Before the Blitz in 1940, the area of London that the Barbican now occupies was home to fabric retailers, tailors, furriers, and dressmakers. Following the war, architects devised a plan to create a monumental Brutalist building that would support their utilitarian, socialist vision for the future and designed the hulking concrete structure we know today.

A new commission draws on this political and cultural history as it wraps the stark, angular facade of the Barbican’s Lakeside Terrace in a 2,000-meter blanket of colorful textiles. Named after Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2003 novel, “Purple Hibiscus” is the project of Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, who collaborated with hundreds of weavers and sewing collectives to embroider large panels of cloth that embrace the building.

Making of “Purple Hibiscus” (2023-24)

Interested in collective labor and utilizing art to support local economies, Mahama bartered for about 100 batakaris, or robes common in Northern Ghana, for the project. The garments are highly valuable and often passed down through generations as a way to share family histories. By including them on the handwoven purple and pink panels, the artist is invoking the enduring lifecycle of clothing and how it communicates information about our identities and stories.

Much of the production took place in Tamale, Ghana, before the brightly colored fabric was transported to London and fitted onto the facade. Dotted with the patterned batakaris, the site-specific installation is a bold contrast to the largely gray building. Mahama adds:

Collecting the individual smocks from communities can be quite challenging but also opens up a portal of new formal aesthetics. Using the Alui Mahama sports stadium in Tamale as the primary studio space for the production of “Purple Hibiscus” allowed for us to organise the different layers of the work in ways we couldn’t have possibly imagined. The scale of the material forms needed some level of freedom, which the space gifted.

“Purple Hibiscus” is on view through August 18 and is part of Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art. Watch the installation take shape on Instagram.

Detail of “Purple Hibiscus” (2023-24)

Making of “Purple Hibiscus” (2023-24)

“Purple Hibiscus” (2023-24)

Making of “Purple Hibiscus” (2023-24)

Making of “Purple Hibiscus” (2023-24)

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In Goran Konjevod’s meticulously crafted origami pieces, countless creases, ridges, and folds transform into stunning forms (previously). Ranging from vessels to abstract reliefs, the artist draws on his experience in mathematics and computer science to create technically precise yet visually organic sculptures.

Konjevod taps into the endless combinations of color, scale, form, and complexity to fashion an array designs from paper. Each individual object is a miniature engineering feat, while groupings illustrate the medium’s infinite possibilities.

Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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Christie’s has invested in Art Money, a US lender that launched in 2016, and will offer a buy now, pay later scheme on art bought in its sales for less than $1mn. Would-be buyers receive a preapproved limit to bid from the lender and, if successful, can pay in instalments over a maximum of 10 months. Art Money takes a fee from the buyer of up to 10 per cent of Christie’s total invoice, including its buyer’s premium (26 per cent at that level).

As with all payment plans, it increases the overall cost of buying, but the point, says Art Money’s founder and chief executive Paul Becker, is that “there is so much friction around buying art, we just want to apply current business practices [from other industries] to help grow the market”. He notes that most of the existing loans available against art, including through the auction houses, start at $1mn.

The Christie’s partnership launches at its prints and multiples auction in New York on April 16. All 173 works, with estimates ranging from $800-$1,200 for a print by Ann Hamilton to $600,000-$800,000 for an edition of Henri Matisse’s “Jazz” portfolio (1947), are eligible for Art Money.

Christie’s has made the investment through its Ventures fund, headed by Devang Thakkar. He says the company has invested in 10 businesses since 2022 and, while its financial commitment is not disclosed, this was set between $250,000 and $2mn per company at launch. Becker describes Christie’s stake in Art Money as “minority, non-controlling and non-exclusive”.

For now, the initiative is only available to buyers in the US and Australia, but Becker says Art Money is working towards regulatory approval across all countries. Thakkar says the April 16 auction will provide “a road map to understand consumer appetite” and he hopes to roll out the offering to more sales and buyers, particularly in the UK.

Frieze’s owner Endeavor remains tight-lipped on its plans for the fair group and other companies in the entertainment conglomerate since it agreed to be taken private by the investment company Silver Lake on April 2. The transaction, which at $27.50 per share, valued the group at $13bn ($25bn including debt), marks one of the biggest private equity deals in the past decade.

While the overall strategy points to slimming down an unwieldy group of companies and events, which range from the fairs to sports tournaments and a global marketing company, as well as its core talent agency business, a source briefed on the Silver Lake acquisition says that “there are no decisions or announcements with regard to businesses within the Endeavor network”. The deal is expected to complete in the first quarter of next year.

