A detail I remember from reading Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter is that at some point during her shift, she strapped her baby on her back and continued working at Prune, the cult restaurant she ran for over 20 years in the East Village. That image has flickered on and off in my brain ever since, especially after having a child myself. 

A woman opening, operating, and cooking in a restaurant while having a child at any point in the process is a story of hard work, resilience, and true love—the good riding alongside the bad. I opened Mina’s at MoMA PS1 when my son was two, so I am no stranger to the experience. If I had to sum it up, it would go something like this: When I was at the restaurant, every cell in my body was yelling through a loudspeaker to Go home! Be with my child! Then when I was with my child, I was popping my gum, twirling my hair, tapping my watch until I could go back to the restaurant. There was no end to things that needed my attention. 

Because the moments I had with my son at the restaurant will forever be some of the hardest and some of the best, I wanted to explore this duality and celebrate with some of the most amazing restaurant mamas in the biz. 

It turns out women raising kids and running restaurants share a few mantras: Stay present, good food is important, and community is everything. 

Donna Lennard, of the Il Buco restaurants in New York and the Hamptons

What’s the most challenging part of having a restaurant and having children at the same time? 

Surely dividing my time between work and family. I was lucky because when Joaquin was born in 2005, Il Buco was already 11 years old.  We had a strong team and we were running well. I also lived above the restaurant and I was able to jump back and forth easily. Clearly, you need time and energy for your little one, so the balancing act continues as they grow. When we opened Alimentari, Joaquin was 5. The juggling act became more complex as the demands of a new ambitious project took time and energy. My husband helped, as did Joaquin’s dad, but there is always the pull to be more present with my child.

What’s been the biggest joy? 

Having the embrace of the Il Buco family around my son—his extended restaurant family both at Il Buco and at his dad’s restaurant and catering [business]. Joaquin got used to being in community at an early age.  He also developed a comfort around people of all ages as well as quite a palate! 

What’s your favorite trick of the trade? 

Living above Il Buco I was able to bring my powerful monitor downstairs as Joaquin slept, and grab a drink or snack at the bar or simply drop in to say hi and keep tabs on my kiddo! 

Does your child have a favorite dish at the restaurant? 

I hired Nacho [Ignacio Mattos] just before giving birth and ate his kale salad everyday up until delivery and all through the breastfeeding months. Joaquin loved it immediately, and it has been his favorite dish ever since!

Does your own mother play a role in your life and in your restaurants? 

My mom was home with us growing up. She started us on TV dinners and SpaghettiOs, but then got impassioned with cooking and took classes and became a great home cook. She was fully present and much like one of us girls—I have two sisters. I’m happy to still have that kind of close relationship with my son, who’s 21. 

Ann Redding, of Thai Diner and Mommy Pai in New York

What’s been the most challenging part of having a restaurant and having children at the same time? 

It’s changed over the years. Leo was born right as we were opening Uncle Boon’s Sister, so back then the challenge was surviving on no sleep while pumping, balancing two restaurants, and taking care of a newborn at the same time. Now that he’s 9, the challenge has shifted more to balancing my time. Matt and I are both workaholics by nature—and honestly by necessity as small business owners—so work can bleed into every hour of the day. The hardest part for me is knowing when to stop and give my son the full attention he deserves.

What’s been the biggest joy? 

He’s worked several events with us and genuinely loves it. At one event he worked on the line for four straight hours and refused to take a break because he “didn’t want to disrupt the team.” He was 8. I was incredibly proud of his work ethic at that moment… Though honestly, I hope he chooses a much easier career path when he grows up

Does your child have a favorite dish at the restaurant? 

He actually has his own item on the kids menu: Leo’s Roti Pizza. He’s extremely proud of it. Whenever his friends come to the restaurant and order it, he lights up. He’s constantly asking me what other kids think of it and whether they liked it.

How does your own mother play a role in your life and in your restaurants?

My mom is an excellent cook and really sparked my interest in food from a young age. We ate most meals at home, and she made almost everything from scratch, so cooking was always a huge part of my life growing up. When we recently opened our Thai fried chicken spot—coincidentally one of my mom’s favorite foods—we named it Mommy Pai after her.

Camille Becerra, former chef of As You Are, Casa Pueblo, De Maria, and more, currently working on opening a hybrid café, provisions line, and research studio

What’s the most challenging part of having a restaurant and having children at the same time? 

Honestly, money. As a single mom, the pressure is real. Chef salaries are modest, especially for women and I wasn’t able to set up savings. So in the in-between moments between restaurant jobs, it was a lot of lentil soup, rice, and beans just to get by. 

What’s been the biggest joy? 

Her palate. She can sense what a dish needs. She eats well and genuinely enjoys food, she treats quality, cared-for food as her birthright.

Does your child have a favorite dish at the restaurant (or at home/past restaurant)?

My daughter became a moules-frites fan for life after one restaurant visit when she was 5 years old. She would approach a table with her hook, “Do you like cats or dogs?” when they answered she would sit right down and ask for a fry and mussel. Everyone was on heavy patrol to prevent this.  

How does your own mother play a role in your life and in your restaurants? 

I was lucky to be from New York, so both of my daughter’s grandparents were nearby. They helped care for her on weekends, and without that support I wouldn’t have been able to keep working or take the time I needed to recharge.

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The Scene: A bevvy of powerhouse models and New York’s tastemakers ambling through dreamlike scenes in a warehouse in Chelsea? This isn’t a scene from an ’80s arthouse movie. It’s “Motus Animi,” an immersive experience by Maison Margiela Fragrances.

The Occasion: On Thursday, the parfumerie transformed the interior of the Starrett-Lehigh Building into an immersive installation inspired by its latest series of six scents, the Scentsorium Collection. 

The Locale: The cavernous building resembled a cistern, with enormous white pylons punctuating the concrete space. Inside, four installations inspired by the collection’s scents sat waiting. One tableaux, inspired by Anguish and Awe, featured a cascade of crimson petals against white curtains while notes of black rose and suede hung in the air. Another scene, inspired by Fit of Folly, bore furious ink scrawlings on the walls that carried a distinct whiff of mineral musk. At yet another, a massive fountain of white wax was frozen in time, while at still another, stacks of vintage televisions flickered ominously.

The Crowd: The crowd stood stylish and sharp without fail. Models were well-represented, including Ian Jeffrey, Alioune Badara Fall, Fernanda Ly, Stella Lucia, and Summer Dirx. Other guests, also impeccably dressed and many sporting classic Margiela black leather, included painter Sasha Gordon, gallerist Gabrielle Richardson, creative director Ruba Abu-Nimah, photographer Deon Hinton, cultural commentators Luke Meagher and Tina Zhang, CULTURED Beauty Editor Emily Dougherty, writer Kristen Bateman, and singer Mandy Lee. Rounding out the group was a smattering of fashion’s most discerning online creators including Lucy Rae McFadin, Denzel Dion, Taylor Quitara, and Emma Brooks.

Food and Drinks: Silver trays of confections spiraled around the room: caviar and créme fraîche on waffle blinis were followed by champagne and cocktails. In this room only, they were the second-best smelling things on offer. 

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Nicole Saikalis Bay, Milan

“Emotion is always the starting point—the lingering presence that an artwork, or an artist’s practice, leaves with you. From there, we instinctively think about dialogue: how an artwork might resonate with other works already in the collection. We were initially drawn to Italian modern artists, carefully studying their historical context and formal language. Over time, our focus expanded to encompass contemporary artists who reflect the complexity of the present moment, like those whose work engages with social and socio-political realities while remaining materially and conceptually compelling. Artists such as Walter Price or Mandy El-Sayegh appealed to us for their layered narratives and material richness. I am particularly drawn to practices that unfold slowly and continue to reveal themselves over time.”

