In the Studio Cecilia Vicuña, New York

Cecilia Vicuña’s practice moves fluidly between poetry, sculpture, textile, and performance, always returning to what she calls arte precario: an art built from debris, unspun wool, feathers, and stone that she has been making since 1966. Rooted in Indigenous Andean knowledge systems, and above all in the khipu—the knotted cord long dismissed as a mere accounting device—her work reframes precariousness and fragility as forms of consciousness rather than loss.

Person with long wavy hair sits on a stool in a gallery, looking at the camera, wearing a navy jacket; left wall covered in blue Life posters.

In the Studio Robin Kid, Rambouillet, France

Robin Kid works with images that feel less made than encountered. Cowboys, cops, fragments of cartoon Americana: images that existed long before he picked them up, suspended somewhere between memory and mass culture. Raised in the south of the Netherlands by his grandparents, in a former mining neighbourhood bordering an American army base, he grew up with the idea of the U.S. glowing faintly from the other side of the fence.

Adult female with blonde ponytail in a dark sweatshirt stands with arms crossed amid tall cacti in a sunlit garden.

In the Studio Megan Plunkett, Los Angeles, CA

American artist Megan Plunkett turns away from depicting people, instead focusing on everyday objects. Drawn from consumer culture, and the film industry, her carefully constructed photographic series cultivate a sense of estrangement within things that might otherwise feel familiar.

Two adults pose in a doorway with ornate wallpaper; man in a suit and pink striped tie, woman in a dark dress with necklace and glasses.

Collector Stories Otto and Saskia Wiesenthal, Vienna

It has been twenty-five years since Otto Wiesenthal resigned from a managerial position to devote his time to the transformation of a house in Vienna’s seventh district built during the period of intensive industrial expansion at the end of the nineteenth century into the Hotel Altstadt Vienna, a key role in this decision, was the intention of installing his personal art collection. We met with Wiesenthal and his daughter Saskia, the hotel’s marketing and art manager and an art collector in her own right, in one of the suites of the “Altstadt” filled with design and art for a conversation about life with beautiful things and of that which is special about Vienna.

Culture Briefing

Where to meet art, culture and creativity

Nordic Notes

Person wearing a striped sweater and navy cap with arms crossed, in an art studio before two large abstract green paintings.

Ilari Hautamäki, Helsinki
Ilari Hautamäki invites us to his vivid secret garden, which reflects on childhood summers spent in nature in Finland. His rhythmic brush strokes create organic foliage, which are then composed within frames and grids.
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