2026-05-21 03:10:50
If you want to participate in Pat Perry’s new photo project, you’ll have to get comfortable heading outside, grabbing a few friends, and preparing to hunt low and high for obscure spots in your neighborhood. The Detroit-based artist recently launched “Liminal Bingo,” a communal photo hunt designed specifically “for people ages 5 to 105 living in boring places or exciting places.”
Open to anyone with an internet connection, the project has a simple premise: grab a camera (phones are okay, although Perry encourages film if possible), and snap photos of his illustrated prompts. When you’ve collected five in a row, you’ve got a bingo!
The instructions, though, are less straightforward than the premise, requiring participants to gather with friends, speak to passersby, and generally get out into the world and interact with one another. One asks you to capture a handshake with a stranger as you both wear sunglasses. Another invites you to send a landscape photo to someone you miss and share the evidence via screenshot. When you’ve collected five, post your images on Instagram or send them to Perry via email.
Photos submitted by August will be considered for inclusion in a fall exhibition at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York and a potential book. Find FAQs and more information on participating on the project’s website.
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2026-05-21 00:00:00
“Paintings arrive at the studio in all states of disrepair,” shares art conservator Julian Baumgartner, who receives artworks in need of attention all the time. He adds, “It is, however, odd to have a painting arrive in a manner that can’t help but make one wonder just how bad it is.” An anonymous portrait was indeed folded inside a parcel that itself had been mangled enough in transit to make one think, Is this going to be salvageable? For the highly trained painting restorer, though, “Fortune favors the fold.”
Baumgartner has seen his fair share of bad overpainting and, in this case, pretty substantial creases, tears, and worn-away paint. He runs Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration, a Chicago-based studio focused on ensuring that works of art are conserved and repaired so future generations can continue to enjoy them. With painstaking attention to detail and—just as importantly—the use of reversible, archival materials, this neglected portrait is given what seems like an almost miraculous second chance.
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2026-05-20 21:27:00
Oceans cover nearly three-quarters of our planet, containing a staggering 96.5 percent of its water. And despite our ever-advancing technologies and cartographic tools, we’ve still only mapped about a tenth of the earth’s oceans. There’s so much we have yet to see or understand, but our reliance on things like fossil fuels and single-use plastics continue to have an indelible impact on the health of marine wildlife and habitats.
Arch Enemy Arts’ forthcoming exhibition, Common Waters, brings these concerns to the fore. From the ethereal weirdness of jellyfish to the delicate branches of corals, the works not only touch on the incredible biodiversity below the surface, but also remind us of the ocean’s power and how human actions can have dire consequences. And while the show takes a playful approach, with an emphasis on beauty and even quirkiness, there is an undeniable aura of anxiety and even sadness—an undercurrent that carries an urgent message.
Many works in Common Waters are fantastical, such as Gerlanda di Francia’s coral-haired siren or Juliet Schreckinger’s octopus being conveyed over the waves by (hopefully) helpful birds. You’ll also find miniature paintings inside of a vintage compact by Shannon Taylor, a sculpted paper relief of a graceful sea turtle by Marisa Aragón Ware, and a matryoshka-like fish coming up for air by Veks Van Villik, plus many more.
The exhibition is presented in collaboration with PangeaSeed, a non-profit that bridges art and science to educate the public about—and advocate for—conserving our oceans. The exhibition brings together works by 60 artists from around the world, focusing predominantly on square-format pieces, all of which draw our attention to some aspect of marine life. A portion of sales proceeds will be donated to PangeaSeed to help with their mission to get people excited about protecting the planet.
Common Waters runs from June 5 to July 5 in Philadelphia. See more on Arch Enemy Arts’ Instagram.
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2026-05-20 03:38:00
Nestled amid plants native to the U.K., a giant figure of Gaia, or Mother Nature, sleeps in a verdant garden. With willow-branch locks shaped by artist Tom Hare and a crown of leaves, the figure’s face and shoulders are made from a fallen mature tree carved by Tim Wood. A winding pathway leads beneath an arch that extends the character’s torso, created in the tradition of dry stone walls and meticulously assembled by the family-run outfit Noble Stonework.
You’ll find Gaia in a garden titled “On the Edge” at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which has taken the top prize of Garden of the Year. The project is a collaboration between designer Sarah Eberle and Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which champions the countryside and the sustainable practices necessary to protect and preserve its ecosystems.