Amélie du Chalard, Paris

“Naturally, my collection includes many artists I already represent, but I also follow outside artists whose work resonates with me for years until the right piece appears. For instance, I was obsessed with Chiharu Shiota for five years before finally finding the perfect work last year, one that captured her essence but also fit the scale of my home, as her work often involves immense installations. My process is focused on the artist first, then the specific piece. When evaluating a work, I always look for a balanced synergy between three pillars: the artist’s conceptual approach, the technical mastery they’ve developed, and, of course, the aesthetic result.”

Belma Gaudio, London

“The number one factor we consider when expanding our collection is love. That has always been the guiding principle. As a result, we have ended up with quite an eclectic collection—pieces that may seem random side-by-side, but each one means something to us. Some experts in the art world insist that collections should follow a certain logic—by movement, era, medium, geography—but I don’t come from an art background, so I don’t feel bound by those rules. For me, collecting is not about fitting into a narrative; it’s about following instinct. And yet over time, patterns naturally emerge. You realize you have been drawn again and again to certain themes, so even a collection built on love and instinct reveals threads of continuity. When it comes to how the collection fits into the home, there is definitely a purpose and plan to what I buy. I buy with intention, and I do buy for specific walls, rooms, and décor. Not always, but I generally have a plan for where a certain piece will go and how it will fit into the full story.”

Laurent Asscher, Monaco

“I discover new work through a combination of factors: museum visits, art fairs, gallery exhibitions, and–most importantly–conversations with other collectors, curators, and artists. I also follow the Venice Biennale and major international exhibitions closely. Another key source of discovery comes from engaging with younger artists directly, as well as working with curators who introduce me to emerging talent. One person who has been incredibly important in shaping my collection and introducing me to new talent is Larry Gagosian. His vision, expertise, and ability to identify groundbreaking artists have had a profound impact on the way I collect. Through his galleries and personal guidance, I have been able to access and engage with some of the most innovative artists working today.”

Susanne Syz, Switzerland 

“Emotion first, then curiosity. I’m not interested in trends, blue-chip trophies, or what other collectors are buying. What matters to me is whether the artist has a voice: a real, personal language that you can’t quite explain but you feel. That said, I don’t do this completely alone. I work closely with our curator, Nicolas Trembley, who brings structure and vision to the collection. He helps me think about long-term coherence, the dialogues between works. It’s a balance between instinct and intention.”

Laurence and Patrick Seguin, Paris

“When expanding our personal collection, we focus on a few key factors that reflect our taste and the way both design and art evolve. As I mentioned earlier, we are drawn to pieces of furniture with a unique history, striking a balance between the best condition and the traces of the past. When it comes to contemporary and emerging artworks, it’s about an emotional connection—i.e., whether a work resonates with us in relation to the collection as a whole. It’s not just about owning objects; it’s about adding significant works that combine with other pieces, enriching the collection.”

Luca Bombassei, Milan

“My discoveries stem from various channels: the Venice Biennale is obviously a reference for me, as I am half Venetian, but I also move among gallery exhibitions, art fairs, online platforms, and recommendations from fellow collectors and art professionals. I don’t follow a fixed rule or a pre-established thematic thread, but as a recurring element I have always been fascinated by words transposed into art: starting from the 1978 exhibition on the ‘Materialization of Language’ [a show featuring 90 female artists engaged with language], continuing with Jenny Holzer‘s ‘Truisms’ and Claire Fontaine’s neon writings, particularly under the spotlight today thanks at the current Venice Biennale. My collection includes beautiful pieces from these series, as well as a nice piece by Lucia Marcucci, [a pioneer] of Italian concrete poetry.”

Grażyna Kulczyk, Poland

“When expanding my collection, both now and in the future, I maintain a consistent and coherent approach. My primary objective is to establish a solid foundation in the matrilineal history of art, with a focus on women’s art from the 1950s through the 1980s. This deliberate focus allows me to spotlight underrepresented voices and periods. Occasionally, I also incorporate works that, while they may not strictly align with this thematic focus, captivate me on an intuitive level.”

Valeria Napoleone, Milan

“I’m a very adventurous and curious person; I do my homework, I go to galleries, I do studio visits, and I do all the research myself, which can take years. I could never give this part of collecting to someone else. There are a lot of people who hire consultants, but I have the time, I have the interest, I have the drive, and I have the passion for it. Studio visits are the most important step. To me, there is no distinction between the person and the work—if I don’t connect with the artist, it’s a sign. Then I read, see previous work, and sometimes wait to see other shows before buying a piece. The market is fast, but I say, “I need my time,” I’m never being pushed, and I never buy what’s hot and trendy. Actually, I shy away from that.”

Nicola Erni, Zug

“The works I add to my collection have to speak to my heart. As I often say, [they] need to give me goosebumps. My collection is mainly focused, next to fashion and portrait photography, on contemporary art. Within that field, where I mainly started with Basquiat and Schnabel before buying works of other pop artists, it then expanded to hyperrealism with works by Duane Hanson or Elmgreen & Dragset. I’m addicted to design, color, textiles, and fashion, and have always been attracted to artists who bring those elements into their work. In that line, Sylvie Fleury and Yinka Shonibare CBE, amongst others, are present in my collection.”

Rajan Bijlani, London

“My friendships and personal relationships with artists and dealers have been a wellspring of inspiration in discovering new artists. A long friendship with Michael Jefferson, a collector and former senior specialist at Christie’s, introduced me to the work of Miyoko Ito, an obscure artist who lived in Chicago and died in 1983. I now own an important work by her, and it has changed my view on what painting can be, in terms of what I wish to live with. Truls Blaasmo, an art advisor, is another dear friend, who has great connections in the art and fashion world. His influence has been quite strong in terms of artists to be aware of. Finally, books and social media have become important tools in discovering artists, leading to lasting relationships with their art.”

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Venice is where Dale Chihuly studied the ancient art of Murano glassblowing in 1968, where he staged his career-making “Chihuly Over Venice” public art exhibition in 1996, and where a few months later, he and his now-wife Leslie Jackson Chihuly conceived their son, the photographer Jackson Chihuly. 

The two were broken up at the time, but the late Seattle tech billionaire and art collector Paul Allen insisted they both come to a party in Venice. They ended up foregoing the use of one of the two rooms Allen booked, and starting their family, Leslie Jackson Chihuly confessed to a small group of art journalists over burrata and cured meats earlier this week. (Her interview-averse husband, who will turn 85 in September, was back in Seattle.) We were at a Venetian restaurant following the press preview for the glass artist’s triumphant return to the city with “Chihuly: Venice 2026.” 

“Venice is [his] hometown,” Jackson Chihuly quipped. 

Were it not for the city, Dale Chihuly may have never embraced glass as his chosen medium. In 1968, with a Fulbright in hand, Chihuly applied to study weaving at a workshop in Finland. They declined to host him. Chihuly had previously incorporated some glass elements in his weavings, and had become intrigued when he realized you could blow a bubble in molten glass. So next he sent out applications to seemingly every glass studio in Venice, winding up at Venini, a giant of the field that had never before hosted an American artist.

There Chihuly learned not only the art of glassmaking, but that the hot shop could be a hotbed of collaboration, artists working together around the furnace to execute a shared vision. The experience decidedly changed the direction of Chihuly’s career, while also setting a new glass art scene into motion back in the U.S., and Washington in particular. In 1971, Chihuly founded the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanford, Washington, which has gone on to educate generations of artists from around the world in a one-to-one student-to-teacher model. 

