Weaving Meanings into Colorful South African Art

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How do you take a domestic beer pot and lid and turn it into art? Take a look at the dazzling designs on display in the first museum exhibition dedicated to one of the most unique art forms to blossom in post-Apartheid South Africa – iNgqikithi yokuPhica/Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa, on view at Santa Fe’s International Museum of Folk Art through March 29, 2026.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed at the the intricacy of the colorful, whirling designs that first meet your eye. But when you slow down to look more closely, all sorts of meanings appear – ancient tribal writing, village scenes, Zululand wildlife, patriotic emblems, and even celebrated achievements in the sports world

Dudu Cele’s 1990s The New South Africa telephone-wire weaving celebrating the end of apartheid featuring the colors of the nation’s new flag.
Master weaver Bheki Diamini’s 1990s telephone-wire basket Why the Wire Plates? Courtesy: Arment-Rimelspach collection

Take a look at some of our favorite works in our Flickr album.

The journey begins with Bheki Diamini’s 1990s telephone-wire basket, whose text asks the question “Why the Wire Plates?” T

The exhibition answers by explaining the long history of African wire weaving, the stories of innovators who started using colorful telephone wire in the 1990s, and how it became an economic game-changer for practitioners.

As far back as the 16th century, wire and metal rods were popular trade items in South Africa, and by the 19th century, everyday people were embellishing snuff containers and traditional sparring and walking sticks with intricate wire weaves. Although traditional beer and grain pots were made of woven fiber, and sometimes people wove in beads to personalize (and identify) their own.

An array of sparring sticks embellished with telephone wire and other materials –dancing sticks, 2005 walking stick, and Peter Lekotjo’s 2005 knobbed fighting stick.
Rare late 20th-century works made of telephone wire and natural materials – a palm and grass basket embellished with telephone wire, an earthenware grain-storage pot, and Laurentia Diamini’s grain storage basket woven with palm and grass.

In the 20th century, when a few weavers began incorporating colorful telephone wire into their work, it didn’t take long until highly decorated sticks, colorful hats, amped-up drinking cups, and beer pot lids were transformed. Under the repressive apartheid system, Black South Africans lived under highly restrictive work-life conditions, just scraping by and hardly able to afford most art making materials.  

As telephone technology was deployed across Black communities in South Africa, the spools of colorful, coated wire surged in popularity as a tool more creative expression because workers often cast it off when industrial projects were done. Cheap (or free!), plentiful, and in a dozen colors! Perfect!.

Two hats embellished with telephone wire – a top hat (pre-2007) and Shadercke Ntuli’s 2000 hard hat – similar to those used for mine-worker dance performances.
Michael Mfeke’s late 20th-century telephone-wire basket in the shape of a beer pot (ukhamba).

Rather than making an historical exhibition, the curators have chosen to focus on grouping work by and presenting biographies of the innovators – like master weavers Bheki Diamini, Jerita Mmola, Elliot Mkhize, Vincent Sithole, and othes – who popularized this art form with makers in their own country and collectors internationally. It’s captivating to see all the ways Sithole, for example, incorporated wildlife into his designs to satisfy demand from tourists who began flocking to South Africa as a safari destination.

Colorful 1990 telephone-wire food basket (xirutu) by Jerita Mmola of Limpopo, South Africa.
Elliot Mkhize’s 1997 telephone-wire basket with abstract symbols inspired by ancient Zulu hierographic writing.

A compelling video in the center of the exhibition takes visitors into the Maphumolo family home to show how increased revenue from art sales – in South Africa and abroad at art festivals – have boosted living standards and opportunities for artists on an intergenerational basis.

Renowned soft-wire weaver Jaheni Mkhize’s dynamic 2006 telephone-wire basket.
Two by master soft-wire innovator Jaheni Mkhize – 2004 cone-shaped basket and colorful 2000 telephone-sire basket.

In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, as tourism to South Africa increased, weavers began to incorporate South African wildlife, create whimsical wire animals, and depict rural villages to boost a new pride in the homeland. Sports triumphs are celebrated by weavers, too.

Figurative master Vincent Sithole’s 2008 telephone wire basket depicting numerous species of South African birds. Courtesy: Arment-Rimelspach collection.
Octavia Gwala’s 2005 telephone-wire and wire weaving showing a rondavel – a circle of thatched-roof Zulu homes that form a homestead.

The exhibition walk-through concludes with work exemplifying new trends – baskets that incorporate pop culture references. three-dimensional wall pieces, and shimmering works in gleaming woven copper wire.

Simon Mavundla’s 2013 telephone-wire and wire basket Grey’s Anatomy Series: Norma Frontalis from a design by Marisa Fick-Jordaan. Courtesy: Arment-Rimelspach collection.
Details of 2009 Nature Series, Wall Platter, Rousseau, a three-dimensional telephone-wire sculpture designed by Marisa Fick-Jordaan

In the exhibition promo, indigenous knowledge-keepers explain more about what these artworks mean and see some of the masters at work.

Enjoy this look at the riches on display in this beautiful show.

Thanks to collectors David Arment and Jim Rimelspach, whose passion, patronage, and vision have introduced us to beautiful work by the most innovative artists and families creating in South Africa today, and donated so many exquisite works to IFAM’s permanent collection.

Two metal baskets from Threads of Africa project: Bandile Mtshali’s 2010 brass and copper-wire basket and Jobe Sithole’s 2016 copper wire and brass bead basket.

Exploring Marie Antoinette’s Style at the V&A

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In her day, she was considered a style icon, spendthrift, deviant, monster, and hapless victim. And why are we still talking about her and dissecting her lifestyle, look, and acquisitions over 200 years later?

You’ll find the answer in the South Kensington V&A galleries with portraits, clothes, artifacts, and haute couture fashion in Marie Antoinette Style, on view in London through March 22, 2026.

The Victoria & Albert Museum has pulled incredibly well-preserved fashions from its own 18th-century collection, and has also borrowed from Versailles and European collections that scooped up Marie’s stuff when it was ransacked and put on the open market after her death during the French Revolution – jewels, furniture, Sèvres table settings, and remnants of her dress fabric.

1783 Marie Antoinette in a muslin dress by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun; seeing the queen in a dress resembling underwear shocked everyone who saw it at the Paris Salon, but it soon became the style. Courtesy: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

As befitting a Versailles icon, the introductory gallery is a dazzling room of mirrors. With the dramatic illumination of opulent court dresses, wedding attire, royal portraits nof Marie, fans, and swaths of over-the-top embroidered silk, the effect is magnified by the points of light dancing across multiple reflections of sumptuously draped fabric.

Take a look through some of our favorites on display in our Flickr album.

1775 French robe à la française à la Polonaise silk taffeta, silk chenille, and linen lace; less formal style with skirts looped up to create volume. Courtesy: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
1775-1780 French embroidered cotton and linen muslin robe à la française – a fresh, light style innovated by the French court; silk lining creates a blush effect. Courtesy: V&A

You experience how Marie’s fashion sense changed from the big-time Rococo style she sported as a teen to the more minimal muslin style she popularized as she and her friends gallivanted around the Tríanon grounds in jaunty Italian straw bonnets.

