A portrait by Simon de Pury. With thanks to Alia Al-Senussi for the LUX introduction to Kulapat

Kulapat Yantrasast is the “starchitect”of the art world, designing a new department of the Louvre in Paris, the upcoming National Museum in New Delhi, and Dib Bangkok, the recent contemporary art museum in his native Thailand. In a scintillating conversation, the Thai master speaks with LUX Senior Contributing Editor Maria Sukkar about his East Asian philosophy and South Asian awareness of how outdoors and indoors can flow

Maria Sukkar: You’re one of the most thoughtful voices working at the intersection of architecture and culture. I thought we could speak about your beginnings. You trained under Tadao Ando. What stayed with you most from that experience?

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Kulapat Yantrasast: Thank you. I was born in Thailand and have lived in Japan for 15 years. And of those 15 years, eight were with Tadao Ando. So he’s my mentor and, to be honest, the only job I had until I started my own company. So, he really is my mentor in that strong sense. I think I learned most about the process of the synergy of discipline and freedom. It’s very Zen. So that’s a big part of what I feel. And his philosophy and his work go hand in hand. There’s a direct relationship between what he believes in and what the architecture conveys in terms of the philosophy.

MS: When did you realised that architecture could operate as a cultural and social force?

Dib Bangkok contemporary art museum, 2025 , by Kulapat Yantrasast’s Why Architecture

KY: I have always admired architecture that has the power to inspire and impact. When I was young back in Thailand, I was destined, like all Asian kids, to be a lawyer or a doctor. But I knew deep down I really wanted to work in creative fields and architecture.

I went to a lecture by a poet and asked him, “What’s your advice to someone who wants to become an architect?” He looked at the steps near where we were sitting and said, “If you can design these steps so that when people reach the top, they reach enlightenment, then I think you’re doing a good job.” That’s his answer.

Read more: Making art in Palazzo Monti

And I realised he meant that architecture has a power, that when you walk up something you can be inspired, you can be enlightened. So from that point on, I felt that it has such a potential, not only just to shelter people, but to inspire and to philosophise.

MS: How do you create these spaces that allow for contemplation, especially now, in a world that is increasingly fast and disconnected?

The Michael C Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025 by Why Architecture

KY: I think, like all art, it comes from the passion or the feelings you have in yourself. From then, the work or the art or, here, the buildings can be the vehicle that helps convey that to others. So it needs that foundation. I can only have my own senses and experiences, and they are the anchor. Within that, the tools are at your disposal. The tools – the use of light, proportion, materials, and other ingredients of architecture – allow you to create an environment and allow people to feel peaceful, or uplifted. But it has to be something I myself feel.

I spent a lot of time and I paid a lot of attention to things, to everything I experienced, whether buildings or cities or a park – or any place. So I always remember that moment when the light came through. I’m very much in love with gardens. So when I’m in a garden or park, I remember those moments and, in my head, I always go back to that place, that particular experience, that I want to recreate.

MS: The word that comes to mind is fluidity: for you to be able to go from one experience, trying to recreate it, to the other. But also, I can see fluidity between the projects you create between art museums and urban environments. Was that always your intention?

Grand Rapids Art Museum, 2007 by Why Architecture

KY: Thank you. I love it, I’ve never used it before, but now I’m going to adopt it with your blessing. Because number one, I love water. I think water is the source of life, as we know, and fluidity. Sometimes people use the word flexibility, and flexibility is not as good as fluidity. Flexibility is like a play dough that you play with. Fluidity is really transformative.

I feel I became that way because when I went to Japan – I lived in Japan for 15 years – I would try to figure out what my energy is. I see my Thai roots as fluid, very flexible and fluid, eclectic. It’s Indochina, which is between India and China, and because of that there is a sense of fluidity and this kind of eclectic adaptation, so that you can respond to both big influences from these two big giants.

Read more: Photography in conversation with the new American West

When I go to Japan, even though I love Japan and I love how I feel, I feel everything is so rigid, so precise and so minimal. Within that, even though I love it and I work within it and it’s part of me, too, I feel sometimes that it can be lifeless, so I long for that kind of immersion of taste and smells and everything. That’s when I say, it’s my Thai roots showing. I think the fluidity perhaps comes from that bridge between the maximalism of Thai style and the minimalism of Japanese style.

A view from the Louvre’s new Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art Department by Why Architecture, to open in 2027

MS: So I’m going to let you in on a little secret. My father was an architect and a civil engineer and my maternal grandfather was also an architect and I was raised in that milieu where it’s about beautiful lines and beautiful structures. I’ve always thought that architecture sits at the crossroads between engineering and art because it’s creating, it’s not only calculating how many concrete tons you need to build the structure, which is not as poetic and romantic as being an architect, and many of your projects sit at this intersection between architecture and contemporary art. Do you approach a museum differently?

KY: Thank you. I love what you said about being the marriage or the balance between the structure or the logic and the aesthetic, which is the art itself. I feel very strongly that this is part of architecture and we need to do both.

For building an art museum, or a museum in general, I feel it has the greatest potential to inspire people because the subject is the art. To be honest, a lot of architects like to become artists, and a lot of times they think of the museum itself as the art, at the expense of the art within. Sometimes it doesn’t give fair accommodation and experience to the art inside the building. So I feel strongly that the power of architecture is not to compete with the art. The power of architecture is to create an environment that integrates everything else, because way back when, architecture was like the big sister to accommodate everyone: painting, sculpture, opera, music, food, everything can happen in one architecture.

In modern times, things became fragmented: painting goes to the gallery, opera goes to the opera house. I feel that in our generation, it’s our job to bring everything together again, back to the fluidity aspect.

Kulapat Yantrasast with curator Naomi Beckwith and artist Bracha L Ettinger

Within that notion, when I design museums, I see myself as a matchmaker. How do I bring people together? I care a lot about people who don’t go to museums, because those people perhaps need my help the most. I want them to feel welcome, not intimidated, and able to explore and get their potential out. I want the design of the museum to be uplifting, friendly, and allow them to be themselves. On the other hand, I also want the art to feel elevated, within the right proportion, with light and other elements. So as a matchmaker, I make both parts look good, and then I stay in the background to make sure the magic happens.

