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 posing in an art gallery; woman in a mint blazer dress, man in a navy pinstripe suit, colorful artworks on the walls.

Collector Stories Oliver Elst and Laura del Arco, Berlin

Oliver Elst and Laura del Arco are a well-known collector couple based in Berlin and Barcelona. Laura, a fashion designer and art director and Oliver a former car designer, both long term expats in Shanghai, China, entered the world of art collecting several years ago and, since then, have built significant art collections individually and together.

Culture Briefing

Where to meet art, culture and creativity

Nordic Notes

Older woman with glasses sits in a worn red armchair, hand on her cheek, legs drawn up, in a rustic room with wooden walls and a large window.

Marjatta Tapiola, Sysmä
Visiting Marjatta Tapiola, one of the main protagonists of Finnish Neo-Expressionism, in her mansion in Sysmä, a two-hour drive from Helsinki, takes you back in time. From her studio in a 400-year-old threshing house, far removed from the outside world, Marjatta creates her monumental paintings that recount life's cruelty and carnal indulgences and, more recently, increasingly take their inspiration from biblical themes.
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