In a statement, Ari Emanuel, who stays on as chief executive of Endeavor, said: “We are excited to continue to unlock and invest in the growth opportunities ahead as a private company.” He is in line for a $25mn “asset sale transaction bonus”, payable once certain, unspecified businesses are sold, according to a regulatory filing.

This week is the first edition of Expo Chicago under Frieze’s ownership (April 11-14, Navy Pier) while the 12th in-person edition of Frieze New York runs next month (May 1-5, The Shed).

The art world moves to Venice next week for the opening of the Biennale. Beyond the formal programme and national pavilions are plenty of gallery shows, taking advantage of the number of art-hungry visitors in town. At one end of the contemporary art spectrum is Marisa Bellani, whose gallery Roman Road now runs exhibitions nomadically. She brings a show of eight works by the self-taught Thai painter Channatip Chanvipava, now studying at London’s Royal College of Art.

The artist investigates queer sensibilities including, in his painting “Future Fertile” (2024), parenthood in the gay community. The works, which Bellani says chime with the Biennale’s theme of “Foreigners Everywhere”, are priced at between £3,500 and £30,000. She adds, though, that the showing is less about sales and “more about creating visibility” while the art world’s luminaries are in town (Dimora Ai Santi, April 17-May 27).

Another adviser-curator, Max Levai, who runs The Ranch art space in Montauk, Long Island, New York, brings a show of 11 paintings by Frank Auerbach, winner of the Biennale’s Golden Lion prize in 1986. The works, which span 1969-2016, are conceived as a “succinct survey”, Levai says, and take on a range of subjects. Like Bellani, Levai plays down any commercial goals — something of a Biennale tradition — though he concedes that “when you bring pictures together and create moments like this, opportunities might be pursued” (Palazzo da Mosto, April 18-June 28).

Levai says the title of the Venice show, Starting Again, refers to the artist’s process and in no way relates to his own experience at Marlborough Gallery, which was co-founded by his father’s uncle, Frank Lloyd. Levai worked there and was briefly its president until, in 2020, he said he was “effectively terminated”. (Marlborough’s trustees disagreed with his representation of events.) Last week, the board of the 78-year old gallery announced that it was closing for good.

Healthy sales, made mostly under $100,000, were reported from the 16th edition of the Dallas Art Fair (April 4-7). As at other such events this year, the mood was “a bit more subdued than in previous editions”, says Texas-based Nick Campbell, founder of Campbell Art Advisory. 

A loyal base of wealthy local collectors has long supported this fair and, says its director Kelly Cornell, the next generation is gradually continuing their passion. “We have an established community, which are big shoes to fill, but people are stepping up to the plate,” she says. Campbell agrees that “the younger generation is interested and engaged and is continuing Dallas’s rich collecting tradition”.

Sales reported from the 91 exhibitors included to the Dallas Museum of Art, through an acquisition fund organised with the fair since 2016. This year, the museum spent its $100,000 grant on three large-scale works for its collection: a tapestry by Ailbhe Ní Bhriain (Kerlin Gallery), a painting by JooYoung Choi (Inman) and an embroidery by Thania Petersen (Nicodim).

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Although warming global temperatures are causing sea levels to rise around the globe, the Pacific islands are experiencing the change at a more rapid rate than anywhere else. Higher tides and extreme weather can wage unrelating flooding, rendering low-lying regions uninhabitable and displacing the communities that call them home.

In Sink / Rise, Nick Brandt peers into the not-so-distant future to imagine the effects of rising waters. His photographs depict people performing unremarkable tasks like sitting at a table or tottering on a seesaw, although their surroundings are incredibly unsettling. Shot entirely in-camera off the coast of Fiji, each seemingly mundane scene occurs on the ocean floor. The subjects hold their breath as they pose, and their suffocation quickly becomes literal. Each wears a tense, rigid expression reflective of their catastrophic situation.

Conjuring an apocalyptic reality, Brandt is known for visualizing the often difficult-to-comprehend impacts of the climate crisis and now, its remarkable potential for danger. Sink / Rise is the third part of an ongoing series titled The Day May Break, which depicts people and animals affected by environmental destruction in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Bolivia. Now available in a book published by Hatje Cantz, the most recent collection is the first situated underwater.

As Zoë Lescaze describes in the introduction, the portraits are haunting and appear “as though the familiar laws of physics have stalled in this strange, liminal zone between land and sea.” Rather than buoyantly swim or float, the subjects are critically bound to their submerged positions.