Read more: Artists through the eye of Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

MS: So, as the role of museums is changing, you’re part of the movement, which is redefining the museum’s role. They’re not repositories of objects any more, their role is beyond that, and you’re helping them change the definition of a boring, dingy, dark, old museum. If you wanted to define the new role of a museum, what would be Kulapat’s definition of that role?

KY: I think that the museum is somewhat an impact from 19th-century colonisation. It started, as you said, as a depository. So what I would say is it is moving from the museum as a temple to the museum as a cultural playground.

Kulapat Yantrasast photographed with artist Yoko Ono

What I like about the cultural playground is it’s not hierarchical. People know how to use it, and it’s not random. If you have 10 minutes, you can play with it. If you have an hour, you can do it. It becomes a place that allows you to get in touch with your own creative side. Just as a playground allows you to get in touch with yourself, the museum should be used that way.

The museum is one of our most important resources. People think about museums as a third place in the world today, a place between work and life. Sometimes we think about recreation and social life. But I feel the art potential is that we should go to museums to understand ourselves, to be ourselves.

Museums are also sites of empathy, which is so needed today. They are places where we go to see art from other people. We should be able to love not only art from our own people, but from others. I thought about that because I grew up in Thailand. My father’s Chinese, my mother’s Thai. Even though they’re close together and there’s no conflict, my mother didn’t actually like a lot of Chinese culture, except Chinese food.

Yantrasast with artist Kelly Akashi and art-world banker Agnes Lew

I say this because culture has the power to bring people together. We don’t care who they are, but we love that food, we love that music. I think that museums are – like the project we’re doing at the Louvre, where Byzantine, Roman and early Christian areas work together with the Islamic wing – trying to create that sense of empathy, so people can see that, if we look closely, we all come from similar roots.

Read more: Mercedes-Maybach S-Class Review

MS: This is beautiful what you just said, this democratisation of the museum space. Because museums could be quite intimidating for people, but we see more and more that people go to museums and they’re curious about what happens inside. But back to what you speak about, I spoke about empathy because your practice speaks about empathy. How do you think empathy translates into your architecture?

KY: First of all, people need to feel dignified. They need to feel that they’re welcome and can feel their own presence. Good spaces make you feel that, good spaces make you feel your life and your potential. Once you are comfortable, once you feel you have a place, then you are able to really look at other people in a loving and understanding way. That sense of care is important in architecture.

Kulapat Yantrasast with interior designer Kelly Wearstler, photographed in Jaipur

My pet peeve is that I really hate it when spaces are not designed well, when they make people hate each other. Even something as basic as a queuing system can make people feel peaceful and wait for their time, or make them rush and push each other. That’s something we can design. I sometimes joke in my office: you design a house for a couple, and they can love each other or hate each other, it’s in your hands. If you design something a little too small, or not the right proportion, or not the right layout of the bathroom or kitchen, people end up in conflict.

Within that, there is humanity and humility in design, in planning and in aesthetic architecture, which can really bring people to understand each other further, not only people from different backgrounds, but even people who live together, like a family.

I’m very interested in the seamless indoor-outdoor component, maybe because I’m from the global south, where the climate allows you, or wants you, to be indoor-outdoor. I’m not in a strict cold climate, where there’s a severity between the outside and the inside. So I have that view and experience of nature that way.

Kulapat Yantrasast’s personal sketch of DIB Bangkok, devoted to LUX

I want to go back to what you said, because the idea of ego, the idea of form, is so important in architecture. People love sexy forms. It’s like fashion, like other things. But what I always say in the office is: design the life, not the form. Don’t stop at form. Form is only your tool to design the life you want people to live.

MS: What about the role of landscape?

Read more: Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at Sultanahmet Review

KY: We have a multidiscipline studio. One of them is landscape, and we include our landscape team in projects when we’re not working on landscape, because I like the way they think. It’s a very different approach, because landscape designers think holistically. They think about the context of the city, continuity from the city to the site, and they think about time.

A garden, when it is first created, may be the least beautiful, because it grows over time. Whereas architecture, the first day it opens may be the most beautiful, and then it degrades. Because of that, I want my architects to think about how a place works over time, when trees grow bigger, when materials degrade. I think the philosophy from landscape can inform a lot of architecture.

why-site.com

Edoardo Monti photographed with a 1750 fresco at Palazzo Monti

Since Edoardo Monti started his Palazzo Monti artists’ residency in Brescia, northern Italy, in 2017, it has evolved to become one of the most tasteful, sophisticated and respected artist residencies in the world, supported by patrons such as local hero Umberta Gnutti Beretta. Many of the more than 250 young artists he has featured have since exploded on to the global art scene, and collectors keep a careful watch. As the Palazzo opens its third space this year, in a Brescia bunker, Monti tells LUX the story so far, and two key collectors comment on what makes it important

“I started the Palazzo Monti Residency quite instinctively – I wanted to live surrounded by artists, to create a space where they could feel free, supported and genuinely at home while working.

An artists’ living room at the Palazzo Monti with Slick Submissions, 2018, by Bea Bonafini

In terms of discovering the artists for the residency, it’s mutual – we find each other. I am drawn to artists with a certain sensitivity and urgency, something you feel immediately, before you can even explain it.

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Often, the relationship starts quite intuitively, but it develops over time into something much more layered. Many of the artists who pass through Palazzo Monti don’t just come for a residency – they stay connected, come back or evolve with us in different ways.

The palazzo’s nearby second space, Fertile, with La cena del cacciatore, 2024, by Luca Ceccherini, and Then Glut Thy Sorrow on a Morning Rose, 2022, by Delphine Hennelly

There’s a sense of continuity that becomes very important. For example, there have been artists who arrived at an early stage of their practice, using the residency as a moment of experimentation, and then returned later with a much more defined body of work, sometimes even exhibiting in the same spaces where they started. In other cases, collaborations have extended beyond Brescia, through exhibitions, introductions to collectors or simply ongoing dialogue.

