Category: Design

Most often associated with Mexico, the piñata’s origins may actually trace back to China. By the 14th century, the celebratory tradition of breaking open a container filled with treats had arrived in Europe. Then, Spanish colonists and missionaries imported the custom to Mexico during the 16th century, although a similar practice was already in use…

Through the lens of Tim Flach, exotic bird species, farm animals, and our canine companions brim with personality. Through books like Dogs, Endangered, and Birds, he highlights familiar animals alongside wildlife we don’t often get the chance to meet face-to-face (thankfully, in some cases). Flach’s vibrant bird portraits and projects centered around the human relationship…

In the paintings of Joseph Renda Jr., trompe-l’œil windows, arches, and blue skies meet in surreal settings. His René Magritte-esque canvases celebrate nature and the uncanny, sometimes infused with a tinge of humor, to encourage an appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. Instead of focusing on the subconscious, like the 20th-century Surrealists, Renda emphasizes…

Our human impulse to categorize and collect is a central theme of a robust body of work by Claire Rosen. For more than a decade, Rosen has sought out chattering macaws, cockatoos with fluffy, blush-colored plumage, and ornery owls, which she pairs with patterned papers and textiles. An African penguin, for example, stares curiously at…

From bubble-like bulges amid the arches of London’s iconic Old Billingsgate to a 15-meter-tall red droplet frozen in the center of a disused swimming pool in Aberdeen, Steve Messam explores scale, form, and our experiences of the built environment in large-scale installations. Messam is known for his large-scale inflatable works that reinterpret architecture and explore…

Thanks to increasingly advanced imaging technologies, researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), in collaboration with SUNY Geneseo, have an unprecedented ability to glimpse rare and previously unknown marine species. In 2019, an encounter with an unfamiliar pink snailfish, which swam just above the sea floor, led to the documented discovery of a…

Cradling tiny homes, seated amid flowers, or asleep and dreaming in a garden, the figures in Sergiu Ciochinǎ’s paintings rest and interact in moments of poignant solitude and reverie. The artist’s Blue Series is a visual collection of his own memories, reflections, and moods, which he elaborates into atmospheric and sometimes fantastical canvases. “For me,…

Through his humanistic approach to photography and film, Carlos Javier Ortiz immerses us in dramatic protests, emotional ceremonies, and historical events that mark our current moment. The Chicago-based photographer and filmmaker was born in Puerto Rico and makes work that critically examines life in urban centers, often through the lens of personal narrative. His practice…

Since time immemorial, we have been awed by the ornate patterns, metamorphosis, and migrations of butterflies and moths. Their uncanny life stages and spectrum of vibrant colors and textures—both as caterpillars and as adult insects—endlessly inspire wonder. Butterfly: Exploring the World of Lepidoptera, a new book forthcoming from Phaidon on October 1, celebrates these distinctive…

In a rural Wisconsin city of just more than 1,200 people, the hyperlocal and the universal converge in a new mural by Pat Perry (previously). “27 Schoolteachers and a Volcano” is just as its title suggests: the large-scale piece depicts snow-capped mountains with an explosive volcano at its center, while small portraits of local educators…