Creuzet’s exhibitions typically carry paragraph-length titles that point to the show’s underlying themes, as did this one that recently traveled from LUMA Arles in France to LUMA Westbau in Zurich: “Orpheus was musing upon braised words, under the light rain of a blazing fog, snakes are deaf and dumb anyway, oblivion buried in the depths of insomnia.”

Not unlike the mythical Orpheus, who descended into Hades to retrieve his love Eurydice only to lose her at the last moment, we too travel into Creuzet’s world, set somewhere below the surface of wakeful consciousness. There, in his reimagined version of an immersive opera, we’re invited to experience forgotten memories told in song accompanied by hanging skeletal sculptures of landscapes, spirit creatures, panel paintings, and holograms of artifacts come to new life from Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. If we peer and listen closely, pieced together narratives surface, overlapping before they too fade away, transformed into something else with every new turn.

Creuzet’s work is a hard-to-pin sensory exploration that sparks the imagination. It’s this friction between the strange and unknown that makes us question the familiar, an exercise at the heart of Creuzet’s practice. He wants us to question everything.

That is increasingly possible through Creuzet’s work, as it becomes more visible internationally, with the latest feather in his cap being the French Pavilion; he will be the first Black man to take it over. Other major exhibitions include solos at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2019) and Camden Arts Center in London (2022), as well as appearances in Manifesta 13 in 2020, the 2018 Gwangju Biennale, and the 2017 Lyon Biennale. In 2021, he was nominated for the esteemed Prix Marcel Duchamp, administered by the Centre Pompidou.

Yet, the prestigious platform of Venice seems to have no bearing on Creuzet. “For me, it’s just a title. One step. One exhibition,” he told ARTnews in a video interview earlier this year from his Paris studio. “It’s about continuing with my work, which is to share various imaginations with others. And in a sense, to question the world, our context, our history, our present. … Nothing has changed.”

In essence, he’s interested in reaching the widest audience possible—“art only exists when we give it to others to see”—because that is the way to “generate areas of space for movements of emancipation and movements of the imagination,” he added.

Within those spaces, Creuzet challenges preconceived categorizations, particularly ones that relate to his own lived experience, such as the African and Caribbean diasporas, the significance of artistic and literary voices from those diasporas, the legacy of colonialism, and the struggle to share our planet’s resources. For Creuzet, these subjects are personal and inescapable.

Born 1986 in a working-class Paris suburb, Creuzet was raised in Martinique, where he was introduced early on to artists from the Caribbean, thanks to his family’s love for culture. “Being surrounded by that [artistic] nourishment fascinated me—it made me dream,” he said. He still remembers the blue enamel ceramics by local artist Victor Anicet that are evocative of local pre-Columbian ceramics and the music of Eugene Mona. The “enigma” of his childhood is the source of Creuzet’s “imaginary reservoir,” with Martinique its “emotional heart,” said Creuzet who returned to France in 2006 when he was 20 years-old to pursue a standard educational track at French art schools; he is now a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris.

“I’m always left trapped, because the Other … endlessly boxes me into this one identity,” Creuzet said. “I try to be what I have to be. But in one way or another, I’m constantly reminded of my condition as a Black man. … It makes me realize there is still a lot to do in terms movements to emancipate and decolonize the body, knowledge, culture, and arts.”

Throughout our hour-long conversation, Creuzet often responded in open-to-interpretation metaphoric French prose (certain nuances, of course, have been lost to translation), which should come as no surprise given that he is also a prolific poet. “I answer this way, because I don’t want to reduce everything to one thing,” he said, pointing his finger into the air in front of him.

“Julien’s vision is needed right now,” said Sibylle Friche, a partner at Chicago’s Document Gallery, one of three that represents him. “The decolonial turn in recent art is not just a trend. It is part and parcel of former imperial nations like France coming to terms with the less savory aspects of their history—work that has only begun. Julien addresses colonialism poetically, which draws attention to its affective consequences as much as its material traces.”

At his LUMA exhibitions, Creuzet’s human-scale, drawing-sculptures, made of bent poles smothered in a colorful, gummy paste, at first appear abstract, but slowly reveal themselves to be spirit-like beings. In one, a fairy emerges from a dark blue ooze, as painted-over, pre-Columbian demons mock us. Elsewhere are mesmerizing holograms of African artifacts dancing bélé, a genre associated with slavery’s abolition in Martinique.

In his practice, Creuzet orchestrates self-described operatic installations using a range of mediums and collaborations with other artists, including musicians and dancers. Through those collaborations, as well as drawing from the writings of Aimé Césaire, Edouard Glissant, and André Breton, among others, Creuzet wants to “complexify … the way different African and Creole cultures have actually played an important role in the current manifestations of contemporary France, and by extension, the contemporary world,” said Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, director of exhibitions and programs at LUMA.