In 50 years time, I would like history to say that Palazzo Monti was a place where artists felt seen early on, where important practices were nurtured quietly and where meaningful relationships began and lasted over time.”

– Edoardo Monti

The programme’s Fertile space with Nobody But You/Nobody’s Gonna Fuck Me Like Me, 2019, by Sophie Spedding

“Palazzo Monti stands out for its ability to nurture artists at a pivotal stage in their careers, thanks to Edoardo’s thoughtful and hands-on approach. The residency brings forward compelling practices. I am glad to have works by Konstantina Krikzoni, Georg Wilson, Natalia Gonzalez Martin, Anna Ruth, Charlotte Edey, Diane Dal-Pra, Lindsey Bull and Nour El Saleh in my collection, discovered through the programme”

Read more: Artists through the eye of Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

– Francesca Milani, collector and patron

The new gallery space Bundervik, set in a former air-raid shelter

“I see Edoardo Monti’s residency at Palazzo Monti as a vital platform for emerging artists, fostering meaningful dialogue and experimentation. His vision creates a rare balance between support and freedom. I have followed several artists from the programme closely and I am pleased to have work by Sara Birns, Oxana Tregubova, Konstantina Krikzoni and others in my collection”

– Warly Tomei, Venice-based collector and patron

palazzomonti.org

Reem El Roubi and Amir Daoud Abdellatif with 5.63° N, 0.00° E, 2025, by El Anatsui

Sudanese by birth, Reem El Roubi has become an influential and discerning advocate for African and West Asian art, and holds significant positions in some of the world’s most distinguished art institutions. She speaks to LUX about the importance of supporting culture

LUX: Why do you support artists?

Reem El Roubi: My husband Amir [Daoud Abdellatif] and I met many artists over the years, and see the art world as an ecosystem that fosters artists’ creativity, where collectors and patrons play a big role.

Follow LUX on Instagram: @luxthemagazine

LUX: Do you consider yourself a patron of the arts and when did you realise that, if so?

RER: When I joined the Tate Africa Acquisitions Committee and became a patron of the Louvre Abu Dhabi and Sharjah Art Foundation in the UAE, though I have always supported artists.

Untitled, 1998, by Ahmed Shibrain. From the collection of Reem El Roubi and Amir Daoud Abdellatif

LUX: How can individuals best support artists in building their own collections?

RER: By investing in young, emerging and mid-career artists, as well as established ones. It’s powerful to see such artworks included alongside each other in private collections.

LUX: What mistakes have you made?

RER: Impulse buying without research and understanding of the artist’s practice.

LUX: African artists do not have the same infrastructure behind them as those from Europe or the US. Will this change?

RER: There are more and more galleries, institutions and foundations supporting artists from the African continent. Hopefully, that will lead to the development of an ecosystem to match that in Europe and the US. Artists such as El Anatsui and William Kentridge have shown the presence of such infrastructure.

LUX: Is there something called “African art” or is the continent too diverse for this term?

Figures from Procession, 1999, by William Kentridge.
From the collection of Reem El Roubi and Amir Daoud Abdellatif

RER: I do feel it is very difficult to generalise African Art. There is a clear distinction between each country with the richness of the culture, history and tribes. For example, I am a Sudanese woman who is an African and Arab.

LUX: What role has your committee at Tate played in supporting artists?

RER: Tate’s remits enable it to play a major role through building the national collection and bringing artists’ work to public attention. Tates Modern, Britain, St Ives and Liverpool have extensive partnerships and a global network.

Read more:

Read more: Photography in conversation with the new American West

LUX: What Sudanese artists do you admire?

RER: Kamala Ibrahim Ishag, who founded the Khartoum School in the 1960s alongside Ibrahim El-Salahi and Ahmed Shibrain. Kamala’s works focus on feminism, grief and zar rituals. Other significant artists include Mohamed Otaybi and Hussein Shariffe.

LUX: Government funding is in crisis. Are artists suffering?

Untitled, c 1964, by Ibrahim El-Salahi. From the collection of Reem El Roubi and Amir Daoud Abdellatif

RER: Yes, which is why art patronage has become increasingly important.

LUX: Will the Gulf ever have the institutional infrastructure of Europe or the US?

RER: This can already be seen in the UAE and Qatar. The Gulf has attracted top global and regional experts to form a unique relationship in creating institutional infrastructure. The success is also through the funding.

LUX: How is supporting artists best done?

RER: Institutions play a vital role in artists’ market valuation and the recognition of artists’ practices; individuals raise awareness and foster artists’ creativity through investments.

LUX: Do you have a strategy, or a dream?

RER: I see my role as more custodian than collector. I will continue my passion and see where this journey takes us.

tate.org.uk

louvreabudhabi.ae

sharjahart.org

Sculptor Nicole Farhi with photographer and LUX Contributing Editor Maryam Eisler, with their work

Former fashion designer supreme Nicole Farhi and art patron turned artist Maryam Eisler came together in the South of France to create their first ever joint show. Annie Preston was there   

‘Women in Mind’ brought together the sculptural work of Nicole Farhi and the photography of Maryam Eisler, under the curation of Catherine Loewe, in a remarkable location in the South of France. An all-women team behind an exhibition celebrating, in equal measure, the female body, the female mind and the meeting point between the two. 

Follow LUX on Instagram: @luxthemagazine

The exhibition was located at Dragon Hill Residence, which overlooks the sun-baked hills of Mouans-Sartoux. The driveway up to Dragon Hill curls through greenery before opening onto a structure that feels less built, than grown. This is the work of architect Jacques Couëlle, whose chalk-white forms ripple and fold across the hillside like something shaped by wind and water rather than brick and plaster. Every room curves toward the next, every window seems to lean towards the horizon. The works were shown primarily outside, in an open-air setting, positioned to catch the shifting Provençal light as visitors moved through the grounds. 

Women in Mind brings together the sculptural work of Nicole Farhi and the photography of Maryam Eisler, under the curation of Catherine Loewe

For Nicole Farhi, the chance to show outdoors carried a particular meaning. “It is so nice to see some life around the sculpture. We are part of nature”. For an artist whose earlier career was spent in fashion, the move to sculpture has clearly become something more personal.   

