Honeycomb Kintsugi, Green Mug #1, ceramic (made by @makikohicher) and honeycomb.

There is an old Japanese adage embedded in the philosophy of kintsugi: a broken thing, once mended with gold, becomes more beautiful than it ever was before. The cracks act as the very record of an object's life. Artist Ava Roth has taken that ancient wisdom and handed it, quite literally, to the bees.

Her new series, Kintsu-Bee, is a quietly astonishing body of work in which deliberately fractured or damaged ceramics are placed inside active beehives. The insects do what insects do: they build. And what they build, cell by hexagonal cell, is something neither purely natural nor purely human, but something altogether more tender and strange than either alone.

For over a decade, the Toronto-based encaustic painter and mixed-media artist has collaborated with thousands of Ontario honeybees alongside Master Beekeeper Mylee Nordin. Earlier works involved embroidered and woven panels placed inside hives for the bees to alter freely, resulting in intricate compositions disrupted by the organic swell of wax and comb.

Now, Roth has carried that collaboration into pottery. A chipped green mug, a cracked terracotta vase, a fractured dinner plate—each object enters the hive already imperfect. Into those gaps, the bees build.

The series draws from the Japanese practice of kintsugi, which emerged in 15th-century Japan as a method of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. Rather than concealing damage, kintsugi highlights it, transforming fractures into part of an object’s history. The philosophy is closely connected to wabi-sabi, the appreciation of impermanence and imperfection.

Roth’s substitution of honeycomb for gold feels especially resonant. Where traditional kintsugi depends on deliberate human repair, Kintsu-Bee relies on living architecture—structures that are functional, mathematical, and completely unpredictable. Honeycomb carries its own kind of value: it requires immense collective labor, biological precision, and time.

What makes the work especially compelling is Roth’s surrender of control. The bees decide how much to build, where to build, and whether the repair succeeds at all. A missing mug handle may return as an amber arch of hexagonal wax cells. A fracture in a plate might become covered with a thin veil of comb that follows the original crack line almost perfectly.

The finished objects are astonishing to look at. The honeycomb never attempts to imitate ceramic; it remains unmistakably organic, glowing softly against smooth glazed surfaces. Yet the repairs feel strangely right, as though the objects were always meant to heal this way.

The series also carries an ecological weight. By placing broken human objects into the care of bees, Roth subtly reverses the relationship between humans and pollinators at a time when bee populations continue to decline worldwide. The works become meditations not only on repair, but on coexistence, dependence, and care.

In recent years, kintsugi has become a cultural shorthand for resilience. Kintsu-Bee makes that metaphor literal. These are truly broken objects repaired by living creatures whose own survival has become increasingly fragile.

The resulting sculptures sit at the intersection of Japanese craft philosophy, ecological art, and contemporary sculpture. Quiet yet deeply affecting, Roth’s works ask viewers to reconsider repair not as concealment, but as collaboration.

To keep up to date with the artist’s work, follow Ava Roth on Instagram.

Canadian artist Ava Roth places cracked ceramics inside active beehives, where honeybees rebuild the damaged spaces with delicate honeycomb structures.

Kintsubee mug with gold band.

Kintsugi Vase, terracotta, vintage terracotta vase with natural honeycomb.

Honeycomb Kintsugi Blue Bowl, ceramic, honeycomb

Honeycomb Kintsugi, White Plate #1, ceramic (made by @satoshi_yoshikawa_ceramic) and honeycomb.

Honeycomb Kintsugi, White Plate #1, ceramic (made by @satoshi_yoshikawa_ceramic) and honeycomb.

Inspired by the Japanese philosophy of kintsugi, which repairs broken pottery with gold to celebrate its history rather than hide its damage, Roth allows bees to mend fractured ceramics with glowing honeycomb instead.

Ceramic Vase with Honeycomb and Dried Flowers, ceramic vase made (made by Satoshi Yoshikawa) with wild honeycomb and dried flower.

Honeycomb Kintsugi, Green Mug #2, ceramic (made by @makikohicher) and honeycomb.

Honeycomb Kintsugi, White Mug, ceramic (made by @makikohicher) and honeycomb.

Ceramic Vessel with Natural Honeycomb, ceramic vessel (made by Satoshi Yoshikawa) and wild honeycomb.

The resulting sculptures transform broken objects into quiet collaborations between humans and pollinators, turning fracture, repair, and coexistence into works of art.

(Swipe to see the honeybees assessing their fine work.)

 

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A post shared by Ava Roth (@avarothart)

Ava Roth: Website | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Ava Roth.