Pick up Sink / Rise on Bookshop, and find more from Brandt, including upcoming opportunities to see The Day May Break in person, on his site and Instagram.

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Jane Goodall, a pioneering primatologist and one of the world’s leading experts on chimpanzees, turned 90 last week, and to celebrate, the team at Vital Impacts (previously) launched a new fundraiser in honor of her legacy.

In collaboration with the Jane Goodall Institute, The Nature of Hope: 90 Women Photographers for Jane Goodall brings together dozens of images that reconsider our relationship with the environment. Included are stunning glimpses of animal affection like Daisy Gilardini’s touching shot of two polar bears snuggled together in Manitoba, alongside documentary works like Luisa Dorr’s “Brenda and Her Mother,” which centers on two Aymaran women wearing hats and polleras, skirts tied to their Indigenous heritage.

The 90 photographers included in the project—find the works of Beth Moon and Cristina Mittermeier previously on Colossal—consider Goodall a profound influence in their work. She “did more than just redefine our understanding of the relationship between humans and animals,” says Ami Vitale, the founder of Vital Impacts. “She shattered barriers and opened doors for women everywhere.”

All proceeds from The Nature of Hope will benefit the institute. The sale runs through July 2.

Luisa Dorr, “Brenda and Her Mother”

Daisy Gilardini, “The Hug”

Tui De Roy, “Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii)” in Galapagos, Ecuador

Marina Cano, “Giraffes”

Ami Vitale, “Back to the Wild”

Tamara Dean, “Dusk Bloom”

Tamara Merino, “The Sound of Ice”

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Strange and wondrous events take place with every turn of the page in Pep Carrió’s continuing daily diary series (previously). In 2007, the artist challenged himself to draw every day, and an easy way to keep himself both motivated and accountable was to fill up an entire Moleskine datebook. With whatever materials were at hand, he began a project that kept his creative wheels turning while challenging the possibilities of a simple two-page spread.

Carrió’s illustrations range from fantastical scenes of adventure, like a whale dipping below a diminutive boat full of sightseers, to metaphysical scenes of anonymous figures who wander through enigmatic landscapes, floating calmly or rooting in place like trees. Flipping through the sketchbooks, the chronology unfolds sequentially, but the narrative remains a beguiling mystery.

Find more on Carrió’s website, and follow regular updates on Instagram.

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New research by a psychology professor at New York Institute of Technology finds that techniques used in a Baroque-era painting could help today’s marketers catch the attention of modern consumers.

Eye tracking, the practice of measuring and recording the movements and positions of a person’s eyes, offers valuable insight into how people perceive and interact with their environments. For example, understanding why consumers direct attention towards or away from an object allows marketers to create more engaging advertisements; it can also provide insight into how users engage with digital content and how platforms can be designed for a better user experience. Similarly, understanding eye movement patterns can help interior designers determine which environments are the most aesthetically pleasing.

Now, eye movement research led by Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and counseling at New York Institute of Technology, suggests that a 400-year-old painting leveraged valuable “attention-grabbing” techniques—and today’s marketers may want to take notice.

In 1628, Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens recreated the well-known oil painting The Fall of Man, made famous 100 years earlier by the Italian painter Titian. However, Rubens took creative license in modifying several features of the painting, which depicts biblical characters Adam, Eve, and the serpent child in the Garden of Eden. Whereas Titian’s work depicted the serpent child and Adam looking at one another, Rubens shifted their gaze toward Eve. In addition, Rubens added a red parrot near the outside of Adam’s body and repositioned Adam’s posture, among other changes. But how these updates changed the way viewers perceived Rubens’ work vs. Titian’s has remained unclear.

Now, as published in the Journal of Vision, Alexander and his research team have tracked eye movement to quantify where viewers direct their attention. Thirty-three participants were shown digital copies of both artworks, as well as a version of Rubens’ painting with the parrot digitally removed. Eye movements were recorded as participants gazed at the computer screen using a video-based eye tracker; scan paths and heat maps were used to determine where users directed their attention.

In general, eye movement patterns showed that participants focused more on Eve’s face in the Rubens painting, whereas attention was more broadly distributed in Titian’s work.

Then, using a subset of the experiment’s participants, the researchers “zeroed in” on the Rubens painting to determine whether the presence of the parrot played a role in shifting the focus toward Eve’s face. Participants were shown the Rubens painting and a version of the painting with the parrot digitally removed. The data showed that less eye movement occurred when the parrot was present, but when the parrot was removed, eye movement increased and gaze was redirected to other areas of the artwork. This suggests that the addition of the parrot may have been a strategic decision on Rubens’ part, directing viewers to focus their gaze on Eve.