“Sculpture is more me than fashion ever was,” she reflects, before adding of the work on show, “this work is totally within, it is you, it is totally you”. Working in the South of France for the exhibition also struck a chord for Nicole, being born in Nice, “for me it is a return home,” she said simply, “it is emotional”.

Full Stretch, carved from Jesmonite by Nicole Farhi, displayed against the backdrop of Dragon Hill’s rolling landscape

Maryam Eisler’s images were displayed on easels in the garden and distributed around the house; they blur the line between body and terrain so completely that, at a glance, it is hard to tell which one you are looking at. Eisler described the unexpected kinship between her work and Farhi’s as something almost fated: “We have this synergy and these waves which intermingle and we found each other in the universe”. The two artists “share a similar language, and ethos of life and our thoughts about women with a capital W”. 

At the heart of Eisler’s practice is a long-running exploration of what she calls the “feminine sublime,” a theme she has pursued in her photography for about fifteen years. “It is about the essence of woman,” she said, “everything that she represents, her sensuality, alongside her sexuality, it is about her power of creation, it’s about really putting her on a pedestal”.

Eisler is quick to distinguish how the female form has often been depicted by men, “the male photographer has a very different gaze from a woman’s”. On her own approach, she adds, “I don’t ever shy away from anything. I think I have a more perhaps, flowy, poetry approach to form… My only technique is intuition; it is my gut”. 

“It is so nice to see some life around the sculpture. We are part of nature” – Nicole Farhi. Photographs by Maryam Eisler

What began as a chance encounter at a group show in London last year, has clearly grown into something far more considered.   

Curator Catherine Loewe spoke of how the idea for the exhibition first took shape. “When I saw the work together in a big group show, I thought this would be a really great solo show,” she recalled, describing both artists as “special, powerful women”. 

Read more: Linder through the highball glass

Of her collaborators, she said simply, “working with the ladies is my thing,” adding that the exhibition felt part of a broader moment for the women in the arts, “it’s only now that we are coming into our own, as women, being able to do things like this”.  Even the working process, then, mirrored the philosophy behind the show itself.

Nicole Farhi’s Jesomite sculpture titled La Doucer, placed in the landscape of Dragon Hill by curator Catherine Loewe

Guests, too, seemed to sense that something genuinely collaborative and emotionally charged had taken shape here. Collector Gülin Dokmeci welcomed the focus of the show and the wider programme at Dragon Hill, “I like that it’s a women’s exhibition, how the curator is a woman, and the artists are women, supporting women,” she said, adding, “the residency they do here is very inspiring for the artists”. 

Vice Versa and Pile Ou Face, both made from bronze in a dark patina, exhibited inside the curving architecture of Dragon Hill

Magali Mazzei, founder of LYLIS, reflected how naturally the art seemed to belong within the Couëlles curves of Dragon Hill. “The organic feel of the house with the expression of the artists is very symbiotic, it is very authentic,” she said, “only curves, no corners, the same as the house, so it is perfect, a perfect match”. 

Read more: A tasting of top Napa Cabernet Sauvignons with Paul Hobbs

Frabrice Farhi, Nicole’s nephew, was struck by how naturally the two artists’ practices sat alongside one another: “the chemistry between the two artists, I think that’s the best part,” he said. “At first, you can think that it’s two different types of art, photography and sculpture, but they work so well together”. 

Curator Catherine Loewe and photographer Maryam Eisler, with Phenomenal Woman

Walking down the garden as the light began to soften over the sea, with Farhi’s bronze catching the afternoon sun and Eisler’s photographs now within the curves of the house and the greenery, the scene seemed, in its quiet way, a statement of intent, of a group of women, coming fully into their own. 

https://www.loewecontemporary.com

https://www.maryameisler.com  

http://nicolefarhisculpture.com  

Written by Annie Preston

An installation view of Light, curated by Angeliki Kim Perfetti, showing until 30 August at Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz

This summer, Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz presents Light, a luminous group exhibition curated by Angeliki Kim Perfetti, founder of DYNAMISK and LUX Contributing Editor. Inspired by her upbringing in Swedish Lapland, The glamorous, dynamic Perfetti – alongside the gallery’s luminescent Director Giorgia von Albertini – brings together works by Larry Bell, Frank Bowling, Martin Creed, Jenny Holzer, and Pipilotti Rist. The show demonstrates more evidence that St Moritz is cementing its place as one of Europe’s art hubs – unsurprising given the number of collectors in residence – and that summer in the Engadine is becoming as attractive as winter.

Curator Angeliki Kim-Perfetti at the opening of her exhibition Light

“When I was asked to curate an exhibition for Hauser & Wirth in St Moritz I returned to my personal past and my upbringing in the very North of the Swedish Lapland. Where everyday life is contrasted between the extreme light in summer and the long dark winters, with an occasional visit of the Northern light painting the sky in the most beautiful colours. Finding myself in the mountain village of St Moritz not only made me recall home, but also inspired me to reflect upon why I am so mesmerised by light.”

– Angeliki Kim Perfetti, curator of Light at Hauser & Wirth St Moritz

Jenny Holzer’s Live Music (2024) on display in the exhibition Light. Image courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

A 2025 video installation by Pipilotti Rist titled Tine Refills the Oil. Image courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, and Luhring Augustine

Martin Ring’s 2015 DON’T WORRY in multicolour neon. Image courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth is in the heart of St Moritz opposite the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel

Larry Bell’s Open Box SS, made of sand and zinc laminated glass coated with stainless steel and titanium. Image courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Frank Bowling’s 1977 Untitled, made of acrylic and collage on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

The show will be on view at Hauser & Wirth St Moritz from 12 July to 30 August 2025

The four curators of the “Women and Speed” show: Maria Sukkar, Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, Maryam Eisler and Angeliki Kim Perfetti

When Richard Mille, the super-luxury watch brand, asked LUX magazine to create an exhibition in their Mayfair boutique during London’s Frieze Art Fair, we engaged four female collectors-curators to create an original narrative around the topic of “Women and Speed”. But why does the subject feel like an unconventional – even contradictory – pairing? Woman have often been depicted as slow, pensive, gentle subjects in art. Meanwhile, the male subject has raced from the oil-painted battle scene to the quick flash of the photograph as they drive past in fast cars, with women the ever-bystander.

