Monaco has taken a significant step towards aligning its art market with European standards and boosting its appeal through the enactment of Law n°1.526 and the subsequent clarification provided by Sovereign Order n°10.300, announced on 22 December 2023. This reform aims to modernize the resale right, benefiting both Monegasque and foreign authors who meet specific residency or nationality criteria, thus fostering a more vibrant cultural economy within the Principality.

Clarifications and Amendments

The introduction of Sovereign Order n°10.300 brings crucial clarifications and amendments to Monaco’s resale right regulations. Notably, the resale right now applies solely to VAT-subjected sales exceeding €750, with exemptions under certain conditions to encourage the circulation of artworks. Moreover, the Order stipulates stricter requirements for art market professionals, ensuring authors receive their rightful share from subsequent sales, and outlines the prerequisites for collective management organizations authorized to collect these rights on behalf of authors.

Collective Management Organizations

Central to the reform is the provision for collective management organizations, authorized by the Minister of State, to oversee the collection and distribution of resale rights. These entities play a pivotal role in safeguarding authors’ interests, requiring them to demonstrate professional competence, the ability to inform rightsholders, and uphold integrity. The regulation also accommodates organizations based outside Monaco, provided they appoint a locally domiciled representative, thereby expanding the scope for international collaboration in rights management.

Implications for the Art Market

This legislative reform, culminating in Sovereign Order n°10.300, marks a significant advancement in Monaco’s commitment to enhancing the attractiveness of its art market while ensuring fair compensation for creators. By aligning with European standards and introducing clear, enforceable guidelines for resale rights, Monaco positions itself as a competitive and reputable hub for art trade. This development not only benefits authors but also contributes to a transparent, dynamic market ecosystem that attracts buyers, sellers, and collectors worldwide.

The Sovereign Order of 5 January 2024 further underlines Monaco’s dedication to reinforcing authors’ rights and modernizing intellectual property regulations. Together with the bill of law n°1045, these initiatives signify a broader effort to recognize and regulate the ownership of intellectual works, fostering a culture of innovation and creativity in the Principality.

Nadya Tolokonnikova created Pussy Riot in 2011 partly in response to Vladimir Putin’s declaration that he would continue his reign over Russia. In 2012, when she and her collaborators undertook their now-famous performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, she was infamously sentenced to two years in prison, vaulting the art collective to international fame.

I sat down with Nadya for a conversation one Saturday in February 2024, more than a decade since Pussy Riot’s founding. We discuss the ways performance art and activism are uniquely matched, why she chooses to live geo-anonymously, and her grand utopian plans, which include becoming the matriarch of the Church of Feminism.

Read the conversation.

From the action ‘Punk Prayer,’ Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Moscow (2012). Photo by Mitya Aleshkovsky

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For Sanaa Gateja, the pan-African philosophy of ubuntu—translating to “I am because we are,” the idea that society is what gives people humanity—is one of the most profound manifestations of art. Living and working in Kampala, Uganda, Gateja heads the Kwetu Africa Art and Development Centre, an organization he founded in the early 1990s. The center trains and employs about 15 people, who create small beads from post-consumer paper that the artist then stitches into large-scale tapestries.

Gateja’s preferred materials are vintage advertisements, political posters, outdated textbooks, and other colorful printed ephemera, which are hand-rolled, dyed, and cut to about three-quarters of an inch. The artist sews each component onto barkcloth, creating abstract compositions that evoke garden plots and rituals.

Works like “Voices of Peace” depict an anonymous congregation, with fiery botanicals brightening the background. Many of Gateja’s pieces advocate for environmental and social protections and speak to personal sufficiency and growth, the latter of which are intricately bound up with both nature and society as a whole.

Whether in the fragmented texts and imagery encased in the beads or the communal-making process, the tapestries encompass a mélange of tastes, preferences, and ideologies, all passed through the hands of several individuals before emerging in the final works. Nothing goes to waste, Gateja tells BOMB  in an interview, elaborating on his process:

I work on the floor. When I’m conceptualizing, I kneel and start to sketch; then I put beads on the barkcloth. I will start drawing the piece with chalk. Chalk allows me to go back and make changes. So, I’m on the floor. I have water jugs full of beads. Those with colors that don’t fit my plan, I will paint over. Painting comes at the end…I call my way of working “unit construction.” The bead is one unit, which is a sculpture. I look at the bead by itself as a complete sculpture.

Gateja is currently working toward a solo show titled NOURISHMENT, which will run from March 22 to May 18 at Karma in Los Angeles. Find more about his work on the gallery’s site.

“Look over Yonder” (2020), paper beads on barkcloth, 83¼ × 65¼ inches

“Home” (2021), paper, acrylic stitched on bark cloth, 82⅝ × 66⅞ inches

“Voices of Peace” (2023), paper beads on barkcloth, 80 × 62½ inches

“Thirst,” no date, paper, acrylic, natural dyes, stitching on bark cloth, 90½ × 59 inches

“Soil Fertility” (2023), paper beads on barkcloth, 49¾ × 59½ inches

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Through a vibrant expression of joy, Atelier Sisu’s newest installation at the Leadenhall Building in central London counters feelings of anxiety and the tribulations of upheaval. “The world is at the precipice of change,” say Renzo B. Larriviere and Zara Pasfield of the Sydney-based studio. “This change can be felt from all directions, from climatic influences, political feuds, economic fluctuations, and social pressures.”

