esteemed collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation (Frankfurt am Main), the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los  Angeles),  and  the   Gordon  Parks Foundation in New York. Gregory Bojorquez’s works have been exhibited at the Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles and internationally in Cologne, Berlin, and other locations. Joseph Rodriguez’s photographs are housed in institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum, the International Center of Photography in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Albertina in Vienna.

This exhibition is produced with Galerie Bene Taschen, Cologne

SAATCHI GALLERY 

Duke of York's HQ, King's Road, London SW3 4RY

Location in the gallery: Galleries 3 & 4

Admission: Free entry, pre-booking not required

www.saatchigallery.com

You may be interested by:

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century 

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, February 29 - May 26, 2024

Judy Chicago: Revelations @ Serpentine, London - Judy Chicago largest solo presentation in a London institution

Judy Chicago: Revelations

Serpentine Galleries, London

23 May – 1 September 2024

Serpentine presents Revelations, an exhibition of trailblazing artist, author, educator, cultural historian and feminist JUDY CHICAGO (b. 1939, Chicago, USA); lives and works in New Mexico, USA). Named as one of Time Magazine's most influential people in 2018, she has garnered an enduring stature. Born Judy Cohen, and know biefly after her first marriage as Judy Gerowitz, Judy Chicago attented the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1970, the artist adopted the surname 'chicago' and initiated the United States' first Feminist Art Programme at California State University, Fresno. The exhibition Revelations, on view at Serpentine North, is Judy Chicago’s largest solo presentation in a London institution.

Judy Chicago came to prominence in the late 1960s when she challenged the male-dominated landscape of the art world by making work that was boldly from a woman’s perspective. An artistic polymath, Judy Chicago’s work is defined by a commitment to craft and experimentation, either through her choice of subject matter or the method and materials she employs.

Throughout her six-decade career, Judy Chicago has contested the absence and erasure of women in the Western cultural canon, developing a distinctive visual language that gives visibility to their experiences. To this aim, Judy Chicago has produced both individual and collaborative projects that grappled with themes of birth and creation, the social construct of masculinity, her Jewish identity, notions of power and powerlessness, extinction, and expressed her longstanding concern for climate justice.

Judy Chicago: Revelations charts the full arc of Judy Chicago’s career with a specific focus on drawing, highlighting rarely seen works. Several immersive, multi-media elements, including an AR app, a video recording booth, and other audio-visual components, set this show apart from previous surveys of Judy  Chicago’s work. With never-before-seen sketchbooks, films and slides, video interviews of participants from The Dinner Party (1974–79), audio recordings, and a guided tour of The Dinner Party by Judy  Chicago herself, this novel approach to exhibiting Judy Chicago’s work makes the artist’s presence felt throughout the gallery.

The exhibition takes its name from an unknown illuminated manuscript Judy Chicago penned in the early 1970s which will be published for the first time in conjunction with the exhibition by Serpentine and Thames & Hudson. Titled Revelations, this visionary work is a radical retelling of human history recovering some of the stories of women that society sought to erase, and one that Judy Chicago never imagined would be published in her lifetime. Audio excerpts from the book can be heard in each of the galleries through an accompanying audio guide, seamlessly creating a link between visual art and written word that has occupied the artist’s practice since the 1970s.

"Revelations, both the exhibition and book, expresses my lifelong commitment to gender equality and my deeply held belief that people must come together to change the patriarchal paradigm, which–at this point in history–has become lethal to all creatures, human and nonhuman, as well as to the planet" - Judy Chicago

Organised thematically and inspired by the chapters of the manuscript as its framework, the exhibition opens with In the Beginning (1982) which measures a staggering nine metres in length. Executed in Judy Chicago's signature Prismacolor pencils, the work reimagines the Genesis creation myth from a female perspective. As a benchmark representation of Judy Chicago's foundational philosophy, In the Beginning attempts to dismantle patriarchal structures but also draws on the ways in which feminism intersects with ecology, making this the perfect work to open both the exhibition and accompanying manuscript, which also serves as the exhibition's catalogue.

