When we think of tarot cards, there’s a standout that probably pops to mind right away: the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. It was illustrated by British occultist and artist Pamela Coleman Smith, and more than 100 years after its publication, it remains the most widely used deck by readers. But the cards are far from being the first. Later this month, The Morgan Library & Museum presents Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, which delves into this centuries-old tradition of divination.

The exhibition celebrates some of the earliest examples alongside modern artists’ versions. Three surviving decks from the 15th century, commissioned by the Dukes of Milan, tap into the lively Italian court culture that produced the cards, plus how the imagery evolved and laid the groundwork for fortune-telling practices.

A complementary display emphasizes how artists throughout the 20th century reimagined the imagery, including Smith’s iconic deck from 1909, plus iterations by Surrealists André Breton, Victor Brauner, and Remedios Varo. The connection isn’t coincidental; Leonora Carrington devised a gilded deck in the 1950s, and Salvador Dalí also contributed his own version.

Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions highlights how artists have turned to the practice to explore what the museum describes as “an alternative to the strictures of modernist aesthetics, allowing them to explore other universes and imaginative possibilities.” The show is accompanied by a catalog, which you can order from The Morgan’s shop. See the exhibition from June 26 through October 4 in New York.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Divination, the Renaissance, and Surrealism Commingle in ‘Tarot!’ appeared first on Colossal.

As Brendon Burton continues to pursue the strange corners of rural North America, the Portland-based photographer has discovered a newfound interest in the people who once inhabited them.

No longer entirely devoid of human figures, his isolated landscapes step into the walls of abandoned homes and provide a setting for enigmatic narratives. Burton’s quiet introduction to life through the presence of domestic, intimate objects allows the viewer to piece together a speculative story about their previous owners.

From a pair of worn boots and aged portraits to a patterned quilt resting upon a bed that was once made for the last time, photography introduces an element of permanence, preserving existence while original context has long faded away.

Burton has turned to direction and video of late, working on five music videos slated to release within the next few months. He has also published a second edition of his book, Epitaph, which you can pick up on his website. Follow Burton on Instagram to tag along on his travels and adventures.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Brendon Burton’s Enigmatic Photographs Preserve Traces of North American Life appeared first on Colossal.

From the beaded phrases of Jeffrey Gibson’s sculptural weavings to Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s canoe series to Raven Halfmoon’s fingerprint-textured tributes, a new exhibition marks the largest presentation of American Indigenous work in the U.K. to date.

Opening next week, Hold to This Earth at Yorkshire Sculpture Park features nearly 70 pieces by 38 artists, which in turn represent 35 Tribal Nations. “(The artists) reference and honour ancestral knowledge whilst being steadfastly contemporary, asserting a powerful presence and countering narratives of erasure that too often position Indigenous cultures only in terms of the past,” says a statement from Tia Collection, from which the pieces are drawn.

Colossal readers will recognize works by Cannupa Hanska Luger, Dyani White Hawk, Nicholas Galanin, and more. The range of media highlights the diverse materials and approaches that Indigenous contemporary artists use and nods to cultural traditions, heritage crafts, and precious landscapes while also considering socio-economic issues, visibility and representation, and technology.

“Materials such as clay, hide, wool, beads, and natural pigments become carriers of powerful stories, memory, and tradition, rooted in connection to the earth,” says Tia Collection. “Newer modes of expression and understanding growing out of digital culture also speak to the shifting landscapes of Indigenous life in the 21st century.”

Hold to This Earth opens on June 13 and continues through April 18, 2027, in Wakefield. Keep up with exhibitions featuring works from the Tia Collection on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article ‘Hold to This Earth’ Surveys the Abundance of American Indigenous Contemporary Art appeared first on Colossal.

“There was a moment when I was walking between forests and mountains in Tepoztlán, Mexico, while dandelions floated across my face,” Alexis Mata says. “In that instant, I experienced a strange sensation, as if I were standing on another planet, in another time, confronted with an entirely new landscape.”

As the dainty seeds drifted through the air, Mata began to think about the ways life forms travel and embed themselves in new ecosystems. He was drawn to the idea of landing, of rooting and growing, which quickly became the basis for a poetic exhibition at Thinkspace in Los Angeles.

