_{Yulia Mahr and Compton Verney Speaking in Dreams. Photograph: © Compton Verney and Jamie Woodley}

Speaking in Dreams, a new installation by the Hungarian-born British artist Yulia Mahr, transforms the chapel into a tactile and dreamlike space where time collapses. The work inaugurates Mahr’s long-term collaboration with Compton Verney, setting the tone for a series of interventions that will entwine the site’s 300-year-long history with her own distinctive language: both poetic and psychological.

Mahr’s practice – spanning multi-media disciplines like sculpture, photography, and immersive installation – has always balanced on the threshold between intimacy and myth. Employing chiaroscuro, monochromatic tones, and still-life compositions, her works feel suspended in an almost devotional hush. In Speaking in Dreams, she brings that sensibility to the heart of Compton Verney.

Within the chapel’s pristine white geometry, Mahr introduces natural materials (charcoal, taxidermy, and ash) to stage a meditation on anxiety as the defining hum of our age. Her installation doesn’t disturb the space so much as converse with it, echoing the way Capability Brown’s own design blurred boundaries between art and nature, control and wildness.

_{Yulia Mahr and Compton Verney Speaking in Dreams. Photograph: © Compton Verney and Jamie Woodley}

A key motif of the work is the crow: a dark, intelligent sentinel of folklore. At Compton Verney, where the birds are a familiar presence, Mahr elevates them into symbols of communication between worlds. “I was born in an era and in a culture where dreams and folklore were still relevant. Hungary has one of the most symbolically rich and spiritually ambivalent folk traditions in Europe, where dreamworlds are saturated with longing, threat, and metamorphosis,” explains Mahr. “

“Actually, throughout my whole childhood – but especially after my mother and I moved to the UK – I lived more in a dream world than the real world. I became semi mute for a couple of years, my dream world becoming a tool of self-preservation that allowed me to navigate a national and linguistic change that I found so utterly overwhelming and alienating. Crows – which appear in my piece – symbolise warning almost universally across folklore traditions. Their urgent call couldn’t be louder.”

For Compton Verney, Speaking in Dreams marks the beginning of an ambitious partnership with an artist uniquely attuned to the site’s poetic possibilities. Over the coming years, Mahr will respond to the estate’s 120 acres of art and nature, weaving together its layered histories and her own meditations on spirituality, ritual, and renewal.

by Imogen Clark

The post Yulia Mahr and Compton Verney Begin Partnership with Speaking in Dreams Installation first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

The initiative involves a curated selection of skilled, auspicious artists — each of whom has earned the endorsement of another top-tier artist due to their distinctive visual vernaculars and individualistic creative visions.

This year’s iteration will feature the following lineup: Ilana Harris-Babou, who was selected by Camille Henrot; Katherine Hubbard, who was selected by Nicole Eisenman; René Treviño, who was selected by Amy Sherald; Neal Tait, who was selected by Chris Ofili; T Venkanna, who was selected by Bharti Kher; and Ana Segovia, who was selected by Abraham Cruzvillegas. Their work will be exhibited across six solo presentations, representing a steadfast devotion to fostering connection and growth within the Frieze fair and global network.

_{Camille Henrot}. _{Photograph: Ellen Fedors}

The vision underpinning Artist-to-Artist is to cast a necessary spotlight on the art world’s overarching commitment to championing future generations of talent. Crucially, it offers up-and-coming creatives career-defining exposure to the bona fide collectors, critics, and curators who flock to London for the five-day fair. Its assemblage is resolutely artist-driven and this year is no different — with the added delight of being bolstered by monetary support from the fêted fine jewellery house.

Tiffany & Co. is no stranger to the realm of classic and contemporary art. Indeed, this symbiotic partnership recalls some of its absorbing contributions to the art scene since the American jewellery atelier’s inception by Charles Lewis Tiffany in 1837. Case in point, the enchanting window displays designed by Gene Moore, which, from the 1950s onwards, invited cerebral collaborative contributions from artists including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

In more recent years, the house has also continued to commission cutting-edge works by artists such as Damien Hirst, Vik Muniz, and Michelangelo Pistoletto, and on occasion, has even displayed pieces by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Hans Hartung in select stores.

_{Ilana Harris-Babou. Photograph: Ellen Fedors}

As emphasised in its press release, a commitment to superlative quality paired with a profound love for art, design, and exceptional craftsmanship has long been engrained in the House’s DNA. Honing a focus on these themes, conversations between the chosen artists and other original editorial content will be available on all Frieze social channels once the fair has officially commenced. 

Frieze London’s “celebration of creative community” will run from 15 to 19 October 2025, as will its unmissable Artist-to-Artist inclusion. And just like Tiffany’s trademark windows in The Big Apple, it beckons visitors and visionaries inside to experience the artistic beauty at play firsthand.

by Ella O’Gorman

The post Tiffany & Co. Joins Forces with Frieze London for Impactful Artist-to-Artist Initiative first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

The designer often spoke of his love for Brera, the neighbourhood where he lived and worked, and whose dual soul – both cultured and vibrantly alive – he admired, with its blend of elegance and artistic freedom. This profound bond was acknowledged by the Academy of Fine Arts, which in 1993 awarded him an honorary title for the coherence of his stylistic research and the rigour with which he united function and inventive imagination.