“While we may never know why Rubens wanted to direct attention towards Eve, our findings show that his critical deviations from Titian’s painting have a powerful effect on oculomotor behavior—techniques that today’s marketers and designers may find useful,” said Alexander. “From a psychological standpoint, it also goes to show you that how and where we focus our attention is not just determined by what we see, but also how others want us to see it.” 

About New York Institute of Technology

New York Institute of Technology’s six schools and colleges offer undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and other professional degree programs in in-demand disciplines including computer science, data science, and cybersecurity; biology, health professions, and medicine; architecture and design; engineering; IT and digital technologies; management; and energy and sustainability. A nonprofit, independent, private, and nonsectarian institute of higher education founded in 1955, it welcomes nearly 8,000 students worldwide. The university has campuses in New York City and Long Island, New York; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as programs around the world. More than 114,000 alumni are part of an engaged network of physicians, architects, scientists, engineers, business leaders, digital artists, and healthcare professionals. Together, the university’s community of doers, makers, healers, and innovators empowers graduates to change the world, solve 21st-century challenges, and reinvent the future. For more information, visit nyit.edu.

Whether portraying a quiet domestic scene or a sweeping landscape, Awodiya Toluwani’s striking paintings are connected through a unique surface. As much a subject of the work as his portraits, each canvas is covered in relief marks that imitate scars, or tribal marks, historically common to several indigenous cultures in Africa. When European colonial governments began to condemn and criminalize the practice, it declined or disappeared altogether. But for some, continuing the tradition meant performing an act of resistance.

Toluwani’s paintings are created on this textured “skin,” layering empowered portraits and atmospheric scenes over the dark legacy of colonialism and human enslavement. The artist considers both the physical scars of slavery—inflicted by whips and cane lashes—and the trauma it wrought on communities throughout Africa, highlighting a complex history. “History is a very essential part of human existence,” Toluwani says in a statement. “It gives us a better understanding of lives lived in the past, better ways to live in the present, and what legacy to leave for the future generations.”

Figures play a central role in Toluwani’s works, whether evocative of Dutch Golden Age paintings, such as Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid (c.1660), or laboring within a broader landscape in a cotton field or a fishing boat. The artist has recently been drawn to compositions redolent of Lagos, Nigeria, especially an inner-city slum known as Makoko Village, in which residents build stilt houses over a lagoon. The scarred textures are always present, ranging from recognizable images of spiders, feet, or hearts, to abstract glyphs and geometric shapes.

Learn more about the artist on Zidoun-Bossoyt Gallery’s website.

“The Milkmaid” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 61.81 x 48.82 inches

“Sweat and Blood” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 59.84 x 77.95 inches

“Mother’s Instinct” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 61.81 x 48.82 inches

“Dawn Set” (2023), acrylic on textured canvas. 48 x 72.25 inches

“Minding One’s Business” (2024), acrylic on textured canvas, 59.5 x 78 inches

“Queen Yelena” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 48.82 x 61.02 inches

“Wife of Akenge” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 36.02 x 29.92 inches

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In the painstakingly detailed canvases of Nidhi Mariam Jacob, myriad flowers and fronds bloom in a vibrant visual symphony. The Bangalore-based artist draws on a longstanding love for the environment. “Nature has been my biggest healer since I was a child,” she tells Colossal. “I spent a lot of my time alone, watching flowers and trees in my mother’s and grandparents’ gardens or out in nature. I loved sitting under the shade of a specific mango tree when I felt down or sad or even extremely happy, and I still do to this day.”

Jacob’s mother was adept at tending to a wide array of plants and propagating cuttings. “I used to believe that my mother was a nature goddess,” the artist says. “She would take cuttings from everywhere, stick them in some soil in her kitchen garden and it would be sprouting leaves in no time. I thought she had magic in her fingers!”

In Jacob’s Fantasy Garden series, graceful leaves bolster vivid blossoms, which erupt in dense clusters without a browned edge or dead head in sight. She meticulously renders each specimen’s characteristics in bold lines and patterns using acrylic paint, creating paradisiacal scenes that invite the viewer to explore and relax. “I have been told by many of my collectors that my paintings have brought them good luck, better mental health, and a deep sense of joy,” she says.

A few of Jacob’s gardens are currently on view at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bangalore, and she will present a solo show this December with Kynkyny Gallery. Find more on her website and Instagram.

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