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READ: Artist Works With Bees To Repair Broken Ceramics in Kintsugi-Inspired Honeycomb Pottery

British multimedia artist Debbie Lawson creates surreal animal sculptures cloaked in ornate Persian carpets. Her work explores the relationships between decoration and nature, craft and camouflage, blurring the line between the domestic and the wild. Her newest sculptures are currently being exhibited at Sargent’s Daughters in a solo show titled In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie.

The exhibition’s title comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The line, “In a cowslip’s bell I lie,” was sung by the spirit Ariel just before gaining freedom from Prospero. For Lawson, the line reflects the hidden animal and natural forms woven throughout decorative art and architecture, from Pompeii frescoes to Rococo interiors and the pattern designs of William Morris. While animals are often integrated within decorative designs, Lawson’s sculptures imagine them breaking free and roaming wild.

Lawson’s work also brings attention to the overlooked stories hidden within domestic crafts. These themes are personal to the artist, whose family has generations of ties to textile-making in Dundee, Scotland. She explains, “I’m also thinking about women, including some of my near ancestors, so often confined by the constraints of the patriarchal society in which they/we lived, trapped in the daily grind and unable to pursue their own considerable creative talents or fully inhabit the world.”

For the exhibition, Lawson sculpted bears, cougars, wild dogs, and monkeys using wire, masking tape, and Jesmonite resin before carefully covering them in patterned carpet. She adds the fabric so seamlessly that some creatures appear to emerge directly from rugs or furniture. Her brilliant animal sculptures represent figures long pushed into the background and invite viewers to reconnect with their wild instincts.

In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie is on view until May 30 at Sargent’s Daughters in New York. Check out some images from the show below.

British multimedia artist Debbie Lawson creates surreal animal sculptures cloaked in ornate Persian carpets.

Her newest sculptures are currently being exhibited at Sargent’s Daughters in a solo show titled In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie.

The artist’s work blurs the line between the domestic and the wild by depicting decorative animals roaming free.

Lawson’s work highlights the overlooked stories of women within domestic crafts, a theme rooted in her family’s generations of textile-making in Dundee, Scotland.

Her brilliant animal sculptures represent figures long pushed into the background and invite viewers to reconnect with their wild instincts.

Exhibition Information:
Debbie Lawson
In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie
April 23–May 30, 20206
Sargent’s Daughters
370 Broadway, New York, NY 10013

Debbie Lawson: Website | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Nicholas Knight and Robert Glowacki.

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Faig Ahmed, “Ancestors,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi.)

Textile artist Faig Ahmed has long transformed the traditional carpet into something alive. His woven works appear to melt, pixelate, dissolve, and spill across floors like liquid code, merging centuries-old Azerbaijani craftsmanship with the visual language of the digital age. Now, at the 61st edition of Venice Biennale, the artist pushes his practice into even more immersive territory with a monumental installation titled The Attention.

Born in Sumqayit and based in Baku, Ahmed has spent years redefining how textile art can function within contemporary practice. While rooted in traditional Azerbaijani carpet weaving, his work consistently challenges expectations of permanence and order. Threads glitch into abstraction, patterns liquefy, and ornamentation becomes unstable, as though cultural memory itself were mutating in real time.

Presented in Azerbaijan’s national pavilion, the sprawling exhibition unfolds like a labyrinth of consciousness. Carpets twist through doorways, knot themselves into sculptural forms, and stretch across multiple rooms as though they are breathing organisms rather than woven objects. Ahmed uses textile not simply as decoration, but as a language, one capable of carrying memory, spirituality, science, and emotion all at once.

Curated by Gwendolyn Collaço, The Attention draws inspiration from Hurufism, a mystical philosophical tradition that interprets letters and symbols as carriers of cosmic meaning. Ahmed connects these ancient ideas to contemporary scientific theories surrounding information systems, quantum physics, and human perception. The result is an exhibition that feels simultaneously futuristic and ancient, where woven carpets become conduits for contemplating consciousness itself.

Among the exhibition, Ancestors glows under black light with psychedelic intensity, while Entropy Altar transforms visitor presence into shifting streams of language through a quantum random number generator. Throughout the installation, Ahmed continually blurs the line between the handmade and the technological, asking viewers to reconsider where meaning originates in an age saturated with information.

What makes Ahmed’s work especially compelling is its emotional undercurrent. Despite the exhibition’s references to science and data systems, the installation never feels cold or clinical. Instead, the woven forms evoke something deeply human: a search for connection amid noise and fragmentation. Carpets, objects traditionally associated with home, ancestry, and ritual, become metaphors for collective memory and shared consciousness.

