2026-01-10 04:59:26
By marrying the realistic with the fantastical and uncanny, Stephanie Temma Hier conjures tension: there’s a calf-hair necktie that morphs into a table fan, popcorn surrounding pink ballet shoes, and a rapt snake framed by orange igneous rocks.
The Brooklyn-based artist is formally trained as a painter and self-taught as a ceramicist, and she fuses the two modes of working into a complementary practice. Hier begins by sculpting a wide range of forms, and after several rounds of firing with both handmade and commercially available glazes, she adds a painting. The pairings arise intuitively, sometimes through free association, trial and error, or by homing in on a color.
Earlier works include a decadent, three-tiered cake piped not with pillowy buttercream but instead trimmed with olives, sausages, and thin slices of prosciutto. There’s also a thick head of green cabbage that reveals a trio of ravenous chicks roosted in its core. While the artist’s depictions in both clay and paint are lifelike, the juxtapositions push the works firmly into the realm of the surreal and ambiguous.
Many of the works shown here will debut this month at Anton Kern Gallery for Hier’s solo exhibition, Swan Song. Nodding to the ancient Greek belief that the otherwise “mute” birds sing just before their deaths, the exhibition takes transformation as its starting point. Elements of Dutch still lifes appear, too, as flowers bloom and pastries and coffee are consumed across a picnic-esque surface.
Hier created the Swan Song pieces simultaneously, allowing motifs and themes to recur throughout. The titular bird, for example, appears in several works, from the feathered chair with thick, stocky webbed legs to the intimate portrait encircled by an array of speckled shoes. Together, the mixed-media pieces create a sort of domestic tableau that unsettles in its familiarity, presenting a fantastic world in which the only inevitabilities are the unexpected and change.
Swan Song is on view from January 14 to February 21 in New York. Find more from the artist on Instagram.
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2026-01-10 01:34:49
In 1666, the marriage of Emperor Leopold I and Infanta Margarita Teresa of Spain solidified a political alliance between the Austrian and Spanish sides of the Habsburg family. They were also both uncle and niece and first cousins, such was the intense insularity of royal marriages intended to gain or maintain power across Europe.
The union was arranged while Margarita Teresa was very young—she was only around 15 when they married—and during the years leading up to the wedding, court painter Diego Velázquez created numerous portraits of her, which were sent to Leopold I in the form of tokens or updates documenting the imperial bride’s development into a young woman.
For Derrick Guild, portraits of the likes of the Infanta and the Spanish royal family, such as Velázquez’s seminal “Las Meninas,” provide the starting point for a painting practice that examines social status, mores, and expectations. Through 17th- and 18th-century portraits, Guild examines art as a vehicle for social and diplomatic relations, considering how painting was used to impart very specific messages and emphasize prestige.
His “Label Infanta Margarita, after Velazquez and del Mazo,” for example, reproduces a portrait of the Spanish princess across a gridded composition of paper luggage tags, nodding to the harsh reality that the young woman’s sole role in life was to essentially be shipped off to marry well and produce heirs.
Margarita Teresa had four children (and two miscarriages) during her six-year marriage to Leopold I. She died at the age of 22, and only one of her children lived to adulthood. The grid-like composition, set against a black background, also invokes a cage behind which the young woman is confined.
Tags are a recurring motif in Guild’s paintings, which combine trompe l’oeil details of paper and ribbon with intimate details of art historical pieces. In addition to the reference to shipping, they’re also evocative of labels used to identify and organize objects into place.
Guild is interested in the distortions and layered meanings of historic portraiture. Along with large-scale paintings, the artist also creates tender assemblies of smaller works in oval, gold frames, sometimes connected by gold-plated chains. Eyes are often encapsulated in their own frames, and it’s hard to escape the feeling of being watched.
These tiny, fragmented pieces also hone in on elegant hands, sensuous lips, jewelery, and fabrics, nodding to the tradition of painted miniatures. Often elaborately detailed for their size, these tiny portraits served as diplomatic gifts, keepsakes, tokens of love, and ways to commemorate people or events. They were a key element of introducing eligible men and women to prospective wives and husbands, and in aristocratic circles, social climbing was a not-so-hidden goal. Before photography, in the courtship scene, they were a kind of profile picture.
If you enjoy this work, you may also like Robyn Rich’s miniature eye pieces derived from Georgian portraits or the eccentric paintings of Volker Hermes, alongside whom Guild recently exhibited at James Freeman Gallery. See more on Guild’s work on Instagram.
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2026-01-09 04:05:18
The world’s largest island that isn’t its own continent, Greenland spans more than 836,000 square miles. As we’ve been reminded recently, the territory is part of the Realm of Denmark, although it has its own systems of local government. Greenland is home to only about 56,000 people, the vast majority of whom are Inuit and live on the southern part of the island that’s not covered in ice. The largest city, Nuuk, houses around one-third of the country’s population. And situated just south of the Arctic Circle, residents only see a few hours of sunlight during the day in mid-winter.