Style icon: later painting based on 1778 oil Queen Marie-Antoinette in Court Dress by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun; the queen at 22. Courtesy: Versailles, musée national des chateaux de Versailles.
Informal dress that Marie popularized: 1760-1780 “shepherdess” hat (bergères) of Italian straw and a rare 1785-1790 embroidered muslin dress (robe en chemise) owned by Madame Oberkampf of Jouy-en-Josas. Courtesy: V&A; Musée de la Toile de Jouy

Plates from 18th-century fashion publications show off the latest extravagant details of hair poufs that Marie popularized. Incredibly, there’s also an actual shoe owned by the style icon herself.  As queen, she received four new pairs of shoes per week!  Watch this short video to get a close-up view of her 230-year-old silk and kid shoe that survived!

During her reign, Marie had an outsized influence on interior design, landscape architecture, the decorative arts, and music. Her fashion selections and hairstyles were noted, discussed, and copied.

When the winds of democratic change came to France, Marie’s attire changed again to a more pared-down republican look that every patriotic woman in Paris also sported, right down to the patriotic silk cockades pinned to hats and lapels.

Years of the Republic: 1789 oil Marie Antoinette wearing a fashionable jacket (pierrot) and gauze-draped white silk fez; portrait by Adolf-Ulrich Wertmüller. Courtesy: Versailles, musée national des chateaux de Versailles et de Tríanon.
Years of the Republic: Height of French 1780s-1790s fashion – a 1790 striped silk pierrot (jacket) work atop a muslin petticoat, decorated with tambour embroidery. Courtesy: V&A

But by then public opinion had turned against Marie, largely due to the unfortunate incident that completely tarnished the public’s view of her – The Diamond Necklace Affair. In an exhibition section titled “The Queen of Sparkle,” the curators display a modern copy of the necklace that created the ruckus alongside lavish jewelry created from the diamonds removed (and resold) by an 18th-century con artist. 

Here, the V&A’s Senior Curator Sarah Grant provides a close-up look at those infamous diamonds and tells the story:

Decried, denounced, and executed, it’s remarkable that 75 years later, Marie-Antoinette style and influence had a come-back, thanks to an obsessive 19th century fan, Empress Eugénie of France.  Eugénie loved Marie’s fashion sense began sporting her look at various fancy-dress balls. She even commissioned haute courtier designer Charles Frederick Worth to design some looks, and he was happy to oblige.

Over the years, the Marie Antoinette’s Tríanon retreat had fallen into extreme disrepair and its contents scattered. Eugénie set about to find much of the furniture Marie had commissioned, did a major rehab job on the property, and had a big, public exhibition about Marie at the Tríanon’s reopening in 1867.

Style revival: Marie Antoinette’s 1784 carved monogrammed chair, part of a four-piece set; 1911 Fémina magazine article about Empress Eugénie’s love of big court costumes; and Eugénie’s 1867 exhibition catalogue about Marie Antoinette at the Petit Trianon. Courtesy: Versailles, musée national des chateaux de Versailles et de Tríanon; private collection; V&A

Spurred by Eugénie’s very public fandom into the 20th century, pop culture did not lose sight of Marie Antoinette as a style on display at upscale costume parties or as the evergreen image of fairy-tale princesses. The V&A shows illustrations using the queen’s pouf-do, tiny waist, princess-heel shoes, and voluminous 18th-century gowns to convey royal ingenues right into the 1910s and 1920s.

20th c. fairy tale princess: George Barbier’s 1928 illustration “L’Allée (The Pathway)” for Fete Galantes (Gallant Festivities) featuring an Art Deco image of Marie Antoinette based on Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s portrait. Courtesy: private collection
20th c. fairy tale queen: Edmund Dulac’s 1911 watercolor illustration of Marie Antoinette as Hans Christian Anderson’s Snow Queen; aloof, seated on an icicle throne. Courtesy: private collection.

And 1920s fashion designers took note, mixing gauzy references to Marie’s muslin dresses with full skirts and panniers.

Referencing Marie Antoinette’s lingerie style: Jeanne Lanvin’s 1922-1923 silk organiza robe d’style (evening dress); a chemise with panniers. Courtesy: V&A
Boué Soers’ “lingerie frock” – a 1923 appliqued silk chiffon robe d’style (evening dress) with panniers and ribbon roses; advertised showing models as Trianon shepardesses. Courtesy: Designmuseum Danmark

The spectacular finale to the exhibition pays tribute to the costume designers and haute couturiers who have translated Marie’s style into modern times. Even Manolo Blahnik jumped at the invitation to make shoes for Coppola’s Marie Antoinette film actresses, making each pair himself and basking in the glamor of using truly opulent silks and embellishments. It’s fun to see an entire wall of them.

Neon pink costumes by Milena Canonero worn by Kirsten Dunst in Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film, Marie Antoinette. Courtesy: private collection.
Adrian’s silk gown worn by Norma Shearer in Willard Van Dyke’s 1938 Marie Antoinette film. Courtesy: private collection

The show closes with a bigger-than-big wide gown by Galliano for Dior, surrounded by two tiers of Moschino silicone cake dresses, Moschino toile de jouy pannier spoofs, Marmalade’s drag ensemble, Vivienne Westwood’s bridal take, and even Lagerfeld’s take on those scandalous diamonds for Chanel. 

Gallery of restyled Marie Antoinette fashions by contemporary designers; at center, John Galliano’s 1998 iridescent silk taffeta Marquise Masquée gown for Dior. Courtesy: Dior

It’s an unmistakable style that’s recognizable hundreds of years later, and one everyone who’s seen this unforgettable show is still talking about!

Be forewarned: Schiaparelli opens at the V&A South Kensington on March 28, 2026.

Jeremy Scott’s 2020-2021 silicone cake dresses from a runway show mixing contemporary and 18th century style and fun. Courtesy: Moschino archives.
Jeremy Scott’s 2020-2021 cotton anime Toile de Jouy mini-pannier dress with matching boots and Franco Moschino’s 1990 silk and lace robe á la polonaise. Courtesy: Moschino archives.

Mucha’s Timeless Legacy of Line

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Fans of Mr. Mucha, the grand master of sinuous line, have been lining up across North America to admire some of his greatest works – epic posters of Sarah Bernhardt, beautiful women hawking products surrounded by swirling halos or smoke, and exotic details on small-scale, affordable decorative panels representing the seasons, flowers, or arts.

Created by the Mucha Foundation in Prague, Timeless Mucha: The Magic of Line presents Mucha’s own collection of art and books that inspired his creativity, his early works as an in-demand illustrator, and his most famous posters and viral images. It’s all on display at the Boca Raton Museum of Art through March 1, 2026 after successful stops at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and Santa Fe’s Vladem Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Mucha’s 1897 lithograph Monaco – Monte Carlo, an ad for the Paris- Côte d’Azur railway featuring a young woman dreaming about her beach trip. Courtesy: Mucha Foundation.

See some of our favorite works from the Vladem installation in our Flickr album.

So how did a designer who was all the rage for Art Nouveau at the 1900 Paris Expo inspire Sixties psychedelic rock illustrators, Marvel Comics creators, and Japanese manga artists? You’ll see that in the exhibition, too. Check out this promo from Boca:

A portion of the exhibit features drawings, sketches, and acquisitions that suggest the building blocks that formed his mature style – Moravian folk style, the mix and match of multicultural design elements seeping into European designers’ consciousness, and the super-flat design in Japanese prints, and fantastical embellishments on Japanese collectibles in late 19th century Paris.

Just take a look at how many of these design influences Mucha packed into his viral street posters advertising actress Sarah Bernhardt’s new plays – mosaics like those in Eastern European churches, exotic decorative elements, and arcs functioning as halos.