_{Giorgio Armani: Milano, per Amore Exhibition. Photograph: @agnese_bedini @melaniadallegrave @dsl__studio_}

Conveying knowledge through direct experience and allowing visitors to appreciate the mastery of great artists firsthand was, and remains, at the heart of the Pinacoteca’s vocation. Founded in 1776, the Academy of Fine Arts inaugurated the Pinacoteca in 1809 to support its educational mission. The exhibition of Giorgio Armani’s creations here, alongside outstanding works of art, marks the first time that fashion — central to understanding societies across time — has been included in this mission.

_{Giorgio Armani: Milano, per Amore Exhibition. Photograph: @agnese_bedini @melaniadallegrave @dsl__studio_}

_{Giorgio Armani: Milano, per Amore Exhibition. Photograph: @agnese_bedini @melaniadallegrave @dsl__studio_}

The garments reflect the themes and codes that make Giorgio Armani’s work unmistakable: a reinterpretation of tailoring, a unique sense of decoration, a preference for neutral tones, and a love for the unexpected richness of techniques, finishes, and embroidery. All are signs of a measured creativity that unfolds gradually, redefining the very notion of sobriety. The invisible mannequins allow the bodies to be suggested through the clothes alone, in continuity with earlier exhibition projects.

Giorgio Armani: Milano, per Amore brings together garments previously displayed at Armani/Silos and at major museums worldwide for the first time, enriched by new discoveries from ARMANI/Archivio.

by Chidozie Obasi

For more information and ticket information, click here.

The post Giorgio Armani’s Legacy Is Celebrated in Milan Museum Exhibition first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

Founded in 1854, Louis Vuitton has long accompanied travellers with trunks and accessories that balance refinement and practicality. By the early 20th century, Gaston-Louis Vuitton, grandson of the founder, infused his artistic vision into the House’s DNA. He infused high-culture into the design house by initiating collaborations with leading designers and artists. His efforts culminated in Louis Vuitton’s acclaimed presence at the 1925 Paris fair, now reimagined through this immersive presentation.

_{Louis Vuitton Art Deco}

Spanning eight rooms, the exhibition showcases over 300 heritage objects, many of which have never been seen by the public before. From early collaborations with Pierre-Émile Legrain to dazzling Art Deco handbags, visitors encounter a panorama of innovation, beauty, and craftsmanship.

Highlights include the reconstruction of Vuitton’s original 1925 exhibition stand, historic automobiles fitted with Vuitton trunks, and beauty cases once owned by musicians and couturiers. Each gallery underscores how Art Deco shaped not only the House’s aesthetic but also its broader identity.

_{Louis Vuitton Art Deco}

The exhibition also traces the origins of La Beauté Louis Vuitton, the House’s newest métier launched in August 2025. Beauty trunks, vanity cases, and perfume collaborations reveal how Gaston-Louis expanded beyond luggage to transform personal rituals into works of art.

Visitors are invited to complete the experience at Le Café Maxime Frédéric at Louis Vuitton, overlooking the Seine. With signature dishes such as the Monogram ravioli and Chocolate Entremets, the café extends the spirit of creativity into taste.

_{Louis Vuitton Art Deco}

This immersive exhibition opening on 25 September, 2025, aligns with the centenary of the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, revisits the moment that defined an era while celebrating the House’s own influential presence.

by Ellis Dowle

The post Louis Vuitton Opens Art Deco Exhibition in Paris first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

The campaign opens in Paris, where the Longchamp muse works in her studio in a cobalt and ecru scarf created with artist Constantin Riant, Eiffel Tower print trousers, a blue worker jacket, and a painter’s shirt. She carries the Le Roseau tote in natural leather or a Le Pliage printed with Riant’s patterns.

_{Longchamp AW25}

_{Longchamp AW25}

_{Longchamp AW25}

The next stop is the Cotswolds, and here there’s plenty of warmth and texture with padded kimono jackets, cashmere dresses, shearling vests, and the sculpted Le Foulonné shoulder bag, that have been designed with long walks in mind.

From there, she heads to London, and we see the enduring cool of the duffle coat (as recently seen on Alexa Chung), made in collaboration with Gloverall, which trades the usual plaid for stripes and bamboo toggles that nod to the Roseau. After dark, the palette turns to sexy red and black with a tuxedo-style kimono jacket, leather mini, thigh-high boots, and a glossy Roseau lined in leopard…oh la la.