In the mid-1960s, Judy Chicago developed a significant body of abstract and minimalist drawings, paintings and sculptures that explored colour and form. Revelations brings together a focused sélection of works on paper from this period. By the late 1960s and 1970s, Judy Chicago began to expand on what she termed 'central-core' imagery whilst also developing her expertise in the male-dominated discipline of pyrotechnies. Works such as The Great Ladies Transforming Themselves into Butterflies (1973) and Peeling Back (1974} combine text and image and explicitly reflect on her experience of being "a woman, with a woman's body and a woman's point of view." An immersive video installation of footage from Judy Chicago's celebrated site-specific performances, Atmospheres (1968-74), that combined coloured smokes and fireworks is presented in one of the historic powder rooms of Serpentine North. As one of several digital and online experiences presented in the exhibition, visitors are also encouraged to interact with Rainbow AR (2020), a free downloadable app commissioned by LAS Art Foundation, Berlin, Germany, which allows visitors to create their own smoke pieces.

One gallery draws on the significance of Judy Chicago's monumental installation The Dinner Party that celebrates and symbolises the heritage and achievements of 1038 women. Here, rarely seen drawings, studies and sketchbooks reveal the working process and components that led to this installation, now permanently housed at Brooklyn Museum, NY. Interviews with luminaries such as Maria Grazia Chiuri, Kevin Kwan, Roxane Gay and Massimiliano Gioni contextualise the relevance of The Dinner Party today.

Also featured in the exhibition is Judy Chicago's séries, the Birth Project (1980-85), for which the artist studied creation myths from numerous cultures to chart history's transition from matriarchal to patriarchal societies. Struck by the lack of imagery related to the subject of birth in Western art, she collaborated with over 150 needleworkers who translated her drawings, paintings and designs into tapestries, petit points, crochets and more. Central to these works is the image of the Goddess figure which has been reworked across Judy Chicago's career to present the idea of 'the divine' being female.

Whilst still engaged with Birth Project, Judy Chicago explored the cultural construction of gender and masculinity. Drawing on her continued commitment to challenging the patriarchal structures that govern society, Prismacolor studies and paintings on Belgian linen covered cavasses from PowerPlay (1982-87) highlight how the artist appropriated and reversed the male gaze. In a new drawing made especially for the manuscript, And God Created Life (2023) Judy Chicago seeks to challenge the conception of God as male and instead presents a figure that sits beyond the racial and binary gender spectrum.

The exhibition also highlights Judy Chicago's enthusiastic interest in the relationship between ecological justice and feminism. Among the works presented are a selection of mixed média drawings from the séries Thinking About Trees (1993-96) as well as studies from The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction (2015-16) that reflect on the plight of animals. Stranded (2013), depicting a polar bear, was the subject of #CreateArtforEarth, an ongoing global campaign that brought together Judy Chicago with the artist Swoon, Jane Fonda and her environmental initiative Pire Drill Friday. Alongside other partners, this project encouraged individuals to submit art or messages that respond to the climate crisis and inspire action for protecting our planet. For Revelations, visitors are invited to continue contributing to the global campaign. This is one of three ways that people Worldwide can collaborate with the artist to create change via digital projects including the most recently conceived participatory project in the exhibition, What If Women Ruled the World? (2022).

What if Women Ruled the World? was developed in close collaboration with Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova, and DMINTI (a leader in the industry that curates, produces, and positions innovative works and experiences at the intersection of art and technology). The project was first imagined in 1977 and realised for Dior's Spring-Summer 2020 Haute Couture show at the invitation of the fashion house's first female creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri. Visitors are invited to enter a participatory booth to provide a video response to a series of questions. Each response becomes part of a growing international archive that is underpinned by a proof of participation token powered by Tezos, the open source project and a scalable, energy efficient, public blockchain chosen by artists across the world for their creative projects. This is the latest project in the multi-year partnership between the Tezos Foundation and Serpentine which celebrates the Serpentine Arts Technologies Team's endeavors to foster artist-led blockchain projects and educate the public, alongside the Tezos ecosystem's dedication to innovation and creativity in the arts and culture sector.

Revelations is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director; and Chris Bayley, Associate Exhibitions Curator; with Liz Stumpf, Assistant Exhibitions Curator; and produced by Halime Özdemir-Larusso, Production Manager.