Close-up of Mucha’s life-size 1899 poster of Sarah Bernhardt starring in Hamlet, with Celtic motifs. Courtesy: Mucha Foundation.
Close-up of Mucha’s life-size 1894 poster of Sarah Bernhardt starring in Gismonda featuring a Byzantine mosaic, Orothodox cross, and Slavic designs. Courtesy: Mucha Foundation.

Listen to the Foundation’s curator Tomoko Sato (shown in Phillips Collection galleries) explain how Mucha’s 1894 poster commission – his first – immortalized superstar actress Sarah Bernhardt:

When Mucha’s Gismonda poster appeared on the streets of Paris in 1894, it was a sensation and cemented Mucha’s status as the hottest designer of the day. Bernhardt signed him to a six-year contract (including designing her jewelry), and other offers started rolling in.

Everyone considered Mucha the leading practitioner of Art Nouveau, although Mucha never cared for this label. As the exhibition shows, Mucha’s style was a flat application with bold outlines around ethereal depictions of independent women, swirling vines and/or hair, and a sinuous spiral curving through his layout.

Detail of Mucha’s 1897 lithograph La Trappestine, a liqueur ad featuring a halo, Celtic designs, and a floral wreath. Courtesy: Mucha Foundation.
Plate from Mucha’s 1902 Documents dècoratifs, his designer handbook on how to combine human figures with decorative elements. Courtesy: Mucha Foundation.

As his fame grew, publishers licensed his images and published them at affordable prices worldwide. Mucha himself traveled abroad, teaching sold-out classes in drawing, line, and figures. He was in such demand that he eventually created books showing up-and-coming designers how to create universally appealing designs in his style.

When Mucha produced these design look-books in the early 1900s, could he have envisioned that illustrators and designers of the late 20th and early 21st century would take note? The exhibition showcases Fillmore West posters and Sixties’ rock album covers that repurposed Mucha’s style, such as this transformation of Mucha’s cigarette paper ad into a nearly identical promo for the Jim Kweskin Jug Band.

Mucha’s first product advertising poster – 1896 promo for JOB rolling papers featuring a sensuous smoker and a Byzantine border. Courtesy: Mucha Foundation.
1966 poster by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley for a San Francisco concert headlining the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Flowers in your hair? Swirling hair, flowers, and stars were part of Mucha’s “universal language” that took design in a new direction in the 1900s. Museum visitors love pouring over the Sixties album covers and posters detail in the exhibition, remembering which albums they owned and acts they saw, delightedly pointing out the Mucha design influences to their friends.

1966 tour poster for Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore Auditorium by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley.
1971 Skull and Roses tour poster for Grateful Dead by Alton Kelley.

But subsequent generations of media makers also adapted Mucha style – comic book and manga artists.

Joe Quesada’s 1994 Spread, Ninjak cover for Valient Comics.
John Tyler Christopher’s 2007 cover for Marvel’s Nova, no. 36B.

Listen to curator Sato about how Japanes artists adapted Muca’s design breakthroughs for 21st manga fans:

Next on the tour for this beautiful exhibition – the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri (April 11-August 30, 2026) and Museo Kaluz in Mexico City (October 8, 2026 – February 7, 2027).  

The riches on display in this exhibition are also a reminder that much more is on view at the Mucha Museum – a spectacular new venue in Prague opened by the Mucha Foundation at the Savarin Palace in 2025, right on the western edge of Old Town. 

A star framed by a halo: years of Mucha’s poster ads for Sarah Bernhardt’s 1894-1899 plays – Hamlet, Lorenzaccio, and Gismonda. Courtesy: Mucha Foundation.

Gus Baumann’s Legacy of Art and Fun in Santa Fe

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Gus Baumann, America’s greatest master of color woodblock prints, never considered himself a fine artist. Nevertheless, his prints, sculptures, paintings, commercial art, furniture, and marionette stages fill four galleries in his grand retrospective at the New Mexico Museum of Art – Gustave Baumann: The Artist’s Environment, on view through February 22, 2026.

Demand for Gus’s intricate block-printed sun-dappled Western landscapes from the 1920s through the 1950s still runs high. So, it’s a treat to learn how Gus achieved such a high degree of technical proficiency early in his career, lived Arts and Crafts philosophy, relished immersion in art colonies, and found his family in Santa Fe.

Gus Baumann’s 1903 oil Self-portrait (Silhouette) painted in his Chicago studio; reworked in Santa Fe after 1920 with a border inspired by Mimbres pottery.

See some of our favorites in our Flickr album.

Although Gus was born in Germany in 1881, his family emigrated to Chicago when he was around ten. His father was a craftsman and woodcarver, and it left an impression.  The first themed section of the exhibit – “Finding His Way”– gives a glimpse into his family background, early commercial art work, wood carving expertise, and furniture he designed later in the 1930s.

Gus Baumann’s 1919 color woodblock print Church Ranchos de Taos – one of the first modern artists to depict this iconic church; printed in 1948.
Gus Baumann’s 1921 color woodblock print Piñon Grand Canyon – one of four landscapes created after his first visit.

When he was 17 and his dad left the family, Gus had to find work to help his mom make ends meet.  He worked full time at a Chicago wood-engraving shop that cut illustrations for books, magazines, and newspapers. When he was 20, Gus opened his own wood-engraving studio.

To fine tune his skill, he attended Munich’s Royal Arts and Crafts School for a year to learn from the best German color wood-block print masters – a move that chose traditional skills over academy fine-arts training. When he returned to Chicago, he opened Baumann Graphic Art Service.

Gus Baumann’s 1913 Illustration for a Calendar: The Packard Car Motor Company, August 1914 – one of four he created for Packard.
Gus Baumann’s 1908 color woodcut From My Studio Window in downtown Chicago –the high-rise McCormack Building going up on South Michigan Avenue.

Although Gus found success, his love of craft and traditional printmaking methods drew him to an art colony in Nashville, Indiana that revered traditional crafts and a slower pace of life.  The second section of the exhibition – “A Rolling Stone” – highlights work he did in Munich, his acclaimed print series featuring Indiana craftsmen, coastal life in Provincetown, and the electricity he felt in New York.

Gus Baumann’s 1912 book All the Year Round – woodcut illustrations and poetry James Whitcomb Riley, featuring scenes of daily rural life for each month of the year.

But his life would change forever when he traveled West and landed in New Mexico in 1918. Due to his reputation as an award-winning printmaker, Santa Fe welcomed him with open arms. Gus was struck by the unique Hispanic and Pueblo ways of life, the beauty of the Southwest, and the growing art colony in Santa Fe. 

Gus Baumann’s 1925 oil painting Frijoles Canyon – a panorama of ancient tuff dwellings of Tuyoni Pueblo at Bandelier.

Before long, Gus was making and selling gorgeous prints, traveling to archeological sites, attending dances at the pueblos, soaking up the ambience of ancient Spanish churches, and putting brush to canvas, and partying with his new artist friends. And he met Jane, the love of his life, and started a family – creating a life full of fun, art, play, and community service.

Gus Baumann’s 1924 color woodblock print Sanctuario Chimayo – learning of the historic church’s imminent sale on a sketching trip, he lobbied successfully for its preservation.
Gus Baumann’s 1921 color woodblock print Strangers from Hopiland, featuring kachinas from his collection; printed in the 1930s.

Since Jane and Ann Baumann donated so much of Gus’s work to the New Mexico Museum of Art, the curators were able to display finished prints alongside drawings and wood blocks that give visitors insight to his process.  One long wall dissects his multi-color printing process for his famed Old Santa Fe – the initial drawing, the separately carved color blocks, single-color proofs, multi-color runs, and the finished six-color print.