“Dale is a revolutionary artist who just happens to use glass,” Donna Davies, the Pilchuck’s executive director said. “At the time the American studio glass movement was in its infancy, and he came in with such bold ideas, not about using glass as a decorative form, but using the material to really challenge ideas and to sculpt in three dimensions.”  

The Pilchuck teamed up with the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to put on this year’s Venice show. It celebrates the 30th anniversary of the 1996 project, which was an almost impossibly ambitious outing. Chihuly installed 14 glass chandeliers throughout the city, on bridges and courtyards, hanging above the canals. His team created these sculptures at glass facilities in Ireland, Finland, Mexico, and the U.S., documenting each step of the process. (In 2009, he would return to show work at the Venetian pavilion at that year’s Venice Biennale.) 

While “Chihuly Over Venice” was a rather renegade affair, self-funded and arranged informally, without formal permits or permissions, the 2026 sequel required months of research and site visits to arrange for just three large-scale sculptures to go on view along the Grand Canal, all viewable from the Accademia Bridge. 

“We literally walked almost every inch of Venice looking at different sites,” Britt Cornett, the Chihuly Studio director of exhibitions, recalled. (That even included the hospital, on the city’s northern edge.) In the end, the team settled on the Palazzo Franchetti, Palazzo Querini alla Carità, and the Palazzo Balbi-Valier Sammartini, where a friend of the artist who had hosted a chandelier in 1996 was happy to take part once again.

The opening comes just a few weeks after a vandal, apparently suffering from a mental breakdown, smashed 12 glass sculptures at Chihuly Garden and Glass, a permanent exhibition in Seattle, causing $240,000 in damage. 

“That was crazy,” Jackson Chihuly admitted. But while the destroyed works cannot be remade—they date to Chihuly’s time working in Finland—the display is large enough that it was easy to rearrange the remaining pieces without any noticeable difference. And the incident, while unfortunate, certainly added to the buzz around the Venice show, combined with serendipitous recent appearances as a clue in both the New York Times crossword puzzle and the Jeopardy! game show. 

So it is with a sense of triumph that Chihuly’s newest show arrived in Venice, shipped with the greatest of care from his Seattle studio, a museum-like facility on Lake Union named the Boathouse after its long history as a boatbuilding workshop.  

The full range of Chihuly’s mastery of color is apparent in the three installations (all made in 2025), with the amber translucence of the 31-foot-tall Gold Tower contrasting with the vibrant green-to-blue ombré of the curlicue baubles of Blue Green Tower, which measures 26.5 feet tall. The two works have some 1,600 and 1,400 handblown forms, respectively. And there’s a special nod to glassblowing tradition in the 16-foot-tall End of the Day Chandelier, which takes its name from the thrifty practice of reusing all the discarded scraps of glass to make one final work when a project is done. It features a bold mix of 350 leftover red, blue, yellow, and green glass coils, bulbs, and tendrils, swirling together in a carnival-esque, confetti-like display. 

There’s also an accompanying gallery show curated by Suzanne Geiss at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. On view are Chihuly’s faxed drawings and notes prepping for the 1996 show—a key element of his practice, as injuries have prevented him from blowing glass since 1979—as well as a gorgeous array of colored photographs documenting the exhibition. A second room presents Chihuly’s delicate, nested “Celadon Baskets,” a 2017 series inspired by Native American baskets and his early interest in weaving. Through years of experimentation, Chihuly embraced the natural slumping and asymmetry of blown molten glass, giving each work an almost organic quality. 

Chihuly’s work has become so familiar that it’s easy to take for granted the technical and artistic innovation that make it all possible. Each towering sculpture is made from fragile, delicate glass, installed on a custom-designed metal armature system. The artist had to engineer all that for the 1996 Venice show. 

“It’s hard to remember that that had never been done before,” Jackson Chihuly said. She is a fierce advocate for her husband’s work, pointing out that “there’s no living artist who has as many permanent collections, in as many places as far flung as he does.”

From his early years, Chihuly always made sure to fully document his work through photographs and videos—a practice that gave “Chihuly Over Venice” an influential second life, as the subject of a PBS film. The 90-minute documentary was the first HDTV film ever broadcast, but it wasn’t just a way to capture a short-lived exhibition for posterity. It brought the beauty of the work, the remarkable contrast of the colored glass against Venice’s blue-green waters and romantic palazzos, to the world. Now, there’s another chance to experience Chihuly’s gift to a new generation. 

“Dale just says ‘I want to give people joy,'” Jackson Chihuly concluded. “He really wants to make people happy.”

Below, Hope Atherton, Jessi Reaves, Sam Moyer, and Sarah Morris speak frankly about fractured time and sharpened instincts, about the guilt that arrives without warning and the power that nevertheless accompanies it. They talk about what their mothers gave them and what they hope to pass forward, the rituals that hold it all together, and what their children have taught them that years in the studio never could.

Hope Atherton

What are some unexpected ways that being a mother has informed your art practice?

I have developed a sense of urgency that wasn’t present with the same intensity before I became a mother. For years I lived and worked in my studio downtown and life and studio work were very much integrated. Time was an inexhaustible resource. Decisions and processes unfolded in a luxurious conversation with myself. Now time is fractured, dislocated, and always under negotiation. But this fracture has pushed me to be more decisive. More precise. Just as with my life as a mother, in my studio I have learned the essential value of efficiency.

How have you handled the delicate balance of being a working mother?

This balance is a constant challenge. Each side of the scale, my daughter and my studio, pulls me in its own exquisite direction. My daughter always, and inevitably, comes first. The studio waits for me, and I have learned to trust that. What I once experienced as interruption I now understand as a kind of changing tide of time and focus.

What are your most treasured rituals?

Bedtime reading. That small ceremony at the close of the day, held at the edge of sleep. I have always loved and even found inspiration in the illustrated fairy tales of the early 20th century, those strange luminous worlds and creatures. It used to be me reading these books to her, and now beautifully reversed, she has been reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to me. What began with enchanted woods and rabbits has quietly darkened and deepened, as her little gothic sensibility emerges.

Has seeing art through your child’s eyes changed any of your long-held opinions?

My opinions haven’t been changed, but the fundamental truth of looking with clear and wide eyes has been confirmed to me over and over again. It is always a joy to look alongside my daughter.

What are the lessons you learned from your mother that you hope to also impart to your child?

I have learned kindness, empathy, and a deep love of animals—especially dogs. To spoil them. To carefully rescue a bird that has found its way inside the house. To believe in the spirit of living things. My parents have always had dogs, and in my adult life so have I. Since my late 20s I have always had my familiar. But perhaps the lesson that runs deepest is family connection. I speak with my mother on the telephone every day, and she talks to her mother every day (who is 101!) and my daughter has been aware of this bond, the constancy of it, the tenderness of it. I hope she carries this forward with me.

Can you share a recent story where you struggled between work and motherhood?

I felt this struggle a bit last summer when we were Upstate while I was finishing work for an exhibition in London. I spent each day in my studio, while father and daughter found ways to entertain themselves and each other, archery and other Hunger Games inspired activities. These attempts often ran out of steam, and they would eventually end up in the studio, moping around like two big puppies, pestering me to come outside and play.

Jessi Reaves

What are some unexpected ways that being a mother has informed your art practice?

I’m at the beginning of my experience as a mother, but I’ve had the past 10 years of making art in one fairly consistent trajectory. Now I feel drawn in a slightly new direction, almost like a sort of rebirth. I feel brand new in many ways, which is thrilling. I guess it’s unexpected in the sense that I didn’t think I wanted to change—I was really scared to become a mother and lose my individual identity—and I didn’t expect to feel so much more powerful. It has also forced me to slow down, sit still, and work through ideas in my mind since I can’t be as immediately physical in the studio. I close my eyes and daydream about the studio and what I want to do when I get in there.

