Lapsed City Traders, Murderous Chefs, and the Search for Africa’s Disgraced Bard: Five Books to Read Now
It’s become a habit among publishing professionals (or anyone with the faintest stated allegiance to literature, for that matter) to treat “true” books as an endangered species, an odd if cherished relic destined sooner or later to obsolescence. This might have less to do with any real, imminent threat (readers don’t seem to be disappearing…
The Ultimate Guide to Eating Bagels in NYC
Several years ago, a friend in London texted me a photo of what appeared to be a bulging bread roll stuffed with chocolate frosting, like some sort of mutant maritozzo. I couldn’t puzzle out what was going on, but then I read the caption: “Nutella bagel on Brick Lane.” London has its own distinct bagel…
At Ginny on Frederick, Three Old Friends Ponder the Possibilities of Paint
Housed within a former shop unit opposite Smithfield Meat Market in Clerkenwell, east London gallery Ginny on Frederick’s latest exhibition — a group show titled Sympathetic Magic 2 — gathers new paintings by friends Ed Compson, Francesca Mollett and Kiki Xuebing Wang. The sequel to a self-organised presentation at Zona Mista in 2019, the exhibition…
Something for the Week, Issue 6
Welcome back to Something for the Week — your weekly selection of things to look at, read, listen to, and experience across the arts. If you like what you see, consider subscribing to the Something Curated newsletter. Pipilotti Rist’s Prickling Goosebumps & A Humming Horizon at Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York This is your…
Interview: Artist Prem Sahib Finds Resistance in Pluralism
London-based artist Prem Sahib’s sculptures, installations, and performances evoke emotional reactions through a highly choreographed and honed language of minimalism. Often erotically charged, the artist’s works draw on personal and communal histories, eloquently dissecting the architecture of public and private spaces. Sahib is set to premiere their new work, Alleus, at Somerset House Studios’ experimental…
Interview: Soufiane Ababri Challenges the Dominance of Weste...
Opening on 13 March 2024, Moroccan-born artist Soufiane Ababri’s first solo institutional show in the UK is set to transform the Barbican’s Curve gallery through a site-specific and cross-disciplinary presentation of work. Based between Paris and Tangier, Ababri’s practice spans drawing, sculpture, installation, and performance. His works borrow ideas from philosophy and sociology, as well…
Interview: Andrew Pierre Hart Discovers the Rhythms of Paint...
Andrew Pierre Hart’s practice explores the symbiotic relationship between sound and painting, incorporating aspects of sculpture, language, performance and film. His abstract compositions draw on sources as diverse as the murals of the Gurunsi people in Burkina Faso, Yoruba divination codes, graphic musical scores, and digital coding. It’s been a busy month for Hart, who…
Beautifully Braised Italian Bitter Greens – Escarole a L’Italienne
Escarole a l’Italienne or escarole braised in the Italian fashion: A vegetable eating experience for the real ones who know about overcooked greens. I once had the pleasure of trying this contorni over a forced date with the Airbnb host I had just checked in with in Salerno, Italy, a few years back. He, as…
Review: On Displacement and Territory in Stephanie Comilang’s ‘Search for Life’
Stephanie Comilang’s solo exhibition, Search for Life, at TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art in Madrid, Spain, offers a visual representation of migration through film and textile installations. The exhibition’s title was inspired by Dirty Projectors’ song of the same name, which sparked Comilang’s thought of how a butterfly might put together a song. This butterfly perspective…
Hark1karan’s Best Photograph
I was interviewing my friend Rav Gill for my first documentary, Zimmers of Southall. At the end of the interview, I mentioned that I wanted to come back and take some more photos as the project would eventually become a photobook. Rav responded by saying, “We’re gonna be busy as my brother’s getting married in a few…
At Home With the Writer Calum Jacobs
Calum Jacobs is best known for his seminal work on the importance of Black footballers and Black culture in the evolution of modern football: through his magazine, Caricom, and debut book A New Formation: How Black Footballers Shaped the Modern Game, Jacobs has upended stereotypes, spoken for a generation, and written into history the significance…
An Expert’s Guide to Collecting Prints
Helen Rosslyn is the Director of the London Original Print Fair, which returns to Somerset House from 21–24 March 2024. Introduction I’ve been the Director of London Original Print Fair (LOPF) since 1987, joining shortly after the fair was founded in 1985 by Gordon Cooke. Now on our 39th edition, LOPF has become London’s longest…
Something for the Week, Issue 4
Welcome back to Something for the Week — your weekly selection of things to see, read, listen to, and experience across the arts. If you like what you see, subscribe to the Something Curated newsletter. Shu Lea Cheang’s Scifi New Queer Cinema, 1994-2023 at Project Native Informant, London Taiwanese American artist Shu Lea Cheang has, in her decades…
Something for the Week, Issue 3
This week, discover the story of Cymande, the pioneering self-taught South London band, Jayeeta Chatterjee’s new exhibition at Chemould Prescott Road in Mumbai, a thought-provoking Substack out of London, and one of the best books out there on the Memphis Group. If you like what you see, subscribe to the Something Curated newsletter. Jayeeta Chatterjee’s An Eye…
Curating Constellations: London and Accra in Dialogue
Offering a glimpse into the process of curating an exhibition, curators Katherine Finerty, Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson and Nuna Adisenu-Doe, take us on a meandering journey that explores the dialogue between London and Accra’s creative ecosystems. Constellations is a sister-city research and exhibition project taking its point of departure from the exchange between Gallery 1957’s…
Artist and Sound Designer Osadolor Explores Remixing as a Tool to Transform Culture
The low resolution and opacity of Nigerian American artist Osadolor’s audiovisual work provide Blackqueer folks the agency to roam and remain pixelated, shaky, blurry, glitchy, noisy, distorted, and elusive through the messy flux of self-realisation. Osadolor’s multidisciplinary practice proposes Afropresentist modes to reimagine the self, community, and our relationship with cultural memory, the everyday present,…
Something for the Week, Issue 5
Welcome back to Something for the Week — your weekly selection of things to look at, read, listen to, and experience across the arts. If you like what you see, consider subscribing to the Something Curated newsletter. 2.0: Jorinde Voigt & Xiyadie at P21, Seoul 2.0 is an exhibition that explores the physical and theoretical potential of…
Six of the World’s Best Listening Bars
Baroque-era features overlay cracked concrete on the exterior of a venue on a windy side street of Tokyo’s Shibuya district. As its front hints, this is no ordinary place. Inside Lion Café are velour seats facing an ornate altar on one side of the bar; with wooden speakers of impeccable acoustic quality sitting atop the bar…
The Studio Museum In Harlem Director & Chief Curator Th...
Thelma Golden is Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, the world’s leading institution devoted to visual art by artists of African descent. Golden began her career as a Studio Museum intern in 1987. The following year, she joined the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she launched her influential curatorial practice….
Interview: Ernesto Neto On Gravity, Togetherness & The ...
An enduring enquiry into space, volume, balance and gravity, since the 1990s, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto has produced an inimitable body of work that is in equal parts informed by sensuality and spirituality. Inspired by the Brazilian Conceptualists Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, as well as biomorphism, Minimalism and Arte Povera, Neto’s works engage all…
SC Exclusive: Notes on a Siren — a Film Essay by Justice Jam...
Director Justice Jamal Jones joins myth with modern themes of Black queerness and trans identity in their latest film, Notes on a Siren. Presented by Something Curated, and exclusively premiering on the site, the film was shot on location at Palm Heights in Grand Cayman. Jones expands on the thinking behind their mesmerising work below….