_{Longchamp AW25}

Sophie Delafontaine, Longchamp’s Creative Director, says of the line: “From Paris to London is a love letter to savoir-faire. From our capsule with Parisian artist Constantin Riant to our collaboration with Gloverall of London, we wanted this season to celebrate craftsmanship through a modern lens. The collection revisits workwear and, across the Channel, explores French elegance tinged with British eclecticism.”

by Felicity Carter

See more on longchamp.com.

The post Longchamp takes us from Paris to London for AW25 first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

Across the site, the revered artist’s work are beaming signals from another dimension: HIGHER POWER arching across the sky and LIGHT is LOVE flashing cryptic bursts only available to be seen after you blink. This isn’t just art – it’s a frequency shift.

_{Chris Levine. Photograph: Michael Fung, courtesy of Chris Levine}

Levine has continually managed to spearhead his unique style through treating light as both material and message. Combined with cutting-edge technology, he has been able to shape-shift from stillness in portraiture to expanding perceptions with larger, more immersive work: he doesn’t just know how to bend light into something you don’t just see – but you feel.

At Houghton, the brain-child of Craig Richards, his installations managed to merge with the rave’s pulse, the forest’s breath and the crowd’s collective high to bring an extraterrorestrial feeling to Norfolk. GLASS caught up him to find out why the brightest art has the ability to slow you down to stillness.

You’ve said “light is the fastest thing in the universe,” but also one of the most meditative. What draws you to light as both medium and metaphor?

Light is something we all too often take for granted, but it’s fundamental to how things work in life, the universe and everything. Einstein said we are compressed Light. To tune into and become more aware of Light is to connect deeper with life itself.

Some of your most famous pieces of work have been capturing leading figures like Queen Elizabeth II and the Dalai Lama. What were the most unexpected or profound moments from working with public figures?

No one is more surprised than me as to how I’ve got to connect so intimately with some of the world’s most iconic figures and how their sittings came about give me goosebumps sometimes. I’m just channeling something. But in my interactions with these leaders it’s clear that we’re all human and connected as one through our souls.

_{Light artist Chris Levine debuts ‘Full Beam’ at Houghton Festival in Norfolk, 7th -10th August 2025 © Photograph: Sienna Lorraine Gray | Khroma Collective}

Your practice extends far beyond portraiture into large‐scale light installations. What made you decide to showcase these in a festival environment, and why Houghton?

I feel a close connection to Houghton Hall and am grateful for the platform that David, Lord Cholmondeley gave me to express myself .After my invitation by the Eavises to do something large-scale at Glastonbury in 2020 – to mark the 50th anniversary of the festival – was sadly cancelled at the last minute due to the pandemic, I thought, “I’m done with festivals.” Too noisy and chaotic to take people into the inviting realm of stillness[!]”. But when Craig Richards and David invited me, I couldn’t say no…maybe one last festival, let’s do it.

How did you approach designing work specifically for the Houghton Festival context, where sound, nature, movement, and altered states already co-exist? How do you navigate that duality as an artist?

All those factors make for a really fertile setting to create some magic. Everything I’m doing, three pieces all in a way connected, just seemed to flow, to manifest, quite naturally. It’s a beautiful setting and the audience is receptive to good and higher vibrations. Really, I’m experimenting with my art form and excited myself to see where it’s going to go over the weekend. The sensory dials are set.

Your earlier Houghton Hall solo exhibition was meditative and reverent. This seems more playful and surreal. How has your approach evolved since 2021?

For sure – this work will operate at a different level, and the fun factor is being dialled up. Expect the unexpected. At its core however – My work is still all about taking people into a meditative space.

_{Light artist Chris Levine debuts ‘Full Beam’ at Houghton Festival in Norfolk, 7th -10th August 2025 © Photograph: Jake Davis | Khroma Collective}

_{Light artist Chris Levine debuts ‘Full Beam’ at Houghton Festival in Norfolk, 7th -10th August 2025 © Photograph: Jake Davis | Khroma Collective}

“FULL BEAM” places a chromed VW camper-van at the centre of a lake, drenched in laser light. What’s the story behind this surreal image – and why that symbol, in that setting?

I first suggested it to Craig and the team only half seriously, as soon as it came out my mouth ‘lets float the van on the lake ha ha’ I knew the scene was set. A ridiculous and absurd idea, but we all felt it was brilliant. I wanted to do it to experience it myself. It felt right to use the camper as it was featured in my show at Houghton Hall – but not like this. This is very experiMENTAL.

What words or messages are being shown in LIGHT IS LOVE – and how do you hope they land in a space of dance and movement?

This medium, we call it a blipvert, projects imagery into the viewer’s peripheral vision. Only perceptible in the present moment of Now. The world as it is right now, and with all the fear and uncertainty, the message is LOVE. NOW.

The imagery in the blipvert only really comes alive through movement – dancing is a great way to experience it fully. It’s not something you just look at; it’s a full sensory experience. I think Light is Love will take what’s already a heightened environment and turn it into something unforgettable. A kind of meditation through movement.

Is LIGHT IS LOVE an invitation to pay closer attention- or to let go and feel?