How have you handled the delicate balance of being a working mother? Can you share any particularly triumphant times or, on the flip side, challenging moments?

So far I’ve been taking it easy, which is accidental good timing in life. I was about four months shy of finishing a big body of work when I found out I was pregnant. I had a hard time finishing that work. I had never felt so tired in my life. I would set very small goals for each day and I leaned heavily on my friend, the artist Thomas Barger, who helps me in the studio.

Then I had the pleasure of installing my exhibition twice, first at the Walker and then at the Academy of Arts and Letters, only a few months after I gave birth. That was my first time going back to work. I only brought the baby with me for a few days, but I felt like a superhero—it was actually very cool and empowering to just figure it out. It would not have been possible without the help of Jean’s father, Zach, and everyone at Arts and Letters who made it easy for me. I also loved the feeling of rushing home to see the baby. It was intense and very physical to miss her.

Has seeing art through your child’s eyes changed any of your long-held opinions?

I’m pretty sure that her more focused and clear vision just started. But I appreciate how much she responds to texture, and I’m being reminded how touching, grasping, and interacting precedes seeing in our senses as we come to understand the world. I try to bring her things from my studio like soft carved wooden objects I’ve collected—things that are a little different than the usual bland baby toys.

What are the lessons you learned from your mother that you hope to also impart to your child?

My mom was incredibly resourceful. She valued handmade and used items over the shiny and new, especially when I was little. It’s a lesson I try to keep in mind because I find all of the stuff and the pressure to buy things almost predatory—it can make me really depressed. I try to channel my mom in those moments. When I need to solve a problem, I try to figure out if there is a simple solution, something I can make or modify to get the job done.

What are the lessons and examples you hope your child learns from you?

That she can make her own rules in life, and that she can be strong and feminine simultaneously.

How old is your child? Is your mother still alive?

Jean is four-and-a-half months old and she is named after my mother, who passed away almost four years ago. My sister Liz has two kids (7 and 10) and she has been a great example to me as a mom.

I try to make time to think about my mom and talk to her daily, even in her absence. Typically I make time for that at the end of my yoga practice, when I’m feeling at ease. My boyfriend’s mom, Deborah, is in my life now, and she is an incredible grandmother and shows up often to help with Jean. It has been very sweet to have a new motherly figure in my life.

Have any other artists shared any particular wisdom with you about being a mother?

My friend Susan Cianciolo has always been the ultimate artist-mother blueprint. She has shown me that no matter what happens in life, you have this incredible opportunity for growth and collaboration with your child. Also, my friend Octavia Brugel taught me something really sweet—when she met Jean at my opening in March, she said it reminded her of being a little kid and going to openings with her mom. She reminded me that female artists having children was still taboo as recently as the ’90s, and that ideally, I want to involve Jean in as much of my life as possible. I hope she can see me working and join me if I travel for exhibitions. Obviously I have a lot to learn about what’s possible, but a girl can dream.

Sam Moyer

What are some unexpected ways that being a mother has informed your art practice?

My ability to work when I feel like my tank is completely empty. I’ve learned to experience my practice as energy-giving rather than energy-consuming—even if I am the same degree of physically exhausted, my brain can switch to a space of growth or curiosity.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a working artist and a mother?

Logistics. Being tethered and scheduled and carrying the distraction of the great to-dos. Feeling pulled to my kid and guilty, and having to drop into the mind-frame of work regardless.

How have you handled the delicate balance of being a working mother?

I just try my best. I am on a mission to cut myself some slack.

What are your most treasured rituals?

The second coffee I have immediately after the first coffee—the one I can actually enjoy. But this was established well before I had a kid.

Has seeing art through your child’s eyes changed any of your long-held opinions?

I love the immediacy of his reactions to art—he has no need to perform appreciation. From a very young age he could sit through videos I would wander off from, or declare a painting I had walked past his favorite. I’m not sure “change” is the word, but it has been a great reminder of how to look.

What are the lessons you learned from your mother that you hope to also impart to your child?

My mom is an artist. She has managed a flexibility in her own fulfillment that I would love to pass down. Despite life not always allowing her studio time, or having to pivot and change careers, she manages to use those muscles of creativity. She taught me the idea of freedom within boundaries, and how learning to move within confinement is so much more fun and productive than focusing on the walls of the container.

How do you feel the art world supports working mothers?

A lot of the people I love and work with in the art world are full-time working mothers. There is an understanding and community in that. The art world itself is a lawless land with no promises or systems in place, but there is community. And now there is Artists and Mothers—a great nonprofit with an incredible board.

Sarah Morris

What are some unexpected ways that being a mother has informed your art practice?

It has made me accept humor and the sensual nature of being. It has taught me how to read between the lines even more so—intuition is a powerful tool. Part of art is intention, part of it is in its absence, or intuition.

How have you handled the delicate balance of being a working mother?

It’s a structured balance. I have had various forms of help—my parents, my studio, and certainly the school itself. One has to learn to delegate and share responsibility, always. My mother always worked so I understood from an early age that this was completely normal and necessary. Equality is not just an ideal—it’s a practice.

What are your most treasured rituals?

Our most special ritual is either cooking together, traveling abroad, or even the simple act of swimming. The adventure of seeing another country together and sharing the dialogues in art which are all going on simultaneously elsewhere. I love sharing that with Orson.

Has seeing art through your child’s eyes changed any of your long held opinions?

Absolutely. The frankness and opinions of Orson I always listen to with a sharp and curious ear.

What are the lessons you learned from your mother that you hope to also impart to your child?

To be as passionate as you are disciplined. The details all matter.

Can you share a recent story where you struggled between work and motherhood?

There is no struggle—it is one continuum of focus and energy. It all comes from the same source. Struggle is one thing, and definitely as an artist one is constantly dealing with issues. Motherhood is similar but certainly not in opposition to what one is.

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Some people see things in a way that carries shape, color. A scene can be summoned and even consciously altered. For others, this does not happen at all. Closing one’s eyes does not produce a mental picture but something closer to darkness. What has come to be called “aphantasia,” coined in 2015, names this condition. Many people only discover it by accident, often after encountering descriptions like MacFarquhar’s and realizing that a basic idiom has been misunderstood their entire lives. It is not just that minds differ, but that we have been speaking past one another, taking metaphor for fact or fact for metaphor.

I recognized myself immediately. When I read, I do not picture characters or scenes; it would never occur to me to do so. The words, as one of MacFarquhar’s interviewees put it, tunnel “directly into the mind.” The visual world drops out, giving way to something more verbal and spatial than pictorial—like navigating a terrain without ever seeing it. One aphantasic described their memory as a kind of echolocation, like those river dolphins who, living in muddy water, have lost most of their sight. 

My absence of images does not foreclose imagination. Images can impose themselves—in dreams, in flashes—nor does it eliminate attachment or feeling, though it may alter their texture. There is, perhaps, something to be said for a degree of blurriness in memory: a softening of edges that allows one to forgive others, and oneself. (I also eventually remembered more in psychoanalysis.) But this raises an unsettling question: If much of what we take to be memory, selfhood, even desire is bound up with images—what happens when those images are not there? 

MacFarquhar places aphantasia alongside its apparent opposite, hyperphantasia, where mental imagery is vivid, immersive, and sometimes inescapable. Here, imagination can become a kind of atmosphere one inhabits—rich, generative, but also difficult to regulate, even to distinguish from reality. Images linger and return unbidden. If aphantasia risks a certain distance from experience, hyperphantasia risks its opposite: an overproximity, where what is imagined carries the force of what is real. (Mind you, psychoanalysis began with what Freud described as daydreaming women. Today, TikTok calls them maladaptive daydreamers.)  