Reproductions of Baumann’s blue, yellow, and orange woodblocks for his 1925 print Old Santa Fe.

Nearly a half-dozen example of Gus’s watercolor paintings and finished prints are displayed side by side. Visitors are delighted to stand, look, compare, and wonder how he conceptualized steps to carve blocks for each color and achieve images of such depth and vibrancy.

Gus Baumann’s 1930 watercolor Processional (Study), featuring girls walking to their First Holy Communion under a blooming tree and silver sky.
Gus Baumann’s 1930 color woodcut print Processional (printed 1951), based upon his watercolor.

The final gallery “An Artist by Accident” displays an array of intricate color woodcuts, experimental paintings, satirical works, paintings Spanish religious icons, whimisical wood carvings, and everyone’s favorites – Baumann’s marionettes.

It’s the first time Gus and Jane’s marionette casts have been displayed in decades, complete with hand-painted backdrops – scenes representing just a few of the couple’s scripted shows that they performed at home, in venues around Santa Fe, at world fairs, and on tour. 

Gus and Jane Baumann’s stage set for the Santa Fe Puppett Wranglers’ 1932 marionette production of the comic melodrama The Golden Dragon Mine –starring The Tourist Lady, Temperence the Miner, Hardpan, Burro, Old Man of the Mountain, the Green Dragon, Nambé Nell, Coco the Horse, Pecos Bill, and Lord Leffinghoop.

Whimsey, delight, innovation, social commentary, and fun are all there, with surprises unfolding around every corner.  And this is all just a fraction of Gus’s creative output from his coming-of-age in the horse-and-buggy era to the Atomic Age.

Gus Baumann’s 1940 marionette comedy stars of Teatro Duende – Long Nose (“Nosey”), the Duendi and Freckles the Duende – mischief-making Iberian elves.

No, he didn’t follow the traditional academic path, but he did leave his creative touch on America’s printmaking traditions, the foundation of many Santa Fe cultural and historical institutions, and the care and feeding of a state full of artists as head of New Mexico’s New Deal artist programs.

Gus Baumann’s 1932 carved family portrait – marionettes Gus, Jane, and Ann – with costumes by Jane.

Visionary Collector Amasses Trove of Radical Works

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It’s quite a leap from taking an art appreciation class with your daughter in your mid-thirties to assembling an enormous collection of paintings by radical art-world revolutionaries and anarchists. But that’s what one woman did and and the work is on display in Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller’s Neo-Impressionists, on view at the National Gallery in London through February 8, 2026.

Crowds have been flocking to see incredible works by Seurat, Signac, and Van Gogh, and meet the Dutch and Belgian painters who adopted their breakthroughs and ran with these innovations for two decades at the end of the 19th century. 

Seurat’s 1884-1885 Young Woman: Study for ‘A Sunday on Le Grande Jatte’” – a radical abstracted, dematerialized image. Courtesy: Kröller-Müller Museum

Maginificent, much-loved works were collected in the early 20th century by Helene Kröller-Müller, the daughter of a wealthy German industrialist.  Her husband ran businesses for her father (and eventually his entire company) in Rotterdam, where they lived.

Helene was always encouraged to follow her intellectual interests, and new ideas. After taking a class about art in 1905 from Dutch artist/dealer/critic H.P. Bremmer, Helene began to understand why the radical colors, compositions, and subjects in paintings by Van Gogh, Seurat, and others moved her so deeply. Working with Bremmer as an advisor, Helene eventually amassed the largest collection of Van Gogh paintings and drawings in the world (outside of the Van Gogh Museum itself).

Van Gogh’s 1888 oil The Sower with the Sun rising hopefully over a rural worker. Courtesy: Kröller-Müller Museum

Helene sometimes accompanied Bremmer on buying trips with the goal of creating a public collection where people could see and experience the genesis of modern art.  In 1912, they even visited Signac in his studio, where Helene purchases two magnificent tranquil harbor views – one by Signac and one by his late friend, Seurat.

One of Helene’s first “new art” purchases on a buying trip to Paris: Signac’s 1887 oil pof the French Riviera capturing the Sun’s reflected light – Collioure, The Bell Tower, Opus 164. Courtesy: Kröller-Müller Museum

Here’s a brief video about Helene Kröller-Müller’s passion for art, how she built her massive collection, and the beautiful museum in the Netherlands countryside that should be on every art lover’s bucket list :

This gorgeous exhibition in central London shines a light on this visionary collector, but the focus is less on Helene’s history and fully on her stellar collection of Neo-impressionist painting and related works from the National Gallery and other collections. See some of our favorites in our Flickr album.

The exhibition begins with paintings by Seurat and Signac, who adopted color theory for their pointillist techniques to create shimmering images of simplified, tranquil harbors and seascapes. This new radical painting approach electrified artists across Europe, such as Belgian painter Theo van Rysselberghe and Dutch artist Jan van Toroop, whose works are also hung in the first gallery.

Van Rysselberghe’s 1889 oil inspired by Seurat ‘Per-Kiridy’ at High Tide. Courtesy: Kröller-Müller Museum

At a time when industrialization was transforming life, Helene did not shy away from acquiring works made by artists proud of their radical, progressive politics. Many of the artists featured in the exhibition were proud to call themselves anarchists – passionate radicals who used art to advocate for workers’ rights, elevate the image of working people, and create a hope of increasing harmony with nature.

Maximilien Luce’s 1899 The Iron Foundry showing strength and integrity of Belgian steel workers amid dangerous conditions – an acquisition that hung in the office of Helene’s industrialist husband. Courtesy: Kröller-Müller Museum

To create the pictoral harmony that they sought, these painters often stripped details out of landscapes. When people are present, they are depicted with highly simplified, streamlined faces – pleasing, but impersonal. These stand in contrast to paintings by Belgian and Dutch painters who applied their new color techniques to beautiful large portraits of their politically progressive friends and patrons.

Seurat’s 1889-1890 grand Chahut – a stylized manifesto of his painting philosophy; features artificial, compressed, stylized figures and space. Courtesy: Kröller-Müller Museum

The centerpiece of the show is Seurat’s enormous painting of the scandalous can-can dance at a raucous late-night Paris venue. It’s the biggest, baddest, Neo-Impressionist work in Helene’s collection. The curators surrounded it with works showing how much other radical painters enjoyed music and nightlife.

But just beyond this gallery, you’re surrounded by still, quiet domestic interiors and sun-dappled garden scenes in a gallery titled “The Silent Picture.” People are introspective, lost in thought, or lost in a book. Helene loved collecting large-scale works that seem to envelope viewers with stillness and calm.

And she truly loved the serene, nearly empty landscapes that this group of painters created. The long horizon of the sea only adds to these works’ peaceful presence.  Helene wanted her museum to have clean lines, and unadorned galleries so that visitors could stand, contemplate, and find peace with these works. She truly felt these new, modern paintings had the ability to provide respite and even feel something spiritual.

Johann Aarts’s 1895 oil Landscape with Dunes – a tranquil, simplified view of an urban seaside town, indicated by faint buildings on the horizon. Courtesy: Kröller-Müller Museum
Signac’s 1890 Saint-Briac, The Beacons, Opus 120 – the most radical of his four views of the River Fémur along the Breton coast. Courtesy: private collection

Take a walk through this incredible show with the curators from the National Gallery, and hear how Seurat, Signac, and their contemporaries broke the rules and made history:

Man Ray at The Met

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After Man Ray saw European Cubism at the 1913 Armory Show, he knew what he had to do in his own art – abandon all of the constraints of contemporary American art and dive headfirst into Dada and push the boundaries – go rogue.  