There’s also a sense of hope, even joy, imbued in these works, a nod to Creuzet’s own feelings about this “moment of crystallization” and “emancipation” that we are witnessing.

“We are living through a changing context,” Creuzet said, pointing to issues as wide ranging as Covid, the energy crises, and efforts in France and elsewhere to restitute looted artworks from Africa. Society is “asking individuals to try to situate themselves in terms of who they are, where they come from, how they feel in their skin and in their bodies, and heads,” he said.

In his art, Creuzet aims to discuss socio-political issues like these in a language he hopes can reach beyond the art world’s institutional boundaries. “Julien’s work feels so urgent because of the many references and transnational connections he makes, that go beyond the bubble of contemporary art discourses,” said independent curator Cindy Sissokho, who with Céline Kopp will curate the French Pavilion. “It’s a practice that is liberating, opening up imaginaries and therefore possibilities that expand discourses about the African diaspora.”

And Creuzet’s international acclaim will likely only continue to increase in the near future. In addition to the Venice exhibition, Sissokho and Kopp will also organize a solo exhibition of Creuzet’s work later this year at the Magasin in Grenoble, where Kopp is director. Co-produced with Brown Arts Institute and David Winton Bell Gallery, the show will travel to the US starting in 2024, marking Creuzet’s first major solo institutional exhibition there. Beginning this month, he will participate in the 2023 Liverpool Biennial, and in November, he will present a new commission as part of the Performa biennial in New York. His work is also featured in the traveling exhibition, “Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today,” which debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and will open at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in October.

With a method reliant on archival and on-the-ground research, Creuzet sticks to a constant, daily work ethic. “Art is deeply about daily research. I never stop nourishing and cultivating myself. I never stop learning,” he said.

His art-making is one that forces him to “se debrouiller,” or manage with what he’s got. “I always thought of art as a door to survival or fresh air, an absolute, visceral necessity,” he said. For years, and because of financial and material constraints, Creuzet’s pieces were largely composed of found objects. They still maintain that aspect, though his production means have recently expanded, and he’s incorporated new, technically advanced elements, including virtual reality.

Today, Creuzet says he “gets the most pleasure from sharing” with others. “Generosity is the most beautiful thing,” even when much of the world is currently set up to make it “difficult to share essentials, like water and food. It’s hard to share the same planet. It’s hard to simply be.”

He continued, “I’m learning not to point fingers in an inquisitive way anymore, because I don’t think it helps improve the situation. I think everyone has to do the work of emancipation and decolonization, and we still have far to go. … I’m now trying to figure out how to engage in a form of activism and denunciation, but with less pain.”

After a long conversation with the Israel-born, London-based artist it’s more appropriate to replace notions of contradiction with those of fluidity. For more than 40 years, Arad has designed museums, like the Holon Design Museum, that look like works of art; coiling sculptures that, in his words, should be comfortable; and cars that will never meet a street. Some of Arad’s “Big Easy” chairs have sold at auction for six figures, while others are perched in his backyard; another, loaned to the Centre Pompidou for a recent retrospective but now back in his home, serves as the world’s priciest cat bed. 

Is there a difference between design and art? In a world where art fairs carry Lichtensteins and lamps, does anyone cares? It’s more interesting to interrogate the relationship between objects and their containers, or the visual semantics at play when an object heads to auction. Arad’s solo exhibition at Opera, called “Don’t Ya Tell Henri” offers a good opportunity to mull over those matters. Its title is after Henri Matisse, whose radical cutouts collages have been a longtime touchstone for Arad. Many pieces in the show, including new iterations of his Big Easy Chair and Tube sofas, traveled to New York from the gallery’s Geneva outpost. 

It was not, to put the situation lightly, the smoothest installation process: Arad, 72, fell into a coma days before the opening, leaving his fate, and that of the show, in a suspended state. Thankfully, he did recover (though he missed the opening), and later sat down with ARTnews via zoom for a chat about his practice. The conversation has been condensed. 

ARTnews: Not to ask a loaded question, but how are you?

Ron Arad: I’m feeling better everyday. I wish it was a faster improvement, really my family suffered more than me. I was in a coma for three days and they were giving me 50/50 from the doctor. But I missed all that, like I missed the show.

I’ve always wondered, do you dream when you’re in a coma? 

No, not then. It was like they flipped a switch when I woke up. I wasn’t aware I had been asleep, intubated—nothing. Absolutely nothing. The intensive care unit is like science fiction, full of amazing people from all over the world. It was like the Tower of Babylon. It makes you think, what am I doing? [laughs] They’re doing such important, amazing things. But it was good to be released from there into the world, to home. And here I am.