Freud’s psychic map doesn’t quite bifurcate the personality between the imaginers and non-imaginers, the men from Mars and the women from Venus. Well, maybe it is a little of the latter since the way sexuality (oh-so-stuffed with images of gender) affects us is rather important to Freud. In his universal picture of mental functioning, we are in fact on a moebius strip that moves from aphantasia to hyperphantasia, tracing the unstable passage between words and images, thought and hallucination, memory and fantasy:

My explanation of hallucinations in hysteria and paranoia and of visions in mentally normal subjects is that they are in fact regressions—that is, thoughts transformed into images—but that the only thoughts that undergo this transformation are those which are intimately linked with memories that have been suppressed or have remained unconscious. 

Freud was deeply struck by the proximity of language-based thinking to the murky environment of the unconscious. He turns most dream images back into linguistic puns to search for deeper repressed layers. In a near-death experience at a young age, he recounts the awareness of danger immediately taking two forms: words shouted in his ear with “indistinct sound images and slight lip movements” along with their visible counterpart written on a piece of paper floating before his eyes saying, This is the End. 

If there is a spectrum between aphantasia and hyperphantasia, for Freud it is a shifting field of representation lurking above the surface of what we psychoanalysts think of as the Real chaotic experience of reality—trauma, knowledge of mortality, overwhelm. Like Freud’s late ideas about mourning the loss of a loved one: to accept their death, every connection—our images, memories, ideas, affects (from guilt and shame, to love and blame)—must be gone over in the mind and released into darkness. Apparently, we would rather do anything than that. I called MacFarquhar to go further down the phantasia rabbit hole.   

I have aphantasia. Have you diagnosed yourself?

I’m not aphantasic or hyperphantasic, and there’s not really any reliable way to figure out where you are on the spectrum between the two poles. Based on the epiphenomena of aphantasia, I feel like I’m probably closer to that end of the spectrum. My memory is not very good; my facial recognition is not that great. I’ve never pictured fictional characters when I read, so I think I’m probably closer to that, but I definitely have imagery. Who knows? In 2010, when I was interviewing a philosopher, Derek Parfit, he mentioned that he doesn’t have any visual imagery. He said, “I can’t picture my wife when she’s out of the room.” I was stunned by this and thought, Well, faces are difficult and complicated. “How about the flag? Can you picture the flag?” He replied, “No, nothing.” 

Shocked, I went back to my hotel room and started researching, but because it was 2010, I found nothing except Sir Francis Galton who asked about the mental images (or lack of them) scientists used. It stayed in the back of my mind, and then years later, I was interviewing a political activist in North Carolina, and he was describing the opposite—a form of memory where not just your past, but all the facts you know, you see visually in a kind of hologram—an ellipse around your body.

Like a memory palace?

A memory palace is something that you consciously construct to memorize things. For the activist I interviewed, it’s more involuntary. He just experiences his memory in this ellipse around his body. It was a mixed blessing. He was still living in the place where he grew up and he was continually haunted. To escape, he spent some time in his 20s in the desert out west because he craved emptiness.

Then there [was] this third thing. One evening, I was having dinner with two old friends. One is a very serious pianist, and she was saying that whenever she plays the piano, she sees the room filled with colors. Of course, I knew what that is—synesthesia. But the striking thing was that afterwards she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that before.” That was completely shocking. This was something so important to her life, this deeply beautiful and emotional thing, yet she’d never mentioned it before—not because she was embarrassed by it, but because it had just never come up.

Right before I read your piece, I had an experience with a patient where I got frustrated. He was always creating images that would inevitably lead to incredible disappointment—yet he would still insist on imagining them. He was a daydreamer of sorts. I know this idea is important to Freud, and yet, I thought, How do you live like this? I realized my frustration was rooted in difference. 

Adam Zeman, the neurologist who coined the term aphantasia, pointed out to me that the condition doesn’t just affect how much you’re able to live in the past, but also how much you encounter the future. All the aspects of having imagery sound good at first, but they can turn out to have quite significant negative aspects. As you’ve pointed out, always envisioning the future is not necessarily a good thing. When you found out that you have aphantasia, what did you think about it? What kinds of realizations did you have?

I didn’t have a lot of memories, which I always sort of chalked up to trauma, but I got memories back over the course of analysis. I realized while reading your piece that my memories were always spatial. I would remember a space or placements of things. I was always reconstructing a landscape, but without it really being imagistic.

You talked in your piece about aphantasic reading. I read incredibly quickly and digest huge amounts of material. And reading saved me, probably because I lived in a kind of blankness. One could say school is a good thing, but there was something more to it, almost constitutionally—that school was the right thing for me. When I realized I had aphantasia, I reflected on how I always thought I had a photographic memory. For example, when I took tests, I would make notes, and I could see what I wrote on the page because I knew where I had written it. But it’s not a photograph; it’s a spatial memory. 

When I trained myself as a psychoanalyst to listen to patients, I developed a compartment for them. You can’t just walk around with all that material. Luckily, I can store massive amounts of information about patients. I don’t have access to it except when I’m with the patient in my office; it suddenly all appears to me. Sometimes it freaks my patients out because I remember the most insane things—and I don’t take notes.

That’s interesting. Even though I do have imagery, I’m not a very visual person. It never struck me as important. I was just never interested in my own imagery, unlike hyperphantasics, for whom it’s endlessly fascinating. From what you’re saying, your mind almost sounds like computer files: The storage of information and words takes up less space than storage of imagery, so you can put more into your mind. 

I tried to think about how this maps onto Freud. He has a kind of system where images are at the top of consciousness, then in a lower layer of consciousness is the verbal, spatial, and then there’s the unconscious. Word representations are the basis of the translation into images. So, he questions all conscious images, and he even questions dream images, because he thinks they’re constructed out of words. 

I would think that images are more primal than words. I wonder, was Freud aphantasic, or at least, was one of the revolutionary things he did to reverse the order?

That was his great intervention in psychology: that whatever the most primal thing is, it’s not anything that is either visual, as we know it, or linguistic material, as we speak it, and with which we organize our realities. What that more primal thing is—we don’t know. It must be much stranger and much more chaotic. We can have some idea of it in dreams, because it’s not just that dreams are visual. They can be many things—they can be auditory, or just a sensation in the body. They often are more real than reality. 

Was he not interested in the pre-verbal? 

We know the brain changes, which is always the moment Freud marked—around 6—around the consolidation of language, the changing of the representational system of the mind, and repression. Of course children would have pre-verbal experiences, but he’s basically saying that everything is coded verbally backwards after that point in time.

But you recognize things and you dream in images, but you don’t have them voluntarily accessible to you in waking life? As a psychoanalyst, what do you make of that? Where are they?

I don’t know. This is what I find so strange. You say, can you imagine a red glowing orb? Can you turn it to the left and make it shoot a green light? I’m like, What? I guess I could do that, but it doesn’t feel real and palpable in the way that you describe people having images. In the aphantasic network, which I signed up for—they bomb me with emails—they ask, do you have a dim, blurry image? I feel like maybe I have that. Or I can construct something out of pictures of pictures, but it’s not my mental image. So when you say, can you picture the American flag? I see Robert Mapplethorpe’s flag.

So you can see something?

Yes, but I see Robert Mapplethorpe’s picture of a flag.

So you’re probably not aphantasic.

Well, maybe I’m not on the most extreme end, but I still feel like it’s a picture of a picture. It doesn’t belong to me.