Titled Lost Landing, the show features Mata’s glitched landscapes in which familiar terrain appears otherworldly. Plants, skies, and stones slide into a sort of visual glissando, overlapping and converging in abstracted forms. “Landing functions as a metaphor for discovery, but also for reconnecting with the creative impulse and with the capacity for wonder,” the artist adds.

Dandelions gone to seed appear in several works, alongside cacti of various sizes and shapes. Thriving succulents that can live for centuries are contrasted with the dying flowers, collapsing time in an already surreal and fantastical geographic plane.

The exhibition “ultimately proposes a space where forms seem to mutate, drift, and slowly colonize their surroundings,” the artist says. “Each piece functions as the trace of an unknown landscape, a fragment of an expanding world where ideas disperse, float, and find new ways to grow.”

Lost Landing is on view through June 27. Explore more of Mata’s works on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Cacti and Clouds Glitch in Alexis Mata’s Fantastical Landscapes appeared first on Colossal.

“Ice burns, and it is hard for the warm-skinned to distinguish one sensation, fire, from the other, frost,” wrote A.S. Byatt in Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice. Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami characterizes ice in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman as a capsule that preserves the past “cleanly and clearly,” but possesses no future. In the ephemeral performance “MIZU,” frozen water takes on the form of a woman in an enchanting and emotive meditation on memory, time, and impermanence.

“MIZU” is the brainchild of puppeteer and director Élise Vigneron’s Théâtre de L’entrouvert and Companie Furankaï, which encompasses the work of choreographer and circus artist Satchie Noro. The composition highlights the fragility of our existence, the necessity of water, and “the passage from form to formlessness, from individual to cosmos,” Vigneron says.

The human body is around 60 percent water; the earth is covered by more than 70 percent. In “MIZU,” the title of which is named for the Japanese word for water (水), the human-size puppet double can be interpreted simultaneously as a unique individual and the dancer’s twin, with whom she communes and watches gradually disappear. “The melting of the ice reveals the nature of the double,” Noro says in a poetic statement. “The reflection slips away before I can escape it / After the ice, there is another material / A framework to explore / Dancing to find oneself again.”

The setting for the performance combines Noro’s interest in unique architectural apparatuses and environments outside of the traditional theater and Vigneron’s explorations of puppetry and creating forms with ice. Puppeteer Sarah Lascar controls the figure from the side and sometimes joins the dance to create a trio as is immersed in water.

“Mizu” is slated for performances throughout the summer at festivals and venues throughout Europe. Learn more on the production’s website. You might also enjoy revisiting Néle Azevedo’s “Minimum Monument.”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article ‘MIZU’ Contemplates Fragility and Impermanence in a Poignant Dance with an Ice Puppet appeared first on Colossal.

What is prison for? Touted as both a means of punishment and correction, the U.S. carceral system rarely succeeds at the latter. According to the Department of Justice, more than 650,000 people are released from prison annually, with two-thirds being arrested again within three years. Rehabilitation is the purported justification for locking away more of our residents than most other nations, but clearly, the punitive system seldom accomplishes this goal.

A new film by writer Marvin Wade and animator Evan Bode juxtaposes the counterproductive forces of the carceral system with the programs, resources, and true determination that make change possible. Presented by The New York Times‘ Opinion section, “Prison and Time” details Wade’s experience while incarcerated and how, despite the system’s rules and the whims of correctional officers, he was able to obtain his GED, learn to facilitate conflict resolution, and discover his love for writing. Time, for Wade, was the critical support he needed to gain perspective, while the system he found himself ensnared by focused on dehumanization and retribution.

For his part, Bode animated a dark, dizzying visualization that evokes the bleak and claustrophobic conditions of a prison cell and the lives it both conceals and actively thwarts. The scenes rendered in watercolor and marker appear as blips within the larger narrative, an apt material metaphor that moves the viewer throughout the film like a ticking clock. A making-of video highlights this painstaking process.

