WATERLOO, ONTARIO, CANADA Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Though van Heuvelen sticks close to the visual reality of things, and fidelity is para- mount, scale is something else altogether.
Places Are Not Empty: A Conversation with Maksud Ali Mondal
Maksud Ali Mondal is interested in the transformation of organic matter. His research- and process-based sculptures such as Synthesized Forest (2024), You Are What You Eat (2023), and Autonomous Habitat (2022) do not so much grow as decay, following the disintegrative processes of nature.
Umico Niwa
HOUSTON Asia Society Texas Umico Niwa’s current exhibition, “Memory Palace” (on view through October 12, 2025), doubles as an exhilarating scavenger hunt through the Asia Society Center’s two floors, revealing something charming and playful about the capacity of architectural adornment to intimate and structure selfhood.
Wild Eye: Art and Nature on the North Yorkshire Coast
Can contemporary art heighten our awareness of the natural world, bringing the beauty and jeopardy of what surrounds us into sharper focus? The curators of the recently completed Wild Eye coastal art and nature trail in North Yorkshire, England, believe so.
Olafur Eliasson
LOS ANGELES The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA In “OPEN,” Eliasson encouraged careful looking as a means to “sense our way into” larger systems. That he mostly missed these goals didn’t dampen the possibility for enjoyment of his often spectacular installations, or his commendable ambition.
Freedom Is Never Really Free: A Conversation with Ai Weiwei
To say that “Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei,” the artist’s current retrospective at the Seattle Art Museum, is timely would be an understatement.
Olga de Amaral
PARIS Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain Olga de Amaral’s long overdue survey exhibition (on view at ICA Miami through October 12, 2025) reflects a recent wave of renewed interest in fiber art, as U.S. and European museums re-evaluate the ties between abstraction and woven textiles.
Kazuo Kadonaga
LOS ANGELES Blum Gallery Kazuo Kadonaga’s work seduces almost instantly. There’s a palpable glow coming off the waxy surface of wood, the matte sheen of washi paper, the tonal gradations of scorched bamboo, and the glossy finish of melted glass.
Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes
SEATTLE Koplin Del Rio The satire and sharp wit of the “Pelts” are welcome, though they forsake the resonant power of the “Terra Nada” sculptures, with their aura of generative potential.
Monika Zarzeczna
KINGSTON, NY 68 Prince Street Gallery Zarzeczna explores the “trans-state” of objects—items that have lost their original function but persist as memories, embodying an in-between realm where meaning shifts and systems evolve.