Some say that Man Ray became America’s most important 20th century artist. Marcel Duchamp – who became one of Man Ray’s best friends and collaborators – would certainly agree. All the evidence for Man Ray’s status is right here in the Met’s survey of Man Ray’s formative years (1914-1929), Man Ray: When Objects Dream on view through February 1, 2026.

Man Ray’s 1930 Self-Portrait with Camera – a solarized portrait. Courtesy: The Jewish Museum.

Walking in, you look through the exhibition’s architectural aperture to an endless array of Man Ray’s famed rayographs – dreamy abstract black-and-white cameraless images – lining parallel black gallery walls. Nearly sixty have been gathered for this occasion from international public and private collections.

See our favorite works in the exhibition in our Flickr album.

Man Ray’s 1922 Rayograph published in Les Fuilles Libres (Loose Pages) magazine – a coiled wire puffing smoke emerges from a glass.  Courtesy: private collection.
Man Ray’s 1922 gelatin silver print Rayograph incorporating an everyday wire rack for dramatic effect.  Courtesy: Yale University Art Gallery.

Although the rayographs form the core of this show, you also see the oil paintings, airbrush drawings, sculptures, movies, and game boards – works that are rarely seen, but illustrate why Man Ray rapidly took center-stage in the modern avant-garde community.

While working as a commercial artist and photographer, he used his free time to make unconventional, revolutionary works that banished representation. In 1916, he wrote a “new art” treatise on how to condense motion and dynamic shapes into two dimensions.

Man Ray’s 1915 oil on board Cut-Out from his first solo show in New York in 1919 – representing three dimensions within two.
Man Ray’s 1916-1917 collage and pen-ink drawing The Meeting. Courtesy: The Whitney Museum of American Art.

By 1917, he was making large-scale works, portraying a Rope Dancer mid-performance with stencils, cut-up pieces of colored paper, and big colored spaces representing her shadows.

Man Ray’s 1916 oil painting The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows planned with cut paper. Courtesy: MoMA

His sculptures were made in true anarchist-Dada fashion – from junk found on the street or in his apartment-building trash can. In one gallery, a precarious grouping of dramatically lit wooden hangars is installed overhead like a chandelier. The cast shadows look pretty good, too.  His spiraling Lampshade, a sensuously curved metal sculpture is nearby, alongside paintings and avant-garde portraits where he repurposed the great shape.

Man Ray’s 1917 wood and clamp sculpture New York like a tilted skyscraper; at right, 1920 sculpture New York – a mysterious stack of ball bearings in a glass container. Courtesy: private collection; Tate.
Man Ray’s 1921 Lampshade – a dynamic painted tin and metal sculpture; inspired by a paper lampshade found in the trash a year earlier. Courtesy: Yale University Art Gallery.

He even made game boards and chess sets to symbolize his philosophy about the best way to make art – spur-of-the-moment imagination, abstract planning, clear intention, and an element of surprise.

The philosophy of the chessboard: Man Ray’s 1917 Boardwalk – an assemblage of oil, furniture knobs, and yarn on wood. Courtesy: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.

For Man Ray’s fine-art photographs, he preferred using inanimate, everyday objects to humans. And as he progressed as an artist, he didn’t use a camera.  In 1917, he started making glass-plate prints (cliché-verre) with sinuous, patterned line drawings. Soon, he was innovating with Aerographs – abstract pencil-and-airbrush drawings inspired by new technology (“drawing in air”).

Man Ray’s 1918-1920 gelatin silver print “Integration of Shadows” – an assemblage of clothespins, glass, and reflectors; printed after 1935. Courtesy: private collection.
Before the rayograph: Man Ray’s 1917 untitled glass-plate negative (cliché-verre). Courtesy: Centre Pompidou, Paris

Man Ray primarily spent his time in Paris during the 1920s. Once he began making rayographs in his studio, he was content playing with unusual juxtapositions of everyday objects, studio lights, and various types of photographic exposures. It’s reported that in 1922, he created over 100 rayographs and abandoned painting altogether. (But he took it up again the next year!)

The curators make a point of juxtaposing several rarely-seen paintings with specific rayograms from the same period to make a point – the artist might have returned to experimental paintings as a compliment to some of the shapes and feelings he was exploring through photography.

Man Ray’s 1924 gelatin silver print “Rayograph.”  Courtesy: Whitney Museum of American Art.
Man Ray’s 1927 gelatin silver print Rayograph – an experimental exploration of printing his images on textured paper.  Courtesy: private collection.

His unusual, dream-like images were eagerly applauded by the inner circle of European poets and artists who would soon be the official founders of Surrealism. They were intrigued by dreams, psychoanalysis, inner worlds, and startling juxtapositions. In fact, the title of the Met’s show comes a phrase written by Man Ray’s fan, poet Tristan Tzara – “when objects dream” refers to Man Ray’s mesmerizing work.

Man Ray’s ability to make magic with the camera – distorted images, adding surprising symbols, and creating tableaux of otherworldly floating objects – only added to the  enthusiasm for his work.

Man Ray’s 1925-1928 gelatin silver print Marcel Duchamp. Courtesy: private collection.
Man Ray’s 1924 gelatin silver print Le Violon d’Ingres featuring performer Kiki de Montparnasse – published in the proto-Surrealist journal Littérature.

The exhibition concludes with Man Ray’s beautiful solarized prints (a technique co-invented with model/photographer Lee Miller), symbolic paintings, and photographs that have become icons of Surrealism.

Hear the curators talk about the exhibition as they walk through this beautiful, inspiring show:

Take a look through all of the artwork in the exhibition here on the Met’s website. For more on Man Ray’s life and collaborations, listen to a longer Met telecast about his 1920s work with Lee Miller, Kiki de Montparnasse, and Berenice Abbott here.

Man Ray’s 1920 sculpture L’enigme d’Isidore Ducasse (The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse) a mysterious wood, iron, wool, and rope assemblage to stir the subconscious (1971 edition). Courtesy: private collection.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s Modern Living

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How do you turn a 200-year-old adobe home into a temple of mid-century modern design? See how Georgia O’Keeffe did it in Artful Living: O’Keeffe and Modern Design, an exhibition available on-line and at the GOK Museum’s Welcome Center near her home and studio in Abiquiu, New Mexico through January 31, 2026.

When Georgia bought her second New Mexico home in 1945, it was a wreck. All the better, for her to envision the possibilities of her dream house. Why was she obsessed with this? It had a home garden and irrigation, a placita in the center of the house with a working well, the iconic black door in the red wall, and an incredible view of the stunning landscape (and Pedernal).

Todd Webb’s 1962 photo Georgia O’Keeffe and Chows in Abiquiú Garden with Georgia in a striped Marimekko dress.

By collaborating for the next four years with her friend and project manager Maria Chabot, the property was transformed into a showcase for everything modern – furniture, fabrics, lamps, tableware, and (eventually) architectural innovations like skylights, gigantic picture windows, and open-plan living.  To keep her creative sparks going, Georgia never stopped rearranging, adding, and switching things up.

The exhibition space is small, but provides a tight curated selection of Georgia’s things accompanied by great photos of her interiors over time.

Balthazar Korab’s 1965 photo Abiquiú House, Indian Room with Noguchi lamp and Eames chair.
1960s Akari Lantern, a gift from sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi with Krysta Jabczenski’s 2019 photo of her living room arranged as she left it in 1984.

