Conceptual Art

Art in which an idea, process or mode of presentation is central to the work. Interviews, exhibition reports and commentary explore artists’ concepts, unconventional formats and the questions raised by how art is made and encountered.

FRAGMENTS: The Merchant House / Your House presents New Summer Exhibition featuring Pino Pinelli, Elsa Tomkowiak, Zhu Hong, Sylvie Bonnot, and André Stempfel

Pittura R by Pino Pinelli: two textured red loop forms mounted on a white wall.

What happens when a painting refuses to stay within its frame? This summer, The Merchant House transforms its historic Amsterdam canal house into a conversation between art, architecture, and domestic space. In Fragments, works by Pino Pinelli, Elsa Tomkowiak, Zhu Hong, Sylvie Bonnot, and André Stempfel spill across walls, challenge traditional materials, and blur the boundaries between gallery and home. From oversized painted zip bags to photographic spiders enlarged to unsettling beauty, the exhibition invites visitors to piece together their own connections across a series of striking visual encounters.

Athens-Based Curator Turns Residency Model Inside Out With Provocative Project “ΒΕΡΟλΙΝΟ”

Entrance to Elli Leventaki’s ΒΕΡΟλΙΝΟ project space, with two notices and a table of books behind the glass.

A provocative curatorial project unfolding in Athens is challenging one of the contemporary art world’s most celebrated career rituals: the international residency. Titled “ΒΕΡΟλΙΝΟ”—a deliberate reference to Berlin—the project is a conceptual and performative curatorial experiment created by art historian and curator Elli Leventaki. Its aim is to confront what she describes as a largely unspoken barrier in the global art ecosystem: class privilege embedded in the structure of artist residencies.

Duct-Taped Banana Sells for $6.2 Million vs. 6.2 Million Children Die from Starvation Each Year

Close view of a brown-spotted banana fixed to a white wall with silver duct tape.

A banana duct-taped to a wall has just sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York, an event hailed by art critics as a record-breaking triumph. But as headlines celebrate this bizarre spectacle of wealth, one must confront an unsettling parallel: every year, 6.2 million children die from starvation, mostly in Africa. That’s over 17,000 children a day. While crypto millionaires and provocateurs play with their money in the name of “art,” over 700 million people around the world go to bed hungry. There’s something deeply rotten in our global culture when a piece of duct tape and a banana is valued more than the lives of millions dying from preventable causes.

Iranian Artist Unveils ‘Freedom’: Mostafa Nodeh’s New Minimalist Photography Collection

A short curved strand of barbed wire in snow, from Mostafa Nodeh’s black-and-white Freedom collection.

Mostafa Nodeh’s Freedom collection is an artistic meditation on the essence of personal growth and resilience. Through minimalist black-and-white photography, Nodeh captures scenes featuring snow, footprints, and birds—symbols that evoke renewal, journeys, and aspiration. Each image invites viewers to reflect on their own experiences, drawing connections between the visual simplicity of nature and the complexities of human emotion. With a focus on universal themes, Nodeh’s work transcends cultural boundaries, offering moments of quiet contemplation that resonate with audiences worldwide.

Exclusive Interview with Tom Glynn – Part 4 | As A Man Thinketh

Autumn Landscape by Tom Glynn, with sloping blue, black, green and yellow bands inside an irregular red and orange frame.

Tom Glynn is a rare breed: an artist who can move effortlessly between artforms, materials, scales and registers, equally adept at making miniature paintings and  monumental sculptures. And yet all of his work is unmistakably English in mood.  His images are populated by the country’s Neolithic monuments and pastoral landscapes, and informed by the many artists who inhabited those places before him.  Glynn is driven by the same Romantic spirit that motivated Palmer and Turner, Nash  and Piper, Wallis, Lanyon and Hockney, but his art is never anything but his own. It  is, after all, underpinned by an urge that has coursed through his veins since he first stepped foot in a sandpit. 

HOLLYWOOD BY MATEO BLANCO – Celebrating 100 Years of the Original Marker for La La Land 

A person in a black shirt stands beside Mateo Blanco's Hollywood word artwork.

Mateo Blanco, a Colombian American artist who lives in Miami, has had a longtime interest in expressing the lure of Hollywood. He has explored the power of the image and fame in his highly original portraits of  iconic screen sirens like Jennifer Lawrence, whose portrait he recreated using peanuts, Madonna, Dolly Parton and many Marvel superheroes, Avatar characters  as well as beloved Star War characters.

In his latest piece, HOLLYWOOD BY MATEO BLANCO, we can see how the stark white background gives power to the image: white, the color of Marilyn Monroe’s dress; white, the color of the lights that shine and make movies possible; white, the first word uttered when the director begins to shoot; white, the color of the gleaming smiles, the diamonds, the very screen on which all our dreams and movies are projected.

Exclusive Interview with Tom Glynn – Part 2 | Assembling Life

Stonehenge 8 by Tom Glynn, with standing stones, a butterfly and textured bands of orange, yellow and pink.

What makes your art unique? “My paintings, sculptures and assemblages are potentially unique as I explore the narrative of everyday events and issues, historical journeys, the paradox of objects and the abstract qualities of both landscape and  the built environment. Direct responses to landscape are significant recurring themes. I work with a multitude of found objects, materials and  techniques within the scope of painting and sculpture, in order to harness the mystery and visual excitement created by juxtaposition, visual memory and spatial configurations – the surrealist and dada  placement of objects and images. Themes and visual ideas often  explore incongruity, archaeological qualities, visual ambiguity, pictorial and real space, political irony, symbol and humour, resulting in a wide  range of outcomes made from expressively applied paint, collage,  assemblage, wood and objets trouvés that yield a profusion of colour, texture, form and spatial complexities.”

Who is DovBer Marchette

DovBer Marchette smiling in profile, wearing glasses and a black cap, against a colorful abstract painting.

Founder of the ‘Pura’ art movement, Jewish-American artist DovBer Marchette has explored unique ideas in the creative process for over 50 years.

Trained as a professional sculptor, his body of work actually represents a wide range of materials and concepts from the modern art world.

Currently DovBer works mainly with wood sculpture as well as painting, drawing, and photography.

“I continually explore the idea of unlimited creative possibilities within strong boundaries. I limit certain factors such as my color palette and working with resources that are available in the moment.”