I haven’t been to New York to see the show yet. Well, I’ve seen the first show we’ve put on in Geneva. The title of the show, “Don’t Ya Tell Henri,” I stole it from Dylan, he has a song in the basement tapes. I’m sure Henri would be very happy with what I did. I really loved it in Geneva, it really cheered me up. Ideas are never a problem, the problem is which one you give your time too, and which one. 

How much of the show is in dialogue with Matisse or Dylan?

There are older pieces in the show, like the “Big Easy”, it’s a piece that I first did many years ago. This shape kept coming back to me. Every time I had an idea or started a new process the Big Easy would volunteer, “Me!”. I’ll show you. There’s one in my garden, you see it?

I’ve always been interested in how an object changes when in a gallery or outside or a museum.

I can’t claim the credit for the beautiful places these pieces are in, nature just happens. But I didn’t spoil it at least, that’s my contribution. But let’s see what happens, there’s your intention, and then what actually happens. But more than anything I’m very grateful for what the material does. There are so many things I couldn’t have done myself. 

Can you see my screen? 

Mhm.

My first piece of furniture was the “Rover Chair”, I went into a scrapyard and made it a domestic piece of furniture. Then, what I had in mind were readymades and found objects more than furniture; this is my first chair. When I had my retrospective at the Pompidou Center I lent them this piece. When they wanted to move it I shouted not without white gloves! 

So you always intend for your furniture to be used?

Yes, if you make a chair, you have to sit on it. When you sit on it or see someone sit on it the work is completed. This is a belief that has followed me through the years. But this has a problem, you know? The art world and the auction house, everyone wants to compartmentalize everything. If you can sit on it, it’s not art.

Recently about a year ago a prototype of [the D Sofa] sold at Phillips for an estimated for $1.7 million. In Europe, when a piece sells in an auction, there’s a small percentage that goes to the artists, but it’s not like that in America. The auction house said because it’s design, it’s not art—despite the fact that I did it in my studio.

They didn’t want to give you a percentage of a sale?

Because you put your bum in it, because they can’t see that that’s part of the art. But they had to see in the end. I don’t like people to tell me what to do. They may say it needs to be beautiful, but what I enjoy is using sophisticated technology to make the product look less machine-like. They will say to me: The last thing I want my clients to see is a video [of the piece being built by a machine]. They want to imagine me like Michelangelo, with a chisel and a hammer.

So what do you say when people ask you to define yourself as an artist, a designer, or a craftsperson? Or, is the question itself reductive?

I don’t kid myself, when I do a piece for a [furniture company], there are different criteria, different destinations. It’s the cost of production, the quantity—all sorts of things. But for me, the production does matter—if it’s a chair it needs to be comfortable. But I don’t need a passport to go from one discipline to another; I also build towers, and museums. I’ve been designing a cancer ward right now. A friend once told me to be taken seriously as an architect, you have to stop doing furniture. I don’t agree. 

People like to compartmentalize you. Maybe people that write about architecture don’t always know much about art; people that know art might not know architecture. 

To return to the resin works at Opera: They have this dynamic relationship with light and space. I understand this was your first time working with the material. What was the process like?

I worked with this amazing guy in Madrid, named Jesús. A lot was done online. The first time I actually saw one it was at the Royal Academy. There is nothing I would do differently, but like before, it is a dialogue between the will of the artist and what the process and material will do for you. 

I think you once said you had to “exert your will” on the works, and earlier you said you “drag” what the pieces will look like out of the material. It all sounds like an antagonistic relationship.

No no, it’s a love affair. I did a piece recently [inspired by] walking in the street and seeing the cars covered. You want to imagine what’s under the cover. So I thought I would draw what I don’t see. I did a sketch of a Morgan car—a very British sports car, very iconic—and I was going to show it at the Royal Academy summer show, but, you know, the pandemic. 

Whether I work with technology or I work with artisans and it’s handmade, neither is better than the other. I love them equally.

And I trust [the artisans and installers] completely, they also are the producers of the pieces. I wish I was there to organize the show, maybe it would be slightly different, or maybe it’s best I wasn’t there. 

Do you feel a pressure to defend your ideology?

Here is a debate, and we respond to it. I don’t have a battle with anyone, I don’t do things as a reaction to anyone, but when you do a big piece of marble you have to think about where it is going. It’s not going to be sold in IKEA; it is very costly to make. Oscar Wilde said that “Art is quite useless, a work of art is as useless as a flower is useless”. That is something with a function. 

Another quote of his talks about tedious people and charming people. I say the same thing about objects, boring objects or exciting objects.

So what about an object makes it exciting?