Our curators, Maria Sukkar, Maryam Eisler, Angeliki Kim Perfetti and Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, challenged that narrative.

The result was a stunning and original show featuring works by artists including Tracey Emin, Marina Abramović and Mary McCartney, and including iconic works such as Warhol‘s polaroid of Blondie’s Debbie Harry and American artist Jordan Watson‘s depiction of a female racing driver. There were also celebrated works by the likes of Helmut Newton, Nassia Inglessis, Fernand Fonssagrives, Maryam Eisler, and a stunning digital artwork by Six N. Five.

Guests of the opening included the crème de la crème of the London and international collecting world.

Follow LUX on Instagram: @luxthemagazine

Linda Bassatne, Maria Sukkar, Jo Glynn-Smith, Dina Nasser Khadivi and Alice Harvey

Francesca Ariani and Chloë Lopez

Samantha Welsh, Angeliki Kim Perfetti, Maria Sukkar, Darius Sanai and Maryam Eisler in the Richard Mille flagship store on Old Bond Street where the art curation took place

Tim Jeffries and Maryam Eisler

Jordan Watson with his artwork “Fast and Futurist” and Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, enjoying the George Condo issue of LUX

Megan Reynolds and Chloë Lopez

Maryam Eisler, Tim Jeffries, Rachel Verghis and Darius Sanai in front of the Mary McCartney work “Kate, Kate, Kate”

Jordan Watson and Tarka Russell

Darius Sanai, Maryam Eisler, Maria Sukkar and Katy Wickremesinghe

Jonathan Glynn Smith and Nick Sullivan

Nassia Inglessis, Margot Mottaz and Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst

Alexander James and Marcello Polito

Maryam Eisler, Michele Codoni, and Angeliki Kim Perfetti

Angeliki Kim Perfetti and Annabelle Scholar

The curators: Maria Sukkar, Maryam Eisler, Angeliki Kim Perfetti and Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst – with special thanks to Michael Hoppen, Tim Jeffries, Mary McCartney and Superblue.

Director: Darius Sanai, Editor-in-chief, LUX magazine

The Director of London’s Design Museum, Tim Marlow is a celebrated figure in both design and art and an often outspoken authority on both. Samantha Welsh brings Marlow together with South Asian art flag bearer and philanthropist Durjoy Rahman, whose commercial business focusses on textile design and production, for an insightful and sometimes feisty exchange

LUX: What is the relationship between design and art?

Tim Marlow: Designers can make art, and artists can design, but art should be produced without responsibility for anything other than the motivation of the person creating it. Design is a response to something, about problem solving, involving critical design and speculative design, and seeks to find a solution functionally.

Durjoy Rahman: Yes, design and art are interrelated but art is self-responsive and inspirational and can happen consciously or subconsciously, whereas design is purpose-oriented. Of course much design involves art and a lot of artworks include design elements.

TM: Design has existed since humans had consciousness and needed to provide structures to survive, evolve and thrive. We also have this compulsion to express ourselves, to make sense of things, to express our consciousness. The notion of a designer as we understand it now in the West originates in the Industrial Revolution and before that there was no categorisation.

Tim Marlow explored the relationship between art and design in the 2024 exhibition Barbie at the Design Museum, London

LUX: So there are blurred boundaries?

TM: Leonardo Da Vinci was a scientist, an artist, a designer, a composite creative human being. Hussein Chalayan is talented fashion designer who makes sculpture, his fashion designs are informed by sculpture, and his sculpture is informed by the language of fashion that he has evolved. Art often reaches the language of boundary blurring, but I have encountered quite a lot of resistance to people from design or architecture moving in on that world. With architects, if you have gone through seven years of professional training and then somebody comes along from a completely different background to design the building you might baulk at them being called an architect but one has to stop being too insecure about these things. Some of the greatest twentieth century starchitects like Carlo Scarpa, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright were not fully-qualified architects.

LUX: How can good design attract new art audiences?

TM: Creative input from different disciplines into other disciplines is something to celebrate. Rachel Whiteread once designed a daybed. Charles and Ray Eames explored the functionality of plywood to design furniture, a prosthetic leg support, and to make sculpture. How we categorize art or design is a national cultural obsession and we should kick it about a bit!

DR: I have seen a resentment among the artist community where a product designer can claim they are both designer and an artist but an artist cannot call himself a designer. The designer can call their product an installation, a sculpture, a movable artwork but a watercolorist cannot make something and call themselves a designer. When I saw the Eames’ first plywood chair I thought it was a sculpture! And Philiippe Starck is designer, an architect, and an artist.

Latest images from Durjoy Rahman’s 3/22 display space, featuring his collection of art and design

LUX: What can be an approach to collecting functional designed works?

TM: As Director of the Design Museum I salute the collecting of design but also love the fact that design is a growing area for collectors.

LUX: What about design involving an iterative technological function?

TM: There is no question that design is often iterative and it does evolve. It is not always a progression to greater efficacy but tech tends to move us in that direction. A chair produced two hundred years ago can be as comfortable as one that is produced now. However, devices to communicate between human has absolutely evolved over hundreds, if not thousands, even millions of miles. Our collections are displayed around three themes: designer, maker, user; and at the very end is the final piece, the wall. As a series of objects it resembles a diagram interlinking TVs, typewriters, calendars, phones, pens, calculators. Right in the middle is an iPhone, showing all of those functions of those designed objects have been distilled into this one object. But it’s not actually saying that this object is better! […] So design is evolutionary and iterative, whereas art is not like that.

DR: I was recently introduced by LUX to the largest collector of video art in the world right now, whose collection is based in Berlin and Frankfurt. Is technology influencing art or is art influencing technology? There, technology was inspired by art. […] At Venice Biennale, Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation sponsored an artist who created a work that involved photographing, scanning and reassembling tile by tile a heritage basilica reconfigured as an aluminium object.

LUX: How do you decide what design talent to mentor?