Bode and Wade met through Project Mend, a journal featuring the work of creatives impacted by the carceral system published through Syracuse University. “Mend is a very small, tight-knit group doing extraordinary things with a lot of love,” Bode says. “Last year, [the project’s founder] Patrick W. Berry presented me with some texts published in Mend for me to consider animating, one of which was Marvin Wade’s brilliant essay, ‘Time and Prison: Are They Mutually Exclusive?‘”

The two teamed up, with Wade narrating and Bode animating. Together, they create a captivating portal into Wade’s life at a particularly vulnerable and transformative time. “I believe the purpose of an artist is to move the crowd,” he writes about the film. “And my hope is that everyone watching our film will be moved in some way.”

Project Mend has tapped Bode for further collaborations, including an animated film paired with the poem “Man Skin Boy Mask” by José Angel Perez. Keep an eye out for its release on Vimeo.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Poetic Short Film Animates the Counterproductive Forces of Incarceration appeared first on Colossal.

Double can mean many things. It may imply a duplicate, symmetry, a reflection, a twin, a splitting, or even a shadow self. There is an inherent duality that forms around two parts, which may or may not be in concert with one another. Austrian psychoanalyst Otto Rank was the first to describe the concept in an essay published in 1914, and Sigmund Freud ran with the idea in his 1919 book The Uncanny.

For Freud, the phenomenon illustrated how the unconscious is actually a kind of second consciousness. Scottish psychoanalyst R.D. Laing drew on this foundation in his study of schizophrenia in the book The Divided Self, which delves into the nature of “real” and “false” selves. And in a literary sense, the concept has generated enduring works of fiction, such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Stephen King’s The Dark Half.

For Paris-based artist Xie Lei, the double inspires a new body of work in a titular solo exhibition at Musée Denys-Puech in Rodez, France. Through feather-light brushstrokes, deep shadows, and glowing hues, the artist renders spectral figures in oil paint. “What I’m trying to achieve is to transport the viewer into another world and give them the impression of diving into and participating in the painting,” Xie says.

Some canvases like “Resistance” appear to be underwater, yet also feel elemental and weightless, as if the scenes are unfolding in an alternate realm. “Double I” portrays blurry figures that could be engulfed in flames or perhaps a glowing wheat field, embracing but also possibly combating one another. Disembodied hands often reach out to grasp faces or limbs, such as in “Observance” and “Disappear II.”

Throughout Xie’s work, there is a sense of transformation, even transfiguration, as twins or reflections hover between dreams and reality. “The silent are neither entirely present nor truly absent; they are on the threshold and remain in an in-between state,” says a statement. “Contact is never a firm grip, but rather a suspended touch that preserves a slight distance.”

Double marks Xie’s receipt of the prestigious Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2025, which is awarded annually to an artist working in France, and the show runs from June 12 to October 25. He also has forthcoming solo exhibitions later this year at François Ghebaly in Los Angeles and the Song Art Museum in Beijing. See more on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Phantasmic Figures Grapple with Their Doubles in Xie Lei’s Dreamy Oil Paintings appeared first on Colossal.

As Dave Krugman traverses the streets of New York City, camera in hand, he seeks patterns. Throughout his wide-ranging practice spanning portraits, automobiles, tourism, and more, he studies “humanity’s intersection with cities and how people are influenced by their immediate environment,” says a statement. Whether in the countryside or the middle of an urban hub, rhythms and typologies emerge.

The Brooklyn-based photographer began documenting windows throughout New York City several years ago, and his aptly named series compiles a cross-section of his captures over the past half decade. Taken at night, these virtually infinite portals into individual lives are illuminated from within. Krugman focuses only on the light, shadow, and things placed just inside, such as cat beds, curtains, and holiday decorations that anyone can see as they pass by on the street. Each window on its own is a curiosity; arranged in a grid, they comprise a medley and a kind of portrait of the city.

“New York, despite being so densely populated, can often be a lonely place,” Krugman says. “By documenting the individuality and variation of these windows, and then sequencing them into randomized grids, we’re able to recreate the sense of belonging and sonder that one feels while wandering the storied streets of this beautiful metropolis.”