Great question…truly the work is working if it is heart felt. The mind can catch up later.

_{Light artist Chris Levine debuts ‘Full Beam’ at Houghton Festival in Norfolk, 7th -10th August 2025 © Photograph: Jake Davis | Khroma Collective}

Craig Richards called Houghton a “living canvas.” As someone who bridges light and consciousness, how do you see the role of art at a music festival like this?

To go to a festival is to take time out from the day to day, to be connected with lots of people and enjoy yourself. I see my art as a way to transport people out of the ordinary — to create some sensorial hits that add to the overall feelings of a good time. A really good time!!

Art & Music by nature are collaborative – and in a setting like Houghton, that collaboration is with the space, the sound, the people, the energy.

You’ve worked with musicians before – from Grace Jones to Jon Hopkins. Does the electronic landscape of Houghton influence the way you design your pieces?

I’ve always loved good electronic music, the signals and frequencies can be really pure, like laser light which is based on single frequencies. In the live setting, sound and visuals become a harmonic experience – Sound and Vision, as the Starman said.

The curation at Houghton is next-level, full of real talent and creativity, so any contribution I make has to rise to that. With a great sound system and the highest-powered beams I can get my hands on, we’re aiming for those perfectly resonant moments — when everything locks in, and you just feel it.”

_{Light artist Chris Levine debuts ‘Full Beam’ at Houghton Festival in Norfolk, 7th -10th August 2025. Photograph: João von Hafe}

1How do you want someone dancing at 3AM to feel when they look up and see your work overhead?

By 3am I’m not sure I can take them higher, but we’ll try.

You’ve collaborated with musicians, fashion houses, technologists, festivals- what makes a good collaborator for you?

Its chemistry and vision and open mindedness, can lead to a sum total much greater than the parts. With collaborations the intention with me is to enter uncharted territory. I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some great talent and it’s been an important part of my art.

by Imogen Clark

The post How Chris Levine Turned Houghton 2025 Into a Luminous Dreamscape first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

Through showcasing works by more than twenty international artists, including pieces that pay homage to social media filters, the AI influencer Lil Miquela, and deepfakes, Virtual Beauty gets to the heart of how technology influences self-representation at a time when your online image-curation capacity is a form of currency offline too.

_{Ben Cullen Williams and Isamaya Ffrench. Past Life Grid (2021). Courtesy of the artist}

It traces the trajectory of beauty in the digital era, with one exhibit showing 14 ‘iconic selfies; from over the years, including a screenshot of a Paris Hilton Instagram post in 2006 captioned ‘18 years ago today, @Britney Spears and I invented the selfie’, and another proclaiming that we have reached a ‘Post-Facial Era’ where recognition ‘no longer centres on the human face’ 

In what feels like a nod to the dystopian ease with which you can now pick a facial or body aesthetic and get a surgeon or a filter to enact it, a film installation called ‘You’ depicts a fictional commercial for a brain implant that allows you to pick any face you like, and post-operation, see it as yours whenever you look in a mirror.

_{Lil Miquela – Re-birth of Venus – courtesy of artist and @brud}

More hopeful artworks invite us to expand our understanding of beauty beyond the confines of the traditional binaries of beautiful versus ugly, natural versus artificial, and masculine versus feminine.

Rather than promoting the reification of a new alternative or more inclusive standard, the power of Virtual Beauty lies in the curation of works that collectively challenge our ideas about beauty, creating a space to interrogate the politics underlying it.

_{Filip Ćustić, pi(x)el, 2022 ©David Parry}

Through this lens, as well as being undeniable facilitators of harm, emerging technologies and digital spaces are also presented as sites of hope, protest, and a gateway to reflecting on our ideas about what is ‘beautiful’.

There are artworks which depict luminous animal-like cyborgian avatars, forcing us to consider beauty outside of the spectrum we know it to exist on, as well as surrealist images of bodies that blur western gender norms, including a hyper-muscly individual in a black latex bikini with a Lara Croft style ponytail atop a bald head, set against a glittering purple backdrop. 

The aim of works like these is ‘to create genderless identities beyond human canons of beauty’, with the enigmatic allure of the avatars depicted embodying gender fluidity and queer identity, evoking the way in which our presence in virtual worlds can influence perceptions of identity.

_{Ines Alpha: I’d rather be a cyborg (2024). Photograph: Li Roda-Gil. Courtesy of the artist}

At its core, Virtual Beauty asks what beauty can become when the body is not the limit, with one artist, Ines Alpha, citing how technology enables her, as a woman, to feel like a subject rather than an object by giving her power and control over the version(s) of herself she presents. 

For Alpha, an e-makeup artist who has previously worked with Prada, the surreal possibilities offered by fantastical digital make-up and virtual augmentation facilitate her liberation from traditional beauty standards. 

By pushing at the boundaries of traditional beauty in this way, the exhibition creates a hopeful sense of optimism by disrupting the idea that it all ends at Instagram Face, a term coined by New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino to describe how ‘social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look’ which is ‘ambiguously ethnic’, and marked by high cheekbones, poreless skin and catlike eyes.