I discovered in reading about this that it’s not just about vividness or brightness; it’s also about the ability to manipulate—an ability to do things with the image—and the ability to choose what you see. It’s easier to see a representation of something—to see a picture of a flag, or if you see a person, you may picture a photograph of them rather than the person themselves, because it’s fixed. It’s easier. It requires less conjuring ability. I think that makes sense.

I was reading Jung for the first time with this artist Precious Okoyomon, who, by the way, is also aphantasic. I told her I was transgressing a real prohibition by my Freudian training not to read Jung. He’s obviously hyperphantasic—the visions and imagistic way he describes his life, even at 4 years old. This informed his whole system. So is Freud vs. Jung an aphantasic-hyperphantasic showdown? And what are the therapeutic consequences of someone who’s one way and someone who’s another? 

This is the thing that intrigues and haunts me: If this very central and important difference between us has really only been recognized since 2015—which is incredible—then of course there must be dozens of other things that we have not yet pinned down, even though they’re hiding in plain sight. This is not an obscure and rarely encountered feature of the mind. This is something present in all of us every day.

Like trauma. Why some people can experience the same traumatic event, and then only some have difficult sequelae from it. And those sequelae are very various. Some experience a radical severing at the moment of trauma from themselves and from life. Other people can’t stop imagining it. So one would be a hyperphantasic reaction; another would be more aphantasic—whether it goes into blackness or into repetitive and intrusive imaging.

It does seem that aphantasia is somewhat protective against trauma. One of the problems for people with trauma is that if they are aphantasic, they may not be diagnosed correctly with PTSD, because the criteria are very much centered on visual memories of the event. 

If we are an image-based culture, do we privilege hyperphantasia? 

I actually feel like our culture is more textual than ever. Perhaps slightly less now, with people scrolling TikTok and Instagram instead of reading texts and emails, but certainly pre-iPhone, people were reading and writing more than ever before in human history. So the idea that we have an image-based culture doesn’t seem completely right to me. I think the significance of the present moment is less TikTok or Instagram or social media in general, and more the iPhone and photographs. That is such a powerful prosthetic—not only for people with aphantasia, but for all of us who don’t have photographic memories of our past. 

One startling claim is the relationship to one’s sense of self. Visual imagery seems to create a greater attachment to one’s sense of self, to one’s past, to one’s autobiography. And on the extreme end of aphantasia, there’s very little sense of self, very little autobiographical memory, and almost the potential to live completely in the present. 

Derek Parfit, who was the first aphantasic I encountered, organized his philosophy around the idea that selves are not very important—that there is no hermetically sealed individual. That’s a very Buddhist idea, and he just doesn’t think that’s what matters. He’s certainly not interested in his own self. It’s a way of being, and I don’t think it’s better or worse. Maybe if I were Buddhist I would think it was better, but it’s exciting to me that there is this very deep difference between people. Do you think some people might be repressing imagery attached to memories, traumatic or otherwise?

I would think of hyperphantasia and aphantasia as both defenses. We constantly ask questions about the difference between images and words. When someone has an image, you try to translate it into language. When someone has language, you might ask about it in a way that prompts memories or material that might be more visual. We’re trying to move back and forth between these, seeing it as a process of translation, as a way of loosening things.

What about people who are congenitally blind? Where does this leave them if they have no visual sense whatsoever?

There have been amazing studies on the blind by psychoanalysts, a lot of which got lost to history. But we know that some congenitally blind people have something that seems to approximate images. We also know that those images are constructed on the basis of a more symbolic matrix.

Jacques Lacan has this concept called the mirror stage. It’s about your relationship to your visual image—how you construct a sense of your whole body through an image of yourself from the outside, and in reverse. He says this stands in contrast to the immaturity and chaos of the child at that stage, who attaches to this visual image. Psychoanalysts often talk about what it means to get stuck in that image of yourself—an image that is outside of you and backwards. 

One of Adam Zeman’s collaborators, a French scientist named Bérengère Digard, has prosopagnosia—difficulty recognizing faces. What we don’t realize is how many cues we use to recognize people besides their faces—clothing, hair, voice, even smell. She said it becomes difficult when someone changes their appearance, like getting a haircut without warning. Here’s the remarkable part: She said that if she’s in a crowd near a floor-to-ceiling mirror—like in a hotel—she won’t know which person is her. Of course, in a bathroom mirror, where she’s alone, she knows it’s her. But in a group, she can’t identify her own reflection. Don’t you, as a psychoanalyst, feel that everything is a form of misrecognition?

Yes, I suppose so.

Further Phantasias 

Jayne Bigelsen and Tina Kelley on maladaptive day dreaming

Nuar Alsadir on the analyst Wilfred R. Bion and his (aphantasic?) patient Samuel Beckett 

A series on repression in Lacanian psychoanalysis (parts I, II, and III)

Katie Heaney on the memory wars

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Wallace Chan once renounced the material world. Now he constructs it.

The artist and former monk’s latest exhibition, “Vessels of Other Worlds,” opening at the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà on May 8, coinciding with his 70th birthday, during the Venice Biennale and at Shanghai’s Long Museum on July 18, presents three titanium giants—towering at seven, eight, and 10 meters tall, evoking the oil vessels used in religious ceremonies.

The Hong Kong-born sculptor and jeweler himself spent years as a Buddhist monk before turning to titanium sculpting at a scale most foundries wouldn’t attempt. Five decades later, he’s built a practice where Eastern and Western philosophy and craft coexist, describing the time it takes to capture a moment in titanium as cyclical rather than linear. “Memory does not simply record the past. It reshapes it. It evolves as we evolve,” he explains. “It can take centuries to complete a single moment of being.”

The artist sat down with CULTURED to share a few of the memories embedded in his latest works, as well as his thoughts on the cultural distance between Venice and Hong Kong.

How were you first introduced to titanium as a material for use in sculpture? 

There was never a single moment when I decided titanium could be used for sculpture. The turning point came when I realized titanium could become my artistic medium—capable of carrying whatever I wanted to create. Titanium is demanding. Its melting point is close to 1,700 degrees Celsius. It has strong memory and resists manipulation. You cannot dominate it. You have to understand it.

The three vessels to be shown at the Long Museum are physically heavy. They stand seven, eight, and 10 meters tall, and the seven-meter vessel alone weighs 4.6 tons. Titanium is lighter than many other structural metals, but there is nothing light about these works in physical terms. What it allows is structural precision at this scale. Thousands of components interlock and remain stable as one system.

For me, titanium is the material closest to eternity. It resists corrosion and survives extreme conditions. In “Vessels of Other Worlds,” it gives physical form to the cycle of birth, growth, and rebirth. Birth is constructed as an interdependent mechanism—gears and human figures embedded within the structure—suggesting that existence begins in movement and relationship. Growth expands in scale and spatial complexity, allowing the viewer to enter and experience the structure from within. Rebirth folds the cycle back into itself. It is not an ending, but a return. It allows me to approach the idea of continuity as a possibility.

What about the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà made you return for this year’s Venice Biennial, after exhibiting “Transcendence” there in 2024?

I felt that my dialogue with the space was not finished. The Chapel is long, narrow, and quiet. It is not monumental in scale, but it carries centuries of presence. It requires concentration rather than expansion. At the Long Museum, I explore monumentality through physical scale. In the Chapel, I explore monumentality through complexity and restraint. The architecture shapes the work. It asks the sculpture to respond, not to dominate. In Venice, the vessels exist in a state of becoming. The space encourages inward reflection. That condition is different from Shanghai, where the sculptures stand fully realized in open architectural volume. Returning to the Chapel allowed me to continue that conversation between space, material, and the cycle of life that the work embodies.