TM: For both, you look at the final degree shows, of course, and there are prizes and bursaries for emerging talent. When you see someone early on in their career who is doing interesting things the key is to try and just watch that talent and give it quiet support, not overburden it with exhibitions too early. It is nebulous, intuitive and sometimes self-evident but always about people who understand or give a sense of authenticity, that it is something that they have actually wrestled with and the work is the result of dealing with complexity rather than ease or facility.

DR: I am not a leader of an institution, or involved in programming, so I am not under pressure to identify the talent in the same way. I am a provider, an art collector. While we started our foundation, we had less pressure but our question is always to ask what has contemporary relevance.

Conservatory by Jamie Gatty Irving: a feature of the the Design Researchers in Residence Program, which supports young designers

TM: With western art, there are certain artists whose talent is self-evidently there and their reputations as major artists will not diminish. For example, Rembrandt and Caravaggio are just two we can name but the idea there is an innate talent that is always recognized is wrong. There are people who had no opportunity to exhibit, women, for example, and we now realize there is an extraordinary talent that was never showcased and we did not know about. Taste and talent change, they are not universal.

LUX: What is needed from the spaces in which projects happen? How can this work physically and metaphorically?

DR: Physically, it should be welcoming and inspiring environment that fosters creativity and collaboration metaphorically, a space where artists can express themselves freely. We had a photography exhibition by Magnum photographer Raghu Rai and converted a finance institute into an art space, with a video installation and a 3D context for photos taken during the Bangladeshi war of liberation in 1971 to offer a new generation a different perspective of the struggle and sacrifice. I especially enjoyed your Ai Wei Wei exhibition at the Design Museum last year, Tim, with the old Chinese columns installed to show the artist’s background.

An exploration of space in relationship to art design projects, from the 2023 Design Museum exhibition Ai Wei Wei: Making Sense

TM: Thank you, that show was interesting because we took out all the walls of the space to open it up completely. The best characteristic of space in which art design projects can happen is flexibility. Having historically loaded spaces where their history is evident can be a real joy for artists too. In the Royal Academy there are these beaux arts spaces with beautiful light and you could build on, play with, transform and subvert the history of those spaces but you take them as a given; whereas I think the idea of having flexible spaces where things can happen in different ways are really important. You need also to layer on interesting lighting, finishes, materials. Carpeting is an absolute killer if you are trying to show art or design. Think of a trade fair or art fair where the floors are carpeted as you walk around and how that gives a completely different feel for a kind of project.

LUX: What about curatorial autonomy, what is your message for Millennials and Gen Z philanthropists who want to see institutions that look like them and model their values?

TM: It is very difficult if you chase audiences too specifically. As an institution you have to program and you have to do it from a position of expertise. That is not being arrogant. At the RA and the Design Museum I have always worked with external experts in a subject.

We do not know everything about everything but we do know who the interesting people are to wrestle with and present it. I think if you start presenting things in interesting, incredible ways with authority and authenticity, you then have a chance to show audiences things that they did not know they would like. You also look at what is culturally resonant for people and think about attracting certain kinds of audience that wouldn’t necessarily come to the museum.

So, doing a Barbie show, will attract a very different audience to doing design and football which will attract a very different audience to Enzo Mari, who will attract a very different audience to Tim Burton just to give you the four shows that we have on. I always collaborated with living creative people and the best curators I work with are collaborators.

They can harness, empower, steer, let go and enable people make the kinds of exhibitions that can only be made in their lifetime. One of the roles of a contemporary Museum is to try and work creatively with people rather than curate living people as if they’re dead entities. But there are also ways of collaborating creatively with the dead! We did a Charlotte Perian exhibition, where Assemble, the Turner Prize-winning art, design and architecture collective, installed the exhibition made with extraordinary plants.

The importance of the marriage between art and design in Rahman’s curation

DR: That is interesting. One of DBF’s missions is to give recognition to artists who had none during their lifetime. A female artist, Novera Ahmed who died in 2014, is an example and we curated her work because she is the designer of our language movement Bhasha Andolan, leading our nation’s struggle to preserve Bangla and not have Urdu imposed upon us by Pakistan back in 1952.

Some of our new generation is forgetting about her contribution. Again, about the purpose behind curation, we collaborated on the Raghu Rai photography exhibition mentioned earlier with the Faculty of Fine Art, Dhaka University and, controversially, appointed a very young curator because he is next gen and had not witnessed the War of Liberation of 1971.

Our main objective was for a next gen curatorial lens, to bring into sharp focus the post-war geography of this subcontinent, to appeal directly to the next generation. My advisory team and I wanted to fuse this historical event with the current context and we knew a young curator could do a better job than a historian or an experienced curator of my generation. Next gen asks questions, has the potential to shape art philanthropy, and wants to create a more inclusive and equitable world.

Freya Spencer-Wood, Jamie Gatty Irving, April Barrett and Eliza Collin, as part of the 2023–2024 Design Researchers in Residence cohort

Find out more:

timmarlowdesignmuseum.com

durjoybangladesh.org

Stacey Gillian Abe, Whispers Of Sorghum, 2023

The renowned British curator behind the hit art show ‘In the Black Fantastic’, Ekow Eshun, speaks to Candice Tucker about his curatorial process and his most recent exhibition showing at Claridge’s ArtSpace, London, titled Like Paradise

LUX: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind Like Paradise?
Ekow Eshun: Really the inspiration for the show lies in the work of a number of the artists that are in the show. I was interested in the way an artist like Frank Bowling, who is a great senior figure in the art world, historically, has looked at landscape, and looked at that from a few different perspectives. Frank Bowling used to have a studio beside the River Thames, and was very inspired by the Thames to make works that are lyrical and abstract; that don’t look like water but feel like water.

I started to think about his work, some of the work of other artists, and I began thinking about how different artists, of colour, artists from the African Diaspora, artists of South Asian background, and how a number of them are working and thinking about the visual poetry and possibility of landscape, and how they’re using that as a way to think aloud and create different narratives about the position of people of colour in British society.