At the same time, there is a sinister undertone to the exhibition. While one placard vaguely refers to the ‘manipulative nature’ of social media, others are more poignant, including one picture of two black women with braids in an image generated by AI, which reveals how racism is embedded into image generation tools. A lack of diversity in algorithmic training for generative AI  means that these tools often distort back identity, here by giving the women pictured light skin and chemically straightened hair. 

Another emphasises how gay dating culture has male beauty and body image being transformed by online gay dating culture, and one prompts a critique of ‘designer babies’ – referring to the modern fertility tech and hyper-consumerism which enables parents to decide a baby’s gender, eye colour, and complexion. 

The final room of the exhibit contains videos showing an active project live on Instagram, which aims to reveal biases in Instagram’s content moderation rules, highlighting the platform’s algorithmic power to police body types.

The result is the presentation of the digital self as a site of tension, promising freedom while often mirroring the systems we hope to escape. 

At its crux, Virtual Beauty asks us not whether beauty is liberating or constraining, but who holds the power to define and influence it in the era of Web 3.0? The answer might feel fixed, but hope comes from remembering that it is not.

by Meg Warren

Virtual Beauty at Somerset House is running from 23 July to 28 September 2025

The post Virtual Beauty – The Exhibition Asking Us What Beauty Can Become When The Body Is No Longer The Limit first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

Set to deepen the festival’s already cosmic cross-pollination of music, sculpture and landscape, renowned multidisciplinary light artist Chris Levine and award-winning architecture studio EBBA are set to unveil new pieces during the four-day event. Adding to this already impressive line-up, Houghton’s founder, Craig Richards, will also expand his collection of site-specific art.

Set on the historic grounds of Houghton Hall in Norfolk, the estate’s land becomes a sensory playground. Born from the mind of Richards – an individual known as much for his eye as for his ears (but best known for his founding residency at London’s Fabric nightclub that spanned over 25 years) – the festival occupies the rare space where art and music seamlessly coexist.

_{Chris Levine, Artist render of VW Van element of FULL BEAM, courtesy of the artist}

Canadian-born Chris Levine, hailed for his innate ability to combine light, frequency and sound within art, and most recognisably for his portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, returns to Houghton following his celebrated solo show in 2021. This year, he brings with him three new installations.

The centrepiece? FULL BEAM – a kinetic laser work set across the stately home’s lake featuring a chromed-out vintage VW campervan as its surrealist nucleus that comes to life as lasers, tuned to 528Hz frequency, lighting it up. Alongside this work, HIGHER POWER, a beam of laser that arches over the festival, and LIGHT is LOVE, a cryptic visual echo using Levine’s “blipvert” imaging technique flashing text, will add to the already impressive display.

_{EBBA Design Render, Pulse 2025}

The second commission taps into a quieter, though no less ambitious, frequency. London-based studio EBBA, spearheaded by Benni Allan, brings us Pulse – a permanent installation that quite literally listens to the forest. Using sensors to capture bioelectric signals from trees, the piece translates the data into pulses of light and ambient sound, creating a dialogue between nature and humans.

Architecturally, it will take form as an elevated canopy that is not just designed for the festival but will become a long-term resident that will evolve with the seasons. As an ode to interconnectivity, it cements the notion that Houghton is more than just a party; it’s a place that reminds you to present.

_{Tree Comes Down, Andrew Goes Up}

The curator himself, Craig Richards, is taking a moment to remember the late Andrew Weatherall, a guiding spirit of the UK dance scene, with a permanent home for a sculpture that pays tribute to his legacy. Titled Tree Comes Down, Andrew Goes Up, this piece, a part of the ever-expanding art collection, will live above a fallen tree near the Pavilion dancefloor, close to the bar, where he was often found during the festival.

Touching upon the hope to create a space that celebrates all forms of art, Richards states: “From the outset Houghton has always been an arts and music festival. Whilst the music has clearly defined itself the arts programme continues to grow as the festival itself evolves. We are committed to presenting new works every year”.

As the 2025 edition fast approaches, these commissions expand the territory of the festival, exploring the liminal space of sensation and reflection. If the dance floors are places to lose yourself, then these pieces will help you find hidden parts of yourself.

by Imogen Clark

The post How Houghton Festival Is Redefining Art in Nature for 2025 first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

The vast Ukrainian sky serves as the focal point of the two video works that earned Lesia the main prize for Ukrainian artists aged 35 and under.

Winning the prize for her video piece, Night Without Shadows and Light Without Rippling of Waves, she donated the 400,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (approximately $10,000) prize money to charities supporting the Ukrainian army.

_{Lesia Vasylchenko. Photograph: Ela Bialkowska, OKNOStudio for PinchukArtCentre / PinchukArtCentre Prize 2025}

“I decided out of a sense of responsibility and solidarity. When your country is under attack, when your friends are on the frontlines, when your family is living through curfews and sleepless nights in fear for their lives, there is no way I would spend the prize on my own needs,” Lesia says.