The furniture is front and center, made by a who’s who of American 20th century designers.  After all, as one of the recognized greats of modern American painting, the designers were often her friends, too. Simple, clean, modern lines – that’s what Georgia liked. But she loved design innovations, too.

No wonder she was captivated by the innovative BFK (“Butterfly”) chair designed by a trio of Argentine architects in 1938. She ordered one from Knoll, used it on her patio, and sometimes took the cover off just to admire the frame. And she bought several LCW chairs by her friends, Charles and Ray Eames – the molded-plywood marvel that defined a design decade.

1940s LCW Plywood Lounge Side Chair designed by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller – the first chair in the Eames’ molded plywood series.
Don Worth’s 1958 photo Georgia O’Keeffe with Chair with 1938 metal and cotton Butterfly Chair for Knoll Associates.

But perhaps her most-used piece was the versatile BARWA Lounger – perfect for laying back and listening to classical music or looking at the stars during a summer camping trip to the badlands. The aluminum frame made it light enough to strap to the top of her car.

1940s BARWA Lounger designed by Edgar Bartolucci and John Waldheim of BARWA Associates; Georgia relaxed here while listening to classical music.

Of course, Georgia loved her rock and bone collections, but she also collected practical items for her home that epitomized mid-century design.  Why not select a Finnish design innovation that you could adjust to get the light just right on your work desk or still life? Or use a sleek, modern, see-through coffee maker to prepare your morning cup of Bustelo? Pure bliss.

Finnish design: 1960s metal Luxo Lamp designed by Jac Jacobsen.
Everyday modern design: 1950s Chemex coffee maker designed by Peter Schlumbohm for Chemex.

The curators also want us to remember that modern design principles also extended to Georgia’s dress preferences.

Three cool cotton dresses by Anika Ramala for Marimekko – 1963-1965 Varjo dress, 1961 Karutakkj dress, and 1963 Asumistakki dress.

When she wasn’t posing for the most famous photographers against the red rocks of New Mexico in her black hat and wrap dress, she preferred wearing loose-fitting Marimekko dresses.   A working studio artist could really move in them to prepare canvases, rehang paintings around the house, or carry around stuff in the pockets. Never mind that the dresses from the popular Finnish design house were marketed as the finishing sartorial touch for any modern Sixties interior.

Feel free to revisit our past blog post about the wildly successful traveling exhibition about Georgia’s fashions here.

See some of our favorite photos, furniture, and items in our Flickr album.

Two of her best friends and travel buddies were Alexander and Susan Girard. Georgia always welcomed the small textiles that Alexander Girard gifted her. Although she never adopted his revolutionary conversation-pit seating, she did get out the sewing notions and turn his iconic designs into small throw pillows placed lovingly (and colorfully) throughout her house. She also covered her kitchen work surfaces in Marimekko oil cloth to make it pop, too.

Visit this fantastic design exhibition on line here, and read more about each of Georgia’s mid-century modern choices.

For more, listen to Giustina Renzoni, the museum’s curator of historic properties, discuss how Georgia turned her modern sensibilities into a legendary high desert home:

And if you’re really interested in what Georgia had in her closet, the next time you’re in New Mexico, sign up for that new extra-special tour!

Video still of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiú home and her philosophy about home design

Epic Histories of Kerry James Marshall Wow London

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It’s fitting that Kerry James Marshall provides a master class in history painting at the Royal Academy of Arts in London – one of the most sensational shows to inhabit those hallowed galleries off Picadilly – Kerry James Marshall: The Histories, on view through January 18, 2026.

Marshall’s work fills eleven galleries of Burlington House with masterful paintings that put Black subjects back into the frame – Black citizens working in museums and art studios, delivering style in neighborhood barber and beauty shops, maintaining gardens in public housing projects, and wafting through floral fields à la Watteau and Fragonard.

Marshall’s 2008 acrylic Vignette #13 – a Rococo-inspired scene with a couple walkng through a meadow. Courtesy: private collection.

Most of these scenes are presented on a large scale and jam-packed with art-historical, literary, and world-history references. In The Painting of Modern Life-themed gallery, his grand Past Times certainly evokes Parisian leisure-class epics by Manet and the Post-Impressionists. Marshall’s twist is to depict a wholesome, all-white-clad Black family enjoying its picnic lunch lakeside as music and lyrics by The Temptations and Snoop Dogg (literally) drift up from the radios to ask if this is “just my imagination.”

Referencing Manet and Seurat, Marshall’s 1997 acrylic and collage Past Times, where a middle-class family enjoys a picnic and music in a lakeside park. Courtesy: Art Institute of Chicago.

Take a quick look at the Academy’s exhibition preview video and hear Marshall talk about his inspirations and approach:

The exhibition begins with a gallery depcting self-confident artistic portraits, scenes from the academic art studio, and kids joyfully visiting a museum for the first time – a recollection of Marshall’s own exhilarating inauguration to a new world.

Marshall’s 2018 acrylic and collage Untitled (Underpainting), showing two rooms of Black kids on a museum school trip – reflecting on his earliest museum outings. Courtesy: Glenstone Museum

It’s followed by some of his earlier works inspired by Ralph Ellison’s 1952 Invisible Man and the similarly named 1897 book by H.G. Wells, with Marshall’s innovative black-on-black portraits.

Here’s a short video with Marshall describing all the different ways he uses black paint to create such vivid dimensionality:

Other modern-life paintings bring viewers unexpectedly into a world of gardens among Chicago public-housing complexes and a magical world of books awaiting eager young readers.

Marshall’s 1995 mixed-media mural Knowledge and Wonder –showing inquisitive children surrounded by a world of books. Courtesy: City of Chicago Public Art Program and Chicago Public Library.

Other galleries are hung with Marshall’s assertive portraits of historic African-American abolitionist and literary figures, like Harriet Tubman and Phillis Wheatley-Peters, and tributes to 20th century political and cultural leaders.

But the most talked-about works are Marshall’s grand canvases depicting the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade – a group of symbolic works on the terrors of the Middle Passage (an Atlantic crossing where many souls never made it to the far shore) and dramatic murals of the Africans who successfully facilitated the capture and sale of fellow Africans.

Africa Revisited: Marshall’s 2025 acrylic Haul, showing Africans transporting payment from European slave traders for trafficked Africans. Courtesy: the artist and David Zwirner, London.

Visitors linger quietly in one of the last galleries devoted to Marshall’s installation at the 2003 Venice Bienniale. Most circumnavigate the sailing ship to get a better look at the hundreds with African-American achievement medals that are scattered about it. They also take close, respectful looks at each of the the commemorative ceramic plates that Marshall created with invented portraits of the first enslaved Africans brought to America.

Marshall’s 2003-ongoing mixed-media installation Wake originally displayed at the 2003 Venice Bienniale – a sailing ship covered with African-American achievement medals with other photographs and portraits. Courtesy: Rennie Collection, Vancouver.

The show closes with an Afro-Futurist vision – a family in a beautifully appointed living room shooting through the universe with a view of the cosmos.

Marshall’s 2010 Afro-Futurist oil Keeping the Culture, a family of the future living in the cosmos. Courtesy: private collection.

Past, present, future, brilliant color, intriguing composition, successful Black protagonists – everything about the exhibition creates an indelible adjustment to what you thought you knew about daily Black life, lost history, and potential futures.

See more our favorite works in our Flickr album.

