Something new happened at Art Basel (Switzerland) this year. For its 2025 edition in Basel, a new sector called “Premiere” was launched. By showcasing works by artists made in the past five years and limiting it to three artists per gallery, “Premiere” curates a dialogue between emerging galleries and newly recognized voices in contemporary art—those [...]
Just by looking at her paintings, you’d know who Ana Maria Velasquez is… A woman who cannot help being sensitive and meticulous. According to her, three words define her: paper, scissors and receipts. Her hands work with the same materials that she uses and discards in her travels and at home in Colombia. By Jairo [...]
by Jairo Dueñas The Colombian artist Male Correa wadded into the dark God-forsaken recesses of the city of Medellin, determined to paint them. She opened the doors to the slums and surprised their seemingly spectral inhabitants, illuminated their run-down spaces, spelled out their messages, painted their objects, and showed the aura that exhaled from their [...]
Painters who depict an epic moment in history are driven by the same impulse as history writers: to stop forgetfulness. Their names might not be well known outside their own country, their personal lives might not matter. However, what they leave behind, the realism in their paintings, can bring the viewer back to that precise instant [...]
Imagination has no limits, when one is confined to the shape of a sardine. In Lisbon, sardine symbolizes love and June is the month for one of Portugal’s main cultural events, the Sardine Festival. The festival honors the iconic 12th Century St. Anthony, the patron saint of Lisbon, who left for Italy to preach the [...]
Every two years, art shakes up the world with La Biennale Di Venezia . In this year’s international art event, the 58th version, Portugal has brought one of its most representative artists Leonor Antunes with an ambitious project that connects contemporary values to both historical and 20th century Italian architecture and design. Under the title [...]
Art can be fun. It can make you laugh, run for cover, be amazed, play like a child. And forget to ask where does art start and why bother with the question: is this art? I did not know what to expect when I walked into the Rain Room in the West Bund Art District [...]
by Juan van Wassenhove For this special space of “Catch 22”, I have made a selection of the art that I have experienced in my travels this year covering China, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, North Korea, and Switzerland. The media of the art works range from ancient roman statues and architecture to visual and digital art. [...]
Historical photography shows more than reality; it depicts a moment in time when future is uncertain, and yet the moment portrayed may never know its participation in history. The Taikang Space gallery in Beijing opens an exhibition that reflects one such extraordinary moment in China’s recent history. “Home for Photography Learning: The Friday Salon, 1977-1980” [...]
by Juan van Wassenhove “Catch 22” is a phrase used to express a contradiction or an impossible situation, like a “mission impossible". It actually describes what I often feel when I visit an art fair and its satellite events: so many things to see in such a short period of time! To share with you my experience [...]