Sometimes it’s the material, sometimes the shape. The best idea—the ‘do I do it, do I not’—the biggest test, is: if I went to a gallery and saw this piece, would i be jealous? If the answer is no, I let the idea go. If we concentrate on the reason we’re talking to each other, the crystalline resin, that entire experience was exciting.

The resin has this complex refraction. I try to work too on some that have light in it, not waiting for the sun. I like the light. The pieces in the gallery—I’m not going to tell you—some I like more than others. 

I won’t push, but I’d love to know your favorite. 

Okay, it’s the black one. But maybe some like others more, that’s fine too.

“[The sculpture] is, in a way, a representation of how I imagine an ideal city,” Adjaye told ARTnews “a city that is in symbiosis with the Earth, acknowledging it and honoring it in a very deep way, but also absolutely transforming it and creating new features.”

The artwork is located at The Griot Museum of Black History in St. Louis, Missouri, and was commissioned by curator Allison Glenn for the 2023 Counterpublic triennial.

It marks a new career milestone for one of the world’s most sought after architects, who is known for designing some of the most famous structures globally, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the first Ghana Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.  

ARTnews spoke with Adjaye and Glenn about the sculpture and how Counterpublic fosters change by investing in communities. The conversation has been condensed.

Can you speak about the discussions leading to you creating your first permanent public sculpture?

David Adjaye: The “Asaase” earth sculpture series was really born out of my own meditations and reflections after returning to my motherland, Ghana, around the origins of black architecture and its relationship to the earth. It’s about lunging backward into collective memory to explore how fragments of chambers and of buildings constructed from the earth were the backdrop of everyday life and the gatherings of Black people. 

I was compelled by the idea of a permanent sculpture at The Griot as it proposes a new type of activation as a social sculpture that builds on and contributes to the cultural infrastructure established by the museum. I was deeply moved by The Griot’s institutional journey, resilience, and longevity, which the work aims to acknowledge, honor, and amplify.

The sculpture is said to be borne from your ongoing reflections on the origins of Black architecture. Can you explain that and how it influenced this work?

Adjaye: In my work I am continually searching for spaces that are either built by the Black community or inhabited by the Black community as spaces of ownership that become part of the hybridized catalog of a body of knowledge. Establishing this body of knowledge of spatial Black experience is so vital because the history of colonization was about the erasure of their spaces—erasing the sense of continuity of the community to the Earth. 

The Griot’s DNA is resisting that erasure and my hope is that Asaase III is a reminder of that by inviting you to reflect on the environment you’re in. You can engage with the community and engage with this place. 

You drew inspiration from the architecture in your father’s village and the practice of sourcing materials directly from a site for this project. How did you find applying that in a new environment?

Adjaye: As with any work, each new site proposes its own opportunities and challenges. We went through a highly technical process of excavation to determine the ideal hybrid mixture of the different earths of St. Louis and wider Missouri, from its topsoil to its limestone to the red earth brick that encapsulates some of the old buildings. 

What’s the thinking behind referencing historical works of West African architecture— such as the Tiebele royal complex in Burkina Faso and the walled city of Agadez in Niger—in this work?

The “Asaase” series is, in part, about looking back and referencing the history of materials, lost knowledge systems, and forms that we see across the African continent. I started with the idea of conical forms, which are basically the first acts in an earth terrain, in a forest terrain, or in a savannah terrain. 

The curved form is the most structural form to create stability and resistance. It’s the form humans use as their first way of creating enclosures between inside and outside. For this sculpture, I bisected conical forms to present them, as it were, to an audience that wants to engage with it spatially. 

It’s not so much about mimicry or caricature of these ancient forms but rather their essence, their elemental DNA. It’s the Earth calling you to honor who you are and your relationship to other people, to history, and to the future.

Considering your several career milestones, how significant is designing your first permanent public sculpture?

Adjaye: It’s very significant. In terms of personal meaning, I have approached it as a kind of meditation and reflection on the idea of deep time—planetary and galaxy time that is beyond the human timeline. Part of the ambition for this work is for it to have an epic duration wherein we might not be around to see its entire lifespan. It’s an incredible privilege and luxury to think about how this work can be a reminder of that, of how the Earth is evolving and revolving around the galaxy independent of our lifestyle and inhabitation. Artifice has taken over our sense of reverence for the Earth which concerns me. 

Asaase III is, in a way, a representation of how I imagine an ideal city—a city that is in symbiosis with the Earth, acknowledging it and honoring it in a very deep way, but also absolutely transforming it and creating new features. 

Glenn, can you speak on the decision to commission David Adjaye for this work?