If you missed this show at the Royal Academy in London, Kerry James Marshall: The Histories will be shown at Kunsthaus Zürich from Februrary 27 to August 16 (2026) and at Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris from September 18, 2026 to January 24, 2027.

Marshall’s 2014 acrylic Untitled (Porch Deck). Courtesy: Kravis Collection.
Through the arch of the central gallery; view of Marshall’s 1998 mourning tribute Souvenir IV.. Courtesy: Whitney Museum of American Art.
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Sixties Surreal at The Whitney

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After more than 55 years, the camel herd is back at the Whitney. When they first appeared in 1969, the dromedaries were a media sensation. Who could resist the delight of seeing the life-sized camel sculptures by 28-year-old science nerd Nancy Graves nonchalantly going about their business in the pristine, white Breuer building?

At the new Whitney, the camels are welcoming everyone to Sixties Surreal – a superb exhibition (on view through January 19, 2026) that pulls out an array of engaging, cheeky work from that tumultuous decade. The show presents work by over 100 artists who chose to remain on the fringes of the big-time art world, creating pieces that poke at the Establishment, consumer culture, and social norms.

Strange, surrealistic 1968-1969 mixed-media, life-sized Camel sculptures by Nancy Graves; initially shown in her solo 1969 Whitney show. Courtesy: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

The Whitney makes the case that American artists of the Sixties were not echoing the themes of European Surrealism (dreams, subconscious desires); but they did adapt a few of that group’s visual techniques to reflect and critique what was happening in America in off-center, slightly surreal ways.

H.C. Westerman’s 1958 Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea – a finely crafted “person” with an extremely complicated interior of bottle caps, toys, glass, metal, etc. Courtesy: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Karl Wirsum’s 1968 acrylic Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – a surreal, high-octane album cover painting for an early-rock icon. Courtesy: Art Institute of Chicago.

The Sixties was a decade when cultures were clashing, TVs were showering a kaleidoscope of images into people’s living rooms, nuclear catastrophes loomed, and people were landing on the Moon.

Lee Friedlander’s 1963 photograph Florida showing the surrealistic, disorienting impact of TVs in every home. Courtesy: Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition shows how artists who didn’t belong to trendy “isms” still managed to create work that has stood the test of time – the Hairy Who of Chicago, the funk-and-pun artists of California, the downtown post-minimalists of New York, emerging Native American modernists, and social-justice artist-advocates.

Take a look at some of our favorites in our Flickr album.

H.C. Westerman’s 1963 impossible wooden “knot” sculpture The Big Change – an allusion to all the social-political changes happening in America. Courtesy: The Art Institute of Chicago.

At a time when hard-edged minimalism and Pop Art ruled, the curators want us to see and experience (again) artists whose work was featured key exhibition showcases like Lucy Lippard’s 1966 Eccentric Abstration show at Fischbach Gallery in New York and Peter Selz’s 1967 Funk show at the Berkeley Art Museum. Each were full of work that defied contemporary art-world conventions.

The Whitney’s chosen to showcase several pieces of one of the artistic godfathers of the funk movement – H.C. Westerman. His satiric “minimalistic” shag carpet sculpture sits next to a William T. Wiley painting, but it’s wonderful to contemplate two virtuoso carved pieces  – The Big Change and Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea.

The first gallery presents disquieting creations that present strange, out-of-context juxtapositions, weird images, and out-of-proportion everyday objects that seem to reflect the feeling that we’re living in an off-kilter world.  A large Rosenquist hovers over the gallery, but its muted tones and dissonant images evoke a far different mood than his famous, epic, over-the-top F-111.

Alex Hay’s 1968 strange, oversized painted fiberglass and epoxy Paper Bag sculpture. At rear, James Rosenquist’s 1961 oil The Light That Won’t Fail I, full of unsettling juxtapositions.
Claes Oldenburg’s 1966 mixed-media Soft Toilet – an unsettling, oversized fixture from the American bathroom.

Another section presents work – many from repurposed or recycled material – with sensuous forms that suggest – but not directly depict – the human body. It’s nice to see such an array of soft, draped, and biomorphic work by artists like Kusama, Eva Hesse, Kay Segimachi, and nearly forgotten Miyoko Ito.

Kusama’s 1963 provocative hand-sewn, soft fabric-chair sculpture, Accumulation, which caused a sensation among New York critics.
 Lee Bonticou’s 1961 welded, stitched canvas abstraction, created from scavenged steel, weathered canvas, clamps, wire, and rope from conveyor belts.

The far end of the exhibition presents works that take a stand to push for change in the world. Jasper Johns and Fritz Scholder let their paint do the talking. But others use a dada tactic to get the point across – hard-edge collages and assemblages.

Social surreal: Romare Beardon’s 1964 Pittsburgh Memory 2/6 – mounted collage of photograph fragments creating the surreal experience of being Black in a big America city. Courtesy: private collection.

Works by Romare Beardon, John Outterbridge, Ralph Arnold, and Melvin Edwards create surreal dissonance that still packs a punch decades later.

1966 Cotton Hangup by Melvin Edwards – suspended abstraction from recycled industrial equipment; evokes historic violence and oppression against African Americans. Courtesy: Studio Museum in Harlem

The show concludes with a selection of works by artists reflecting alternative spiritual practices and beliefs. At a time when organized institutions and religions were being questioned, why not turn inward?

Oscar Howe’s 1968 painting Retreat – an Indigenous-modernist impression of a traditional Dakota ceremony.
Ching Ho Cheng’s 1967 Sun Drawing, a meditative approach using a felt-tipped pen on found paper.

Have fun strolling through the Whitney’s Sixties Surreal galleries to a totally throwback Sixties soundtrack:

To hear more about specific works, listen to the curators talk about individual works in the audio guide here.

Contemporary Art Extravaganza Provides Time-Travel Portals

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The scale and scope of the contemporary art on display is tremendous, but how often do art-seekers also get an opportunity to travel across ancient streets and landscapes, to meet real and fictional historic characters, contemplate fables and real-life stories, and see art of the past and present side by side?

It can take days to experience and fully absorb all of the history and potential futues presented in the films, paintings, sculptures, and installations in Once Within a Time: 12th SITE Santa Fe International, on view across 15 art spaces across Santa Fe through January 12, 2026.

Exhibition banner in the courtyard of Palace of the Governors (1610) (New Mexico History Museum) – gateway to SITE installations by Daisy Quezada Ureña (Santa Fe) and Charisse Perlina Weston. (Harlem, New York)

Besides the expansive white galleries and screening rooms of SITE’s museum in Santa Fe’s always-popping Railyard District, visitors can choose to contemplate giant abstract murals in a church-like auditorium, an innovative historical-object installation in a 400-year-old seat of power, or enter an old foundry to see an evocative installation by a Silk Road artist across farm fields adjacent to the Old Spanish Trail.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: appears like real life and sensual free-thinkers. 2025 mixed-media sculpture “18-1-4-5-7-21-14-4” by Patricia Ayres; copper work by Santiago de Paoli; Katja Sieb’s 2025 “perpetual novice” painting; and 2020 grid painting “Atlas” by Penny Siopis (South Africa).
SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: in touch with light (spiritual) – Agnes Pelton’s paintings (1930s), Maja Ruznic’s mural (2025), and the 1895 healing rod of itinerant Southwestern mystic Francis Schlatter. Courtesy: Phoeix Art Museum; New Mexico Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of California; Maja Ruznic and Karma Gallery; and New Mexico History Museum.