Judy Chicago: Revelations 

Co-published by Serpentine and Thames & Hudson

Alongside the illuminated manuscript, the publication features an introduction by Judy Chicago as well as contributions from Serpentine Associate Exhibitions Curator Chris Bayley and scholar Martha Easton whose research centres on illuminated manuscripts, gender and medievalism. It also includes a conversation between Judy Chicago and Serpentine's Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist that traces the beginnings of Revelations and the ways in which it, unbeknownst to Judy Chicago until recently, was foundational to the work she would conceive over the following four decades. It is designed by Jessica Fleischmann (Still Room) and Phil Kovacevich.

Judy Chicago: Revelations is published in hardback by Thames & Hudson in collaboration with Serpentine and on sale in the UK on 30 May 2024 and in the US on 18 June 2024.

 

Limited Edition: To celebrate the exhibition, a special Judy Chicago Limited Edition will be available via the Serpentine Shop. All proceeds directly support the Serpentine's Exhibition, Architecture, Design, Education and Digital programmes.

SERPENTINE Galleries London

Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA

www.serpentinegalleries.org

Galería Patricia Ready @ ARCOmadrid 2024 - Gallery Highlights: Artists Adolfo Bimer and Fernando Prats

Galería Patricia Ready

ARCOmadrid 2024

March 6 – 10, 2024

Patricia Ready Gallery promotes the work of contemporary artists. With critical projects, with a solid conceptual base, its artists reflect society, through the great diversity of current practices. The gallery, inaugurated in May 2008 in Vitacura, has an open curatorial line that provides space for both young artists and those who have left a significant mark on the Chilean and international art scene.

Gallery Highlights @ ARCOmadrid 2024

Patricia Ready Gallery presents at ARCOmadrid 2024 works by artists Adolfo Bimer and Fernando Prats.

Adolfo Bimer (b. 1981, Santiago, Chile)

ADOLFO BIMER

315, 2024

Barniz, óleo y polvo de pastillas sobre PVC

152 x 122 cm

ADOLFO BIMER

Cordillera V, 2023

Portaobjetos con muestras de sangre, acero inoxidable

49 x 8 x 15 cm

ADOLFO BIMER

Enero, 2024

Barniz, polvo de pastillas y óleo sobre metacrilato, estrcutra de acero

150 x 190 x 12 cm

About Adolfo Bimer

 Fernando Prats (b. 1967, Santiago, Chile)

FERNANDO PRATS

¡Boza!, ¡Boza!, ¡Boza!, 2023

Humo sobre papel, hierro galvanizado, goma, agua de lluvia, genero,

huevo de avestruz y cuero

1 x 150 x 223 cm

FERNANDO PRATS

Mapa mudo (Cinturón de fuego), 2023

Humo, fotografía y taco de papel perforado

21 x 29 cm

About Fernando Prats

GALERIA PATRICIA READY

Espoz 3125, Vitacura, Chile

www.galeriapready.cl

ARCO MADRID

www.ifema.es

Art Brut in Poland @ Olomouc Museum of Art - Harbours of Unease - Exhibition + Catalogue

Harbours of Unease. Art Brut in Poland

Olomouc Museum of Art

19 October 2023 - 25 February 2024

Ryszard Kosek

Woman, 1980s–1990s

Toothpaste, hardboard, 56 x 32 cm

Andrzej Kwasiborski’s collection, Płock

Dionizy Purta 

Dog, 1993

Wood, polychromy, 27 x 25 x 13 cm

Leszek Macak’s collection, Kraków

Maria Wnęk 

St. Veronica Wiping The Lord’s Face, N/A,

Oil, paper, 60 x 43 cm 

Silesian Museum, Katowice 

Edmund Monsiel 

For the Worshipping of the Madonna of Częstochowa by Believers,1960 

Pencil, paper, 42.7 x 51 cm, 

Leszek Macak’s collection, Kraków

A motionless human face with a moustache and hundreds of watching eyes filling every millimetre of the paper. You can feel the tension, the fear, the anxiety, the eyes are everywhere, watching you until it gives you chills. The pencil drawings of Edmund Monsiel (1897-1962), who hid from the Nazis in the attic of his brother's house in Poland during World War II, depict one theme almost obsessively endlessly. The author eventually became completely isolated, suffering from autism and hallucinations.