Allison Glenn: When I was invited to think through working in the St. Louis Place neighborhood, and possible collaborations with The Griot, it was important to first understand the landscape and history of the neighborhood and museum. St. Louis Avenue used to be known as “Millionaire’s Row”, mainly due to the St. Louis red-brick mansions that were built to house the city’s wealthy merchants. The Griot is situated about 1 mile from the former site of Pruitt-Igoe, a Minoru Yamasaki designed mid-twentieth century housing development that was built from 1951-1955, and demolished just twenty years later, from 1972-1976.

Across the street from the Griot is the future site of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) main campus, on land taken by eminent domain. Many of the vast urban prairies that make up a large majority of the neighborhood immediately surrounding The Griot are now owned by private developers, in anticipation of the future capital that the NGA will bring to the neighborhood. With all this speculation at play, I wondered, who is thinking about the present moment and the present occupants of this neighborhood?

About 25 years ago, when its founder Lois Conley purchased the building that houses the Griot, she also purchased adjacent lots, with the vision of one day developing a sculpture garden. Lois’s vision for the Griot is “to be the premier resource for Black history and culture in the Midwest”, so I leaned into both of those things.

I was aware that [Adjaye] was exploring a new form of sculpture, which included using materials from the region and landscape that it was created within, that was informed by African architectural histories, including the Tiébélé Royal Complex in Burkina Faso and the Walled City of Agadez in Niger. While at The Griot, I began to pick up on a bit of symbolism that aligned with David’s references, including the Sankofa logo.

Commissioning a work of this scale at the Griot is an attempt to anchor this institution not only to the community that it serves, but also to larger histories and legacies that are at the core of its mission, and other Black history museums in the United States that David has built, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the new Studio Museum in Harlem.

Asaase III will be donated to the Griot Museum of Black History and pilot a two-year full-time fellowship to maintain, contextualize, and conserve the work. What makes Asaase III the right foundation to start the pilot? 

Glenn: Placing a work within a community requires care, context, and conservation, and proposing a 2-year fellowship pilot as a collaboration between Counterpublic, The Griot, and St. Louis Art Museum provides an opportunity for an emerging cultural producer to receive mentorship and hands on experience in conservation, with the hope that this pilot develops into a pipeline for conservators, programmers, and art handlers of color to enter the field. 

The deep investment in the community and this sculpture requires that it has a staff person dedicated to thinking through the way it is received in the neighborhood, and how the sculpture can be deployed with David’s vision.

The pilot seeks to create a pipeline for conservators of color to enter the field. How important is that, and in what ways would it shape the industry?

Glenn: In my years of working within biennial models and museums, it’s been rare to see this corner of the field (art handlers and conservators) be populated by people of diverse backgrounds. The opportunity to enact real change starts with affording opportunities that will train and develop the next field leaders, in every area and discipline, which is one of the most important steps towards enacting whole, systemic change within our arts organizations.

One of the things in Kelly’s studio, for instance, was a book with thumbnail-size drawings of his paintings that listed details like the number of gesso layers and which paints he used (sometimes also listing their compositions, since he mixed his own rainbow of brilliant azures, emerald greens, and rich reds). “Ellsworth was obsessive about cataloging things his entire life,” writes Kevin Salatino, curator of prints and drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, in the catalog for the upcoming exhibition “Ellsworth Kelly: Portrait Drawings.” “He documented everything and had a numbering system for his work. He is a gift to art historians because everything’s signed, dated, saved, et cetera, and there’s clearly a huge archive.”

This year, as the art world marks the 100th anniversary of Kelly’s birth, a number of current and upcoming museum exhibitions are focusing on particular facets of his work, from the canonical to the barely known.

Related Articles

25 Pathbreaking Asian American Artists Whose Names You Need to Know

How Artist Dana Davenport’s Braided Hair Sculptures Look to Reframe Narratives Around Black-Asian Relationships

Born Earle Goodenow, Kyohei Inukai (1913–1985) was the third son of established portrait painter Kyohei Inukai the Elder and sculptor Lucene Goodenow. When his father died, Earle Goodenow became Kyohei Inukai as a way to honor him.

Though he remained largely unknown as an artist during his lifetime, Inukai produced more than 2,000 artworks over the course of his five-decade career. Among the few showings of his art he had during his lifetime were two in 1970, at the year’s World Exposition in Osaka and the Brooklyn Museum, both in print exhibitions. To support his family, Inukai worked full-time as an art director at McCann Erickson during the day, producing art at night into the early morning. They ranged from abstract oil paintings and sumi-e (ink) paintings to silkscreens composed of bold colors and geometric shapes to even sculptures and children’s books.