Night Without Shadows and Light Without Rippling of Waves consists of two video works, The Night and Tachyoness, where time and space are warped, layered, and shifted—juxtaposing imagery to reveal how time is at the mercy of systems of power.

“While I have received recognition for a work that reflects on time, memory, and war, I was also thinking about the people who are living that war in real time—risking their lives, defending not only territory but the right of Ukrainian culture to continue existing. The award has given me a platform to contribute, even in a small way, to the defence of my country and to support those who are actively protecting our future,” Lesia says.

The day before the ceremony, held in central Kyiv, a deadly Russian drone attack killed at least 16 people in what Volodymyr Zelensky deemed “one of the most horrific attacks” on the Ukrainian capital since the full-scale war began. A special recognition outside the competition was dedicated to the memory of Veronika Kozhushko, a young artist from Kharkiv who had applied for the Prize but tragically died on 30 August 2024 as a result of a Russian missile strike targeting residential areas and public spaces in Kharkiv.

_{Lesia Vasylchenko Night Without Shadows and Light Without Rippling of Waves, 2022-2025. Photograph: Ela Bialkowska, OKNOStudio for PinchukArtCentre / PinchukArtCentre Prize 2025}

Art has always been used as a political tool during conflict—a weapon of the oppressed to highlight the injustice of war. From Picasso’s Guernica, confronting the horror of the Spanish Civil War, to Goya’s The Disasters of War, and the photography of Lee Miller, documenting the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau after the Second World War, artistic expression has long borne witness to violence and resistance.

Art can also become a living record—an alternate history during times of conflict. “Art practice can become a space where the illegible becomes legible—not as evidence, but as experience. It doesn’t offer resolution, but it allows things to coexist that are often split apart in political discourse,” Lesia says.

Lesia hopes her work raises questions about what kind of knowledge is being preserved and what is being excluded—and by whom. “Through my video installation, I want to bring attention to the political dimension of time, the fragility of memory, and the need to resist dominant timelines by constructing spaces where different pasts and possible futures can still coexist,” she explains.

The Night documents the Ukrainian night sky from 1918 to February 2025, showing brief fragments from each year using footage from state archives, drones, CCTV recordings, front-line videos, and family videos. “Each frame is a kind of media fossil, revealing its origin through the technologies of its time—16 mm, VHS, digital. It’s a media archaeology of Ukrainian night,” says Lesia.

_{Lesia Vasylchenko Night Without Shadows and Light Without Rippling of Waves, 2022-2025. Photograph: Ela Bialkowska, OKNOStudio for PinchukArtCentre / PinchukArtCentre Prize 2025}

Tachyoness uses AI to generate a continuous sequence of sunrises over Ukraine from 1990, the year Lesia was born, to 2022. Eight minutes long, the film mirrors the time sunlight takes to reach Earth. “The sunrise is no longer purely a human experience, but a vision imagined by a machine—an algorithm trained on the visual memory of our collective gaze,” Lesia explains.

For Ukrainians, the sky—once a symbol of freedom—has become a space of fear. The blue and yellow stripes of the Ukrainian flag represent an expansive wheat field under an endless sky, symbolising national liberation.

Even before the outbreak of the war with Russia, Ukrainian artists were working under unstable conditions, but “there’s a strong culture of criticality, collectivity, and resistance,” Lesia explains. The prize and the support of Ukrainian artists from the PinchukArtCentre demonstrate the perseverance of the art scene in Kyiv, showing that even in conflict, art has a place to challenge and open a space where other futures can be imagined—offering hope.

_{Lesia Vasylchenko Night Without Shadows and Light Without Rippling of Waves, 2022-2025. Photograph: Ela Bialkowska, OKNOStudio for PinchukArtCentre / PinchukArtCentre Prize 2025}

“Since the full-scale invasion, I think a lot more about responsibility—and that I have to talk about the war in Ukraine every time I have a chance to be heard, to not let people forget that Ukraine is still at war,” Lesia says.

“[The sky] feels like a space where both grief and potential live at once,” says Lesia. “Where borders dissolve and reappear violently, where satellites orbit, where perception and power are projected. It is not only a silent witness to historical ruptures, but also a surface where erased histories wait to emerge—like stars whose light reaches us too late, or ghosts of time waiting to be seen.”

by Sadie Pitcher

The post Make Art Not War: Glass speaks to Ukrainian artist Lesia Vasylchenko about art, conflict and moral responsibility first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

Coinciding with the Osaka World Expo, this showcase marks the brand’s most ambitious cultural presentation since Volez, Voguez, Voyagez (2015-2019), sparking a triumphant return to large scale storytelling seen through an avant-garde lens.