How do you see religion appearing in your work, considering your time as a Buddhist monk, and interest in the sculptures you’ve encountered in Christian cemeteries?

All religions are philosophies. They are questions and contemplations about existence. Across East and West, the language may differ, but the human impulse is the same. We continue to ask: Who am I? Why am I here? What lies beyond what we can see? In every culture, people turn to objects, rituals, and vessels to approach what cannot be fully explained. Religion, for me, is not doctrine. It is a method of inquiry, a way of moving from one state of understanding to another without insisting on a single answer. That spirit of inquiry continues in my work.

Of this body of work, you’ve said that “like water, they hold what cannot be held—moments, emotions, the passage of time.” What do you see as the connection between memory and water?

Water carries. It transforms. It takes the shape of whatever contains it. Memory behaves in a similar way. It has no fixed form, yet it shapes us, and we shape it. That reciprocity interests me. You shape me as I shape you. My work functions in the same way. I once believed I was sculpting the sculpture. Over time, I realized the sculpture was also sculpting me. Creation is not one direction. It is constant exchange, like memory, like water.

How did the three stages of life and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights become influences for these sculptures?

When I first encountered Bosch, I was struck by how contemporary his imagination felt. His vision moves beyond his own time. The density of imagery, the strange forms, the simultaneity of different states of being—everything feels in motion. The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych: three panels forming one continuum. Beginning, unfolding, transformation. In “Vessels of Other Worlds,” Birth, Growth, and Rebirth follow a similar rhythm. They are not separate chapters, but interdependent states within one cycle. Like Bosch’s garden, multiple conditions coexist at once. Nothing is fixed. Everything is becoming.

The exhibition coincides with your 70th birthday. How has your own understanding of memory and life stages changed, and how has that understanding shaped this body of work?

When I was younger, I might have understood life in a more linear way—moving forward, accumulating experience. Over time, I have come to see life as cyclical. Birth, Growth, and Rebirth are not distant stages. They overlap and exist within one another. Memory does not simply record the past. It reshapes it. It evolves as we evolve. This exhibition reflects that understanding. The three vessels are not separate narratives. They form one continuous rhythm—a cycle rather than a conclusion. It can take centuries to complete a single moment of being.

Your practice bridges Eastern and Western philosophies. How do you maintain specificity while allowing these traditions to coexist within the same piece?

I grew up in Hong Kong, where coexistence is ordinary. Next to a dim sum restaurant is an Italian bistro. In a local café, you can order macaroni in soup. In the same pharmacy, you can find Western medicine and traditional Chinese herbs. East and West are not theoretical positions there. They exist side by side in everyday life. I do not consciously merge philosophies. I live within that coexistence. Each tradition retains its specificity, but they share the same space. In my work, I am not trying to blend them into something uniform. I allow them to remain distinct while existing within the same structure.

Venice is a city defined by erosion and constant intervention. Did the city’s physical condition enter your thinking as you visualized this installation?

In Venice, material is always visible. Stone absorbs water. Surfaces erode. Buildings require constant reinforcement. That reality informs how one thinks about monumentality. Monumentality is not only about scale. It is about how a structure stands over time. It is about construction, support, and interdependence. That is why I arrived at the idea of complexity. Rather than making a single solid mass, I constructed systems—thousands of components working together. Monumentality, in this context, comes from the integrity of the structure.

When the exhibition closes and the works disperse, what do you hope the most impactful takeaway for guests will be?

Birth’s emptiness is potential. Death’s potential is emptiness.

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A group of performers clamber up a wooden structure that looks like a cross between bleachers and a slatted storage rack. Music blares; they bang drums affixed to the shelves. Plaster boards inscribed with words in a variety of languages line each row. In short: It’s a lot. 

This sensory overload—an endless flow of words, performers playing the space like an instrument, and plaster pieces flying everywhere—is characteristic of the work of Miet Warlop, who is representing Belgium at this year’s Venice Biennale. Her project, titled IT NEVER SSST, references the onslaught of misunderstandings, noise, and disaster that defines contemporary life.  

“It’s flooded like a head is flooded now with all the questions and barricades in life,” Warlop, 47, tells me of the pavilion, a few weeks before it opens. She is FaceTiming from the space, pacing the entire time, seemingly as unsettled as the performance she is preparing.

Over the past 20 years, Warlop has become a darling of avant-garde theater in Europe, having performed at venues including Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, Bozar in Brussels, and La Villette in Paris. She is one of a number of artists prominently featured in this year’s Venice Biennale—including Florentina Holzinger, representing Austria, and Dries Verhoeven, from the Netherlands—whose work may be more familiar to performing arts and theater devotees than to the art world. 

It’s a striking development for the Biennale, which maintains separate events for dance, visual arts, and theater. “You could ask the question, what happens when these biennials all get confused?” says Caroline Dumalin, the curator of the Belgian Pavilion. “It’s exciting when these figures like Miet come along and remind you that it’s a false separation.”

During the VIP preview, crowds packed into the pavilion, which looks like a sculptor’s studio meets high school gym. The space will be activated by the full cast for less than half the time the Biennale is open through November. But at least one sculptor will always be there, carving high reliefs based on photographs taken during the live performances and creating new words out of plaster to replace the ones that break during the action. 

Every day, the cast will put the plaster words up on the slatted shelves and later take them down. In other words, the project is never done—it is made and unmade and remade over the course of the show.  

Although she was embraced by the theater world, Warlop has always pushed against its conceits. She rejects conventional narrative and embraces her materials, like plaster, as main characters—or, as she describes them, “drama queens.” In her recent project Inhale Delirium Exhale, performers danced with almost four miles of silk on stage. “I think my visual aspects are so prominent in my work that it’s a bit ridiculous to say that I’m a theater maker,” she says. 

Yet the pavilion marks a departure for Warlop: It’s the first time she’s created a project that seeks to hold its own even when her frenetic choreography and music are not unfolding live. “It’s an interesting time to see how my performances stay vibrant,” she says. 

Warlop grew up in Torhout, a small town in Flanders. Although she was always drawn to visual art, her family preferred more collaborative creative experiences. Her accountant father spent his free time doing amateur theater; her mother taught graphic design to students with developmental disabilities. “I think my family was, and still is, searching for expression,” Warlop says. 

She attended art school at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent—and there, too, her teachers encouraged her to experiment with performance and installation in lieu of painting and sculpture. For her graduate project, in 2003, she created six surreal tableaux vivants, including one of a woman crying into a mountain of tissues that nearly swallowed her up. 

Warlop’s work possesses an athletic intensity that is louder, sweatier, and more raucous than the kind of Marina Abramović-style durational performance with which the art world is most familiar. In one of her most critically acclaimed pieces, One Song, musicians play a mournful song while running on treadmills, balancing on beams, and executing other see-it-to-believe-it physical feats. One critic described the performance—which is touring Germany and Belgium this summer—as “The Hunger Games for theater aficionados.” 

For Warlop, the Biennale is an opportunity to reintroduce herself to the art world, which has held her at a certain remove. The field’s economics offer an appealing alternative to the touring theater model, according to Warlop. She likes the idea of selling her props and designs to support her projects. She applied to represent Belgium at the Venice Biennale in large part because “it was the only way to actually be able to fund my next work,” she says. “This is a reality that is not so visible, but it’s true.”

What does it mean that her gamble worked? Why might the art world be turning toward live art—a more collaborative, durational form than painting, sculpture, or even installation, the preferred medium of the biennale industrial complex? In our screen-addled era, “the taste is for more visceral contact between people and between bodies,” Dumalin, the Belgian pavilion curator, suggests. “The thing I come back to: these are the moments where we need beauty and to feel each other and to be together—rather than making or looking at static objects, we need to have an exchange of some kind.” 