Leaning into the concept of “sonder,” which is an awareness of the immense complexity of others’ lives in addition to our own, the artist nudges our recognition of the unique experiences of the people behind these windows. “To me, WINDOWS is a reflection about how our similarities to each other overpower our differences, and how our isolation is ultimately overwhelmed by our sense of community and togetherness,” he says.

The search for patterns continues to inspire Krugman on wanderings throughout New York City. He likens the experience to foraging or collecting seashells on the coast. “That excitement and surprise of the variance and ‘success’ of finding a ‘good one’ is rooted in our deepest evolutionary instincts,” he says. “Layering that tendency over the built world, which often feels more foreign and unnatural, helps to remind me that we are still an extension of that natural world—still a part of it—even if this particular forest is one of steel, stone, and glass.”

Krugman is currently organizing a project to be released in two phases, including a digital art sale with Transient Labs and a physical print sale. Updates will be released via his newsletter. Krugman is also the founder of ALLSHIPS, which he describes as “a culture company” for artists. See more on his Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Dave Krugman’s ‘WINDOWS’ Captures a Multitudinous Portrait of New York City appeared first on Colossal.

Tavares Strachan is an artist whose interests, references, and approaches to making stretch so broadly, it’s not surprising that one of his more well-known works is an encyclopedia. Created in 2018, the 2,400-page volume contains 15,000 entries on individuals, events, places, and more that are critical to understanding our shared history, and yet were omitted from the Encyclopedia Britannica. This inverse book-cum-sculpture is one of many pieces within Strachan’s oeuvre that question the narratives we collectively disseminate.

Born in Nassau, the Bahamian artist is one of the leading conceptual artists working today, and his first monograph, out in July from Phaidon, peers into decades of his expansive practice.

While much of Strachan’s work considers colonialism and historical erasure, the artist is deeply rooted in the present and future. Our changing climate and the push for space exploration figure prominently and even sparked the scientific research platform, Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center (BASEC), which Strachan founded in 2018. That project launched a 3U satellite into space for a three-year orbit around the sun that same year, which shared the story of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first African-American astronaut within any national space program.

The book’s release coincides with Strachan’s exhibition The Day Tomorrow Began at The Pizzuti, part of the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, which runs through January 3. In true Strachan fashion, creating the monograph goes beyond simply gathering the various projects and shows within his practice. “When you make a book, you are participating in this very long historic lineage of bookmaking and sharing information,” he says, adding that there’s a strong spiritual connection between presenting work in person and on the page.

Get your copy from the Colossal Shop.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Tavares Strachan’s First Monograph Surveys an Encyclopedic Practice appeared first on Colossal.

A few miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles and Skid Row, St. Vincent Medical Center is considered one of the city’s most historical hospitals, having supported Angelenos since the 19th century. Vacant since 2020, the center is slated to become a full-service campus aimed at supporting people with addiction, mental health concerns, housing insecurity, and more. This transformation will begin in the next few months with a final target opening date in 2028 and a wholesale takeover in the meantime.

Through July 31, visitors experience an alternative vision for communal healing, all through the lens of 70 artists. Dubbed the Hospital of Emotions, the pop-up exhibition converts 80 rooms into temporary installations based on eight themes: joy, love, fear, anger, hope, sadness, compassion, and resilience. Among the participating artists are Lisa Waud, whose lush florals spill across an operating room, and Greg Corbino, who built a barren forest from cardboard.

Whatever you might feel in a medical setting is cast in immersive, mixed-media artworks, creatively tapping into the strange, exhilarating, and terrifying experience of being human. “Hospital of Emotions begins with the space itself. A hospital is where we confront fear, but also recognize what matters. Here, the building becomes a journey through human emotion—shifting the focus from treating the body to experiencing and processing emotion,” say exhibition curators from the studio House of Art and Dreams.

More than 10,000 visitors explored the hospital opening weekend, and several weekends are already sold out. Get your tickets and learn more about the project on its website.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article In Los Angeles, 70 Artists Transform a Vacant Hospital into a Sprawling Art Experience appeared first on Colossal.