At the Venice Biennale, The Attention feels particularly resonant. In an era shaped by constant digital stimulation and information overload, Ahmed offers something slower and more contemplative. His installation invites viewers not merely to look, but to pause, wander, and reflect inside a woven world where technology, mysticism, and craft become inseparable.

Faig Ahmed transforms traditional Azerbaijani carpets into sprawling sculptural installations for Azerbaijan’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Faig Ahmed, “Ancestors,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi)

Faig Ahmed, “I Can Contain Both Worlds But I Cannot Fit Into This One,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi)

Faig Ahmed, “I Can Contain Both Worlds But I Cannot Fit Into This One,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi)

Drawing inspiration from Hurufism and quantum theory, Ahmed’s work turns woven textiles into immersive meditations on language, perception, and memory.

Faig Ahmed, “I Can Contain Both Worlds But I Cannot Fit Into This One,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi)

Faig Ahmed, “I Can Contain Both Worlds But I Cannot Fit Into This One,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026.

Faig Ahmed, “I Can Contain Both Worlds But I Cannot Fit Into This One,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi)

From glowing blacklight tapestries to carpets that flow through entire rooms, the exhibition blurs the boundary between ancient craft and digital culture.

Faig Ahmed, “Face It,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi)

Faig Ahmed, “The Knot,” 2026. Installation at La Biennale di Venezia 2026. (Photo: Riccardo Banfi)

Faig Ahmed

Faig Ahmed: Website | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permissions to feature photos by Sapar Contemporary and Faig Ahmed Studio. 

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Marian Zazeela, La Monte Young, Jung Hee Choi, “Leeum 26 IV 29 Seoul Dream House: Sound and Light Environment.” Site-specific Installation, 2026. Sound, fresnel lights, aluminum, wood, white carpet, colored light filters, video projections, neon. Dimensions variable © Cheolki Hong.

At a moment when museums around the world are reexamining whose stories shape contemporary art history, Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul is spotlighting the women artists who helped pioneer immersive installation decades before the medium entered the mainstream canon. Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956–1976 revisits a radical era in postwar art through sensory environments that dissolve the boundaries between artwork, architecture, and viewer participation.

Organized in collaboration with Munich’s Haus der Kunst, where the exhibition first debuted in 2023, the Seoul presentation expands the original project with additional works by Korean and Asian artists. Running through November 29, 2026, the show gathers reconstructed environments created between 1956 and 1976 by women artists across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, many of whom reshaped experimental art while remaining overlooked in traditional art historical narratives.

Rather than asking visitors to simply observe, the exhibition invites them to physically enter the works. Long before “installation art” became institutional language, artists used the term environment to describe immersive spaces activated through light, sound, movement, texture, and atmosphere. The exhibition traces how these experimental works emerged during the postwar decades as artists rejected the static conventions of painting and sculpture.

Among the featured artists are Brazilian Neo-Concrete pioneer Lygia Clark, Argentine conceptual artist Marta Minujín, Italian artist Nanda Vigo, and Japanese Gutai member Tsuruko Yamazaki, whose 1956 work Red is the earliest environment included in the show. Visitors move through installations composed of mirrors, translucent materials, sound frequencies, air currents, and tactile surfaces that transform the body into an active part of the artwork itself.

The exhibition also places important focus on Korean avant-garde artists, including Jung Kangja’s Muche-Jeon (Incorporeal Exhibition), an experimental work incorporating light, sound, and sensory interaction. By placing Korean practices alongside international movements, Leeum reframes immersive art history as a global conversation rather than a Western-centered narrative.

What makes the show especially compelling is its emphasis on reconstruction and archival recovery. Many of the original environments were temporary or poorly documented, requiring curators to rebuild the works through photographs, sketches, letters, and historical records. The result feels less like a conventional exhibition and more like an act of restoration, recovering a lineage of experimental practices that history often sidelined.

At a time when immersive exhibitions dominate contemporary museums and digital culture alike, Inside Other Spaces offers a deeper historical perspective on participation and sensory experience in art. More importantly, it restores visibility to the women artists whose radical experiments helped shape the immersive language contemporary audiences now take for granted.

Leeum Museum of Art’s new exhibition revisits the immersive environments women artists created between the 1950s and 1970s, long before installation art became a global phenomenon.

Tsuruko Yamazaki, “Red.” Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition, Ashiya Park, Ashiya, Japan, 1956. Bolts, light bulbs, metal fixtures, vinyl, wires, wood. 270 × 360 x 360 cm. Reconstruction National Museum of Art, Osaka, 1985. Loan from the Estate of Tsuruko Yamazaki, courtesy of LADS Gallery, Osaka and Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, Japan © Cheolki Hong.