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7 Commandments for Rookie Collectors, From CULTURED’s Power Art Advisors

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Since breaking out onto the scene in 2021, Danielle Mckinney has become one of the most nimble and sought-after interpreters of female interiority in art. The Alabama-born, New Jersey-based painter’s canvases chart the emotional topography of the Black women she depicts in moments of repose—lost in thought, sprawled onto a bed cigarette in hand, fanning themselves. Mckinney treats these undone interstices not as frivolous or futile, but as the fuel that lets them get on with their lives in the taxing, often merciless world that awaits outside the frame. 

In two concurrent exhibitions, one at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, on view through Oct. 4, and one at Marianne Boesky in New York, open through June 13, viewers can witness where this exploration of liminal leisure has taken the artist—and where she’s headed next. The Boesky show sees Mckinney further dissolve the boundaries between the figures and their domestic surroundings and present for the first time a series of watercolors. 

Before the show opened, we caught up with the artist in her own sacred space, the studio. 

What’s the first thing you do when you enter your studio?  

I begin by quieting myself. I clear the space, both mentally and physically, and create a sense of order. Music or silence helps me enter the atmosphere of the work.

What’s on your studio playlist?  

Cocteau Twins, James Blake, Future, Cleo Sol, Aphex Twin, the Isley Brothers, Aaliyah, Boards of Canada, Thom Yorke, Yebba.

If you could do a studio visit with one artist, who would it be?  

Jennifer Packer.

What’s the weirdest tool you can’t live without?  

Damar varnish.

When do you do your best work?  

At night or early morning—the world quiets.

Who is the first person you show your work to?  

My daughter. 

Do you work with assistants?  

No, I work entirely alone.

What is the biggest studio mishap you’ve experienced?  

Early on, I didn’t understand the relationship between gesso and oil, or the importance of drying times and mediums. I lost a number of paintings learning that lesson.

There are many costs to being an artist—where do you splurge and where do you save?  

I tend to be careful, but I’ll always splurge on travel and experience. I’m a sucker for nature and the sea. Those things feed the work in ways materials cannot.

If you splurge on materials, what are your essentials?  

I invest in good brushes. Otherwise, I keep things simple, and I’ve been fortunate to have support from my family at Soho Art Materials.

When was the last time you lost track of time while working?  

Almost every time I paint. I work wet-into-wet, so the process demands full presence. Time disappears.

Have you ever destroyed a work to make something new?  

Yes. I’ll wipe a painting away, but often the figure remains. Then I have to return to her—work with her again—and rebuild the space around her.

On a scale from hoarder to Marie Kondo, where do you fall?  

I’m a minimalist.

Is there a studio rule you live by?  

Cleanliness. I reset the space every day—wash brushes, clear surfaces. I need order to think.

When was the last time you felt jealous of another artist?  

I don’t feel jealousy. I learn from others. There’s space for all of us.

If you could change one thing about the art world, what would it be?  

That more artists are seen and supported. There are so many extraordinary voices—we need more platforms, more visibility. We need more art now than ever.

If you were a studio animal, what would you be?  

A barn owl.

What is the strangest thing you’ve done in your studio?  

I speak to my paintings. It probably sounds like I’m on the phone, but I’m in conversation with the work.

What is your studio uniform?  

An apron—and by the end of the day, paint across my face.

Tell us about the best studio visit you’ve had.  

I’m fortunate to work with gallery teams who have known my work for years. Their visits are honest, thoughtful, and collaborative—they help shape the narrative and see the evolution in the work. I rely deeply on that dialogue.

Do you have any rituals before a studio visit?  

I prepare the space carefully—the edges of the paintings, the walls, the floors. It comes from critique culture: Presentation matters so the work can be seen clearly.

What book changed the way you think about art?  

Recently, I’ve been reading Carl Jung and James Hollis, thinking about shadow work. But Ways of Seeing by John Berger was foundational—it changed how I see images and their meaning.

What’s the best advice you’ve received from an artist?  

Paint, even in your darkest days. Those works often become your greatest light. 

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7 Commandments for Rookie Collectors, From CULTURED’s Power Art Advisors

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Last night’s Pizzalo Mundo pizza party was perhaps the most unorthodox of this season’s Venice Biennale events. The air smelled of za’atar and fig leaf oil, while conversations that may normally be siloed (the curator’s table, the collector’s corner, the artist’s after-party) collapsed into a single, flour-dusted swarm. This was cultural diplomacy by way of pizza dough.

The Occasion: Organized by curator Diana Campbell, entrepreneur Chomwan Weeraworawit, and Paris-based art advisors Samy Ghiyati and Nicolas Nahab, of the Paris-based art advisory NG Partners, Pizzalo Mundo was conceived as a solution to the overwhelming buzz of the week’s obligations, cutting through the scheduling demands with the simplest of solutions: a pizza oven.

The Entertainment: Each artist brought an ingredient from home—or simply one they loved. Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Penang coconut base arrived crowned with Precious Okoyomon’s flowers and Daria Kim’s wild honey. Tarek Atoui replaced tomato paste entirely with za’atar on hummus. Belgium Pavilion artist Miet Warlop brought artichoke hearts; Nordic Pavilion artist Tori Wrånes contributed self-grown potatoes pulled from Randesund soil. Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka finished a pizza with the unexpected combination of fig leaf oil and yuzu salt.

Food and Drink: The pizzas were the menu and the message—each one a small biography of the artist who contributed to it. The evening’s most quietly dramatic offering? A peculiar pizza built around Campbell’s pepper from Pohnpei, Micronesia (a place sometimes dubbed the Venice of the Pacific).

The Crowd: The packed crowd of art-world mainstays included museum curators and directors from institutions such as the Tate, Musée d’Orsay, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Dib Bangkok, Serralves, Pinault Collection, Wiels, MoMA, National Gallery Singapore, Hartwig Art Foundation, Centre Pompidou; artists Rirkrit Tiravanija, Miles Greenberg, Precious Okoyomon, Daria Kim, Tarek Atoui, Miet Warlop, Tori Wrånes, and Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka; and collectors Jenny Yeh, Nathalie and Jean-Daniel Cohen, Jacques Veyrat, Maria Bukhtoyarova, Alexandra and François Trausch, Germana Jaulin, Füsun Eczacıbaşı, Cherry Xu, Punn Chirakiti, and Terry Zucker.

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As a child in the ’70s, Pae White used to visit Sea Ranch, a utopian artists’ community tucked into the Pacific coast of Sonoma County. There, she spent her days digging through the gritty sand to collect whole crab shells and iridescent abalone fragments. The sense of exploration, wild beauty, and serendipity stuck with the artist as she grew up, and she has often incorporated shells into her vast installations and tapestries alongside other scavenged materials.

White was inspired to reengage with this visual vocabulary after noticing the door handle of Milan-based jewelry maison Vhernier, which was cast in bronze in the shape of a crab. Each of the jeweler’s hand-crafted pieces likewise pulls from the natural world, whether through embracing the inherent facets of its precious materials or evoking the organic curves of the body.

For their collection, White took the architecture of crustaceans and abalone but translated it into the new medium of precious stones. The result is a 10-design, limited-edition collection of Vhernier rings in shades of cerulean, violet, and bottle green. Gems like sapphires and diamonds are set into Vhernier’s signature white or rose gold and overlaid with rock crystal to create the illusion of restless light and color, like a mirage on the sea.

Only two versions of each design will be produced, lending a sense of rare discovery to each one. Softly faceted and glimmering, each ring is a little changeable and tempestuous, just like the open sea.

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7 Commandments for Rookie Collectors, From CULTURED’s Power Art Advisors

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