“Elysian Arcs” is part of RECHARGE 2024, an initiative responding to concerning trends in the mental health of London’s young professionals. Following the duo’s installation titled “Evanescent” in the same location last year, the new iteration incorporates the playfulness of their self-described “bubble-tecture” along with rainbow-like arches that gleam with a pastel sheen.

During the past year, Larriviere and Pasfield have been exploring the possibilities of dichroic materials and curvatures, which lends the iridescence evocative of soap bubbles. The surface of “Elysian Arcs” is designed to allow light to move across both the external and internal surfaces in a way that produces the greatest array of colors, which shift as one moves around or through the piece.

“We really believe in the democratisation of art and architecture, bringing art out of the gallery and into the everyday public realm—bridging the gap between cultural institutions and the urban fabric,” Atelier Sisu says. “With today’s ever-evolving technologies, we, as designers, have the capacity to change our traditional perception of what public spaces can be and how we are able to enhance and experience them.”

“Elysian Arcs” is on view through March 15. See more on the studio’s website.

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“A lot of times, I do use notions of cooking and recipes in the way I describe making my work,” Hugh Hayden says in a new short film. “I do think that cooking, as an act of making something, is a metaphor for many aspects of life.”

Hayden is well-known for his monumental sculptures and installations that scrutinize our perceptions of ourselves, our stories, and our environment. Often using wood, the artist draws on tenets of colonialism and its impacts on socioeconomic dynamics, education, and historical narratives.

In the new video produced by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Hayden likens the development of a series of cast-iron skillets to the process of baking cornbread, a dish practically synonymous with the cuisine of the American South.

“I was taking an iron-pouring class, and I didn’t know what I wanted to make,” he says. He thought about his interest in food, and the idea struck him to make a pan. He continues:

I started thinking about cast-iron cookware and my own personal history and relationship to it as this more old fashioned thing that I didn’t use much, up until then… I started to think about my grandmother and family, like the heirlooms and legacies. And also that the cast irons are like a living metal… it has special care needs so it doesn’t rust but also to keep it seasoned.

Hayden transforms the skillet to be in dialogue with culture, both in its practical use and as a treasured, sometimes collectible item. He draws on the phrase “melting pot,” which is typically used to describe how elements of different cultures blend into a more homogenous society. In the U.S., the phrase also refers to the notion that the modern nation was established and shaped over time by immigrants from different parts of the world.

Hayden embeds the sculptures with the forms of traditional African masks, symbols of cultural identity. He emphasizes the fact that their authenticity—or lack thereof—is a metaphor for the way different backgrounds lose information through replication.

“As a Black person in America, I’m very far removed from Africa,” Hayden says. “Most people in America, regardless of their ethnicity, who aren’t first generation, they’re copies of something that came from somewhere else, mixed with something else. So I like this idea of making copies of these masks that have questionable levels of authenticity.” He also adds a distinctive anatomical feature to each piece based on parts of his own body, like ears or lips, creating a connection between universal motifs and his own individuality.

The artist likens the ready-made quality of the masks to the preparation of cornbread using a combination of Jiffy Muffin Mix and additional ingredients, beginning with a mass-produced version of something and transforming it into a unique finished work. “This is a little bit like my work,” he says. “There is, per se, a ready-made element to it and the pre-made mix, but I’m taking it further. I’m starting with the history of this existing thing and adding more to it.”

Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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“I see painting as a process, the finished work merely resembling the initial sketch and ideas stretching over multiple canvases. I like my figures to influence each other in some form of dialogue,” says Peter Uka.

Based in Cologne, Uka grew up in Nigeria in the late 70s and early 80s, a time of bell bottoms, A-line dresses, platform shoes, and bright, bold prints and colors. This now-retro style emerges regularly in the artist’s portraits, as he conjures scenes of his childhood. “It is always a personal experience of some kind that I am referencing, even if I merge it with elements from my imagination or add references. To me, it’s rather a feeling of familiarity and nostalgia that I am looking for than an exact depiction of the events or people,” he adds.

Working in oil on large, nearly life-sized canvases, Uka paints primarily from memory, an approach that seamlessly blends fact and fiction. He creates multiple pieces simultaneously and constructs a sort of community scaffolding onto which he can place stories and recollections. Although some subjects depict people like his mother, aunts, and siblings, others are amalgamations of several individuals. All exude a distinctive presence. “When painting a figure I am interested in framing their essence, and the relation I have to my subjects, from meaningful memories I share with them to conversations we had that impacted me in some way,” he says.

Uka’s recent solo show Triumph of Being at Mariane Ibrahim in Paris focused on grief and loss, a theme that emerges prominently in “Yesterday.” Recreating a banal scene from his childhood home, the portrait imagines the artist’s late sister, who frequently was scolded for adjusting the television dials as a child, doing the same as an adult, the screen showing color bars. Like many of Uka’s works, the painting collapses past and present and coalesces into a vibrant tapestry of memory and imagination.

Find more from the artist on Instagram.

“Peace Invocation” (2023). Photo by Fabrice Gousset

“Marsha” (2021)

“Beach Life” (2021)

“The Traveler” (2022)

“Yesterday” (2023). Photo Vincent Cheìron

“Blue Jacket” (2021)

“Tall Long John” (2021)

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Working from Memory, Peter Uka Paints Vibrant Portraits of 1970s Nigeria appeared first on Colossal.