Jung Kangja, “Muche-Jeon (Incorporeal Exhibition).” National Public Information Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 1970. Artificial leather, low fog machine, colored lights, moving lights, spotlights, light bulbs, loudspeakers, artist’s voice. 500 × 500 × 500 cm. Reconstruction Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, 2026. © Cheolki Hong.

Lygia Clark, “A casa é o corpo. Penetração, ovulação, germinação, expulsão.” Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 1968. Aluminum, balloons, balls, deforming mirror, elastic fabrics, foam, metal, PVC, wood, yarn. 332 × 720 x 226 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

Marta Minujín. “¡Revuelquese y viva!” Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1964. Hand-painted fabric, loudspeakers, nails, sound, synthetic foam, wires, wood ca. 270 × 245 × 335 cm. Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

Visitors move through reconstructed spaces filled with light, mirrors, sound, texture, and movement that transform the viewer into part of the artwork itself.

Judy Chicago, “Feather Room.” Rolf Nelson Gallery, Los Angeles, United States, 1966. Aluminum, cruelty -free goose feathers and down, fabric, LED lights. 400 × 684 × 770 cm. Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

Tania Mouraud, “We used to know.” Centro Apollinaire, Milan, Italy, 1970. 500w floodlamps, glass doors, loudspeakers, rubber, sound, stainless steel, tripods, wires, wood. 381 × 515 × 422.5 cm. Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

Nanda Vigo, “Ambiente cronotopico vivibile” Galleria Apollinaire, Milan, Italy, 1967. Aluminum, neon crystal tubes, patterned industrial glass, Plexiglas, switches, wood. 200 × 300 × 300 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

Aleksandra Kasuba, “Spectral Passage.” M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, United States, 1975. Cables, loudspeakers, neon tubes, nylon fabric, Plexiglas, ropes, rug, sound, wood. 550 × 1390 x 2920 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

Laura Grisi, “Vento di Sud-Est (Wind Speed 40 knots).” Galeria La Tartaruga, Rome, Italy, 1968. Wind machines, wood. 273 × 728 × 566 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

By recovering these experimental works through archival reconstruction, the exhibition restores visibility to the women artists who helped shape the future of immersive contemporary art.

Installation view of Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976. Leeum Museum of Art, 2026 Photo: Cheolki Hong.

Lea Lublin, “Penetración/Expulsión (del Fluvio Subtunal).” Il Bienal de Arte Coltejer, Medellin, Colombia, 1970. Foam, hooks, painted and unpainted t-shirts, pipes, TPU, radial compressor, valves, water, wood. 200 × 2000 cm (Penetración/Expulsión), 275 × 275 × 275 cm (Phalus Mobilis). Reconsturction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.

The exhibition brings together pioneering artists from Brazil, Japan, Argentina, Italy, and Korea, revealing how women across the world were simultaneously redefining art as a physical, immersive experience.

Installation view of Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976 Leeum Museum of Art, 2026. Photo: Cheolki Hong.

Marian Zazeela, La Monte Young, Jung Hee Choi, “Leeum 26 IV 29 Seoul Dream House: Sound and Light Environment.” Site-specific Installation, 2026. Sound, fresnel lights, aluminum, wood, white carpet, colored light filters, video projections, neon. Dimensions variable © Cheolki Hong.

Installation view of Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976. Leeum Museum of Art, 2026. Photo: Cheolki Hong.

Exhibition Information:
Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956–1976
May 5–November 29, 2026
Leeum Museum of Art
60-16 Itaewon-ro 55-gil, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Leeum Museum of Art: Website | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Leeum Museum of Art. 

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Installation view of “Arts of Japan” at Liaigre’s New York showroom, open through October 2026 in partnership with Thomsen Gallery.

When he founded the eponymous Studio Liaigre in 1985, French designer Cristian Liaigre knew what he wanted out of the venture: a timeless aesthetic, defined by elegance, subtlety, and, perhaps above all, classic French craftsmanship. Now, some 30 years later and halfway across the globe, Liaigre’s legacy is coming face to face with yet another renowned tradition: Japanese art.

Currently on view at the brand’s New York showroom, Arts of Japan stages an encounter between Liaigre’s suite of design objects and Japanese ceramics, bamboo, lacquer, and works on paper. The featured selection spans several time periods and media, ranging from 19th-century folding screens to glazed stoneware produced in the early 1990s. In its sheer breadth, the exhibition combines both historical and contemporary modes of expression, tracing how Japanese aesthetics, regardless of time period, informed Liaigre’s own visual language. That relationship is further heightened by the exhibition’s specific context, in this case, Liaigre’s surrounding showroom.