But interest in Inukai’s work is slowly changing, nearly 40 years after his death, with his first institutional solo exhibition currently on view at the Japan Society in New York, through June 25. Curated by Tiffany Lambert, the Japan Society Gallery’s interim director, the show features over 100 works by the artist, dating from the late 1960s through 1985, the year of his death, showing the range of Inukai’s experimentation in style and technique, all the while incorporating and grappling with his Japanese heritage.

“You see American abstraction, Pop art, Op art as influences in his silkscreen prints,” Lambert said in an interview, “and then you also see the washi [handmade paper], the use of sumi-e (ink painting) as a pathway to abstraction in his work. For me, I see that he’s trying to find his own way to visualize some of those artistic and cultural traditions in his life.”

That journey of understanding his cultural identity filtered through various art historical influences is reflected in the show’s exhibition design. “We divided the galleries into two distinct zones: one light, airy, and approachable, the other dark, quiet, and reflective. Each space is intended to emphasize the particular nature of the work,” exhibition designers Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger, of the New York–based firm Antenna Design, told ARTnews.

In the first gallery, Inukai’s playful silkscreen prints are filled with vibrant colors, shapes, and lines. In one untitled painting from 1978, a parabola made of deep red as it changes to orange is set against various contrasting blocks of blue with a red dot at its center. The overall effect is mesmerizing. Surrounding that work, several works on papers, framed in light wood, lean against custom-built shelves, in the same light wood.

A second smaller gallery acts as a transition from those colorful abstractions to the moodier ones he made later, displaying here Inukai’s initial experiment with sumi-e ink calligraphy. In Spiro Flower 2 (1978), Inukai pairs a shape of swirling circles formed into a triangle with what appear to be two characters written in calligraphy. They are not, however, any characters legible in Japanese.

“There’s actually no language written there that’s legible,” Lambert said. “From what we know, Inukai didn’t speak any Japanese.” She added that the swirling shapes could be interpreted as a family crest or even “conjure the knots on packaging and the obi belts of the kimono.”

Inukai had once explained the work’s meaning to his stepdaughter Maggie Hannan but the exact details have now been lost to memory. But even more than their exact meaning, the pieces represent Inukai’s overall approach to his art-making, which over the decades was still indebted to seeing the landscapes of Japan for the first time during that fateful visit in 1954. “Kyohei just loved the juxtaposition of the old and new,” she said. “When my friends used to visit, all of them were floored by his limitless abilities to express himself through art.”

The exhibition then takes a dramatic change in tone upon entering the third and final gallery, where Inukai’s sumi-e ink paintings are shown in a dimmed Zen “rock garden” that mirror the stone-shaped patterns he expressed in ink on handmade paper. Inukai’s longing to connect with his cultural roots through his art is further underscored through the symbolism of stones like this, called suiseki, in Japanese culture, which has been appreciated for their aesthetics since the 7th century.

“The sumi-e works in the final gallery made us think of something grounded and eternal, so we transformed the space into a ‘rock garden’ where visitors can sit on the benches, slow down, and contemplate what they see,” Udagawa and Moeslinger, the exhibition designers, said.

The importance of his Japanese ancestry extended beyond Inukai’s art-making, too. Though his father was professionally ostracized after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Inukai instilled in his children a sense of pride in their Japanese heritage; he would often wear a kimono at home and was an expert cook in Japanese cuisine.

In addition to being a prolific artist, Inukai was also an empathetic author, penning several children’s books, like The Peevish Penguin (1955) or The Owl Who Hated the Dark (1969), all of which tell of how the titular character learned to accept their differences as strengths. Inukai’s daughter Ariane Tallman recalled, “I was made fun of due to my looks when I was in school, and daddy reassured me that I need to be proud of the fact that I was different.”

New York–based Japanese artist Natsuki Takauji said that in Inukai’s art, she sees the tendrils of generational trauma that the Inukai family experienced during World War II as Japanese Americans. 

“I think the Japanese haven’t talked enough about what happened to them after Pearl Harbor and how it changed their lives and perspectives,” said Takauji. “This damage exists subtly in Inukai’s work. I felt his strong intention to commit to his roots as an artist despite an unpromising career. I was moved by his sincerity to seek and recuperate; the result seems so striking after decades.”

In 2008, they formalized the project as a residency program, Denniston Hill (DH), which became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. In Mehretu’s words, the artists “began thinking about what it means to have access to a space, with a particular history, as queer folks of color.” She also framed the project as one that could potentially contribute to the “history of the decolonial project” of land stewardship.

The program has slowly scaled up, and in 2021 hired its first full-time executive director, Megan Steinman, who said DH is “an organization that doesn’t rely on individual people, but on a collection of relationships that are formed by how people work together.”

DH is one of several artist-led residency programs in the Northeast that have been formed in the past decade. Seeking cheaper, bigger spaces, their founders have ventured beyond New York City, and have in the process formed these initiatives in an effort to stave off the isolation of traditional studio practices. Some of these programs have even evolved into institutions in their own right. 