Hunting and fishing have traditionally sustained a subsistence lifestyle for Greenlanders, and today, the latter continues as the foundation of the nation’s economy. It’s a stunning island, with dramatic mountains, fjords, and rocky coastlines. For photographer Dennis Lehtonen, who moved to Greenland in early 2023 and found work in its fish factories, the inherent beauty of the region is endlessly enchanting.
Lehtonen captures atmospheric images of distinctive landscapes and tiny villages, like when a pair of monumental icebergs floated by one community earlier this year. He illuminates the vernacular architecture and remote, rugged beauty of the country while drawing attention to changing demographics.
Like many places around the world, populations are declining in rural, small towns due to younger people moving away to larger cities for different job opportunities, creating a domino effect of industry decline in smaller settlements. In many areas, a number of homes stand abandoned, and since the mid-20th century, a few ghost towns have emerged.
Using a drone, Lehtonen captures these otherworldly places where time-honored traditions confront our contemporary, globalized world. He aims to photograph all of the approximately 70 inhabited places in Greenland, creating a kind of poignant record.
“With many young people moving to a few bigger cities, it means that many smaller, remote places experience severe depopulation,” Lehtonen says. “It’s therefore highly realistic that some places I have lived in will be closed as I get older.” See more on Instagram.
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2026-01-09 00:44:55
In an otherwise unassuming neighborhood in Beppu, Ōita Prefecture, Japan, a modest residence has undergone an unusual transformation. Thanks to Japanese art collective 目, the two-story private home has been hollowed out, in a sense, to create a literal cavern.
目 translates to “eye” and is pronounced “mé,” and the group comprises artist Haruka Kojin, director Kenji Minamigawa, and installer Hirofumi Masui. The trio’s focus revolves around conceiving works that encourage new ways of seeing the world as it constantly changes and evolves before us. Often playing with perception, pieces have included ocean swells that appear frozen in time and space and giant balloons of people’s faces that float above urban centers.
“Space II” sits in a residential neighborhood of a city renowned for its natural hot springs, known as onsen, which attract visitors to local resorts. Tapping into the geological and geothermal character of the area, 目 has created an otherworldly installation resembling a cave reminiscent of tourist attractions with metal steps and railings. Gaping holes in the exterior make it appear as if the structure was carved from rock to look like a house rather than the other way around.
“Space II” is a continuation of a theme begun with a piece called “Space” in 2020, in which 目 constructed a narrow, contemporary exhibition space in the second story of an otherwise typical home in the city of Aomori. Visitors will be able to step inside of “Space II,” with reservations slated to open on 目’s website later this month. Follow updates on Instagram.
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2026-01-08 19:16:00
Thibaut Grevet is a French director and photographer who moves through the world with an eye tuned to the unseen. His images slip between reality and reverie, blending people, architecture, and landscape into quiet collisions of shape, shadow, and motion. What he captures often feels less like documentation and more like memory—soft, shifting, and charged with an otherworldly calm.
Grevet works in moments that unfold on their own terms: unposed, unpolished, and beautifully transient. He gravitates toward what flickers at the edge of perception, revealing details that many overlook but that, in his hands, expand into entire worlds. His 2025–26 collaboration with New York City Ballet extends this dialogue between space and sensation.
Grevet’s work will be on view at three special New York City Ballet Art Series performances on January 28, January 31, and February 6. The evenings will include a performance, viewing of the installation, and an afterparty, with all tickets priced at $54.
To learn more and purchase tickets, visit nycballet.com/artseries.
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2026-01-08 06:32:41
Known for his meticulous drawings of insects, birds, and other creatures hybridized with mechanical gears and intricate filigree, Steeven Salvat has a penchant for detail. Often tapping into historical analog technology like clocks, typewriters, globes, and hourglasses, the artist nods nostalgically to a pre-digital age.
Salvat’s forthcoming exhibition, Latitude/Longitude at Galerie Hamon, continues the artist’s interest in the convergence of nature and human activity. This recent body of work, created using acrylic and Chinese ink, focuses more specifically on navigation and cartography. Vintage maps, charts, and globes provide the foundation for beautiful renderings of songbirds and butterflies in a meditation on migration.
In light of the current climate crisis, migratory patterns of a wide range of creatures—from monarch butterflies to terns to gray whales—are at increased risk of disruption due to shifts in the timing of seasonal changes, habitat destruction, and more extreme weather. Salvat looks to the past as a means of thinking more critically about the inherent beauty and vulnerability of birds.
“I work on carefully sourced antique maps and navigation objects such as compasses, barometers, and globes, using them as starting points to paint different bird species,” Salvat says. “These works reflect instinctive trajectories and the memory of invisible journeys. Together, they create an immersive space, somewhere between a map room and a contemporary cabinet of curiosities.”
Latitude/Longitude runs from February 6 to March 4 in Le Havre, France. Find more on the artist’s Instagram and Behance.
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