When traversing this space, it becomes clear how much the brand—as well as its founder—was and is inspired by Japanese art. “Through its emphasis on restraint, tactility, and the quiet power of materials, the exhibition resonates with the house’s design philosophy,” a press release reads. That philosophy is grounded in lacquered surfaces, custom decorative panels, and sumptuous textures that radiate with serenity, balance, and sophistication. One section of the exhibition, for instance, juxtaposes a deck chair and accompanying table with a 1930s six-panel folding screen. The furniture’s sleek silhouettes perfectly complement the artwork’s muted color palette and the pine tree sprawling across it. The tree’s presence also draws a parallel to the furniture, directly mirroring its wooden surfaces.

That same dialogue appears elsewhere. A wooden dining table is presented alongside another folding screen, also depicting a towering tree. Resting atop the table is a flower basket from the 1970s, constructed using antique hobichiku bamboo. Though disparate, these three works nevertheless remain united in their material sensibility, repurposing and representing trees in various forms.

But in other areas, the contrasts are greater. A white coffee table is crowned by Katō Toyohisa’s glazed stoneware, bearing an impressive red maple glaze. The bold palette, which ranges from soft reds to cerulean blues, offers a captivating centerpiece to an otherwise pared-back piece of furniture. The scene is completed by a minimal sense of color, allowing Toyohisa’s work to pop even more against Liaigre’s refined textural details.

Arts of Japan is part of Liaigre’s wider program of exhibitions that “explore the intersection of art, craft, and interior architecture,” per a statement. The show is presented in partnership with the New York–based Thomsen Gallery, which specializes in Japanese paintings and works of art, ranging from screens and scrolls to bamboo baskets and lacquer objects.

Arts of Japan will be on view at Liaigre’s New York showroom, nestled on 29th St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan, through October 2026. To learn more and plan your own visit, check out Liaigre’s website.

Now on view at Studio Liaigre’s New York showroom, Arts of Japan stages encounters between traditional Japanese aesthetics and the French craftsmanship that defines the furniture brand.

Installation view of “Arts of Japan” at Liaigre’s New York showroom, open through October 2026 in partnership with Thomsen Gallery.

Tanabe Chikuunsai II, “Oceans of Good Fortune” handled flower basket, 1970s. Antique hobichiku bamboo.

Artwork by Sasaki Shunka, 20th century

Katō Toyohisa, “Flask with Red Maple Glaze,” 1993. Glazed stoneware.

Installation view of “Arts of Japan” at Liaigre’s New York showroom, open through October 2026 in partnership with Thomsen Gallery.

The exhibition will be on view through October 2026, offering a sweeping overview of Japanese ceramics, bamboo, lacquer, and works on paper, as they relate to Liaigre’s design ethos.

Kano School, “Bamboo,” ca. 1800-1850. Two-panel folding screen, ink on silver leaf over paper.

Installation view of “Arts of Japan” at Liaigre’s New York showroom, open through October 2026 in partnership with Thomsen Gallery.

Kubo Kinpei, “Black Elephant” flower vessel, 1960s. Kanshitsu dry-lacquer with roiro mirror-black finish.

Installation view of “Arts of Japan” at Liaigre’s New York showroom, open through October 2026 in partnership with Thomsen Gallery.

Kyoko Ibe, “Galaxy,” 2021. Four-panel folding screen, recycled antique ganpi paper fibers, ink, document fragments, mica, mineral pigments, and gold.

Installation view of “Arts of Japan” at Liaigre’s New York showroom, open through October 2026 in partnership with Thomsen Gallery.

Liaigre: Website | Instagram
Thomsen Gallery: Website | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by RG2 Communications.

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Installation view of the Laila Gohar x Arket carousel, showcased during this year’s Milan Design Week. (Courtesy Arket)

Late last month, thousands descended upon Milan for the city’s 2026 Design Week. Among the throng of designers, artists, brands, and collectors were Leila Gohar and Arket—there not just as attendees, but as exhibitors. On April 20, 2026, the New York–based artist and Nordic lifestyle brand unveiled an unexpected collaboration: a repurposed 18th-century carousel.

The carousel, which originates from Wiesbaden, Germany, dates back to the late 1700s and features intricately painted scenes, floral illustrations, and soft fairground lights. While reimagining the structure for Arket, Gohar left many of these antique details untouched, focusing instead on the carousel’s seating. It should perhaps come as no surprise that Gohar, with her specialization in food art, veered toward fruit and vegetables as motifs, transforming traditional carriages into oversized eggplants, pears, and radishes.