Among the more well-known is the Church, formed by the artist couple Eric Fischl and April Gornik in Sag Harbor, on Long Island. Their program includes residencies and an exhibition space, and was opened in 2021 in a deconsecrated 19th-century Methodist church they purchased in 2017.

Fischl and Gornik have lived in the town since 2004, and wanted to establish a hub for both engaging locals and bringing in outside artists to make new work. To achieve this, they appointed a board and staff early on.

“Our biggest problem in terms of financing is that people think that April and I are the ones funding it, and think it’s a vanity project,” Fischl said in an interview. “Part of what we’re doing, and what Sheri [Pasquarella, the Church’s director] is doing, is trying to dissuade people from thinking that. We’re going to help support the Church as long as it’s viable, but the public needs to want it to be there.”  

Support has been strong in its inaugural year, and programming has flourished. “We started with Martha Graham Dance Company before we officially even opened because it fell into our laps,” Gornik recalled.

‘I Pick Them Up in My Vehicle’

Jeremy Dennis, who sits on the board of the Church, is the founder of his own residency program. An artist and a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, he began Ma’s House in 2021 in his family’s historic home, where he and his partner live and work alongside the residents. The program is open to Indigenous artists and artists of color, who can send their interest via the organization’s website.

“I pick them up in my vehicle, and then they are set to do whatever they want for two weeks,” Dennis said. There are few requirements—residents must only give a public talk—and any artists who participate get a small stipend, thanks to funds from Creatives Rebuild New York. “The only difficulty is that with Shinnecock rules, you can only have guests if you’re physically here,” Dennis explained. That means he must balance having visiting artists with his own residency schedule. He’s managed it well, having hosted 19 residents and overseeing regular programs, including a weekly beadwork workshop led by his mother.

Ma’s House is one example of a smaller and scrappier residency and exhibition space. Others of this scale have popped up as a result of artists seeking affordable studios outside the city.  

Cheryl Donegan recalled the ease of showing her paintings at Freddy, a project run by painter Joshua Abelow in an old Methodist chapel in Monticello, New York. “It was a luxury,” she said. “I packed a rental car with everything I had made during the pandemic, didn’t worry about shipping costs, and we kicked around ideas.”

Abelow began Freddy in a Baltimore storefront and moved the project upstate when he bought the chapel in 2016. He paints in the nave, and the gallery space is a room connected to his bedroom. For Donegan’s show, he temporarily installed works over his bed and on the paint-chipped exterior.

Except for the occasional sale of artwork, Freddy’s is self-funded. “It’s not a good fit for a lot of artists because many want to have that monetary exchange be one of the primary goals,” he said in an interview. “It’s for folks who are going to be excited about the context that Freddy can provide.” That includes the change of pace. “When you come up here, it’s not like when you go to a gallery downtown, where you walk in, and you look at stuff, and then you leave. You come here and spend an afternoon, and you’re also in my house. Sometimes we all get a meal after.” 

Walter’s, the contemporary wing of the Walter Elwood Museum, is the brainchild of Brent Birnbaum. After finding his dream studio space in an old carpet factory in Amsterdam, New York, Birnbaum was brought to a quirky local museum to sign the lease. He recalled thinking: “It is 18 rooms. All have different carpet. Everything is crooked and dusty. I was in heaven.”

Birnbaum proposed curating a contemporary program to the museum’s one staff member, and he was given 1,200 square feet free of charge. He built out a gallery space and a zine store. The exhibition program merges works by artists from the greater Albany region with those from the city. “Moving forward,” he said, “the museum is going to let artists pull objects from the collection and bring them into the gallery or otherwise respond to them.”

Cavernous, subterranean architecture is the draw of lower_cavity, a residency in western Massachusetts run by multimedia artist Anthony Discenza. In 2020, he began inviting friends to work in the 3,000-square-foot basement of an old papermill, where he rents the above-ground levels as commercial space. “I leave it up to the artists how they want to use the residency,” Discenza told ARTnews.

The artist Supermrin spent two months at lower_cavity making and installing a malleable, plant-based material she has developed from lawn clippings. Sourcing brush from local orchards, she sculpted the material into the basement’s arches and hallways, “I think the most useful thing was having an environment that is not your typical gallery space,” she said in an interview. “Because my work is so experimental and biological, it’s been useful to utilize a large space without too many conditions for sanitizing.” 

Another former resident, Jak Ritger, shared that lower_cavity is unique in how difficult it was to maneuver. “It’s massive, so I was exhausted just walking back and forth while I was making my light installation. It’s also really dirty, all of my equipment got dusty.” Still, Ritger cited it as an exciting challenge. He made photos, installations, and research-based work in response to the building’s industrial history. 

