Organic Architectures

Niccolo Casas’ scenes are dystopian: the stuff of science fiction. Leaves emerge from marble windows – reminiscent of giant scales or holes in a wasp’s nest.

New Visionaries:
Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition 2022

This year, we invite you to engage with themes from our rapidly changing world. These 20 pieces – both individually and collectively – disrupt the status quo.

Unseen Places

Inaccessible landscapes, sealed off zones and military exclusion areas; Gregor Sailer captures surreal architecture on the borders of civilisation.

Performing Reality

A new Marina Abramović exhibition in Oxford promises to be the “most minimal and the most radical conceptually” she has ever made.

Pioneering Ceramics

An exhibition illuminates the creative lineage of Black women ceramicists and artists from the last 70 years, celebrating their remarkable contributions.

A Species Between Worlds

A new exhibition in New York asks: how is our relationship with smartphones changing? In which spaces do we spend the most time – digital or real?

Into the Future: Frieze Seoul

Frieze opens its first art fair in Asia this September, featuring more than 110 global institutions. Here is Aesthetica’s run down of what to see.

Digital Mythologies

“In the world of web3, a week is like a year in the normal world. So much is developed at high speed.” Nxt Museum presents groundbreaking digital art.

Looking at Structures

Martine Hamilton Knight’s architectural photographs of Nottingham allow remarkable buildings the visual space to “speak” for themselves.

Photography to See: This Month

200 years since the advent of lens-based image-making, we’re sharing five exhibitions that use the format to take the temperature of society today.

Play and Creativity

“Each of my photos is like looking at a page from my diary.” Delfina Carmona’s process is defined by autobiography, experimentation and fun.

5 to Know: The Armory Show 2022

New York’s Armory Show, first launched in 1994, is considered by many to be a cornerstone of the art world calendar. Here are five artists to know.

Art, Photography, Commerce

LACMA explores how artists have adopted techniques from commercial photography ­– “the most powerful mainstream visual language.”

A Touch of Magic

Cig Harvey’s photographic work is defined by an acute awareness of nature and the passing of time – crafting scenes bursting with narrative potential.

Beyond the Surface

Belgian-Cameroonian photographer NJAHEUT is interested in the complexities of identity, breaking down stereotypes and celebrating shared humanity.

Staging our Reality

A group show at the Helmut Newton Photography Foundation, Berlin, explores the way that photographers have portrayed Hollywood.

Digital Resonance

John Gerrard is best known for creating “Land Art in the age of Google Earth”: eye-catching digital simulations examining timely global issues.

Body as Canvas

“For me, art happens everywhere.” Milena ZeVu creates wearable sculptures that transform the cityscape – combining performance and body art.

Exploring the Metropolis

Jens Liebchen creates “drive-by photography” – capturing the Los Angeles’ vast highways and boulevards as he moves through them at pace.

Vinnitte Chen: Video Profile

Vinitte Chen is a Shanghai-based artist whose multidisciplinary practice is influenced by an upbringing in two countries: China and Canada. Various natural landscapes, cultural norms and artistic edification shape her interactive pieces, many of which explore the complex dualities found
in nature and human relationships.

Art Outdoors

Here are five Aesthetica Art Prize finalists who construct temporary interventions from a variety of media: from paint to recycled objects.

Intricate Relationships

Tony Wang is a photographer and filmmaker currently studying for a Photography BFA at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. His latest film projects involve a collaboration between the camera and the art of dance.

A Neon-Soaked City

In 1976, photographer Greg Girard arrived in Tokyo. “Blade Runner-esque” had yet to enter the lexicon, and the resulting photographs were mesmerising.

Into the Imaginary

James Tralie’s images are windows into the imagination: otherworldly aquatic dreamscapes and relaxing, plant-filled environments.

Creative Celebration

Thandiwe Muriu is passionate about celebrating and empowering women, creating bright and bold works rooted in self-love, history and identity.