LUX: Historically people of colour have been excluded from narratives about the countryside. How does this pervade into perceptions of race in current day politics?
EE: I would say those histories remain part of our present day. Britain’s a fascinating place. It’s very invested and we’re very invested as a country in ideas of landscape and nature and ideas that the countryside is where the real Britain lies and so on. So, the question comes then, when, if you’ve been historically excluded from that, where do you stand in the present day? I would say, to some extent, you stand as a stranger.

Sometimes even walking through the countryside can feel alienating to some extent. I think, with this show, I found some real inspiration in the way that artists are working with those themes, but then creating work that is thoughtful, and also inspiring, and reflective, and expansive.

Shannon Bono, Surrendering to his will, 2023

I was really excited by how many different artists are reclaiming the countryside. Maybe even on behalf of all of us and as a consequence writing a different story about not just the relationship of people of colour to landscape, but also how we, as a country, as a nation, might understand and think about and explore our world.

LUX: Black and South Asian artists come together in the exhibition. In your view, what value comes from putting different cultures in dialogue with each other in this way?
EE: We live in a multicultural society. I think more voices, not less voices, seems to be a good thing. But also when you do that, you come out with different perspectives. So, Osman Yousefzada, who’s in the show, is an artist of South Asian background. We see his work, it’s a big textile piece, but it’s drawing on myth. It’s drawing on belief systems. It’s drawing on his roots and identity in South Asia.

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I guess one of the things that excites me is that you can think about or look at the work of almost any artist, and they might be from India or Pakistan, South Asia, African origin or Caribbean origin, and they’ll potentially be reaching into their personal histories, or they’ll be reaching out geographically to their familial connections. Consequently, you don’t know, really, what will come out of that.

The exciting thing for me, in terms of putting together a show, is that you invite different perspectives. It’s not just the fact of having artists of African diaspora origin and South Asian artists in the same space. The point is to have the conversation about different perspectives and points of view and the possibilities that might arise out of all of that. So, it’s the conversation between those artworks. It’s a conversation between cultures. It’s an intertwining of perspectives and identities and histories.

Sam Ross, Earth – interior – descend, 2023

LUX: Tell us about your curatorial process. How do you choose which artists to feature, and which works will complement each other best?
EE: I always look at the work of artists that I’m inspired by, that I admire, and I always have a running list in my head of artists that I would like to approach, artists that I would like to work with. So, doing a show is a good opportunity to reach out to some of those artists. But you’re also trying to put together a kind of mosaic. If I have one or two abstract artists, trying to measure those up, possibly with some figuration. Maybe I have some photography; it’s about trying to balance the whole thing.

Part of the skill of it, I like to think, or the challenge, let’s say, of putting on the show is, can you create an exhibition that works on different registers or tones at the same time? Thematically, can you find a connection across the artworks? But also, aesthetically, can you find ways that works speak to each other, perhaps in terms of their form, i.e. abstraction or vibration, but also, sometimes, just even the different colours that come to the surface when you start to gather the works together. The truth is, partly I’m working through guesswork, partly I’m working through these artists who are engaged in a similar set of exploration, so what happens when you put them together?

LUX: Are there any particular works that you think particularly complement each other?
EE: There’s more than a few of them! We have the work by Frank Bowling. It’s a large abstract work in pinks and blues and yellows and greens. Across, opposite from the space, there’s an abstract work by Samuel Ross, who’s known as a designer as much as he is a visual artist. It’s an abstract work in denser shades of reds and browns. It’s a heavier painting in some ways, but both of these are works that, again, are exploring the physicality or the possibility of landscape and light and Earth almost kind of in itself.

But then we can look over across the room. There are two paintings by an artist called Kimathi Donkor, which show black people in landscape, apparently enjoying themselves out in the sunshine. You see some of the same colours that are in Frank Bowling’s work echoed in those paintings and you start to see how from one work to another, the colour and tone start to replay itself. So, one work can mirror another in terms of its form, in terms of abstraction or in terms of its colour scheme. You hope overall there are enough threads and continuities that can take you through the space. A lot of that stuff, you don’t spell out, you just possibly see. I guess the satisfaction is if you know it’s there and it’s waiting to be discovered.

Frank Bowling, As Above So Below, 2020

LUX: Your recent exhibition In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery explored Afrofuturism, which is often associated with science, technology and urban areas. How has focusing on rural settings in this exhibition been different, and do you see the different areas interact?
EE: In a way, one of them I think leads into the other, in that one of the things I was trying to do in In the Black Fantastic was get away from notions of Afrofuturism that are just related to technology and so on. I was interested in water. I was interested in the visual poetry that comes from artists considering feeling like they are in a strange place, reckoning on the strangeness of the everyday.

In fact, I would say that In the Black Fantastic looks at speculation and myth, and so it’s actually really grounded in trying to think about how the ordinary in the everyday can actually itself be a site of strangeness and possibility. In a way, this show does something similar in that we take what’s perhaps is a more commonplace commodity, which is just the natural world, but actually we look at it with the capacity for wonder, the capacity for gazing into possibility that artists bring.

Read more: Italy Art Focus: Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

The great thing about putting an exhibition to work with artists is that they have an absolute capacity to render the everyday in astonishing tonalities. There’s a painting downstairs by Hurvin Anderson which shows a woman on a beach but it’s dazzling, perplexing, charismatic, and compelling. It doesn’t take for granted the ordinary and in that respect, I think I’d suggest there’s a linkage from one show to the other show.

LUX: What needs to change in terms of representation in the art world?
EE: I tend not to think too much, “oh, this should change” or “this needs to change.” I tend to think, “well, okay, what can I do in my own way?” In that way, I try to put together shows that reflect aspects of the world as I see it and perhaps, I think, as some of those artists see it. I’d like to think that the result of that is a show that has beauty and possibility at its core. I think maybe the role of a curator can be to open up the space.

Like Paradise is available to view at Claridge’s ArtSpace, London

An artwork by Minjung Kim installed over the fireplace in the residential side entrance lounge of the Waldorf Astoria

LUX Contributing Editor Simon de Pury is also an auctioneer, art dealer, curator, photographer and DJ. He was most recently commissioned to curate a collection of art for the newly restored Waldorf Astoria in New York, which will open to residents in 2022. Here, he discusses the project’s concept and challenges, and his favourite places to see art

Simon de Pury

1. Where does your curatorial process generally begin?

Once the topic of an exhibition is defined you go about making in your head your dream selection. The minute this is done you answer as many practical questions as possible in order to produce a cost estimate and a timeline. The rest is all implementation.