Ritger put lower_cavity on the radar of Joshua Citarella and the online collective Do Not Research. DNR, as it’s known for short, formed when artists began making works and blog posts in response to readings Citarella made public on Discord, from courses he taught at RISD and SVA. By last spring, DNR had over 1,600 users and was seeking a venue for its first de-virtualized exhibition. lower_cavity’s decentralized floor plan was appealing. “We were the first show to be in this sunken room that looks a little bit like a catacomb or a doomsday bunker,” Citarella said. “The space played into a lot of the radical internet politics vibes that were very present in the show.” The exhibition featured 46 artworks by 41 artists. Over 150 people came for the opening; many had never met in person. 

Citarella says he couldn’t have imagined a better venue for DNR’s inaugural show, and that was largely due to it being artist-run. “Tony was like our guiding angel through this whole process of a rigorous install. It was a profound experience.”

A Residency’s Lifespan

Running a program is taxing for an artist to balance on top of their own practice. In an interview, Titus Kaphar, who cofounded NXTHVN, a residency and fellowship organization for artists of color in New Haven, Connecticut, stressed this: “I want artists who feel like this is something that they’re being called to do. And not to feel like it’s an obligation or a burden. I hope that this doesn’t become a necessary part of one’s existence, as artists of color in the world, that to be successful you have to create your own institution. Because that’s a lot of work.” 

Some endeavors, like Denniston Hill, the Church, and NXTHVN, have staff and structures in place for posterity, while others may have shorter runs. “I don’t know what I would do with a staff, ” Discenza admitted. “At some point, I will not be in Western Massachusetts, and at some point, I will not have access to this kind of space. lower_cavity will have its natural end.” 

Artists are perhaps best positioned to understand the needs of other artists, and experiment with new ways of meeting these needs, especially when challenges arise. An underlying motivation for all of these pursuits is that this work can be generative for the instigators, too. “I’m doing this because it feels consistent with what my work, in general, is about” Kaphar said. “It feels revelatory in my continued experience as an artist.”

Please note that we’ve included some non-US citizens who nevertheless spent significant time in the United States. They are marked with an asterisk*.

Haring’s rapidly dashed-off combinations of hieroglyphics and coloring-book outlines epitomized these developments, as his work went from street to gallery and finally to the auction house, where it ultimately fetched millions of dollars. Cut down by AIDS in 1990 at age 31, he left behind a legend that rivaled Warhol’s and that of his coeval, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Capturing lightning in a bottle, Haring reflected a cultural moment in New York that matched the louche glamor of Paris in the 1920s. Both milieus witnessed an influx of creatives prompted by larger historical forces: the aftermath of World War I for the French capital, and municipal bankruptcy for NYC during the 1970s, when white flight to the suburbs collapsed the city’s tax base. NYC became nearly as empty as its coffers, clearing a space for a tsunami of artistic aspirants—many of whom, ironically, were escaping suburbia, where they’d come of age amid the fruits of postwar prosperity and a firehose stream of television programming.

Thanks to television, Boomers grew up immersed in sitcoms, variety shows, dramas, commercials, and B-movies that introduced its impressionable audience to genres such as horror and sci-fi. Just as important, TV brought world-shattering events—JFK’s assassination, civil rights protests, the Vietnam War—into suburban living rooms. The result transformed images into a generationally shared shorthand.

It’s no surprise, then, that artists shaped by midcentury mass media—which also included rock-and-roll music and comic books—saw that the high-minded abstractions of 20th-century modernism had been exhausted after Conceptual Art and Minimalism, driving a return to representation. For Haring, this meant reviving a kind of Pop Art that was even more energetic and democratized than the original.

“Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody” will be on view at the Broad Museum, Los Angeles May 27–Oct. 8, 2023; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, from Nov. 11, 2023–Mar. 17, 2024; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, April 27–Sept. 8, 2024.

Below, a look at five of the finest shows on view in the neighborhood.

Conveniently located in the heart of the Chelsea—next door to Hauser & Wirth’s magnificent Mark Bradford solo exhibition—NADA was bustling throughout the day. Though, at 88 exhibitors, it was slightly smaller than last year’s fair, which brought 120 galleries to Basketball City at Pier 36, the roster included numerous closely watched enterprises, including Charles Moffet and Shulamit Nazarian, as well as the fair’s ever-popular NADA Projects section. Among the more well-known galleries, were stunning presentations from galleries as far flung as Shanghai, Vancouver, and Paris.

Below, see the standouts at the 2023 edition of NADA New York, which runs until May 21 at the 548 West in Chelsea.