Nestled in Milan’s historic Giardino delle Arti, Gohar and Artek’s carousel kicked off Design Week with a remarkable sense of play and surrealism. The fruit and veggie seats betray Gohar’s keen eye for theatricality, a quality that defines much of her work and has arguably fueled her rise to prominence. Throughout her career, the Egyptian American artist has strained against the limits of food, producing everything from a chair-shaped cake for Sotheby’s and little dolls constructed from sausages, to a decadent shrimp tower and a bed stitched together with bread. By 2022, the New Yorker had even dubbed her the “Björk of food”—a fitting title, considering her level of innovation and creativity.

Gohar’s collaboration with Artek is no exception, of course. But what distinguishes the carousel from other projects is its insistence on encounters. Here, German woodworking traditions confront Gohar’s sculptural sensibilities, which, in their simplicity and realism, complement the carousel’s existing architecture, despite their whimsy. As viewers, we are also invited to engage with the carousel, tracing the movement of each fruit and vegetable as they continuously turn. In these ways, the installation rejects a static model of art, preferring participation and repeated viewings from multiple angles.

This is exactly how Gohar herself understands the work. “We wanted to create something open and inclusive—something that invites people in, rather than asks them to observe from a distance,” she explains. “A carousel felt like a natural way to do that. It’s familiar, physical, and meant to be shared. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of beauty as something accessible in the everyday, often shaped by surprise and excitement, which made this collaboration feel very natural.”

The carousel is part of a larger collaboration with Artek, which launched Gohar’s ready-to-wear debut on April 21. The collection spans 27 pieces, ranging from a smock blouse inspired by women’s uniforms to a modular dress with a detachable skirt. Taken together, the garments reflect Gohar’s command over tactile yet surreal surfaces, combining opposites like masculinity and femininity or softness and stiffness to fascinating effect.

“I don’t really differentiate between everyday clothing and special occasion clothing. Every day is a special day,” Gohar says of the collection. “Working with Arket was about translating that attitude into clothing.”

To learn more about Leila Gohar’s collaboration with Arket, visit the brand’s website.

During this year’s Milan Design Week, Leila Gohar and Arket collaborated to reimagine an antique carousel from the 18th century, transforming it into a site of play, whimsy, and interactivity.

Installation view of the Laila Gohar x Arket carousel, showcased during this year’s Milan Design Week. (Courtesy Arket)

Installation view of the Laila Gohar x Arket carousel, showcased during this year’s Milan Design Week. (Courtesy Arket)

Installation view of the Laila Gohar x Arket carousel, showcased during this year’s Milan Design Week. (Courtesy Arket)

An eggplant seat, part of the carousel produced for the Laila Gohar x Arket collaboration. (Courtesy Arket)

A pear seat, part of the carousel produced for the Laila Gohar x Arket collaboration. (Courtesy Arket)

An onion seat, part of the carousel produced for the Laila Gohar x Arket collaboration. (Courtesy Arket)

Installation view of the Laila Gohar x Arket carousel, showcased during this year’s Milan Design Week. (Courtesy Arket)

Installation view of the Laila Gohar x Arket carousel, showcased during this year’s Milan Design Week. (Courtesy Arket)

Laila Gohar: Website | Instagram
Arket: Website | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Arket.

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Photo: Marty Sohl / Met Opera

Frida Kahlo famously pasted away at the age of 47 in her home, La Casa Azul, which today is the Frida Kahlo Museum. Her husband, Diego Rivera, with whom she had a tumultuous relationship until the end, later stated that her death was the most tragic day of his life. Composer Gabriela Lena Frank and playwright Nilo Cruz imagine what one last encounter between the two artists would look like in the opera El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego (translation: The Last Dream of Frida and Diego) now playing at the Met.

The opera is framed around Day of the Dead in 1957 (the year of Kahlo’s death), with Rivera yearning for Kahlo to return to the land of the living once more, sensing his own death is close (Rivera would die weeks later, on November 24). However, Kahlo is not entirely convinced, as her return would bring back both the physical and emotional pain she experienced throughout her life. “I’ve suffered two serious accidents in my life: one was the tram,” she said about the traffic accident that caused her lifelong injuries, “and the other was Diego. Diego was the worst of them all.”

The volatile nature of their relationship is intertwined with references to their work, which are also present in the stunning set design. “She’s convinced to come back because she actually wants to see her art and she wants to see her house and she wants to visit the world again, you know?” mezzo soprano Isabel Leonard, who plays Kahlo, told NPR. “She loved the world and she was in love with the colors of her home and the animals and the market. She had such passion, I think, for all of those things, including for Diego.”