Curated by acclaimed fashion historian Florence Müller and brought to life by Shohei Shigematsu of OMA, Visionary Journeys is a deeply personal homage to the Maison’s enduring ties with Japan. Unfolding across twelve thematic chapters, you will be able to witness a sensory voyage through time, craftsmanship and cultural dialogue.

_{Papillon bag in Monogram Cherry Blossom canvas in collaboration with Takashi Murakami, Spring/ Summer 2003}

_{Samurai miniatures box in Monogram Eclipse canvas, 2018}

Expect a feast for the eyes as over 1,000 rare and archival objects – including 200 Japan-related artefacts, the iconic Trunkscape installation, the original 1897 Monogram canvas, bespoke creations by Japanese artists (like Takashi Murakami) and a dedicated space of genre-defining collaborations (from Supreme to Stephen Sprouse) , will be available to see firsthand.

_{Japanese Cruiser bag in Monogram Drip denim for Louis Vuitton by Virgil Abloh, in collaboration with NIGO®, Pre-Spring/ Summer 2022}

_{Kabuki make-up case in Monogram canvas 2004: Private Collection}

Each room tells a story. From Asnières to Atelier Rarex, visitors will be able to catch a glimpse of Louis Vuitton’s spirit of innovation and global legacy of savoir-faire. With their rich visual narrative and deep cultural resonace, Visionary Journeys is more than an exhibition – it’s a moment.

by Imogen Clark

_{Exhibition runs parallel to Kusama at Espace Louis Vuitton Osaka and the French Pavilion at World Expo 2025}

The post Louis Vuitton launch Visionary Journeys in Osaka – a tribute to art, innovation and Japanese heritage first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

I ARRIVED at the south London studios gasping and wheezing through thick pollen-filled air. I was welcomed by the painter Freya Fang Wang, who met me outside as I locked up my bike. She ushered me in to the converted school buildings and, as with so many studio complexes in the capital, we went up winding staircases, along corridors and through so many double doors that I started to become disorientated. 

_{Odyssey, 160x300cm Diptych (HxW) Acrylic, Acrylic Marker, Oil Pastel, Oil Stick on Canvas 2025}

Wang works in a small former office and, unusually for an artist’s studio, it was comfortably warm and, despite the obligatory strip lighting, there was no need of it as the sunlight flooded in. Many artists I know work in studios that feel like refrigerators for most of the year and are plagued by harsh artificial lighting. 

“So, Freya, how did it all start?” I asked, sitting on a fold-down chair and opening my laptop. It all started when she began drawing on the wall beside her bed as a small child, not on canvas or even paper Blu-Tacked up, just pencils straight onto the paintwork. She tells me with a laugh that her bed was pushed into the corner, so those lovely blank walls were right next to her head when she lay down – so what was she supposed to do?  

That instinct – to respond directly and immediately to her environment – has clearly stayed with her. 

Born in Beijing, she grew up surrounded by paints and turpentine. Her father, an oil painter, taught art and so art wasn’t something she stumbled upon or perhaps even consciously chose at first, it was always “just there”.

She trained in a traditional fine art setting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and dutifully spent years practising the technical side, the required life drawing and still life, but never felt it belonged to her. She struggled to find joy in her work and the friction between what was expected of her and what she actually desired to explore built up over time. 

_{Freya Fang Wang}

Wang can recall a family trip to South China while studying for her BA in fine art. Rather than painting from observation, en plein air, she began to hold the memory of the place and then to spill it onto the page later, not concentrating on a specific view but capturing the feeling. She wanted to hold the place and to catch the vibrations as she felt them to be. 

This quiet shift to abstraction was important and came just before she arrived in London to study at the Royal College of Art. It was an epic move that created enormous distance – not just geographically, but culturally and psychologically. She began to reflect on her identity as a “radical” in China and how in London she felt far more traditional. In using the distance to observe, she found the clarity required to pick out the elements of her cultural legacy that she wished to claim. 

The move helped Wang sharpen her sense of what to hold onto and what to leave behind. She felt rooted in the ancient Chinese world much more than in the contemporary. It was around this time that she began to explore Daoism, drawn to the articulations of “invisible powers” that she was experiencing in the art-making process but had struggled to explain. Dao gave her the language and some of the answers. 

_{Avalanche, 175x145cm (HxW) Acrylic, Acrylic Marker, Oil Pastel, Oil Stick on Canvas 2024}

Dating back to around 500BC, Daoism, also known as Taoism,  centres on harmony with the Dao (“the Way”), the natural order, the path of life, and is associated with the philosopher Lao Tzu. It emphasises ritual, connecting with the natural world through meditation and observation, and living in alignment with people and the planet. Those who follow Daoism strive for balance and peace. 

Fang does not directly reference Daoist imagery in her paintings. There are no symbols, no calligraphy. It functions more as a quiet underpinning, a framework, or maybe a temperature gauge; a way of thinking about change, relationship and balance, and the idea that everything is made from the same underlying material. We are not separate, she tells me, everything is linked. 

