Latest posts
The Everyday Breakfast Which Could Change Your Life
This came to me as a breakfast suggestion from one of my good friends, Jemima. She’s over 60, though by some real trickery, looks no older than 42. So when Jemima offers up nutritional life hacks, I listen. She framed this one to me via the idea of a morning smoothie in reverse, aka all the…
Taiwanese Artist and Designer Liang-Jung Chen’s Ultimate Movie Night
Included in the group exhibition On Tenderness & Time — curated by Jenn Ellis and presented by Daniel Katz Gallery and Xenia — Taiwanese-born artist and designer Liang-Jung Chen’s poetic practice weaves together ideas around domesticity and societal structures. Her cross-disciplinary projects straddle visual art, product design and performance. Chen’s latest work, which explores the…
Rahel Stephanie Wants to Tell You About Indonesian Food
Rahel Stephanie is the Indonesian, London-based chef and food writing sensation behind the pop up brand Spoons, which she created, somewhat by accident, in 2019. Since then, she has flown. In April of this year, Stephanie released her debut zine, Pedas – a document devoted to the brand of Indonesian food culture she wants to share…
The Best Piece of Advice Painter Shaqúelle Whyte Has Ever Received
Following his graduation from the Royal College of Art just last year, London based artist Shaqúelle Whyte’s career is on a rapid upward trajectory. His work was included in Hauser & Wirth’s major group exhibition, Present Tense, which ran until the end of April, and now he has a solo show open at Pippy Houldsworth…
Interviews
Meet Tesfaye Urgessa, the Artist Behind the First-Ever Ethio...
Hailing from Addis Ababa, artist Tesfaye Urgessa is representing Ethiopia at the 60th Venice Biennale — marking the country’s inaugural participation in the International Art Exhibition. Urgessa’s artistic journey began at the Ale School of Art and Design at Addis Ababa University under the guidance of modern master Tadesse Mesfin. His painterly language connects Ethiopian…
Koo Jeong A Invites Us to Explore the Korean Peninsula Throu...
Upon entering the Korean pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, the space appears mostly empty but breathe in, and a warm and complex scent reveals itself. Hailing from Seoul, South Korea, artist Koo Jeong A’s multidisciplinary practice — which nods to histories of Performance and Conceptual art — spans over two decades. When examined closer,…
After Making History at Cannes Film Festival, Mongolian Dire...
Zoljargal Purevdash’s feature debut, If Only I Could Hibernate, tenderly depicts the experiences of a family facing adverse living conditions in Mongolia’s Ulaanbaatar district. The film launched to great acclaim at Cannes Film Festival last year, making history as the first ever Mongolian film in the Official Selection. Emphasising the transformative power of education, through the lens of…
Behind the Biennale: Yvonne Billimore and Jussi Koitela Want Everyone to Feel Pleasure
On the occasion of the 60th Venice Biennale — open now and running until 24 November 2024 — Something Curated continues its series, Behind the Biennale. Comprising a collection of essays from the curators of select national pavilions, the series offers first-hand perspectives on some of this year’s most exciting presentations. Following the curators of the National Pavilion of Saudi…
An Artist’s Guide to Philosophy: Emanuel de Carvalho’s Essential Reading
Portuguese-Canadian visual artist Emanuel de Carvalho’s paintings and sculptures challenge preconceptions as to how we perceive and relate to the world around us. With a background in medicine and neuro-ophthalmology, the artist uses his practice to research perception as a psychophysical phenomenon, exploring the ways in which it is shaped by social norms and constructs….
