Still recovering from COVID-19 lockdown measures and navigating new developments in the Chinese economy, November 2023 art week in Shanghai was a litmus test Shanghai’s art world moves quickly, passing through a couple of cycles every decade or so, as new waves of artists, writers, gallerists, collectors, and entrepreneurial interlopers of all kinds and from...
When I tell people that I research cannabis, I sometimes receive a furtive gesture that implies and presumes: “We’re both stoners!”, as if two members of a secret society have met. Other times, I receive looks of concern. “You don’t want to be known as the guy who studies marijuana,” a professional colleague once counselled....
Victor Ekpuk is an internationally renowned Nigerian artist known for his artwork inspired by ancient African writing and graphic writing systems. INTERwoven TEXTures is his first solo exhibition at the important Efiɛ gallery in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. There he has also unveiled his public art installation commissioned as part of the inaugural...
Agadagidi, a wine made from plantain, is a popular drink at festive occasions in Nigeria. But it’s not always of a high quality. It is usually produced in the southern part of the country in limited quantities because it is difficult to store. Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Imo, Enugu, Rivers, Edo, Delta, Lagos, Ogun, Osun and...
María de Lourdes Ortiz Zacarías swiftly cuts hundreds of strips of newsprint and colored crepe paper needed to make a piñata, soothed by Norteño music on the radio while measuring pieces by feel. “The measurement is already in my fingers,” Ortiz Zacarías says with a laugh. She has been doing this since she was a...
AI-generated content might cause the marketplace of ideas to fail. Recognition of the right to reality might safeguard space for democratic deliberation. New technologies pose new risks that require new rights. The right to privacy emerged when the camera made private affairs public. The right to be forgotten took root when data shared online for a specific purpose for...
When a rare bottle of Scotch whisky sold for US$2.7 million in November 2023, I was stunned, but I wasn’t surprised. The whiskey market has been booming for some time. Bourbon brands like Pappy Van Winkle from Buffalo Trace distillery are selling for astronomical prices in the secondary market. Japanese whiskies, which have become popular...
‘The idea of having a body makes me cringe,’ says artist Shuang Li, speaking via Zoom from her chilly Berlin studio. ‘Once you have a physical form, you’re trapped. I’ve always felt that – both when I make work and in daily life.’ So, it comes as no surprise that Li feels more freedom online than in IRL....
From An-My Lê and Zoe Leonard to Emilija Škarnulytė and Nguyen Trinh Thi, artists are turning to rivers to illuminate the fluidity of life on earth Fourteen vertical, black-and-white photographic landscapes compose Fourteen Views (2023), a cyclorama created by Vietnamese-American photographer An-My Lê for her survey show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Taken...
Public opinion polls are often considered “the will of the people” but a new study on the role of polls in South Korea shows that they may not always be that transparent. “Using polls to gauge what people think about politics is not as simple as it sounds, as there are multiple mediating factors between...