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2. Can you tell us more about your concept for the Waldorf Astoria?

The concept for the Waldorf Astoria was dictated by its own history, and by the design that Jean-Louis Deniot had conceived for it. It was the owner’s wish to work entirely with original works done specifically with the space in mind.

An artwork by Philippe Decrauzat from the Waldorf Astoria collection.

3. How do you see the artworks interacting with the building’s architecture and history?

The proof will be in the pudding. Both the owners and the designer wanted artworks that would blend seamlessly into the Art Deco architecture of the building and the interior design that had been devised for it. They gave a clear preference for subdued colours and abstract works.

An artwork by Benjamin Ple from the Waldorf Astoria collection.

4. What’s the most challenging aspect of this particular project?

There is an abundance of rising artists in the world, so narrowing our focus to a select few was certainly a challenge, and a luxury.

Read more: Richard Mille’s collaboration with Benjamin Millepied & Thomas Roussel

5. If you had to choose one piece from the collection, what would it be and why?

I have a particular fondness for the work of Minjung Kim. Her technique is uniquely refined and her work combines her Asian cultural heritage sensibility with a feminine sensibility. I like every work she has done for the Waldorf Astoria and would be hard-pressed to pick one.

Mountain by Minjung Kim from the Waldorf Astoria collection

6. Where’s your favourite place in the world to see art?

Basically wherever I happen to be. I love seeing art being lived with in private homes. My favourite museum is the Neue Galerie in New York. The quality of the art is breathtaking and the scale is intimate enough to make you feel as if you are in a private home.

Find out more about Simon de Pury’s work and the restoration of Waldorf Astoria: waldorftowers.nyc

The Power Of Black And White, Dennis Osakue, Acrylic & Collage on Canvas, 150cm x 150cm, 2020

Signature African Art, one of Nigeria’s leading contemporary art galleries, opened its first European location in Mayfair, London in March this year and is now hosting a group exhibition entitled Say My Name in collaboration with award-winning writer and film director Ava DuVernay. Ahead of the show’s public opening tomorrow, we speak to the gallery’s director and curator Khalil Akar about the Black Lives Matter movement and power of visual art 

Khalil Akar, Photo © Zaki Charles

1. What influenced the gallery’s decision to expand internationally, and why London in particular?

We have been supporting the work of African artists for the past 30 years, since opening the gallery in Lagos. We have been waiting for the right opportunity and the right time to open a space outside of the continent. Over the past few years, African art has become increasingly popular and having assessed the global art market, we felt this was the best time to open in London. We chose London as it is one of the art hubs of the world. We wanted to give our artists a platform to showcase their talent to the European market and we felt the UK was the best place in which to do so.

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2. How have global attitudes towards African art changed in recent years?

The global art market has finally started to recognise the contemporary talent that exists within the continent, outside of traditional art forms. We have seen increased sales of African art at auction houses, and fairs like 1-54 Contemporary African Art have helped to encourage a greater interest in art from Africa. The next step for the market would be to have a larger presence of African galleries in household fairs such as Art Basel.

George Floyd, Oluwole Omofemi, Acrylic on Canvas, 50cm x 50cm each, 2020

3. The timing of the gallery opening was rather unfortunate, how has the pandemic impacted business?

We opened a solo show by Nigerian artist Oluwole Omofemi just before lockdown, which was very popular by collectors and sold out. We have worked hard to adapt to the current circumstances and challenges, increasing our digital networking and outreach to collectors and providing virtual tours of our exhibitions to our audiences. The additional digital approach has allowed us to reach more collectors and increase sales.

Installation view of Say My Name, presented by Ava DuVernay at Signature African Art, London, Photo © Mora Ltd

4. What was your curation process for the upcoming group show Say My Name and how did the collaboration with Ava DuVernay come about?

The curatorial process was rooted in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The vision was to shine a light on things that need to change in society including how Black people are perceived and treated in the global community. Ava and I discussed this theme at length for Say My Name, which also aligned with the topics raised in her 13th documentary for Netflix. The collaboration also focused on raising awareness of police brutality following Ava’s announcement of her LEAP (Law Enforcement Accountability Project) initiative, which aims to hold police in the US accountable through artistic storytelling. We’re planning to donate 40% of proceeds from the sales of both the London and LA shows to the fund. In terms of the artists selected, we have worked with them in the past and knew that they would feel strongly about paying tribute to these figures and histories in the UK and US. We wanted to connect the continent with the deep experiences of the diaspora.

Read more: Sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld on the power of public art

Breonna Taylor, Moufouli Bello, Acrylic on Canvas, 150cm x 120cm, 2020

Boshielo, Giggs Kgole, Anaglyph, Oil, Acrylic fabric & mixed media on Canvas, 230cm x 150cm, 2020

5. Many of the works celebrate key figures and moments in Black history, is it important that viewers recognise and understand these specific references?

It is hugely important that everyone knows the correct history and understands the references in the show. We hope that visitors to Say My Name will learn more about Black history in the US and UK and leave the gallery with food for thought on what part they can play in improving the current world system.

In Remembrance of Bruce’s Beach, Dandelion Eghosa, photography, analogue collage and embellishments with acrylic paints on canvas, 190 x 127cm, 2020

6. In a more general sense, how do you see visual art participating in wider contemporary discourse?

Visual art plays a key role in wider contemporary discourse and has the power to influence the status quo. As Say My Name opens in London, Americans continue to protest on the streets every day since the murder of George Floyd in May. On the continent, young Nigerians are now protesting and advocating for the #EndSARS movement. As an art gallery, we feel it is our responsibility to use our voice to continue and support these conversations to help the creation of a better world.

‘Say My Name’ runs until 28 November 2020 at Signature Art London, and will open in in Los Angeles in February 2021. For more information visit: signatureafricanart.com