Sung entirely in Spanish, Frank opted to make traditional Mexican music a delicate narrative motif rather than the backbone of the score. The opera is directed and choreographed by Deborah Colker, who previously oversaw the 2024 production of the Grammy-winning opera Ainadamar. The cast is rounded out by Spanish baritone Carlos Álvarez, who plays Rivera; Gabriella Reyes, who plays the role of la Catrina, the guardian of the dead; and Nils Wanderer as Leonardo, an actor who shares Kahlo’s artistic vision.

To further immerse viewers into the world of Kahlo and Rivera, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) launched an exhibition titled The Last Dream in tandem with the production. Curated from MoMA’s own collection, the exhibit features five paintings and a drawing by Kahlo, as well as over a dozen pieces by Rivera and photographs of the pair. Tending a bridge with the stage production, The Last Dream boasts an imaginative setup created in collaboration with John Bausor, the set and co-costume designer.

El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego is currently running at the Met through June 5. If you’re not in New York, the Met will broadcast the opera in cinemas around the world on May 30.

Composer Gabriela Lena Frank and playwright Nilo Cruz imagine how one last encounter between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera would look like in the opera El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego.

Photo: Marty Sohl / Met Opera

Photo: Marty Sohl / Met Opera

Photo: Marty Sohl / Met Opera

Photo: Marty Sohl / Met Opera

El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego: Buy tickets

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by the Met Opera.

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READ: New Opera Dreams up the Final Encounter Between Artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

 

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A giant Converse sneaker recently appeared in Los Angeles, turning an ordinary city street into what looked like an interactive public art installation. Covered in layers of graffiti tags and handwritten messages, the oversized shoe quickly caught the internet’s attention.

The project was created in collaboration with Mixed Media and imagines the iconic sneaker as a massive graffiti-covered canvas. In the videos, crowds gather around the towering shoe and begin covering it with signatures and doodles, transforming the familiar silhouette into a constantly evolving piece of street art.

While the activation appears strikingly realistic, the project is an example of CGI-powered “fake out-of-home” advertising, often shortened to FOOH. These campaigns use visual effects to create impossible large-scale public moments designed specifically for social media engagement. In recent years, brands and creative agencies have increasingly embraced the format to produce eye-catching spectacles that blur the boundary between digital illusion and real-world environments.

The concept feels especially fitting for Los Angeles, where murals, tagging culture, skateboarding, and sneaker culture have long shaped the city’s visual identity. Rather than presenting the shoe as a pristine object, the project embraces the layered, chaotic energy associated with urban street art. Every added tag makes the sneaker feel less like an advertisement and more like a collaborative artwork created by the public itself.

The activation also aligns naturally with Converse’s longstanding relationship to self-expression and youth culture. Over the decades, the brand’s Chuck Taylor sneakers have become closely associated with artists, musicians, skaters, and DIY fashion communities around the world.

A giant Converse sneaker appeared in Los Angeles by WHY CGI and Mixed Media, transforming the iconic shoe into a graffiti-covered street art canvas.

@why.cgi Would you tag this giant @Converse shoe? #converse #whycgi #marketing ♬ original sound – WHY.CGI

Converse: Website | Instagram

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READ: Giant Converse Sneaker Becomes a Massive Graffiti Canvas in Los Angeles

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

During one of her trips to Korea, Jean Shin met with several ceramic artists in their studios. But, during these visits, she made an unexpected discovery: many studios harbored mounds of discarded shards in their back rooms. As she scanned these piles, the artist quickly realized that the remnants had come from finished ceramic vases that potters destroyed due to minor imperfections. She also realized that the shards could be reborn.

Shin’s resulting sculpture, Celadon Landscape, takes the form of two mosaic vessels, both clad in the repurposed ceramic shards. These shards, however, aren’t simply plastered onto these vases, and are instead strewn across the floor. Taken together, the effect is one of resurfacing, of inhaling once again, as if the two vases have just burst out from a turquoise sea. These oceanic motifs can of course be attributed to the work’s color palette, which echoes and reinvents traditional Korean celadon vases. But they also hint at a very specific journey, one that was taken by each and every shard composing Celadon Landscape.

Nearly two tons of these fragments were shipped from Korea to Shin, donated by kilns in and around the city of Icheon. In that way, Celadon Landscape mines the diasporic experience, unveiling the drama not just of separation, but of recreation.