For this year’s exhibit, Eberle emphasized “edgelands,” or spaces between rural and urbanized areas like the borders of fields or even residential gardens. Think roadside berms or the seemingly unruly growth beside a canal. Often, these spots just look like a lot of weeds. Eberle sees not only the beauty, but the value, in these overlooked areas.
“These spaces connect millions of people to nature in everyday life, yet they’re undervalued and under constant pressure,” CPRE says in a statement. “This garden is an invitation to see them differently: not as ‘leftover’ land, but as living places that can recover and thrive with the right care.” Eberle’s choice of plants has a slightly wild aesthetic, with vines taking over the stone arch—redolent of the U.K.’s historic stone bridges—and a graceful yet somehow satisfyingly chaotic arrangement of plants we might associate with untamed overgrowth.
The garden’s design encourages people to consider using natural materials, cultivating local plants to help pollinators, and embracing “flaws” like old stumps or rocky areas that can be havens for wildlife. Amid nature’s innate rhythms, Gaia is a gentle protector who snoozes calmly with everything in balance. Eberele describes the effect: “A sense of abundance, a landscape under repair, the beauty in the ordinary. It’s about how it makes you feel—it’s almost a homecoming, an embrace, a hug.”
The Chelsea Flower Show is the flagship event of the Royal Horticultural Society, and it has been held on the grounds of the Royal Hospital since 1913, with the exception of a few skipped seasons during the two World Wars and in 2020. It’s not just limited to British gardeners, however: exhibitors from around the globe conceive of some of the most creative gardens imaginable. Tickets are available on the RHS website, and the show continues through May 23 in London.
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2026-05-20 01:46:13
Incorporating nearly two tons of porcelain fragments, a monumental pair of vessels spills out into a pool of lustrous green. Shards of broken cups and saucers, pots, and other voluptuous forms blanket the gallery of the Green-House at Green-Wood for a new installation by Jean Shin.
Celadon Landscape is one of the latest projects in which the artist transforms a singular material into a sprawling sculpture. Found objects that bear traces of their former purposes and users are prized possessions in Shin’s New York studio, as these often-discarded items are nested into dynamic works that consider the relationship between consumption, environmental care, and community.
Green-Wood presents the second iteration of Celadon Landscape, which originated during the artist’s visits with ceramicists and makers in South Korea. Celadon production has a lengthy history in the region and dates back to at least the 10th century. As Shin encountered the heaps of imperfect pieces these artisans had cast aside, she found the pale green-blue material an apt metaphor for belonging, repair, and the diaspora.
“Celadon vases occupy a prized place in Korean cultural history—objects of reverence, painstakingly made and carefully preserved,” the artist says. “In Celadon Landscape, I shift the gaze to what is usually discarded: thousands of broken ceramic shards. I see in their imperfection not loss, but beauty—fragments that still pulse with the memory of Korea’s enduring legacy.”
With materials donated by studios in and near the city of Icheon, Shin conceived of two bulbous vessels cloaked in patterned, painted, stamped, and textured bits of pottery. Resting on their sides, the mosaic forms appear to emerge from the earth below, as if they’ve been uncovered in an archaeological dig. None of the vessels—the original pieces or the large-scale reconstructions—is presented whole and unblemished, suggesting a fragmentation that doesn’t disappear but rather is made anew.
Fabricated by Miotto Mosaics Art Studios, Inc., Celadon Landscape is on view through January 17 in New York, where Shin is based. Keep up with her projects on Instagram.
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2026-05-19 22:08:38
When Valerie Lueth of Tugboat Printshop sets out to make a woodblock print, it’s rare that she only uses a single block. Instead, sometimes up to five distinctly carved pieces are incorporated, each containing different details that, when combined, create a total image. To make the prints, which are usually limited to editions of 100 or so, Lueth rolls the meticulously hand-carved blocks with colorful ink, layering them precisely in order. Black outlines define flora and fauna, for instance, which are first laid down as colorful shapes.
Tugboat Printshop is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and for a limited time, there’s a discount on original woodcut prints in the shop. Keep an eye out on the studio’s Instagram for updates about future editions, and Lueth is always sharing loads of making-of images on Flickr.
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