Imaginary Table Settings

Confetti soup. Soap soup. Cloud soup. Rain soup. Miguel Vallinas Prieto’s Suppen series visualises what happens when we let the imagination run wild.

Fresh Visions

This summer, Fotomuseum Antwerpen takes the temperature of Belgium’s photographic talent, highlighting its most promising practitioners.

Femininity Reframed

Fotografiska charts a visual history of Black women in art and culture – from colonial images to new works by female and non-binary artists.

Colour, Light and the Street

There’s a palpable sense of movement in Francesco Gioia’s visual world, as inhabitants pound pavements or hail taxis, bathed in contrasting light and shadow.

Engaging with Nature

Emerging photographers from the Netherlands focus on our relationship with other living creatures, as well as our role within ecosystems.

Colour Photography

Decades before Instagram filters were a twinkle in the idea of a smartphone, Joel Meyerowitz developed a mesmerising, otherworldly palette.

Dynamic Arrangement

Tekla Severin is known for seeking, and finding, complementary colours within her surroundings, offering carefully curated mises-en-scène.

Stepping into Dreams

In Erik Johansson’s surreal compositions, figures jump off from ledges with only a single balloon in hand; escalators emerge from forest floors.

Digital Playgrounds

The idea of interplanetary travel continues to make headlines. Borja Alegre’s three-dimensional renders encourage us to imagine other worlds.

Layers of Complexity

Alec Soth has become synonymous with the American landscape, traversing and capturing its diverse geography for over two decades.

Looking to Nature

Gjert Rognli takes a photographic journey into deep forests and across misty waterways – where surreal phenomena guide the viewer through the unknown.

Formal Symmetry

Alexander Grombach’s images document patterns in urban and cultivated landscapes, concentrating on symmetry and the tenets of visual harmony.

Bold Social Commentary

Cape Town-based artist Tony Gum pushes the boundaries of selfie culture, exploring tradition and heritage as well as mass-commercialisation.

Illusory Technologies

Six of the world’s most revered NFT artists come together in a physical exhibition, showcasing the best in digital renders and built environments.

Ambiguous Composition

Elina Brotherus’ self-portraits are playful, poised and open to interpretation, surveying the image of the Rückenfigur – a figure seen from the back.

Dramatic Alterations

Maciek Jasik’s series, The World With Us, overlays hyper-real colour palettes onto rock formations, splicing, blurring and modifying the geography.

The Power to Unite:
The August/September Issue

Our latest issue is a way to make sense of the present moment. Much of this magazine is about ever-changing landscapes: physical and virtual.

Aesthetica Art Prize:
Tips for Submitting

There are just three weeks to go before the £10,000 Aesthetica Art Prize closes for entries on 31 August. Here is an essential guide to entering to award.

Artificial Ecosystems

Contemporary artist Anicka Yi collaborates frequently with scientists of different disciplines: microbiology, information technology and perfume.

What’s On: Photography in 2022

Our six-monthly view spans the globe, from the Wolfgang Tillmans retrospective in New York to a climate-conscious exhibition in Vienna.

Hyera Lee: Video Profile

Hyera Lee is an artist and enlightened spiritual guru based in South Korea. For the past 16 years she has helped to heal the pain of many of her students and has been leading them towards enlightenment. She uses painting to assist the students who struggle to accept their egos without judgement.

Glow in the Dark: Nocturnal Scenes

Lightbulbs have completely transformed how we live, work and play. Here are five Aesthetica Art Prize finalists who play with light in the darkness.

Light, Shadow, Sculpture

Illusions, reflections and tricks of the light are entrancing. From mirrored sculptures to neon, these Aesthetica Art Prize finalists do exactly that.

Art, Life, Imitation

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” European Cultural Centre’s exhibition in Venice examines the world through this lens.

Layers of Rhetoric

Herd immunity. Minimise the spread. Stockpile. Staycation. Quarantine. Bindi Vora’s photomontages explore the language of the Covid-19 pandemic.