“The diaspora community, like myself, have somehow been broken away from our birthplace,” Shin recently told Hyperallergic. “And yet in all the displacement and the distance, we’re still Korean, even though our context, language, and customs have shifted.” The shards, then, aren’t simply reminders of a life foregone. Instead, they are vital materials through which to fashion a new world, effectively combining the past, present, and future.

“The fragments [are] a metaphor of the Korean diaspora, vibrant artifacts of the Korean people, their history and culture, that are scattered all over the world to form new identities elsewhere,” Shin writes of the work.

Now, after being showcased at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in Dallas and the Sarasota Art Museum, Celadon Landscape has landed at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. The work occupies the cemetery’s Green-House, which recently opened and serves as the site’s “new front door.” As the inaugural exhibition at the center, Celadon Landscape encourages visitors to participate in its meaning through active engagement. Torn pieces of mulberry paper, all mimicking the work’s celadon color, prompt reflection on a seemingly simple question: Who do we carry with us? Once guests write down their thoughts, they are subsequently collaged by Shin onto a large scroll for the surrounding gallery walls, extending the work beyond its ceramic surface.

“Celadon vases occupy a prized place in Korean cultural history—objects of reverence, painstakingly made and carefully preserved,” Shin explains. “In Celadon Landscape, I shift the gaze to what is usually discarded. I see in their imperfection not loss, but beauty—fragments that still pulse with the memory of Korea’s enduring legacy.”

It’s a fitting message, especially considering the sculpture’s location. Similar to Celadon Landscape, cemeteries demand meditation upon what is lost and what is gained. Under these circumstances, fragments are more than mere remains—they are vessels, much like those that comprise Shin’s installation.

Jean Shin: Celadon Landscape is on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery through January 17, 2027.

In Celadon Landscape, artist Jean Shin repurposes discarded ceramic shards from Korean artisans into monumental mosaic vases.

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

The sculpture was produced with nearly two tons of fragments, donated to Shin by kilns in and around the Korean city of Icheon.

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

New Yorkers can now enjoy Celadon Landscape, currently on view at Green-Wood Cemetery’s new Green-House through January 17, 2027.

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

Installation view of “Celadon Landscape,” now on view at the Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: Etienne Frossard)

Exhibition Information:
Jean Shin
Celadon Landscape
April 18, 2026–January 17, 2027
The Green-House at Green-Wood Cemetery
750 5th Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11232

Jean Shin: Website | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Elisa Smilovitz PR.

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READ: Ceramic Shards Repurposed Into Monumental Mosaic Vases Explore the Korean Diaspora

“Gothic Passage with Sedilia”

Carving stone is no small feat, but artist Matthew Simmonds makes it look effortless. Within hunks of Carrara marble and limestone, he unearths ornate interiors complete with sturdy Doric columns and graceful archways. The formal aspects—the exacting angles, visual balance, and details—stand in sharp contrast to the coarse, uneven edges in which they’re contained. The juxtaposition evokes the feeling that these places are hidden or otherwise obscured, making us imagine we’ve encountered (or rediscovered) a special place.

Simmonds has had a lifelong fascination with chipping rock, and he honed his sculptural skills while working as an architectural stone carver. His pieces center on sacred spaces, such as cathedrals, and he applies that same reverence to their formal qualities. Simmonds’ 2025 piece titled Gothic Passage with Sedilia highlights this idea. “This sculpture explores in a purposefully simple way a balance of symmetry and asymmetry,” he writes, “and of interior and exterior space, as a passage moves up through the stone between two repeating worlds on either side.” At once, the design is a celebration of perfection and imperfection, showing how one doesn’t exist without the other.

Scroll down to see a selection of Simmonds’ latest works—a small part of his over 20-year oeuvre. For more, read our 2021 coverage of him.

Within hunks of Carrara marble and limestone, artist Matthew Simmonds unearths ornate interiors complete with sturdy Doric columns and graceful archways.

“Gothic Passage with Sedilia”

“Proscaenium”

The formal aspects—the exacting angles, visual balance, and details—stand in sharp contrast to the coarse, uneven edges in which they’re contained.

“Arezzo”

“Firenze”

The juxtaposition evokes the feeling that these places are hidden or otherwise obscured, making us imagine we’ve encountered (or rediscovered) a special place.

“Siena”

“Pisa”

“That Which Remains”

“Window II”

“Chapter House V”

“Essay in Baroque Space IV”

“Lonja”

“Rotunda III”

“Rotunda IV’

Matthew Simmonds: Website | Instagram

All images via Matthew Simmonds.

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READ: Sculptor Unearths Ornate Gothic Cathedrals From Uneven Chunks of Marble Stones