In every space and art encounter, visitors may reflect upon whether history is repeating itself and whether inspiration can be drawn from futures that artists imagined nearly a century ago. Each space is designed for visitors to look, read, encounter, and reflect.

In the old foundry at Tesuque: 2024 video As We Fade by Saodat Ismailova (Uzbeckistan), showing visitors to one of Central Asia’s most sacred sites (Throne of Solomon) along the ancient Silk Road; projected across 24 suspended silk screens. Courtesy: the artist and Milan’s Pirelli HangarBicocca.

The theme for the show – Once Within a Time – is inspired by Godfrey Reggio’s most recent film – a suggestive and wordless mix of innocence, nostalgic images, visual poetry, and the future facing the next generation. The film screens continuously inside SITE, with visitors caught up in Godfrey’s dream-like images, which highlighted in this mesmerizing movie trailer:

Like Godfrey’s film, each space and gallery presents a theme, story, historic character, and provocative contemporary art that pulls back in time, creates an unforgettable experience, and asks the viewer to go inward to contemplate the future. 

Joanna Keane Lopez’s 2024 Batter my heart, three person’d God – adobe, a handmade bed, colcha embroidery showing a radiation cloud, and creosote bush, referencing her family’s experience of living downwind of the Trinity detonation.

SITE’s galleries, for example, present themes such as storytelling, technology and language, the power of spiritual energy, and New Mexico’s undeniable status as a natural Land of Enchantment.  

The exhibition presents traditional New Mexico superstars and inspirations –  Awa Tsireh and Helen Cordero (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Agnes Pelton, Rebecca Salsbury James, Florence Miller Pierce, Pop Chalee (Taos), Pablita Velarde (Santa Clara Pueblo), and Eliot Porter – alongside artists who are breaking through on the international stage.

Cochiti pueblo ceramicist Helen Cordero’s storyteller figures are paired with Pablita Velardi’s storyteller illustrations (both are inspired by grandfathers and fathers) and Simone Leigh’s epic stone and raffia goddesses.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: storytelling. Simone Leigh’s 2025 untiled stoneware and raffia sculpture. At rear, 2025 oil The Solemn and Dignified Burial Befitting My Beloved for All Seasons by Dominique Knowles. Courtesy: Matthew Marks Gallery; the artist and Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles.
Gallery theme: storytelling. Helen Cordero’s 1970 painted clay Storyteller – the creator of the Cochiti Pueblo sculptural tradition, inspired by her grandfather’s stories; championed by patron Alexander Girard. Courtesy: School for Advanced Research.
SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: language Marilou Schultz’s 2024 weaving Integrated Circuit Chip & AI Diné Weaving – a reference to the controvercial 1970s Fairchild Semiconductor chip plant on Navajo Nation staffed primarily with Diné women. Courtesy: private foundation.

The story of the legendary WWII heroes, the Navajo Code Talkers, is featured in a gallery alongside Marilou Schultz’s weavings of chip technology using traditional Diné methods with Fred Hammersly’s ground-breaking IBM computer drawings at the University of New Mexico in 1968-1970. 

Fred was given an opportunity to create the first mainframe-generated art in the form of drawings programmed by traditional IBM punch-card technology and the Art1 program.  SIITE not only displays a selection of the 400 computer drawings that he generated over the course of 18 months, but some of the punch cards he used, which are now archived at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.

Sensual free-thinkers are represented by the story of Santa Fe gambling mogul Doña Tules (Maria Gertrudis Barceló) and her actual 1840s money chest, witty contemporary porcelain playing cards and magical paintings by Katja Seib (UK), and jaw-dropping drawings by Shanghai’s Zhang Yunyao.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: sensual free-thinkers. Two of three 2025 Connector drawings by Zhang Yunyao (Shanghai); pencil on stretched felt. Courtesy: the artist, Don Gallery.

Around the corner from Agnes Pelton’s transcendental paintings are Diego Medina’s landscapes reflecting the Piro-Mansa-Tiwa spiritual power inhabiting ancestral lands of Southern New Mexico and also installations about a different type of New Mexico light – the impact of the nuclear energy tests on people living downwind and the legacy of uranium mining across native lands.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme:In touch with light (nuclear energy): Will Wilson’s 2025 series Hubris on the Land – aerial photography of abandoned 1940s uranium mines on Navajo Nation paired with his documentation of Land Art sites created by Holt, Smithson, Heiser, and Turrell in the 1960s-1970s. Courtesy: the artist

New Mexico’s natural world is paid tribute in stories and artwork by travelers and residents – watercolors of Pueblo spirits and wildlife by Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal) in the 1930s, Vladimir Nabokov’s sketches of butterfly wing cells (1940s-1950s), and Eliot Porter’s spectacular photos of Tesuque jays in the 1960s.

But these examples are just snippets of Once Within a Time – the entire show deserves multiple visits, and time to visit the other locations in the city, such as the hidden basement natural wonderland epic at the Museum of Internatonal Folk Art created by Taiwan ‘s Zhang Xu Zhan. It’s not only an immersive environment, but a film, animal-spirit sculptures, and selections from the MoIFA’s paper funerary object collection.  Don’t miss the Day of the Dead altar, the 18th-century Pere Lachaise Cemetary tribute initially collected by Mr. Girard himself, and paper funerary fantasies made by the artist’s own family. Truly unforgettable.

Museum of International Folk Art: Zhang Xu Zhan’s 2020-2022 paper-animation video Compound Eyes of Tropical (Animal story series), with a Southeastern Asian deer-mouse outwitting a group of predatory crocodiles. Courtesy: the artist and Project Fulfill Art Space, Taiwan.

The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian fills the Klah Gallery (in the shape of a traditional hogan) with a meditation on healing by Cristina Flores Pescorán, a wild organic sculpture by Nora Naranjo Morse, and a mini-retrospective of paintings by the incomparable Emmi Whitehorse.

Wheelwright Klah Gallery theme: journeys. Nora Naranjo Morse’s sculpture Into the Forever; on walls, Cristina Flores Pescorán’s 2025 installation Treinta y ocho. Ofrendas para reescribir historia medica y renacer Huaca. Courtesy: the artists

The Tesuque location also features rooms with installations by Mexico’s Guillermo Galindo incorporating burned wood from the recent New Mexico fires (crossed with Picasso’s Guernica),  David Horvitz’s tribute to the men incarcerated in Santa Fe’s Japanese internment camp (and a hat from one them), and Thailand’s Korakrit Arunanondchai’s room-sized contemplation that incorporates the ashes from the burning of Zozobra.

Video of Korakrit Arunanondchai’s 2025 installation Unity for Nostalgia, with floor incorporating ashes from Santa Fe’s Zozobra’s burning and a prayer to the phoenix; layered soundtrack. Courtesy: the artist, Bangkok City Gallery, London’s Carlos/Ishikawa, CLEARNING NY-LA, Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Video of Max Hooper Schneider’s 2025 Written in Sand (Finquita Garden) installation; spheres mysteriously travel sand channels. Courtesy: the artist; Maureen Paley, London, Hove; Francois Ghebaley, Los Angeles, New York.

For more, take a walk through the main exhibit and five other sites in and around Santa in our Flickr album to see work by legendary New Mexican artists, and travel back and forth to see how contemporary art reflects epic histories and mystic systems of the Southwest.

View of historic St. Francis Auditorium (1917) with Maja Ruznic’s 2025 Kisa Pada, Trava Raste, Gora Zeleni installed atop Donald Beauregad’s painting The Conversion of St. Francis; to right, Beauregard’s The Renunciation of Santa Clara.