London’s Celebrity Cake Maker Lily Vanilli’s Favourite Things
Step inside cake-maker extraordinaire Lily ‘Vanilli’ Jones’s east London home to see the books, bottles, pictures, and home furnishings that mean the world to her. Jones set up her bakery and cake business in 2008 just off Columbia Road in east London and has become best-known for her outlandish, extra and often towering designs, that…
Something for the Week, Issue 9
Welcome back to Something for the Week — your weekly selection of things to look at, read, listen to, and experience across the arts. If you like what you see, consider subscribing to the Something Curated newsletter. Yves Klein and the Tangible World at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, New York Yves Klein and the Tangible World takes as its focus…
Guides
Cumbrian Sheep Farmers Turned Outlaws, Chilling Australian T...
Welcome back to the second instalment of Something Curated’s monthly book review. We hope you enjoyed the inaugural issue, back in March. Now, I will admit some of the books in this, the April round-up, are not for the faint-hearted, but when it comes to art there is nothing quite like being shaken to the…
The World’s Best Pizza City
Who could ever forget the headline: “Is New York’s Best Pizza in New Jersey?” An inflammatory rhetorical question if there ever was one, this is what crowned New York Times dining critic Pete Wells’ 2017 review of the pizzeria Razza in Jersey City – just across the Hudson from lower Manhattan. In a city full of…
Something for the Week, Issue 8
Welcome back to Something for the Week — your weekly selection of things to look at, read, listen to, and experience across the arts. From the buzz of the 60th Venice Biennale’s inauguration to a film festival exploring queer Southeast Asian narratives, April promises to be an entertaining month. If you like what you see,…
An Exceptionally Elegant Scallop With White Asparagus and Bottarga
This week two dishes emerge from a scallop shell. Both fork from an iconic scallop dish from Beijing. Reminiscent of the birth of Venus, a single scallop sits in shell adorned with a flowing mane of glass vermicelli. On a Marco-Polo tip, the dish is given the Botticelli treatment via the addition of every Italian’s…
SC Exclusive: Archipelago Intuition — A Photo Story by Jawara Alleyne, Labō Young and Igor Furtado
The paths of Jawara Alleyne, Labō Young and Igor Furtado crossed during their time at Grand Cayman estate, Palm Heights — while the three were participating in the Open Palm artist residency programme. Caymanian-Jamaican designer and artist Alleyne, whose multidisciplinary practice explores Caribbean mythologies, normally lives and works in London. Hailing from Brazil, Young creates…
Music, Clubbing and Food: The Ultimate Weekend Guide to Bologna, Italy
Bologna, affectionately known as “la ghiotta” (“the glutton”) because of its excellent food scene and culinary tradition, titillates tourists with its tagliatelle al ragu, tortellini in brodo, and its luxurious charcuteries and cheese boards served with crescentine (deep fried dough pockets) and tigelle. But this city is more than just good gastronomy. Beyond the table,…
Who Would Erwin Wurm Invite to His Fantasy Dinner Party
A staple of the contemporary art landscape, Austrian artist Erwin Wurm has profoundly expanded the thinking around sculpture and space over the course of his four-decade spanning career. Sitting at the intersection of abstraction and representation, his tongue in cheek works reimagine familiar objects in unexpected and playful ways, encouraging viewers to see the commonplace…
From The Archive
The Studio Museum In Harlem Director & Chief Curator Th...
Thelma Golden is Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, the world’s leading institution devoted to visual art by artists of African descent. Golden began her career as a Studio Museum intern in 1987. The following year, she joined the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she launched her influential curatorial practice….
Interview: Ernesto Neto On Gravity, Togetherness & The ...
Since the 1990s, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto has produced an inimitable body of work that is in equal parts informed by sensuality and spirituality. Inspired by the Brazilian Conceptualists Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, as well as biomorphism, Minimalism and Arte Povera, Neto’s works engage all of our senses while asserting the human body as…
SC Exclusive: Notes on a Siren — a Film Essay by Justice Jam...
Director Justice Jamal Jones joins myth with modern themes of Black queerness and trans identity in their latest film, Notes on a Siren. Presented by Something Curated, and exclusively premiering on the site, the film was shot on location at Palm Heights in Grand Cayman. Jones expands on the thinking behind their mesmerising work below….