So, that belief has become a working method. Her paintings are built in translucent layers using first acrylic paint, and then oil pastels, oil sticks and acrylic markers. Those first watery layers, thin, like a stain, provide the scaffolding for the marks, the brushstrokes and drawn lines. She uses fluorescent pigments that sit alongside muted, earthy tones and seem to glow on the surface. 

_{Pan, 167.64 x152.4cm (HxW) Acrylic, Acrylic Marker, Oil Pastel, Oil Stick on Canvas 2024}

Odyssey, a large diptych recently shown at Tiderip in London, shows off the vivid, immersive movement that her work is characterised by. It feels both cosmic and intimate, drawing the viewer in and up across the three-metre span.

I viewed it sitting on the floor of the Battersea gallery, accepting the invitation to look up and follow the fluid lines and swirls of colour: flame orange, deep cobalt and soft lilacs. This colour is central, but not always symbolic. The colour is the energy she says, and it’s the power that comes from contrasting and contradicting colours that she seeks. There’s a strong sense of transformation and momentum; the title evokes a journey, and there is both an impatient agitation and a peacefulness present on the canvas. It presses outwards and forwards, leaning towards you, inviting you into visual meditation.  

I tell Wang this and she nods excitedly, clearly delighted that I’m picking up what she’s putting down. Her paintings are not abstract in a decorative sense, they feel more than that – exploratory, alive and vibrating. She tells me they’re not planned and that each painting surprises her. The diptych might be the only one called Odyssey but she describes the process of making them all as a journey. 

_{In the studio with Freya Fang Wang}

She paints several pieces at once, not simply to be more efficient (although, given the drying time required for some of the watery ones, it does help) but because they feed each other. Leant up against the four walls of the studio, they talk to each other as she waits for one to dry.

Some pieces feel like weather systems or soundscapes. Others seem almost bodily. And still others remind me of ceiling frescos, my mind trying to form shapes out of the shapeless. None of them stay still. They shift. 

The natural world is a huge influence on her work, so for my mind to conjure up natural scenery isn’t that absurd. She speaks passionately and painfully about the loss that humanity incurred during and following industrialisation, and the fundamental importance of connection and closeness to the natural world.

In this way, she aligns with Daoism, but although she clearly feels deeply about the ways in which humans are harming the natural world, she is quick to release the anguish. She doesn’t moralise. She just paints, slowly, letting the materials lead, and returning time and time again to the questions – what does it mean to be in touch with something you can only feel? To be connected to an outcome that you cannot predict?

_{Intertwining, 165x125cm (HxW) Acrylic, Acrylic Marker, Oil Pastel, Oil Stick on Canvas 2024}

Freya Fang speaks about her paintings as a conversation, not a conclusion. Each painting is a record of process, a place she reached through trial and change. They become like little mirrors and she leaves a part of herself embedded in each one. But that doesn’t mean they’re autobiographical in the conventional sense. She is not setting out to describe anything, let alone herself. She is keen for me to know that it’s not self-expression, it’s more like self-tracing; a way of following something half felt and watching what comes to meet it. 

At the time we meet, she is preparing several pieces: some to go to Taiwan, China, parts of Europe, and some to stay in her new home, London. Despite listing the deadlines to me in a single breath, there is no sense of rush. The studio is quiet, canvases at various stages, some dense with mark making, other left open. She moves between them, gestural in her sweeping movements and enjoying bursts of energy. 

She’s not forcing anything, she listens and follows.    

by Phoebe Minson

The post Visual Meditation – Freya Fang Wang on life and loss through abstract art first appeared on The Glass Magazine.

From the rucksacks piled high with water guns – the perfect weapon for 30 degree heat, to the smiley face that appeared in the sky when Chic played their Sunday Pyramid stage set, relive or relish in the festival of the year.

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

Each photo explores the underbelly of Glastonbury. Less about the glitz and glamour of the big stages, it looks out at the hundreds of tents that expand across the fields of Worthy Farm, the build-up of bin bags, and the various flags that fly high. Louisa draws us into a detailed painting that feels more familiar to us.

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

Pairs of legs brushing against each other, toes being stood on followed by apologetic murmurs, all in an attempt to get up to the eye-line of your favourite DJ.

Merging into the anonymous crowd, the heat from the people as you pass is sticky — like a melting lollipop stick covered in fluff. It’s almost unbearable. But as the beats drop and you’re dancing with your chosen family, a breeze kicks in, and suddenly it all feels more than worth it.

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

Despite the smell of the porta-loos and the ground that in the heat of June 2025 leaves dust clouds that coat your lungs, festivals dominate British culture. They are a strange phenomenon and cause hundreds of thousands of people, myself included, to be in enchanted with their chaotic charm. It is Glastonbury festival that is the ultimate confirmation of the joy, laughter and connection that can be found within them.

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

_{Glastonbury Festival 2025. Photograph: Eve Louisa}

by Ellis Dowle

The post Glastonbury through the lens of photographer Eve Louisa first appeared on The Glass Magazine.