This story also illustrates what art brut is - the art of untrained artists growing out of their inner tension, the urge to express themselves. Often these are people with mental issues or living marginalized. Olomouc Museum of Art will present their art at the exhibition Harbours of Unease. Art Brut in Poland. "Raw or crude art - art brut - differs from folk art, which is often linked to craftsmanship, or naive art that captures and often or idealises the surrounding world. Art brut artists draw from their inner self, they have their own inner universe whose vision they transfer into sculptures and paintings," explains the curator Šárka Belšíková. "They don't create for presentation, but out of an inner pressure for their own sake."

Julian Stręk 

Polish Kings’ Gallery, 1990s 

Wood, polychromy, 115 x 98 x 39 cm 

Leszek Macak’s collection, Kraków

Krzysztof Grodzicki 

Adam’s Creation, 2015

Wood, polychrome, 78 x 60 x 15 cm 

Leszek Macak’s collection, Kraków

Stanisław Zagajewski 

An Animal, 1989

Fired clay, 29.5 x 43 x 27 cm 

Andrzej Kwasiborski’s collection, Płock

For the first time ever in the Czech Republic, the Olomouc Museum of Art presents a comprehensive exhibition of Polish art brut. On view are around 200 paintings, drawings and three-dimensional objects by thirty artists from the first half of the 20th century to the present day.

In Poland, as in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, interest in art brut was triggered by a wave of private collecting and survey. "Of particular note is the collection of the Krakow lawyer Lezsek Macak, from which a large part of our exhibition comes. Leszek Macak not only collected the works, but also took care of them and materially helped the creators of art brut, people on the margins, socially disqualified, yet with great creative potential," says Anežka Šimková, co-author of the exhibition. A new generation of collectors and theoreticians has emerged in 1990s who are striving to bring art brut closer to a wider audience and present this phenomenon abroad.

Thanks to these collectors, art brut is gradually becoming part of the world's leading collections and exhibitions. "A groundbreaking event was the inclusion of a selection of works by representatives of art brut and imaginative art from around the world in the main exhibition 55. Venice Biennale in 2013, where the work of the Czech artist Anna Zemánková shone. Another important world event was the inclusion of the gift of the collection of art brut collector Bruno Dechamp in the Centre Georges Pompidou's collection in 2021. The Paris museum has set a separate space for it in the permanent exhibition of modern and contemporary art, where Czech artists Adéla Ducháčová, Vlasta Kodríková, Slávka Lelková and others are also represented," Šimková lists. "Centre Pompidou has set out to make professional research on art brut one of its special long-term projects."

Adam Dembiński

Two Women and a Man, 1980s 

Markers, paper, 29.5 x 41.8 cm

Leszek Macak’s collection, Kraków

Roman Rutkowski 

no title, 2006

Crayon, paper, 100 x 70 cm 

Andrzej Kwasiborski’s collection, Płock

Genowefa Magiera

no title, 2013 

Ferment, cardboard, 79 x 108 cm 

Andrzej Kwasiborski’s collection, Płock

Justyna Matysiak 

Pilgrimage, 2006 

Markers, paper, 23.8 x 30 cm 

Lue Lu / Brut Now Foundation, Poznań

HARBOURS OF UNEASE. ART BRUT IN POLAND - PUBLICATION

The exhibition is also accompanied by the first ever major entry of the topic in the Czech Republic, the Czech-English publication Harbours of Unease. Art Brut in Poland including rich pictorial accompaniment and expert studies. The curators of the exhibition - Šárka Belšíková and Anežka Šimková - map the history of art brut in the Polish environment. Polish theoretician Grażyna Borowik contributes to the understanding of the activities of the centres associated with psychiatric care, Małgorzata Szaefer opens up the issue of the current status of art brut in Poland. Barbora Kundračíková writes about the authenticity of art in relation to art brut. The book designed by Petr Šmalec, with two hundred pictures in it, includes a comprehensive catalogue of medallions of the artists accompanied by examples of their works. As a bonus, there is a chronology highlighting important art brut events in Poland and around the world.

CURATORS: Šárka Belšíková, Anežka Šimková

OLOMOUC MUSEUM OF ART

MUZEUM UMĚNÍ OLOMOUC

státní příspěvková organizace

Denisova 47, 771 11, Olomouc

www.muo.cz